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Last modified: Thursday 29-Jul-2010 15:17:45 EEST
List of UFO Organizations
Green Bay Wisconsin USA Jan-2007 photo by anonymous photographer, of what seems to be a disk with several colored lights on its underside: 12 of those lights evenly spaced at 30° apart forming an inner circle and 4 more at 90° apart - bigger photo [ufoevidence]
Story:
"An email contact of mine sent them. She asserts her Husband took them a few weeks ago (around the first week of January) in Wisconsin near Green Bay. I reserve judgement but I will say it is very similar with Weyauwega UFO" -- Jack Nethering
Water connection: Throughout this site, I keep pointing out the apparent connection between low-altitude sightings of UFOs and bodies of water (like the Great Lakes in these cases).
It was researcher Ivan T. Sanderson, who in his 1971 book Invisible Residents: The Reality of Underwater UFOs suggested that aliens could remain undetected by building their bases beneath the Earth's oceans.
Related #2: Sighting by long-time UFO investigator and author Raymond E. Fowler on 14-May-1980, near Mars Hill, Maine USA. In his MUFON report he describes "three (3) disks with many white lights on bottom. Hovered perfectly still in close formation, suddenly took off at incredible speed from a standstill. It was raining" full report
Summary: Civilian UFO organizations have nearly always operated on a shoestring budget, essentially volunteer organizations. Still many of them managed to do remarkable work over the past 50yr, investigating and documenting UFO sighting reports. Overall, perhaps about a thousand (1000) UFO organizations have been created all over the globe since the 1950s, but only a handful of them became large (NICAP's membership peaked at about 15,000 during the early and mid 1960s; APRO's membership peaked in 1967 with 1500 members). Many investigative organizations have closed down over the years (e.g. NICAP, APRO, UFORIC). Some of the few surviving ones had to down-size considerably since the mid-1990s, perhaps tied to the Internet era (e.g. CUFOS, MUFON-CES, SOBEPS->COBEPS).
UFO historian J.Clark remarked that there has been a breakdown of morale in the field of UFO research, as the substantial efforts in UFO case investigations of the 1960s and 1970s failed to attract mainstream attention.
In the 1980s the focus of UFO organizations was turned towards the Roswell NM 1947 incident (alleged UFO crash), the MJ12 papers controversy (ostensibly "leaked" Top Secret documents revealing a covert involvement of US military and government with UFOs), government coverups and the so-called "alien abduction" phenomenon. In the 1990s and 2000s several advocacy and "disclosure" groups were formed, to petition for renewed government-sponsored UFO studies and transparency.
Some old-timers are "deeply pessimistic" about Ufology, concluding that the UFO field is all but paralyzed by infighting, a lack of funding, cooperation and standardization, and dubious claims.
Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) - The largest surviving civilian UFO organization with about 2500 members, MUFON describes its mission as "the systematic collection and analysis of UFO data, with the ultimate goal of learning the origin and nature of the UFO phenomenon, for the benefit of mankind." With links to MUFON's regional sites, and a UFO Investigator's Manual. Also hosts the Bob Pratt archives. MUFON is decentralised, it is not a monolithic organization but rather a loose confederation of state organizations with widely varying standards. Regional MUFON Websites often have a wealth of info and publish local UFO case files [CT,GA,OR]
In early 2008, MUFON in partnership with TBV scanned and published online the MUFON journals 1967-2000 in .PDF format (earlier editions are scanned and harder to read).
(Note: For a period of 10-months until Jan-2010, MUFON got funding for its "S.T.A.R." team to travel around the US and do field investigation of the most promising UFO reports, sponsored by Robert T. Bigelow, a hotel and aerospace entrepreneur from Las Vegas NV.)
National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) is basically one man, Peter Davenport.
NUFORC was founded in 1974 by Bob Gribble to accept UFO-sighting reports from the public via its phone hot-line, since no "official" US government agency accepted UFO reports after USAF's Blue Book closed down in Jan-1970.
Bob Gribble ran NUFORC for 20 years, until he passed the torch to Peter Davenport in 1994. Peter brought NUFORC to the Internet era, offering a Web-form in addition to the 24/7 phone hotline for "current" reports. NUFORC's Web site offers on-line over 50,000 (generally un-investigated) UFO reports. NUFORC's case briefs.
J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS): Dr J. Allen Hynek, past Chairman of the Astronomy department at Northwestern University and scientific consultant of USAF Project Blue Book for 20 years, thought the UFO phenomenon had been the subject of misconceptions, misinformation, and an unscientific approach. To help rectify the situation, in 1973 Hynek and a group of selected scientists established the Center for UFO Studies "for those who wish to see positive scientific action taken to end a quarter of a century of misrepresentation and buffoonery". CUFOS quickly became a significant force in UFO research, drawing upon the capabilities of the other UFO organizations to do field-investigations.
CUFOS produced 2 periodical publications: International UFO Reporter (IUR) CUFOS' magazine published articles and commentary and Journal of UFO Studies (JUFOS) the only peer-reviewed journal dealing exclusively with the UFO phenomenon.
Defunct US groups: NICAP, APRO (Lorenzens), UFORIC (Matt Graeber), CSI (Civilian Saucer Intelligence of New York, co-founded by Ted Bloecher and Isabel L. Davis in 1954) etc
Germany: MUFON-CES, DEGUFO.de, GEP. A consolidated database of Germany's UFO reports is available on-line at ufo-datenbank.de and several UFO-related sites are hosted under alien.de
Public UFO Archives, initiatives to preserve UFO history
Archives for UFO Research (AFU) was founded in Sweden in 1973. Today the AFU holds one of the biggest repositories of UFO data and UFO-related folklore in the world.
Sign Historical Group (SHG) @ Project 1947. Quoting from SHG's statement of purpose "SHG is an association of scholars and researchers who have come together to facilitate and promote the discovery and preservation of materials, and the production and dissemination of publications, about the history of the UFO phenomenon and the institutions and persons who investigated it."
Sign Oral History Project (SOHP) archiving of spoken memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded interviews of individuals who have personal knowledge of some aspect of UFO history, whether witnesses, government officials and personnel, scientists and investigators etc
Project Blue Book Archive provides free online access to over 50,000 official US Government documents relating to the UFO phenomenon.
Sauvegarde, Conservation des Etudes et Archives Ufologiques (S. C. E. A. U.) - France
APRO Archives and Files ("lost UFO files"): [defunct] Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) was a UFO research group started in 1952 by the husband and wife team of Jim and Coral Lorenzen. It was based in Tucson, Arizona but had many state branches. APRO remained active until 1988, although in 1969 many members moved to MUFON. APRO stressed scientific field investigations, and had a large staff of consulting Ph.D. scientists. Mentioning APRO in UFO research circles in recent decades is bound to bring up the sad story of "lost APRO files" i.e. the eleven or so file cabinets full of UFO case investigation files (est. 15,000 cases) that were taken by Brian Myers and Tina Choate and shipped to a warehouse in Scottsdale.
Notable personal archives: Barry Greenwood greenwoodufoarchive.com (FOIA declassified documents on secret US government interest in UFOs), Loren Gross ("UFOs: A history" - 112 volumes representing about 9600 pages of reproduced texts and illustrations, donated to AFU), Wendy Connors "Faded Discs" Audio Archive of UFO History (incl Bob Gribble's NUFORC audio recordings), Ted Bloecher CSI-NY (donated many of his files to CUFOS).
UFO photo archives (but how many authentic?): Catalogue of 5,000 UFO photographs maintained by French ufologist Stéphane Bernard, an IBM employee based in Meudon. Another large collection is in the archives of German author of bestsellers on UFOs and religious mysteries, Michael Hesemann. There is also the "UFO Photo Archives" by Wendelle C. Stevens, US Air Force Lt. Col. (retired) who by exchanging UFO pictures with a number of other collectors -such as August Roberts- compiled one of the largest libraries of UFO still images (over 4,000 pictures) [note: Wendelle C. Stevens has been associated with a number of highly dubious UFO cases, including the Billy Meier case, and is generally considered unreliable by most Ufologists). David Aaron "UFO video clearinghouse" has reportedly collected thousands of hours of amateur video of UFOs.
governmentattic.org (not UFO-specific) provides electronic copies of hundreds of interesting Federal Government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Political activism, disclosure, "exopolitics" etc
Coalition for Freedom of Information (CFI) is an organization founded in 2002, based in Washington DC and headed by journalist Leslie Kean. CFI's stated mission is to "achieve scientific, congressional and media credibility for the study of unexplained aerial phenomena while working for the release of official information and physical evidence". In co-operation with James Fox (producer of UFO documentaries "Out of the blue" 2002 and "I know what I saw" 2009), CFI organized the highly acclaimed press conference on 12-Nov-2007 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. In that event, 14 witnesses from 7 countries discussed their personal encounters with UFOs and official investigations. In Nov-2009, Leslie Kean released her final report on the conclusion of the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against NASA, concerning the Kecksburg UFO case of 1965.
Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS) [basically defunct] - an activist organization founded in 1977 to make public government data on UFOs. The organization was originally established by W. Todd Zechel, Brad Sparks, and lawyer Peter Gersten. Between 1977 and 1984 it made numerous Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests, filed lawsuits against agencies of US, investigated UFO reports and published its findings and a newsletter.
In 1984, after CAUS was essentially a defunct organization, researchers Larry Fawcett and Barry Greenwood used CAUS as a vehicle to publish a newsletter, following the publication of their 1984 book "Clear Intent" re-published as "The UFO Cover Up" in 1993.
A conflict arose in 1998, when Gersten re-asserted control of CAUS to turn it to "activist organization dedicated to ending all secrecy about extraterrestrial contact..." in alliance with Dr Greer (CSETI, Disclosure Project) and S. Bassett (PRG, X-PPAC).
Paradigm Research Group (PRG) is the political activism organization of Stephen Bassett, describing its mission as "dedicated to ending the government imposed truth embargo regarding an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race." By 2010, PRG/X-PPAC had held six annual "X-conferences" and in 2009 petitioned President Obama via its "Million Fax on Washington" initiative.
The Disclosure Project founded in 1993 by Dr Steven Greer is pushing for "full disclosure and open Congressional hearings on the UFO/ET presence, including testimony of military/government persons, witnesses to UFO events and projects, with release from security oaths". It organized a widely publicized press conference at National Press Club in Washington DC in May-2001.
Dr Greer has been ostracized by the UFO research community for dubious claims and questionable offers e.g. offering an "Ambassador to the Universe" training expeditions through his CSETI organization, which includes "...learning advanced techniques in Remote Viewing and higher states of consciousness" and doing "primary and secondary vectoring of UFOs" (translation: waving and blinking flashlights) at a cost of $3680/person, championing disclosure but ironically requiring attendees to his workshops to sign strict non-disclosure agreements, mixing UFOs with "New Age" and a political agenda (e.g. calling for a legislative ban of space-based weapons) and claiming that free energy technology is being suppressed. However most critics admit that several (but not all) of the witness testimonies collected by the Disclosure Project in its early years (before credibility issues arose and drove others away) were quite compelling.
Note: Videos of both the 12-Nov-2007 and the May-2001 events are available to watch online in the testimonies page.
My opinion: What I see today as the prevailing sentiment in the UFO subculture is that many "believers" don't care for an investigative organization, they already "know the answer" -- which typically is along the lines of "The previous decades' investigative efforts into UFO incidents and whistleblower accounts have established beyond a reasonable doubt that UFOs are physically real and most likely alien craft. Some group operating somewhere within the US Military / Intelligence / Government is sitting upon the definitive evidence (UFO wreckage and bodies) to prove this. Rather than putting more resources into low-level efforts by civilian UFO groups, we need to apply political pressure to end UFO secrecy". A few may go further towards conspiratorial speculations (underground alien bases, government treaties with aliens, abductions, hidden technologies of free energy and anti-gravity, Nazi UFOs, secret gov, NWO etc) or "spiritualistic" / "New-Agey" beliefs (e.g. benevolent aliens imparting wisdom or warning about ecological disasters). So most people in the UFO subculture just want some sort of group to connect to like-minded people.
By the way, I was quite surprised to find out that several of the UFO groups in Europe, are in fact run by "pelicanists" i.e. people who are active in the UFO community and may even do investigations (unlike the "armchair skeptics" in US), but will invariably propose hard-to-believe and sometimes downright ludicrous "prosaic explanations" to puzzling UFO sightings, in a desperate effort to explain them away.
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