Man Claims Dr. J. Allen Hynek was Told to Discredit His 1963 UFO Sighting

Earlier this month, the Singular Fortean Society received information from 79-year-old Gerald Turrise regarding an experience he’d had with a weird, winged creature in Illinois during the winter of 1957.

In the course of discussing that experience, Turrise also mentioned that he’d "had an encounter at a U.S. Army station at a Nike Hercules missile site in Northfield, Illinois” in 1963.

"I was on guard duty at the time at our radar station," he said. "It was after midnight when I witnessed a UFO in the sky southeast of my location, maybe a mile away around 1000 feet above the terrain. I watched it for a few minutes before I made a phone call to our command offices in Arlington, Illinois, to report what I was observing. I was contacted a few days later by Dr. J. Allen Hynek. This report is documented in project Blue Book. Dr. Hynek had told me he was informed to tell me that what I saw was just a private airplane towing an advertising sign. I doubt they would be flying at that time of night, Now, there's no way a plane could ever make the moves I witnessed, and at the end of the encounter this UFO just shot up into space as fast as a bullet."

A photo of Gerald Turrise from his time in the military.

Turrise described the UFO as "saucer-shaped" with rotating lights that encircled the craft illuminating what looked like windows.

"[The size was] difficult to know exactly, but I'd say about 100 feet in diameter," he said.

The craft's color, he added, was indiscernible because it was nighttime.

A review of the Project Blue Book case files confirmed the date of Turrise’s sighting as May 11th, 1963, and the official evaluation as “aircraft.”

An excerpt from Project Blue Book’s May 1963 case listing, which shows Turrise’s sighting.

In further correspondence with the Singular Fortean Society, Turrise explained that the impression he got was that Dr. Hynek was being pressured into unfairly discrediting his sighting.

A few days after his sighting, Turrise said, someone claiming to be Dr. J. Allen Hynek called him on the phone.

"Well, it was, I think, days later—let's not forget 57 years have passed—and it was late at night," he said.

I was asleep and the phone woke me. The man [on the other end] introduced himself as Dr. J. Allen Hynek, and went on to give me his message that [he said] was relayed to him. He went on to say that he was told to tell me what I witnessed was a small private airplane that was flying over the area, and the plane was towing a sign behind it at around the time of [my sighting].
He concluded with these words, "This is what I was told to tell you." I went on to say that there was no airplane that could maneuver the way this UFO was doing, up and down, side to side, and coming to a complete stop. [There were] lights that completely circled the craft that were rotating, displaying what looked like windows, and the most shocking part of the whole episode was when it departed, the craft looked like it got shot out of a cannon.
I mean to tell you I was a radar operator at a Nike Hercules missile site, and I've witnessed missile firings, and this UFO took off into space faster than the missiles I’ve seen being launched. He ended with this: "I'm sorry, this was all I was to say to you, good night."
That was all I can recollect from the past of my account of the incident.

The missile site at which Turrise was stationed—which was active from 1955 to 1974—is just south of Chicago. Braidwood, where Turrise had his winged creature sighting, is approximately 70 miles southwest of the site.

Dr. Hynek was a scientist and UFO investigator who was initially skeptical of the phenomenon when he signed on as a scientific consultant to the United States Air Force's Project Sign in 1948, but his opinion on the quality of evidence in favor of UFOs gradually shifted as he worked on projects like Sign and Blue Book.

He quickly grew frustrated with how flippantly his fellow scientists treated UFOs.

"Ridicule is not part of the scientific method, and people should not be taught that it is," Dr. Hynek wrote in an article for the April 1953 issue of the Journal of the Optical Society of America titled Unusual Aerial Phenomena. "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?"

Dr. Hynek went on to eventually found the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) in 1973, and even presented a statement on UFOs to the United Nations General Assembly in 1978.

He remained a leader in the field of ufology until his death in 1986.

Dr. Hynek resented what he saw as Project Blue Book’s mandate to debunk UFOs, and while it's not known who exactly told him to discredit Turrise's sighting, doing so would be consistent with the perceived aims of the project. It's entirely possible that, since Dr. Hynek's specialty was in astronomy, someone within the Air Force disingenuously identified the object as an airplane and ordered him to report it as such to Turrise, despite any evidence to the contrary.

The sighting location itself could have even played a role, considering its sensitive nature. The Air Force may have been loath to report an unidentified flying object so close to a Nike Hercules missile site.

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