Explainers
'Close Encounter of the Third Kind' Isn't Just a Movie Title. It's a Rung on a 50-Year-Old UFO Scale.
The phrase came from a Hollywood blockbuster, but the system behind it was built by J. Allen Hynek, the astronomer the Air Force hired to explain UFOs away. His six rungs still shape how sightings get sorted, and show what the Pentagon's new files leave behind.