I've known who J. Allen Hynek was since childhood: the Air Force-associated UFO researcher who started a skeptic but became a believer, best known for his cameo as the bearded, pipe-smoking scientist in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". Sad to say I don't think I've read any of his work though. After reading this fine biography I've determined to rectify this!

O'Connell shows how Hynek's background in astronomy and seemingly conflicting interests in esoteric/hermetic thought informed his approach to UFO cases and eventual conviction that they were a subject worthy of scientific study. Far from a blind believer, he looked for conventional explanations even as he clashed with his military superiors over their eagerness to turn ambiguous data into certain identification.

I found it especially interesting to read this after finishing the first volume of Jacques Vallee's "Forbidden Science" journals. The 1940s-50s were a "borderline" time in UFO research, before they'd been written off as a subject for cranks but while some genuinely unusual incidents still strained credibility (the contactee movement, the first abduction events), and Hynek and Vallee formed the core of an "invisible college" to investigate such strange events.

Highly recommended for a portrait of early UFO research and researchers.