J Allen Hynek
Dr. J. Allen Hynek was an American astronomer and professor who served as the scientific adviser to the United States Air Force's Project Blue Book — the official UFO investigation program that operated from 1952 to 1969. Hynek is one of the most significant figures in the history of UFO research, having evolved from a UFO skeptic tasked with debunking sightings to a serious researcher who concluded that some UFO cases represented genuine unexplained phenomena.
| Role | Astronomer; Scientific adviser to Project Blue Book |
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NORAD UFO Tracking Revelation
On January 6, 1967, Hynek participated in a discussion at Goddard Space Flight Center where he made a significant disclosure: NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) had been tracking UFOs since 1957, and that every single continental United States military UFO case in the Project Blue Book files was designated as a NORAD case.
This revelation confirmed that while Project Blue Book was publicly presenting UFO investigation as a largely dismissive scientific exercise, NORAD — the military command responsible for aerospace warning and control — was conducting parallel and far more serious tracking and analysis of unidentified objects in North American airspace. The implication was that the US military had continuous surveillance data on UFOs from defense tracking systems that was never fully disclosed to Project Blue Book investigators or the public.
Disclosure of Parallel Classified Programs
Hynek additionally stated that alongside Project Blue Book, other classified programs were going on studying UFOs. This confirmed what Captain Edward J. Ruppelt had disclosed on April 24, 1952: that programs parallel to the official UFO investigations were "conducting a more complete investigation." One of these parallel programs was later confirmed to be Project Moondust, a classified Air Force crash retrieval program operating under the USAF 1127th Field Activities Group from at least 1961 through the mid-1990s.
Hynek's acknowledgment of parallel programs suggests he was aware that Project Blue Book functioned primarily as a public-facing information management operation, while classified programs handled actual UFO collection, crash retrieval, and technical analysis activities.
Evolution as a Researcher
Hynek famously developed the "Close Encounters" classification system (CE-I, CE-II, CE-III) that became the standard framework for categorizing UFO encounters. He later founded the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) and advocated for serious scientific study of the phenomenon.
Significance
Hynek's 1967 statement about NORAD tracking remains one of the most important disclosures about the intersection of official military aerospace surveillance systems and UFO monitoring. It established that space-based and ground-based defense networks — including satellite systems like the Defense Support Program (DSP) — have been collecting data on unidentified objects for decades, data that has been largely withheld from public disclosure.