What do Carl Jung and Allen Hynek have in common? Both were very skeptical men of science that turned their professional knowledge and attention to the topic of mysterious objects seen in the sky, and in the end of their lives, they both became believers and spent most of their final days studying this incredible phenomenon.
Jung was probably sick of hearing all the buzz in the early 50s about flying saucers and decided to discover the psychological underpinnings of what he saw as a form of mass hysteria.
He began his research, as Hynek and any good scientist would, by examining the cases firsthand. As Jung was skeptical that the average man on the street could not provide accurate eyewitness accounts, he reserved his interviews to credible observers, such as pilots, military personnel, police, and radar operators.
Over time Jung became unnerved, as he realized that these people were not only reliable witnesses, but were clearly sane. Just as Hynek eventually changed his views about the UFO phenomenon, so did Jung.
The big difference was that Jung still feared ridicule from his peers, so he never came out and said he was a believer, but it is very poignant that at the end of his short book about flying saucers, he leaves the topic open by stating that either humanity is suffering some kind of mass hallucination or we are truly being visited by aliens. He postulates that either option should give us plenty to be concerned about.
It is interesting to note that Jung's close friends claimed that he was fascinated by the UFO phenomenon for the remainder of his life. Makes you wonder.