In the late 1940s, the United States military began to take an interest in reports of unidentified flying objects or U.F.O.s which included multiple projects designed to investigate and evaluate the sightings. Despite the fact that many UFO sightings were cases of mistaken identity that could easily be explained away, a minority of them proved extremely perplexing to the U.S. government, leading some high level officials to consider the possibility that the Earth was being visited by extraterrestrials... and at the center of it all, there was one astronomer named J. Allen Hynek who struggled to bring his scientific expertise to bear on the mystery. 
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REFERENCES: 
*'The UFO Phenomenon' *
by George Constable, Time Life Books Inc.
'The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made the World Believe in UFOs'
by Mark O'Connell
'Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base'
by Annie Jacobsen 
'Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program', New York Times
by Helene Cooper, Ralph Blumbenthal, and Leslie Kean
*'Maj. Gen. John A. Samford's Statement on "Flying Saucers" *(7/31/1952)
U.S. National Archives 
'Two Pilots Saw a UFO. Why Did the Air Force Destroy the Report?', History.com
by Greg Daugherty 
MUSIC:
"Shores of Avalon" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
"Ossuary 1: A Begining" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
"Perspectives" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
"Tenebroud Brothers Carnival: Act Two" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
"Waltz of the Carnies" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
"Thunderbird" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Episode 12: The UFO Enigma

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