Project Blue Book - Hynek's Criticism

Hynek's Criticism

Hynek was an associate member of the Robertson Panel, which recommended that UFOs needed debunking. A few years later, however, Hynek's opinions about UFOs changed, and he thought they represented an unsolved mystery deserving scientific scrutiny. As the only scientist involved with US Government UFO studies from the beginning to the end, he could offer a unique perspective on Projects Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book.

After what he described as a promising beginning with a potential for scientific research, Hynek grew increasingly disenchanted with Blue Book during his tenure with the project, leveling accusations of indifference, incompetence, and of shoddy research on the part of Air Force personnel. Hynek notes that during its existence, critics dubbed Blue Book "The Society for the Explanation of the Uninvestigated."

Blue Book was headed by Ruppelt, then Captain Hardin, Captain Gregory, Major Friend, and finally Major Hector Quintanilla. Hynek had kind words only for Ruppelt and Friend. Of Ruppelt, he wrote "In my contacts with him I found him to be honest and seriously puzzled about the whole phenomenon." Of Friend, he wrote "Of all the officers I worked with in Blue Book, Colonel Friend earned my respect. Whatever private views he may have held, he was a total and practical realist, and sitting where he could see the scoreboard, he recognized the limitations of his office but conducted himself with dignity and a total lack of the bombast that characterized several of the other Blue Book heads."

He held Quintanilla in especially low regard: "Quintanilla's method was simple: disregard any evidence that was counter to his hypothesis." Hynek wrote that during Air Force Major Hector Quintanilla's tenure as Blue Book's director, “the flag of the utter nonsense school was flying at its highest on the mast.” Hynek reported that Sergeant David Moody, one of Quintanilla’s subordinates, “epitomized the conviction-before-trial method. Anything that he didn’t understand or didn’t like was immediately put into the psychological category, which meant ‘crackpot’.”

Hynek reported bitter exchanges with Moody when the latter refused to research UFO sightings thoroughly, describing Moody as “the master of the possible: possible balloon, possible aircraft, possible birds, which then became, by his own hand (and I argued with him violently at times) the probable.”