J. Allen Hynek
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS · PD / CC
American astronomer, professor, and ufologist. Scientific advisor to Project Sign, Project Grudge, and Project Blue Book. Founded the Center for UFO Studies in 1973.
He spent his last working years at a small office in Evanston, the windows facing a parking lot, the desk piled with reports.
The military had used him for a quarter century. They had brought him on, in 1948, to make their files look scientific. He arrived skeptical and left convinced of nothing in particular except that the question deserved better than what the United States Air Force had given it.
The phrase he is remembered for, close encounter, was an organizing scheme more than a theory. He wanted a vocabulary that did not embarrass him in print.