Next month marks the 40^th anniversary of the termination of Project Blue Book, the Air Force’s official “X-Files” unit, which was based out of Wright Pat in Dayton, from 1947-1969. Chief officer Hector Quintanilla and Ohio State professor J. Allen Hynek spent decades researching reports of flying saucers in the Midwest. During that time, 12,618 reports were made. Many Hynek was able to explain away as “Venus” or “swamp gas” but to this day, 701 remain “unidentified.”

 

            Hynek, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Colonel Sanders, began his work with Blue Book as a skeptic but left a believer. Years later, he founded the Center for UFO Studies in Indiana, to continue his work.

            One the most perplexing cases investigated by Quinanilla and Hynek was the 1966 Portage County UFO case, in which two deputies chased a flying saucer into Pennsylvania. The fallout from that “encounter” led the lead deputy to have a nervous breakdown. He lost his job and disappeared to West Virginia before returning to Lakewood, where he owned and operated the Avenue pub for many years.