Jacques Vallee, J. Allen Hynek, and the "Pentacle Memorandum"

I have just finished reading Jacques Vallee's diaries from 1957-69, published as Volume I of Forbidden Science. It tells the story of his life from childhood in France, his education and early career, his developing interest in UFO reports, etc. The book is very literate, very personal, and in places even poetic. It is a good read.

J. Allen Hynek (left) and Jacques Vallee (from Wikipedia)

Perhaps the most significant new issue discussed in this book is the matter of the so-called "Pentacle Memorandum." In June of 1967 while Hynek was away on vacation in Canada, Vallee went over to Hynek's empty house to organize (with permission) and sort Hynek's disorganized UFO-related files. He found one document, a two-page typed memo, that he believed to be extremely significant. Dated January 9, 1953, it was stamped "SECRET - Security Information" in red ink. Vallee refered to it as the "Pentacle Memorandum," in order to not identify the author. "Pentacle" was later revealed to be H.C. Cross of Battelle Memorial Institute, Battelle's liaison with the Air Force for Blue Book-related matters. A good account of the memorandum's discovery, Vallee's claims about it, and the text of the memorandum itself, are here.

1. Vallee Finds a Secret Large-Scale UFO Research Program

The Memorandum begins,

This letter concerns a preliminary recommendation to ATIC on future methods of handling the problem of unidentified aerial objects. This recommendation is based on our experience to date in analyzing several thousands of reports on this subject.

ATIC was the Air Force's Air Technical Intelligence Center. Vallee writes, "This opening paragraph clearly establishes the fact that prior to the top-level 1953 [CIA] Robertson Panel meeting somebody had actually analyzed thousands of UFO cases on behalf of the United States government." (Vallee 1996, p. 284. Emphasis in original.) This is supposed to reveal the existence of a huge and secret UFO investigative program, other than Blue Book, somewhere within the U.S. government.

The plot thickens when Vallee finds out a short time later that "Pentacle must indeed have worked at Battelle [Memorial Institute]." (Vallee 1996, p. 294). Gasp - you mean that in January, 1953 there was someone working at Battelle who had analyzed "thousands" of UFO reports for the U.S. government?? And this was a secret program????????

Earth to Vallee: The Battelle Memorial Institute began working on Special Report #14 for Project Blue Book in March, 1952  This was a statistical analysis of UFO reports in the Blue Book files, the first to use newfangled computers and punched cards.A total of 3200 cases were analyzed. The report was completed and published in 1954. Blue Book Special Report #14 is well-known to UFOlogists. In fact, Stanton Friedman hardly ever stops talking about it.

Of course there were people working at Battelle in January, 1953 who had analyzed "thousands" of UFO reports for the U.S. government. They were working on Blue Book Special Report #14. They finished the following year.

Congratulations, Jacques! You've found indisputable proof of the existence of the team writing Blue Book Special Report #14! Which has never before been doubted. Just ask Stanton Friedman.

2. Vallee uncovers the Manipulators Manipulating the CIA's  Robertson Panel

One of the most controversial sentences in the Pentacle memorandum reads,

Since a meeting of the [CIA's Robertson] panel is now definitely scheduled we feel that agreement between Project Stork and ATIC should be reached as to what can and what cannot be discussed at the meeting in Washington on January 14-16 concerning our preliminary recommendation to ATIC.

According to Hynek, White Stork was a former Air Force project name encompassing the Blue Book project. Vallee suggests that Project Stork was keeping the soon-to-meet Robertson Panel in the dark and would decide what they would be allowed to learn. Vallee writes that the memorandum seemed to dictate "a key determinant in what the panel could discuss – and what not, i.e. what would be kept away from the panel. By preselecting the evidence, the conclusion the scientists would reach could thus be known in advance."

Vallee should read that sentence more carefully. It does not talk about UFO sightings or evidence. He is interpreting that sentence as if it said "agreement between Project Stork and ATIC should be reached as to what can and what cannot be discussed at the meeting in Washington on January 14-16." But the sentence does not end there. It continues with "concerning our preliminary recommendation to ATIC." In other words, not to decide what subjects are off-limits to discussion by the Robertson panel, but to decide what to tell that panel about plans involving Battelle and ATIC.  Or, in plain English, "How much should we tell the Robertson panel about what we've been proposing to ATIC?" I realize that English is not Vallee's first language, however his mastery of English seems to me to be so complete that I am surprised to see him misreading that sentence so badly.

3. Vallee finds evidence of a huge covert UFO deception project

In this passage Vallee finds evidence of a huge and alarming military-sponsored project intended to deceive the public about UFOs:

we recommend that one or two of theses areas be set up as experimental areas. This area, or areas, should have observation posts with complete visual skywatch, with radar and photographic coverage, plus all other instruments necessary or helpful in obtaining positive and reliable data on everything in the air over the area. A very complete record of the weather should also be kept during the time of the experiment. Coverage should be so complete that any object in the air could be tracked, and information as to its altitude, velocity, size, shape, color, time of day, etc. could be recorded. All balloon releases or known balloon paths, aircraft flights, and flights of rockets in the test area should be known to those in charge of the experiment. Many different types of aerial activity should be secretly and purposefully scheduled within the area.

About it, Vallee writes, “the Pentacle proposal goes far beyond anything mentioned before. It daringly states that ‘many different types of aerial activity should be secretly and purposefully scheduled within the area’. It is difficult to be more clear. We are not talking simply about setting up observing stations and cameras. We are talking about large-scale, covert simulation of UFO waves under military control.”

Pentacle's proposal seems to be this: Let's identify an area where people are making a large number of UFO reports. Let's set up an extensive monitoring system so that we know everything flying in or out of that area. Then we'll try a controlled experiment: we will cause the people to see balloons, unusual aircraft activity, etc., and then monitor UFO reports we get from that area. We will see how a known stimulus is reported as an unknown object, and thereby better understand the UFO reports we receive.

This sounds like an excellent idea from a standpoint of science, although from a standpoint of law or ethics it may not pass muster. It also sounds rather expensive, and not easy to keep under wraps, which would defeat its purpose. Interestingly, as a result of several passive (not active) experiments of this kind, UFOlogist Allan Hendry, one of Hynek's chief investigators during the 1970s, became far more skeptical about eyewitness reports. As detailed in his book, The UFO Handbook, Hendry examined the reports being received originating from a known stimulus (advertising aircraft, balloons, etc.) and found many of them so wildly in error that he cautioned against taking such reports at face value. To other UFOlogists, Hendry seemed to be guilty of horrible blasphemy (even though he believed some UFO reports to be unexplainable), and they began to denounce him. Understandably embittered, Hendry withdrew from UFOlogy some thirty years ago, and has refused to discuss it since then.

A frequent theme in Forbidden Science is Vallee's commentary about the rigidity of bureaucracy, in government and in science, in France and in the U.S. He gives one example after another of seemingly good proposals being rejected or even ignored by a bureaucracy unwilling to accept change. What is surprising is that here Vallee, of all people, seems to be confusing a proposal with a project. He must surely realize that, merely because Pentacle is proposing some grand and new UFO investigative project, the odds of that proposal being actually implemented by a rigid Air Force bureaucracy (which clearly had little enthusiasm for UFO investigation) were slim to none. This passage does not in any way establish that such a controlled experiment involving UFO stimuli was ever carried out.

Commentary

I was very interested to read this book not only for its historical aspects, but also because his path in certain ways parallels mine. We both were interested in astronomy from childhood - and also in UFOs. Many of the people and the places he writes about during his years at Northwestern are familiar to me. I learned that Vallee left Northwestern to go back to France just two weeks before I arrived there as a freshman, interested in science and astronomy - and UFOs - except that I was a skeptic even then. I lived in Sargent Hall, right next to the Technological Institute where Vallee earlier had his office - on the opposite side of that building from Dearborn Observatory, which housed the astronomy department offices. His description of Hynek exactly matches my own recollections: disorganized, witty, charming, and obviously quite pleased to be in the media spotlight for UFOs. Hynek would eagerly recount his meetings and his travel, and newly-received UFO reports, never quite sure what to do about them. Later Vallee and I each moved to California's Silicon Valley because of the outstanding career opportunities there at that time.

However, even more striking are the differences in our world-views, and in the way we think. Surprisingly, Vallee writes quite seriously about matters such as

• Rosicrucianism:   They claim that their 'Ancient Wisdom' is thousands of years old, but there is absolutely no proof of that. "I find their documents to be an interesting spiritual complement to my scientific training. Every month I receive a set of course material through the mail. It includes both theoretical reading and instructions for simple rituals, promising insight into higher realities" (Vallee, p. 39). He later explains that the Rosicrucian order he belongs to is "AMORC, which is headquartered in San Jose." If you've ever seen that Rosicrucian Museum with the awesome mummies interspersed with cheesy claims of ancient mysteries, that's the group he was talking about. When I was a kid, they used to regularly have ads on the back page of comic books. Hynek was also interested in Rosicrucianism (p. 233).
• Astrology: Vallee, and later Hynek, became friends with Michel and Francoise Gauquelin, who were attempting to put astrology on a scientific basis. "Yesterday Hynek went back to see the Gauquelins to discuss astrology and destiny" (p. 341). Vallee claims he was responsible for his publisher Regnery accepting Gauquelin's book on astrology, The Cosmic Clocks. In the early days of CSICOP, there was a big stink when the skeptics challenged Gauquelin's "Mars Effect" data, which apparently was (in that one instance) correct. However, the correlations he claimed to find could not be replicated.
• Mystical and psychic realms: "In recent discussions with Hynek, I pointed out that the saucer question may well be part of a complex series of scientific realities, but it also plunges deep into mystical and psychic theories. I found him very receptive to this idea" (p. 88).
• Alchemy, elementals, homunculi.......seriously!!

As for myself, I cannot see how any intelligent person can, upon clear reflection, take any of those subjects seriously. I have never felt that there was some 'alternate' or 'hidden' realm of being, at least not since I figured out that the Catholic Catechism I was being fed was a load of codswallop.

Their Huge Mistake

Ultimately, the case for UFOs as promoted by Hynek, Vallee, and their followers boils down to what Hynek termed "credible persons reporting incredible things." Now exactly how "credible" is that, especially if it is supposed to serve as a foundation for a radical revision of science?

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, invariably shortened to The Royal Society, is the oldest and probably the most prestigious scientific body in the world. Founded in 1660, over the years its Fellows have included such luminaries as Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, Humphry Davy, Charles Darwin, and practically every other British scientist of any note, as well as a number of foreign ones.

The intellectual world of the mid-seventeenth century was very different from ours today. Learned men disputed not only about the properties of gases and the motions of the planets, but about witches, miraculous apparitions, and other apparent violations of the natural order. How to sort out what is real from what is not?

 The Royal Society selected for its motto, Nullius in verba, which serves as a sort of Razor for scientific claims. The Latin phrase translates literally as “on the word of no one,” or, more colloquially, "take nobody's word for it". If you have some kind of proof for what you are claiming, then it can be investigated. But if all you have are words, it cannot.

The Royal Society, the world's oldest modern scientific organization -
"Take Nobody's Word For It."

In our day, we still get reports from seemingly credible persons of things we are fairly certain do not exist: UFOs, Bigfoot, angels, and miracles of every kind. The popular press and the mass media are very fond of such claims. They make good ratings. But they make very bad science.

             The UFO proponent’s motto, on the other hand, would seem to be something like Omnius in Verba, or “words are all we’ve got.” In fact, Hynek was honest enough to admit that directly: we possess no actual UFOs, he said, only reports of them. Hynek was surprised and genuinely hurt when the scientific establishment replied to him, as it had to in order to remain true to its centuries-old foundation, “we take nobody’s word for it.” Give us a piece of a UFO, or some indisputably authentic, clear and detailed photos, or some instrumental data. But if all you have to offer are stories about sightings of UFOs, we are not interested. Nullius in verba, Allen.

            Vallee wrote that, concerning UFOs, “the scientific world is as close-minded as an old pig” ( p.184). Jacques, you’re a very bright fellow. You should know that Nullius in verba has been the rule in science since 1660. Since then, the scientific world has embraced Newton’s laws of motion and of gravitation, electromagnetism, evolution, Einstein’s relativity, quantum mechanics, plate tectonics, and the Big Bang. These are just a few of the major paradigm changes occurring in science since that time. Not bad for a close-minded old pig. Now exactly what kind of evidence do you have to offer, Jacques? Words?

             That is the big mistake of Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee, and more recently of Kevin Randle, John Alexander, Leslie Kean, and so many others:   Nullius in verba, folks.