Donald H. Menzel

Donald H. Menzel (1901–1976) was one of the first American theoretical astrophysicists, known for work on the solar chromosphere, stellar chemistry and gaseous nebulae, and director of the Harvard College Observatory from 1954 to 1966. In the Second World War he served as a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander heading an intelligence division, including code-breaking, and he worked with the Navy and Defense Department on radio propagation into the 1950s.

He was the leading scientific sceptic of UFOs for a quarter-century. In Flying Saucers (1953), The World of Flying Saucers (1963, with Lyle Boyd) and The UFO Enigma (1977, with Ernest Taves) he argued that reports came from misidentified stars, planets, balloons and aircraft and from mirages and radar effects of temperature inversions, and he presented that view to the 1968 House symposium. Researchers such as James McDonald and J. Allen Hynek accused him of forcing explanations onto cases; the MJ-12 papers, widely regarded as forgeries, later listed him as a member.

Sources: Wikipedia · Menzel and Boyd, The World of Flying Saucers (1963, Project Gutenberg)