J. Allen Hynek
The scientist who ran the Air Force's UFO study and coined 'close encounter'.
Hynek was an astronomer hired by the US Air Force as scientific consultant to its UFO projects, from Sign in 1948 through Blue Book. He began as a sceptic and was the source of the 'swamp gas' explanation that embarrassed the programme in 1966, but the volume of unexplained cases gradually convinced him the subject deserved serious study.
His 1972 book The UFO Experience introduced the classification of close encounters of the first, second and third kind, a scheme Steven Spielberg used for his 1977 film. Hynek founded the Center for UFO Studies and is the field's most credentialed insider.
Known for The close-encounter scale; Project Blue Book
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