For example, rumors had abounded through the 1960s that Blue Book was a public relations facade, and that there was a “secret study” of UFOs going on. Vallee, too, had his suspicions and broached this subject with Hynek every so often. Hynek inevitably rejected such opinions without reservation. Blue Book, Hynek maintained, was the real thing, albeit a project that was being done incompetently. Vallee was never quite convinced. He noticed Hynek’s cagey attitude about UFOs, that he seemed to know much more than he usually let on about the subject, that he often appeared to be more interested in self-promotion than actual study of the problem, and that his personal records were in a state of near disaster. Then Vallee found the infamous “Pentacle Memorandum” in Hynek’s office. This was a highly classified document from January 1953, proving the existence of a separate study group of UFOs, and urging that the Robertson Panel be delayed until
On another occasion, a colleague of Vallee and Hynek showed Vallee “some very interesting photographs taken from an airplane.” Here is the relevant passage:
“Do you know who took these? Allen did! But he hasn’t recorded the place, the date or the time....” It turns out Allen was aboard an airliner when he suddenly noticed a white object at his altitude, seemingly flying at the same speed as the plane. He made sure it wasn’t a reflection and he convinced himself it must be some faraway cloud with an unusual shape. He pulled out his camera “to see how fast he could snap pictures.” In all, he took two pairs of stereoscopic photographs and gave it no more thought.
The photographs themselves appeared in a book authored by Hynek and Vallee in 1975,
Fred only learned about this a few weeks later. But then Hynek had lost the negatives and one shot from every pair was missing.... Naturally the loss of the negatives makes it impossible to determine whether it was really a cloud or not. Fred is indignant: “Sometimes I have the feeling Allen doesn’t want to know,” he says.
Hynek, who had headed document security for the proximity fuse project, “lost” one (and only one) negative from such a set as this. One might well wonder, to whom did he actually pass this material?
During another conversation, Hynek mentioned to Vallee that the air force had sent him a new contract draft. He did not know whether or not he should sign it and gave it to Vallee to read. Vallee wrote:
The contract, I was surprised to read, was not really with the air force but with the Dodge Corporation, a subsidiary of McGraw-Hill. “What’s McGraw-Hill doing in the middle of all this?” I asked, without trying to hide my bafflement. “Is that some sort of cutout?” “Oh, they are just contractors to the Foreign Technology Division,” Hynek replied. “By working through companies like McGraw-Hill, which is a textbook publisher, it’s easier for them to hire professors and scholars to conduct some intelligence activities, keeping up with Soviet technology, for example. Many academics would be nervous saying they were working for the Foreign Technology Division.” The contract clearly puts Hynek under the administrative supervision of a man named Sweeney, who is not a scientist. And it clearly specifies Hynek’s task as
Hynek’s substantial air force money was passed to him through a third party. Thus, Hynek’s relationship with “security” continued right through the 1960s. We also learn from Vallee that Hynek, despite his monthly trips to Wright-Patterson AFB, almost never saw Blue Book chief Hector Quintanilla, but was received personally by the commander, who usually took him to lunch at the officers’ club. When Vallee asked Hynek what they talked about, Hynek replied, “innocently,” the weather and foreign cuisine.
