Mark O'Connell: The Close Encounters Man

Somewhere in the Skies

SpectreVision Radio

Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Science, Documentary

4.5 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2017

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On episode 10 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan speaks with Mark O'Connell, author of the recently released book, The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made the World Believe in UFOs. The book chronicles the life and career of J. Allen Hynek, who was hired by the Air Force to debunk Unidentified Flying Object sightings reported across the country. But after years of denials, Hynek made a shocking pronouncement: UFOs are real. With unprecedented access to Hynek’s personal and professional files, Mark O’Connell smashes conventional wisdom to reveal the intriguing man and scientist beneath the legend. Tracing Hynek’s career, O'Connell examines Hynek’s often-ignored work as a professional astronomer to create a complete portrait of a groundbreaking enthusiast who became an American cult icon and transformed the way we see our world and our universe. Guest Bio: Mark O’Connell is a screenwriter, teacher, and blogger. He wrote episodes for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and has developed feature film projects with major studios, including Walt Disney and DreamWorks Animation. He is a former MUFON investigator and also the founder of the UFO blog High Strangeness. He lives in Wisconsin with his wife, Monica, and teaches screenwriting at DePaul University in Chicago.His work can be found at: www.highstrangenessufo.com Guest or Topic Suggestions: Sprague@somewhereintheskies.com Twitter: SomewhereSkies Facebook Group: Click Here Order Ryan's Book: Here Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ordinary people are seeing extraordinary things in our skies, but how has it changed those involved?
0:06.7	From author Ryan Sprague, somewhere in the skies, a human approach to an alien phenomenon,
0:11.6	is a personal journey that also weaves together a story of stories,
0:15.6	furiously pumping new blood into the heart of these mysteries, one experience at a time.
0:20.5	Now available on Amazon in paperback and ebook.
0:23.4	For more information, visit somewhere in the skies with Ryan's bread. Oh, Please welcome from the center of the U.S.O. Studies in Evanston, Illinois, Dr. J. Allen Heinek. Dr. Heinek. When you first get a, uh, when you first get a report of a sighting,
1:09.9	is your job to assemble evidence that will prove it to be so or to assemble evidence to prove
1:15.2	that it did not happen.
1:16.2	You know, there are two ways to go on any investigation.
1:18.4	The first thing we do is to try to disprove it.
1:21.6	Because what is the point of perpetuating a myth or something that isn't so?
1:25.6	And it turns out that some 90% of the raw reports, we have a nationwide police network,
1:32.1	an 800 number that the police use, and we can nationwide police
1:33.7	use and we get reports every night from police departments or different parts of the country.
1:38.6	Most of them are planets, twinkling stars.
1:41.9	Explainable or identifiable things.
1:44.0	IFOs, we call them,
1:45.0	identifiable flying obvious,
1:46.0	but that remaining 10%, those are the ones we go after.
1:49.0	Now, a UFO, the UFO of course simply means unidentified.
1:52.0	It does not necessarily mean visitors from outer space.
1:54.8	But it must be unidentified not just to the person who is puzzled by it, but it must remain
	...

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