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One other interesting fact, Hynek has a cameo roll in the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” during the scene on the mountain top of the first encounter, he steps out of the group of scientists wearing a blue blazer jacket, (and I think he was also smoking his pipe).

I immediately recognized him on the theater screen and I burst out with a laugh...(I never expected him to be in the film).

I read a book by him when I was a kid back in the 60’s ...Don’t remember the title ...I was heavily into the heavens then , and still am ...My neighbor here in Japan , has a comet named after him ( Utsunomiya ) . I’ve been to his place high up in the mountains of Kumamoto , and viewed the uinverse through his telescope ...Big thrill for me .

Shougo Utsunomiya is a farmer who lives in Kumamoto which is in the mid-western part of Kyushu Island. His farm is on the north side of Mount Aso where he observes from a relatively light pollution free site. Utsunomiya san built his own roll-off roof observatory in one of his pastures; the observatory is about 3 minutes walk from his house. He searches for comets with 15cm Fujinon binoculars which are also mounted alt/az. Utsunomiya san started observing at 03:05 JST and just [again, my rough translation] “had a feeling I would find something; the sky’s condition was go good”. At 04:10 JST, he saw what looked like “a greenish chunk of light”; and at first, he thought it might be Comet Bradfield. Marking the position on his charts, however, he kept thinking that the coordinates were wrong. When he walked back to his house, he checked again and knew that it was not Bradfield; he then phoned in his report. Sky Watcher mentions that Utsunomiya san also discovered comets in 1975 and 1985... so he feels he is destined for a discovery every 10 years.