FACE TO FACE: HYNEK and RIBERA from Jose Caravaca

Provided by Jose Antonio Caravaca

In May 1970, researcher Antonio Ribera traveled to Mexico to participate in Pedro Ferriz's TV show "Un mundo nos vigila" (A World Watches Us), where he connected with Dr. Hynek on the set. This was his conversation reproduced by Ribera in the magazine Stendek (Volume 01/Nº2). 

Well, Dr. Hynek,"I said one night, both sitting at a table in a corner of the hotel dining room,"what is your position on the problem of UFOs?

Dr. Hynek bit the hairs of his beard (a very typical gesture in him), and replied with a slow and calm voice:

-         My position? The phenomenon exists. It took me almost twenty years to realise this. At first, when I accepted the USAF contract, I was totally skeptical. But after seeing more than twelve thousand cases, among which there are about seven hundred unexplained, I surrender to the evidence: the phenomenon exists.

-         But what is the phenomenon? Do you agree with Professor Mc Donald's ideas . . . that is, do you accept the ETH (extraterrestrial hypothesis)?

-         I see that you know the lingo (i.e. the scientific jargon; we had been talking about the TLPs before, for example). No, I do not adhere to that hypothesis. All I get is to admit that there is a phenomenon, and I don't want to go down in history as the scientist, who in the presence of a new fact - and which may be transcendental- preferred not to see it.

-         Look at the prologue of "Anatomy of a Phenomenon" by Vallée, I say that the Curie husbands had to benefit a ton of pitchblende to find a gram of radio [sic].

-         Something similar has happened to me; I have had to benefit from several thousand inconsequential reports (celestial bodies, balloon probes, airplanes, etc., confused by witnesses) in order to find one gram of something irreducible to nothing known, but which nevertheless presents itself with very definite characteristics. What we now have to do all serious researchers of the phenomenon," he continued, "is to look for "patterns" (i.e. constants) that allow us to elaborate a scientific theory.