J. Allen Hynek

Hynek was born in Chicago to Czech parents on May 1, 1910. In 1931, Hynek received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Chicago. In 1935, he completed his PhD in astrophysics at Yerkes Observatory of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. His thesis advisors were Otto Struve and William Wilson Morgan. Hynek joined the Department of Physics and Astronomy at The Ohio State University in 1936. He wrote with George Gamow on the origin of the Solar System in 1945. He specialized in the study of stellar evolution and in the identification of spectroscopic binary stars.

During World War II, Hynek was a civilian scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, where he helped to develop the United States Navy's radio proximity fuze. After the war, Hynek returned to the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Ohio State, rising to full professor in 1950. In 1953, Hynek submitted a report on the fluctuations in the brightness and color of starlight and daylight, with an emphasis on daytime observations.

In 1956, Hynek left to join Fred Whipple, the Harvard astronomer, at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, which had combined with the Harvard Observatory at Harvard. Hynek had the assignment of directing the tracking of an American space satellite, a project for the International Geophysical Year in 1956 and thereafter. In addition to over 200 teams of amateur scientists around the world that were part of Operation Moonwatch, there were also 12 photographic Baker-Nunn stations. A special camera was devised for the task and a prototype was built and tested and then stripped apart again when, on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched its first satellite, Sputnik 1. After completing his work on the satellite program, Hynek went back to teaching, taking the position of professor and chairman of the astronomy department at Northwestern University in 1960 and worked there until his retirement in 1978.

Hynek and his second wife, Miriam Curtis Hynek, had five children. Hynek's son Joel Hynek is an Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor. He oversaw the design of the camouflage effect for the movie Predator, and won the Best Visual Effects Oscar for his work on What Dreams May Come.

In 2019, the History Channel created and aired a highly fictionalized TV show based on Hynek UFO research and the organization he worked for dubbed Project Blue Book.

On April 27, 1986, Hynek died of a malignant brain tumor, at Memorial Hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was 75 years old.

Hynek's most prolific public critic was acclaimed aerospace journalist and UFO researcher Philip J. Klass. In his book UFOs: The Public Deceived, the chapter on "Eyewitness Unreliability" begins (p. 81) with criticism of Hynek's insistence "for many years that no useful insights could be gained from the study of UFO reports that proved to be IFOs" (i.e., subsequently identified), as Hynek reiterated to a congressional committee in 1968: "These have little scientific value...; it matters not whether 100 or 100,000 people fail to identify [for example] an artificial satellite or a high–altitude balloon." Klass argues that "UFO reports that prove to be IFOs show that intelligent people, including pilots, scientists, and law–enforcement officers, unwittingly embellish their accounts with inaccurate details and seeming cause–effects that are really unrelated. It follows logically that similar inaccuracies in other UFO reports may prevent their explanations." In a later chapter (p. 287), he illustrates how "when Hynek speaks to those inclined to believe in UFOs and other paranormal claims, he is much more candid" about his mystical worldview. He quotes Hynek as telling the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship, "I can feel freer [here] to discuss the more esoteric aspects of the subject of UFOs.... You have an awareness of the possibilities that the solely materialistically oriented person, like scientists in general, do not have. Talking to them about certain subjects would be like trying to explain calculus to a kindergarten student." Klass then (pp. 287–288) cites the Center for UFO Studies' failure to fulfill Hynek's expectation of promptly and scientifically establishing UFO reality. From Hynek's article, "The UFO Gap", in the December 1967 issue of Playboy: "If UFOs... actually exist, we would have photographs, movies, spectrograms, plaster casts of indentations (if a landing occurs) and detailed measurements... of brightness, speeds, and so on within a year of the initiation of such a no–nonsense program.... [But if not] this, in itself, would be of great negative significance." Klass concludes, "Nearly a decade has now passed since CUFOS was created.... Today all that CUFOS has to show for this effort are several thousand additional [similar] reports... plus a growing number of bizarre tales of 'occupants' and 'abductions.'... Thus, this decade of CUFOS effort has provided what Hynek in 1967 called evidence of 'great negative significance,' that is, that there is no mysterious UFO phenomenon." (emphasis in original).

Robert Sheaffer, a Klass protégé who studied astronomy under (and somewhat befriended) Prof. Hynek at Northwestern University, accuses Hynek of gullibility on his Bad UFOs blog as well as in his 1998 book UFO Sightings: The Evidence and additional writings. While still a student in 1970, Sheaffer was afforded the opportunity to preview a chapter in Hynek's first book–in–progress, and their back–and–forth (along with an appraisal by Philip Klass of that correspondence) is among the material posted in the "Historical Documents" section of Sheaffer's UFO–related website, as is Sheaffer's commentary on Hynek's April 1969 Northwestern freshman orientation lecture on UFOs. Sheaffer's review of the Proceedings of the 1976 CUFOS Conference includes, "Having swallowed [one particular presenter's] tales with no apparent difficulty, [Hynek's CUFOS is] about ready for sightings of the Tooth Fairy.... Papers that are generally skeptical about UFOs, or even those that shoot down faulty UFO cases, are not represented here" (emphasis in original). His review of Hynek and Vallee's Edge of Reality ("the authors have gleefully swallowed a dismally high number of UFO hoaxes") was followed by replies from both authors and by Sheaffer's response in which he thanks Hynek for "a reply that nicely illustrates all of my principal criticisms of his book", including "reckless errors of fact", adding that Hynek's "'scientific' UFO Center operates on the principle that 'responsible criticism does not exist.'" In UFO Sightings: The Evidence, Sheaffer further concludes that ufology, as practiced by Hynek (and others), is "a powerful social movement [that is] fundamentally a reaction against science and reason" (emphasis in original).

Andrew Fraknoi, Executive Director of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific from 1978 to 1992, in a 1981 letter to Science Digest—speaking strictly for himself and not ASP—declined the magazine's invitation to offer a nomination for its Cutty Sark Science Award. An excerpt: "While I think such an award is an excellent idea, I have chosen not to participate in the process because of your inclusion of Dr. Allen Hynek on your panel of judges. I feel it demeans the entire process... to have as one of the judges a man who has been one of the loudest and [most] exploitative exponents of pseudo–science in this country" (emphasis in original).

Researcher Curt Collins, in a comprehensive weblog titled "Dr. Hynek and the UFO Photo Investigation of 1967", chronicles Hynek's role as an "[unwitting] secondary dupe" in fanning the flames of what would become an indelible UFO–photo case—thanks in large part to the Associated Press and the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite—involving several Polaroid instant photographs of a "hamburger"–shaped object taken on January 9, 1967, by Michigan teenager Grant Jaroslaw who, along with his brother Dan, were the two lone "witnesses". Hynek was unfortunately denied the original prints by the family, and it would be nine years before a letter of confession from the brothers would ultimately convince him of their hoax. His premature endorsements (though hedged) led to newspaper headlines across the country such as "Expert Sees 'No Hoax' in Boys' UFO Photos" and "Saucers In Photo Real? UFO Expert Says 'Yes.'" Apparently unbeknownst to Hynek at the time—despite an article widely disseminated by the Associated Press nearly a week prior to his initial endorsements—a local newspaper reporter, being shown the original prints within hours of the incident and observing Polaroid's sequential serial numbers on the reverse sides, noted that the photographs' sequencing was incompatible with the brothers' chronology of events.

Author John Franch, in an article titled "The Secret Life of J. Allen Hynek", disputes the "legend" that "Hynek was a [scientifically oriented] skeptic before becoming an outspoken Ufologist." He notes that "Since his teens Hynek had been an enthusiastic though closeted student of the occult" with "a particular fondness for the writings of the Rosicrucian secret societies, with their tantalizing promises of hidden ancient knowledge, and those of the so–called hermetic philosophers, especially Rudolf Steiner", and "even endorsed alleged instances of 'psychic surgery' and 'psychic photography.'" For these and other reasons, Franch asserts that Hynek's initial "skeptical attitude" toward UFO reality "was in fact a façade for public consumption."