The USAF undertook their first investigation, Project Sign, from 1948 to 1949. The results were less than exciting, showing there was nothing to fear. Then Project Grudge later that year was a reorganization of the investigation. The public saw these as “Project Saucer” in response to the growing number of reports of the objects (Thurs 2007). Project Blue Book, begun in 1952, was another reorganization of the investigation but by now the work was done by a much smaller number of personnel (Thurs 2007). These reports standardized the collection and systematically analyzed claims of UFO sightings. The Robertson Panel issued a report in 1953. All these government-sanctioned investigations concluded that there was no evidence of a direct threat to national security or risk to the U.S. from these objects, a finding that would also be replicated by the UK Ministry of Defense office. While many sightings of strange objects remained unexplained (hence the name), that did not equate to the sightings being unexplainable. Residual cases allowed some people to conclude there was something genuinely mysterious going on, but there was not enough information to conclude what, if anything, was responsible for the reports. Ultimately, the conclusion about UFOs was that people were making mistakes, lying, or hoaxing—a conclusion that did not sit well with those who were convinced they saw something otherworldly. The public was not entirely assured that these investigations were anything more than public relations efforts.
The U.S. government’s secrecy and habit of providing conflicting information to the media fed a growing conspiracy sentiment that there was something to hide. Even though the Air Force ceased official study of UFOs, their exit was not graceful since unknown aerial phenomena continued to be reported. The Robertson panel had recommended an educational effort to “debunk” this topic, a plan that would hopefully reduce the distracting public interest and a potential danger for panic in society. They hoped a two-year effort would be enough. Obviously, it wasn’t.1 Twenty-two years after the 1947 explosion of national interest regarding flying saucers, no scientific investigation was deemed adequate to all parties. Proponents felt that scientists refused to recognize the scope and importance of UFO reports (McDonald 1972). Instead of tamping down the interest, rejection of the phenomenon by official government agencies and the scientific community bolstered the growth of independent civilian groups formed to investigate flying saucers. They adopted official- or military-sounding names. Ufology became a field (like cryptozoology and ghost hunting) where a layperson without any formal post-secondary education could become an “expert” (Denzler 2003). The first group appeared in 1952—the International Flying Saucer Bureau. Led by Albert Bender out of Connecticut, the IFSB published a newsletter with several hundred subscribers (Mosely & Pflock 2002). 1952 was the start of what Thurs (2007) called “sauceritis.” The Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization (APRO), also founded in 1952 by Coral and James Lorenzen, eventually received support from PhD scientists. Civilian Saucer Intelligence began in 1954. BUFORA in the U.K. started a 24-hour hotline to accept reports and attempted to use rapid response teams to investigate, a model later UFO/ARIGs would follow. Since 1974, NUFORC (National UFO Research Center) has maintained a toll-free hotline for reporting UFO incidents. According to their website,2 various governmental agencies refer callers to this organization for logging into their database.
Groups, large and small, local and national, attempted a systematic approach to collecting and investigating UFO reports (Eghigian 2015). The most prominent of the civilian groups was the National Investigations Committee of Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) under the direction of Major Donald Keyhoe, formerly of the U.S. Marine Corps with involvement from former officials from the military and intelligence communities. NICAP took a stance that aliens had increased observation of earth after the atomic bomb detonations and the USAF was covering up real information on UFOs. This idea became common throughout the investigator community (Sheaffer 1986; Thurs 2007). Keyhoe and NICAP pushed for congressional hearings into UFOs. As with other ARIGs, early UFO groups felt that the official sources were overlooking critical details and they were determined to seek out “the truth” for themselves.
The height of public and political interest in UFOs came after a wave of sightings reported in 1965–66. With increasing pressure for investigation, the USAF funded an investigation by the University of Colorado to stand as the final conclusion on the matter. Dr. Edward U. Condon, was the Scientific Director of the 1968 independent committee that was tasked to see if there was any scientific knowledge that could be gleaned from specific UFO cases. The “Condon Report” concluded that no scientific value was gained from UFO claims. The report, freely available and made into a mass market paperback, was widely criticized by UFO proponents and was the end of both Project Blue Book and serious scientific interest in UFOs (Eghigian 2015; Denzler 2003). Instead of settling the issue of UFOs, however, it created a new arena for questions (Thurs 2007). A few scientific people remained interested but UFO groups eventually became outwardly antagonistic to the science community. Press interest in UFOs turned from serious to silly. Ufology devolved into personality cults, pseudo-religious, and New Age collectives, producing no content worth citing or taking seriously (Moseley & Pflock 2002). Facing other typical organizational pressures, many civilian UFO groups folded.
MUFON
MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network, emerged from the Condon report aftermath in 1969 and today is the largest remaining UFO-ARIG with branches that cover every state with appointed directors for each region. Participants in the state or regional groups pay dues to the national overarching organization but the investigators are local. MUFON field investigators assisted CUFOS, the Center for UFO Studies, a group founded in 1975 by former Project Blue Book consultant, Dr. J. Allen Hynek. CUFOS consisted of scientists and professionals as consultants and provided grants for UFO researchers. CUFOS still maintains an archive of material and their UFOCAT database.3 CUFOS became the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies upon Hynek’s death in 1986.
MUFON remains the main investigative network in the U.S. They provide a training manual that can be purchased by anyone. To become a MUFON investigator, one must pass an exam based on this manual. Two former MUFON members told me the exam was not difficult and did not require anything more than studying the MUFON manual’s contents. No other credentials are needed. MUFON has attempted a standardized training protocol, which is more than can be said for other paranormal investigation fields. The individual branches operate somewhat independently with little oversight so it’s unclear how “organized” the network actually is. There have been problems with the MUFON leadership in the past years as some branches and even the main headquarters have drifted into emphasis on areas’ claims of abduction, disclosure, and “exopolitics” and away from a scientific tone about what people report in the sky.4 They invite speakers to their conferences that some within the UFO community feel are not credible or are blatant publicity seekers. There has been a call from the less conspiratorial members for the organization to pull back from discredited subject areas and return to “feet on the ground” immediate investigation of reported sightings—a formidable task.
A MUFON convention audience in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, 2016. Photograph by Kenny Biddle.
Many curious scientists and professional people investigated ufology but left the scene when they discovered there was little to no merit or substance to it. Though J. Allen Hynek is considered the founder of ufology, other respected people involved in the discussion of what to do about these flying objects included computer scientist Jacques Vallee and skeptical astronomers Donald Menzel and Carl Sagan. Sagan would become a powerful force for skepticism regarding UFOs but in the 60s, he was genuinely interested in the idea of intelligent aliens. In 1969, a scientific symposium was held under the auspices of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the publishers of Science journal. Dr. Sagan spearheaded the efforts (Denzler 2003) but many other scientists, including Condon, opposed it as a waste of time and effort
(Sullivan 1972). According to Eghigian (2015), the boundary remained porous as some scientists and other professionals insisted UFOs warranted scientific research. After the Condon Report, the focus of any academic UFO/alien interest was in belief, public attitudes, memory, folklore, psychology, and conspiracy ideas. Rejected by government officials and scientists who thought they might be crazy, those who experienced UFOs or claimed contact with real aliens distrusted the establishment. There was a self-perpetuating isolation of UFO believers from the scientific establishment. Attempts to make sense of the phenomena as cultural or psychological ended up reinforcing distrust.
By the 1970s, with the USAF out of the loop, sightings were being reported directly to UFO/ARIGs and the mass media. The field of ufology deliberately bypassed institutions and connected directly to the public. They considered themselves serious researchers focused on a serious problem for humanity. A few groups collected detailed sighting reports for statistical analysis but most focused on individual cases. They drew upon what they thought were scientific methods. They formed institutions and journals that sounded legitimately scientific. But without the unifying sparring partner of the Air Force, UFO and alien topics blended into the expanding paranormal media culture of the 1970s. In response to the growing media focus on fringe topics like UFOs, a group of philosophers and scientists formed the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) in 1976. The CSICOP name was punned by the paranormal community as “psi-cop,” the scientific police and enforcement agency. In the 2000s CSICOP was renamed the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), causing confusion with the “crime scene investigation” acronym used for a popular television franchise.
Contactees and Abductees
A diversion from the path of investigating reported sightings occurred with the “contactee” movement that grew in part out of the occult underground of mid-century southern California. This fringe community blended science fiction-like themes with occult practices such as extraterrestrials appearing through astrally-channeled messages, tales of advanced technology, spiritualist mediums, and science jargon. The aliens were “space brothers” warning us of impending atomic or environmental doom. The most prominent contactee was “Professor” George Adamski who called himself a “scientist” or “one who knows” (Thurs 2007). The Amalgamated Saucer Clubs of America was a contactee-friendly outlet to report encounters (Thurs 2007). Adamski’s book in 1953 (written with Desmond Leslie) along with Keyhoe’s book in 1950, heralded the era of amateur ufology (Eghigian 2014). The religious connotations of the contactee movement created a vast distance between the subject and scientific study (Denzler 2003) though psychological and sociological research of contactees and UFO religions was important to the formation of the concept of “cognitive dissonance.”5
Less spiritual reports of alien beings or “close encounters of the third kind” as dubbed by J. Allen Hynek, began to emerge in the mid–1950s. A wide variety of strange creatures were reported in association with UFOs. Vallee compiled many of these cases and drew parallels to earlier tales of fairies, elves, and other magical people of folklore. Vallee concluded that perhaps the historical reports could have been extraterrestrials. The relatively harmless alien contact turned sinister as the occupants of the UFOs reportedly were getting up close and very personal with Earthlings. The key case that made media headlines was that of the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill in 1961, later made into a book and a television movie. Reports of abductions proliferated after 1975 (Sheaffer 1986). The UFO abduction subculture exploded in the 1980s thanks in part to Travis Walton who became a media sensation by claiming, just weeks after the airing of the Hill abduction movie, to have been taken by a space ship. At the foundation of the new abduction movement was the use of hypnotic regression. Considered legitimate in the 1960s, hypnosis to enhance memory of a traumatic event was used in the Hill case which served as a model for subsequent abduction research. Artist Budd Hopkins is credited with rocketing the abduction idea into the mainstream and promoting the use of hypnosis in abduction claims. Hypnotic regression came under severe scrutiny during the Satanic Panic era of the 1970s and 80s when people reported demonstrably false abuse claims related to devil worship. The technique was discredited but remained in use within alien abduction research.
In 1981, an organization called the UFO Contact Center International was formed to help people who had these bizarre experiences. Science fiction and horror novelist Whitley Strieber produced books he said were accounts of his own amazing abduction experiences. Psychologist John Mack of Harvard University and historian David Jacobs of Temple University made academic waves with their conclusions that these events were happening as people described. Mack saw abduction as evidence of a realm outside material reality while Jacobs promoted the idea of sinister alien-human hybridization. The issue of UFOs as carrying occupants from outer space and their associated involvement with humans further divided the now even more colorful field while legitimacy remained elusive (Thurs 2007).
Today’s Ufologists
Stan Gordon is an electronics technician and radio communication specialist who can rightly lay claim to the top spot as the most diligent UFO (and anomalies) investigator in the country. Gordon has been investigating UFO reports since 1965 and still does today. In 1969, Gordon set up a UFO hotline phone number for locals in western Pennsylvania to call (24 hours) to report a mysterious incident. The local and state police as well as the local planetarium and others who receive reports of strange lights or weird animals, direct claimants to Gordon. He also documented the addition of paranormal experiences to UFO sightings as people reported psychic experiences, otherworldly events, and encounters with hairy Bigfoot-like creatures during the 1973–74 “flap” of UFO and paranormal reports in Pennsylvania (Gordon 2010). Today’s determined UFO investigators, like Stan Gordon, wait for a call about a sighting then attempt to reach the location as soon as possible to talk to the witness. They always have their cameras ready. Space debris, meteors, or rocket launches are often reported as UFOs. Surprised eyewitnesses report details about the sighting including information that is later found to be untrue or exaggerated. Faced with a mundane explanation, they will deny that the incident can be explained other than by processes “not of this world” (Sheaffer 2016).
UFO/ARIGs face the most difficult conditions for data collection. UFOs are fleeting, difficult to record and describe due to their location in the sky, are potentially very far away, and often reported at night. UFOs are reported to travel across states. The sky is ever more cluttered with man-made flying objects like weather balloons, other experimental balloons, Mylar and helium party balloons, Chinese (sky) lanterns, and remote-controlled flying objects (including some that are modeled after the stereotypical flying saucer). Further complicating investigation of UFO sightings are civilian observations of secret military experiments that officials did not want to be public. In remote western U.S. desert areas, serious UFO spotters looking for anomalies occasionally spotted secret tests of new technology. Such scenarios introduced a unique level of intrigue and danger to this ARIG category not commonly seen in the other categories.
With everyone carrying a mobile camera for still and video shots these days, the ubiquity of surveillance cameras, and the many technically sophisticated eyes on the skies, the fact that no good UFO evidence has been authenticated caused a decline in interest in nuts and bolts UFOs and a rise in dramatic ideas with a foundation in impossible physics and science-fiction. The spectrum of UFO researchers is wide. Rifts exists between those “nuts and bolts” investigators of aerial phenomena and those invested in a conspiratorial view that the government is hiding data and hushing up the “truth.” This line of thinking became a slippery slope that led to bizarre scenarios of Men in Black silencing witnesses, brainwashing, and the idea that “Reptoid” aliens are in control of world government—an idea made popular by former UK athlete and sports broadcaster, now author and public personality, David
Icke. Notably, these ideas are rooted in pulp fiction.
Specialty newsletters and journals were important sources of info prior to the Internet. Modern amateur UFO research began long before the days of the Internet. Groups communicated via mailed newsletters and flyers physically posted on bulletin boards. You can access thousands of international websites and Internet forums dedicated to news and views based on the belief that the “truth” is out there—aliens are visiting us and the government is covering it all up. There isn’t a moment that you can’t find a UFO-themed show on cable television, especially on those billed as “educational” channels. Countless videos are uploaded to YouTube with opinions and presentations on the entire gamut of UFO and alien claims. Information for enthusiasts is overwhelming in volume in dozens of languages. State or regional MUFON conferences remain well-attended with the biggest gatherings, the International UFO Congress, attracting about 1,500 attendees (Krulos 2015) and the Contact in the Desert convention which may reach 2,000.6
Crashed Saucers and the Modern Era
Crashed saucer stories were an early staple of UFO reporting but a series of crash hoaxes revealed in the 1950s made the topic verboten within ufology for decades. The collapse of the civilian UFO investigation bureaus and the rise of UFO conspiracies in the 1970s re-energized the topic. The world famous “crash at Roswell” became the hallmark UFO story. Buried and forgotten soon after the publicity circus of 1947, the resurrection of Roswell, New Mexico as an alien ship crash site began in the late 1970s due to researcher Stanton Friedman. Soon others followed. By the 1980s, crash research was becoming the primary focus of “nuts and bolts” researchers. In 1994, Roswell was rediscovered by America popular culture making the town a huge tourist draw. Combined with other narratives, the modern UFO milieu includes Men in Black, secret Area 51 and the legendary Hangar 18. UFO cults like the Raelians and the ill-fated Heaven’s Gate bloomed. As sociologist Brenda Denzler (2003) says “there was no reining it in now” (p. 31) as the UFO theme was international and mainstream. UFOs experienced this resurgence in interest thanks to the capability to participate in online forums and share stories, photos and videos and opinions worldwide. Photos and videos promoted as evidence to support the strange reality of UFOs find their way to every corner of the world via mystery-mongering and conspiracy websites dedicated to mainstreaming fringe causes for UFOs. A research-based organization and media company called Open Minds presents its mission to investigate and report evidence of extra-terrestrial, UFO, and other phenomena to a global audience.7 They produce a website, magazine, radio show, and video programming with specialty reporters to write, distribute, and promote this view of ufology (Krulos 2015). Online, speculation rules; the skeptical viewpoint is rejected. Any critical thinker who provides evidence of a hoax photo or video can expect to be labeled a “disinformation agent”—that is, a person who is deliberately spreading lies to throw seekers off the real truth.
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