Close Encounters of the Unnerving Kind: Aggressive Aliens, Seven Degrees, and a Cop on the Front Line

Close Encounters of the Unnerving Kind: Aggressive Aliens, Seven Degrees, and a Cop on the Front Line

Because the human imagination is essentially catastrophic—mayhem and mystery are, after all, more fun to contemplate than scenarios of peaceful certitude—documented UFO reports marked by varying degrees of physical interaction between craft and witness are inevitably engaging. “Friendly alien” scenarios (discussed in chapter twelve) are encouraging, and they certainly appeal to the hopeful aspect of our sense of wonder, but it is the essential conflict of perilous encounters that alerts our senses, and stimulates our innate craving for tales with clearly defined protagonists and antagonists. Angry aliens, aggressive aliens, imminent peril, the thrill of the dark unknown—it’s like imagining an action movie, and you have fun. That is, unless you’re in the middle of the encounter: shocked, confused . . . and maybe even fighting for your life.

The Seven Degrees of Close Encounters

For twenty-five years following Kenneth Arnold and Roswell in 1947, reports of UFOs were classified—by government agencies and UFOlogists alike— according to non-standard criteria. Basic information, such as size, speed, illumination, and distance from the witness, was noted, but no universal specification existed to codify encounters that had become increasingly intimate.

As witnesses continued to report close physical proximity to UFOs, and even to the crafts’ inhabitants, a need for a single system of encounter classification became increasingly apparent.

In 1972, astronomer J. Allen Hynek devised such a system, describing three levels of encounters. Hynek’s experience as a consultant to Project Blue Book brought him serious regard. He had earned a doctorate in astrophysics at the University of Chicago in 1935. Teaching and administrative posts took Dr. Hynek to Ohio State and Northwestern. The high level of his research, and his willingness to advise Blue Book objectively—despite being a UFO skeptic— brought him more government work during the mid-to late 1950s, notably an assignment to train young astronomers to track man-made satellites as the United States prepared to send the first one into orbit.

Although invariably guided by the scientific method, Hynek had a flexible mind that rebelled in 1966, when the Air Force chose “swamp gas” as the official explanation for a series of intriguing UFO sightings in Michigan. That Hynek himself had offered the explanation during a press conference was galling to him, because he later realized he had spoken too quickly, and because the explanation inspired laughter.

Eager to put “swamp gas” behind him, Hynek advocated for serious scientific investigation of UFOs. His 1972 book The UFO Experience put the Air Force’s feet to the fire, insisting that sloppiness and a predisposition to doubt characterized USAF investigations. Meanwhile, credible sightings mounted.

Here are Dr. Hynek’s three degrees of “close encounters”:

• Close Encounter of the First Kind (CE1): Objects or lights are fewer than five hundred feet from witnesses, with no observable physical effect on objects or witnesses.
• Close Encounter of the Second Kind (CE2): Because the witness has scientific expertise, hard scientific data are available. A physical effect from the UFO is apparent to the witness, and is observed in animate or inanimate matter. For example, engines of automobiles and other machinery become inoperable; or scorched or flattened grass is observed. A possibility of physical harm to the witness, and even death, exists.
• Close Encounter of the Third Kind (CE3): The witness encounters an occupant of the UFO. (Hynek referred to such beings as “animated creatures.”)

A UFOlogist named Ted Bloecher, among others, prepared CE3 addenda; these sub-classifications hinged on the physical relationships of the alien(s) to the UFO(s), such as whether the aliens are seen with the saucer or seen in isolation, and whether aliens entered or left the craft. Non-visual contact, such as a telepathic message, is another CE3 addendum. Finally, in instances where no craft may have been seen at all, the witness may encounter Sasquatch, Men in Black, or other non-standard UFO-related personages.

After 1990, Steven M. Greer and onetime Hynek associate Jacques Vallée created two additional CE classifications:

• Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind (CE4): Abduction, physical harm, and/or physical examination of a witness.
• Close Encounter of the Fifth Kind (CE5): Sexual contact with a UFO occupant(s).

Two more levels came later:

• Close Encounter of the Sixth Kind (CE6): A UFO sighting is associated with the death of a human or an animal. Discrete cases of mutilated cattle may fall into this category.
• Close Encounter of the Seventh Kind (CE7): An alien/human hybrid is created by sexual contact or technological/scientific means. Hynek himself added classifications intended to clarify the nature of an object:
• DD: A discoidal object seen in the distant daytime sky.
• NL: Nocturnal light; an anomalous illuminated object viewed in the night sky.
• RV: Radar/visual; an object picked up simultaneously on radar and by an eyewitness(es).

Hynek’s associate, Jacques Vallée, created additional standards focused on flight trajectories, evidence of life forms, witnesses’ sense of altered reality, and instances of injury or death.

The Close Encounters table is a valuable tool that can recognize patterns of UFO reports (geographically, time of day, and so forth), as well as behavior of UFO occupants. On the other hand, the levels’ specificity—particularly of CE4 through CE7—has provided blueprints for reports that, in time, prove to be spurious. Further, apparent patterns uncovered by CE classification can alternately support and undercut witness claims. If, for instance, a sole UFO encounter from Area A is shortly followed by a welter of Area A accounts from unrelated witnesses, skeptics will readily cite suggestibility and even hysterical reaction as reasons for the flurry of reports.

The Close Encounters classification system is at its most meaningful when utilized to codify contemporary UFO sightings, as the sightings occur. Not surprisingly, the system is frequently applied to sightings that predate Hynek’s innovation. Much of this “postdating” is reasonable and, arguably, useful. A few close encounters are sufficiently dramatic to warrant special mention below.