Truly Trivial: What events comprise a close encounter of the fifth kind?

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Hot on the heels of last week's Nerd Word -- Majestic 12 -- we return to the surprisingly timely topic of alien abduction. Most of the current upturn in alien interest is due to the new Milla Jovovich movie The Fourth Kind, which ostensibly profiles alien abductees using real (for Blair Witch Project values of real) interview footage. The film's title refers to the fourth type of so-called close encounter, wherein humans are abducted by the occupants of UFOs. Setting aside the plausibility of actual UFO abductions, have you ever wondered who it was that conjured up this enumerated spectrum of close encounters?

Look no further than one J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer and ufologist who had the distinction of both working for Project Bluebook -- the U.S. Air Force investigation into UFO phenomena -- and for publishing a moderately famous book on the subject, The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry. Hynek is the founder of the Center for UFO Studies and, as much as such a thing is possible, is considered a reliable authority on unidentified flying object investigations. In the aformentioned UFO Experience, Hynek laid out three kinds of close encounters to categorize the various UFO reports that he had analyzed (and, most often, debunked) during his tenure as adviser to the Air Force and as a civilian investigator:

1. Close encounter of the first kind, wherein a UFO is merely observed
2. Close encounter of the second kind, wherein physical evidence of a UFO is recovered
3. Close encounter of the third kind, wherein the occupants of a UFO are observed
   

Despite what Jovovich's PR folks might have you believe, there was no fourth kind of close encounter when Hynek published the scale in 1972. Nor did he explicitly add a fourth kind to the scale before his death in 1986. This was added later by other ufologists, with some significant contributions by Jacques Vallée, Hynek's frequent collaborator and perhaps the only other well known "respectable" UFO researcher. (Vallée was the real-life inspiration for the lead research scientist character, Lacombe, in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounter's of the Third Kind.)

For his part, Vallée did not explicitly endorse the alien abduction defintion of fourth kind of close encounter, but merely described them as "cases when witnesses experienced a transformation of their sense of reality." Vallée was equally circumspect as to the definition of a close encounter of the fifth kind, the most involved and potentially definitive UFO interaction of the revised close encounter scale.

So, what events comprise a close encounter of the fifth kind?

Nerd Word of the Week: Majestic 12

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Majestic 12 (n.) - One of several purported code names for an ostensible ongoing conspiracy between scientists, military leaders, and government officials to investigate and/or obscure evidence of UFOs. It is the assumed precursor to more well known (and substantiated) government UFO efforts such as Project Sign, Project Grudge and Project Blue Book. Also known as Majic 12, Majestic Trust, M12, MJ 12, MJ XII or Majority 12, this group holds a prominent place both in the mythology of ufologists and UFO conspiracy theorists, as well as the science fictional works which play off UFO cover-up themes. The X-Files is perhaps the most famous example of using Majestic 12 as a recurring plot device, though the less successful series Dark Skies was more explicit in its use of this supposed organization.

I bring it up because: On this date 62 years ago -- Sept. 24, 1947 -- President Harry Truman supposedly commissioned "Operation Majestic Twelve." The executive order has been serially debunked, but it nonetheless serves as the lynchpin around which much ufology and conspiracy lore revolves. Moreover, UFOs and their associated fringe theories are coming back into style if the Nov. 6-opening Milla Jovovich alien abduction movie The Fourth Kind is any indication. Debuting the same day is the George Clooney comedy The Men Who Stare at Goats, which is based on another oft-cited conspiracy theory -- the supposedly true story of the U.S. government's attempts to create a squad of psychic soldiers. Following just a week after that is 2012, the Roland Emmerich disaster flick (that's both a genre and a prediction for this movie) based on yet another fringe science/conspiracy theorist trope -- that the world will end when the Mayan Long Count calendar "runs out" in the year 2012. Face it, when there's a network TV series called Fringe that's pulling decent ratings, the fringe itself has got have a little mainstream cred. Just ask the new First Lady of Japan, who has visited Venus on a UFO. Personally, I blame the secret masters of Majic 12. That, or Coast to Coast AM. Same difference, really.

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