This article was published in the daily newspaper Daily Press, Timmins, Ontario, Canada, page 7, on April 12, 1975.
By ALLEN SPRAGGETT
Well, it's official. UFO's exist.
At least, it's as official as the publication of a serious UFO report in the FBI bulletin, "Law Enforcement," can make it. And for many people that will be pretty official, or as good as official.
The article in the February 1975 issue of the bulletin, entitled "The UFO Mystery," by Dr. J. Allen Hynek, is a sober, objective description of the evidence for UFOs. It includes the urgent recommendation that any UFO reports coming to the FBI's attention be directed to Hynek's organization for further study.
CONSULTANTS
The organization called the Centre for UFO Studies (Northfield, Illinois) is run by Dr. Hynek, the world's foremost scientific ufologist, with assistance from consulting experts as such universities of Chicago, Texas, Wisconsin, Utah, Johns Hopkins, and Northwestern.
The latter school, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, is where Hynek serves as chairman of the astronomy department. For some 20 years, he was the scientific consultant of UFOs for the U.S. Air Force when it ran what was called Project Blue Book to gather and assess such sightings and reports.
It was his experience with the Air Force, says Hynek, which eventually led him to stop regarding UFOs as fantasy and instead describe them as "the greatest challenge facing science today."
POLICE PURSUIT
In the article for the FBI bulletin, Hynek describes case after case in which police have sighted and even pursued UFOs.
On Oct. 16, 1973, the crew of a Delaware State Police helicopter chased a UFO 14 miles before losing sight of it. At the same time, the mystery object was being monitored on radar by flight controllers at Dover Air Force Base nearby.
Several days later in Adams County, Ohio, two police officers reported a "huge" UFO hovering some 200 feet above the swaying ground, in a familiar "falling leaf" motion.
CONFIRMATION
On Oct. 19, 1973, a Tulsa, Oklahoma police sergeant confirmed another officer's report of a hovering multi-colored object bigger than a Jumbo jetliner.
On Nov. 12, 1973, two Los Angeles policemen reported watching for more than a minute the manoeuvre of a large, round bluish object which suddenly "raced away and disappeared at dazzling speed."
Were all these police officers hallucinating?
WITNESSES
Of course not, says Dr. Hynek. Add their accounts to the hundreds - yes, hundreds more pouring in from military personnel, commercial pilots and similar responsible witnesses and, he says, they add up to an epidemic of "incredible things being seen by credible people."
Are UFO craft from outer space?
Dr. Hynek doesn't say that. Nor, for that matter, does he deny it. He says it's too early to speculate on what UFOs ultimately may prove to be. They may represent a more profound mystery than our human minds can even conceive, much less clearly pose. In the meantime, maintains Hynek, they are undeniably fact, not fiction.
MUTUAL PROBLEM
Something real is going on, he says. "Science and law enforcement are facing a mutual problem as they have many times before."
The problem: Explaining the unexplained.
Hynek suggests that in the event of a UFO report, the FBI or any other law enforcement agency should contact his Centre for UFO Studies at the toll-free telephone number provided for this purpose. (The number is not made public because the UFO hot-line is reserved for police and other official agencies.)
INVESTIGATOR
If the report is substantial enough, an experienced UFO investigator will be dispatched to investigate it.
Meanwhile, says Hynek, the police should keep the public off the UFO landing site (if a landing was reported, and they often are) to avoid the obliteration of possibly important scientific evidence.
In most cases, Hynek points out, nobody or no thing is injured or damaged by the UFO. However, he cautions that there are instances - more than the public may realize - in which persons near the UFO "can be temporarily paralyzed or blinded and skin burns can occur; also plants, trees and crops can be damaged, and so forth."
BURNT RING
There are now, according to this leading authority, "hundreds" of mysterious "burnt ring" cases. In these instances, which come from all over the United States and Canada and the world, huge burned or blasted circular areas appear, sometimes as much as 40 feet in diameter, where something appears to have scorched or desiccated the vegetation and soil.
"It's a sort of death ray effect," Hynek said.
Often these burnt rings are associated with eyewitness reports of a UFO hovering or landing on the spot.
The UFO phenomenon is growing, concludes Dr. Hynek in his article for the FBI and science needs the informed cooperation of law enforcement agencies in coming to grips with "this most perplexing modern mystery."
Will it be solved soon?
Or ever?
