The Close Encounter Classification System
If anyone ever deserved to be called a “ufologist,” it was Dr. Josef Allen Hynek, although he considered himself an astronomer. There are far too many biographical references to Hynek available on the internet, so I won’t regurgitate them here.
Perhaps all one needs to know about how he went about his UFO studies is contained in one statement:
Ridicule is not part of the scientific method, and people should not be taught that it is. The steady flow of reports, often made in concert by reliable observers, raises questions of scientific obligation and responsibility. Is there … any residue that is worthy of scientific attention? Or, if there isn’t, does not an obligation exist to say so to the public—not in words of open ridicule but seriously, to keep faith with the trust the public places in science and scientists?
His 1972 book The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry contained his proposal for a system of classifying UFO sightings. The system was envisioned as a first step in legitimizing UFO research as a valid scientific pursuit. When a witness is less than 500 feet from the observed phenomena, this was labeled a Close Encounter. The distance from the observer was important because, depending on the apparent size of the observed anomaly, details may be less obvious and mistaken for something truly unknown.
Hynek divided these close-range sightings into three categories. The first is simple observation, such as a little-known case from Santa Clarita, CA in 1979 by an aeronautical engineer and his family.
Close Encounters of the Second Kind are sightings where the observed anomaly affects the environment or the witness in some physical way that lasts beyond the actual experience. The Delphos, Kansas case from 1971 involved a hovering, discoid object which left a ring of dessicated soil on a farm. The Steven Michalak encounter of 1967 is an example of a physical trace left on the witness’ own body (chest burns.)
The third, made famous by Steven Spielberg’s 1977 film, are categorized as sightings of “animate beings” (Hynek’s careful wording) in association with a UFO sighting. There are hundreds of these, but one of my favorites is the 1967 Ashland, Nebraska incident from local policeman Herbert Schirmer.
After the acceptance of these categories, and without the blessing of the man who had put in so much work to create them, UFO researchers went off on their own tangent and added two more classifications.
Sometime in the late 1980s (Hynek died in 1985) abduction researchers came up with “Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind.” UFO abductions are certainly an important area of study, but the field was (and is) so riddled with a priori assumptions that it seems wrong and disrespectful to Hynek’s original system and his careful statements on the phenomenon to lend some kind of legitimacy to the often unscientific findings by piggybacking, although perhaps they could think of nothing else.
What is possibly even worse is the use of the system by Steven Greer’s CSETI group to supposedly legitimize their own efforts to contact UFOnauts. Sometime in the 1990s, they coined “Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind” as a term for something (outside of channelers and contactees) that only CSETI has claimed to do, which is to communicate with aliens. Their findings are controversial, to say the least, and seem to provide very little proof which would stand up under scientific and public scrutiny.
Hynek’s system was an excellent first step to study and classify the small segment of UFO sightings which remain unexplained. Where it leaves us is anyone’s guess, but some researchers who have come into the field since the early 1970s have been looking at the phenomenon with new ideas, many building on findings in other disciplines such as optics, psychology, anthropology, sociology, folklore, and physics. New breakthroughs will almost certainly come from open minds outside the UFO field, and the courage of J. Allen Hynek is a great model for new generations to follow.
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Aug 03 2008 
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:56 am
I agree absolutely with you Greg!Way back in 1966 Dr Hynek also wrote a letter to Science Magazine, which was reproduced in the Saturday Evening Post on 17th December of that year.
In which he stated that the problem (UFO’s) be squarely faced, once and for all. Interestingly…..
Dr Hynek further emphasized that during all his years of association with the USAF he had never seen any evidence for what he called the charge about UFO’s most often levelled against the service (USAF): That there is a deliberate cover-up of knowledge of space visitors to prevent the public from panicking.
What are your thoughts on this Greg?
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Let’s not forget the elaboration of this system by Hynek’s protege Vallee:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/66/162134313_fca8a9905d.jpg
http://www.aaarc.us/vallee_classification.htm
Vallee added his own CE4 and CE5 classifications which have to do with “Reality Transformation” and “Lasting Injury”.
- SMiles
August 5th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Stefanos,
I think that we must remember that Hynek was drawing a paycheck. This, coupled with his very careful attitude, makes it unlikely that he would accuse the Air Force of covering up ETs.
Also, Hynek was not certain at all that there were any space visitors, though he was fairly certain that there is a phenomenon called “UFOs” which is not always the result of misidentifications, hoaxes, etc.
August 5th, 2008 at 10:30 am
elfis,
I did think of that, but I was tired of writing! Very good that you pointed this out, as I was going to do a post on Vallee’s system sometime.