Director's Message

Just last month President Trump signed the “Space Policy Directive 1” – a directive that orders NASA to start sending American astronauts back to the Moon and eventually Mars. I always thought that was where NASA was headed, but perhaps not based on the slow progress to date in making anything happen in this regard. I, for one, was beginning to wonder; perhaps President Trump and others in Congress were wondering as well. The White House press release went on to say, “The President…will change our nation’s human spaceflight policy to help America become the driving force for the space industry, gain new knowledge from the cosmos, and spur incredible technology.” Makes one wonder what “new knowledge” we will gain from the cosmos. Perhaps that we are not alone? Or what “incredible technology” will suddenly appear. An interesting statement since for nearly eight years now the United States hasn’t been able to put a man in space. We have been using Russian technology to do so.

Intelligent minds must wonder what is really going on behind the scenes, and this was one of the reasons for the theme of our 2017 MUFON Symposium, “The Case for a Secret Space Program.” Hopefully we’ll learn very soon as I was recently informed by a former NASA employee that President Obama, before he left office, signed a directive authorizing six different groups to begin releasing information on extraterrestrial life and the fact that we are not alone in the universe. From recent announcements, it is clear that at least one of those groups is the new TTS venture by Tom DeLonge. One would have to assume that NASA and JPL are two other groups given this same directive. Who the other three are is a mystery to me. Perhaps someone reading this knows the answer to that question and can enlighten all of us. But does it really matter? The point is, we are going to begin seeing a flood of official notifications, on a rather frequent basis, that we are not alone in the universe. Something that MUFON has been saying for 50 years now. Oh, and that there is some nifty technology that is going to benefit us all. Get ready people of Earth. Hmmm, sounds very much like our mission statement: “The Scientific Study of UFOs for the Benefit of Humanity.”
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As MUFONers, we stand with open arms welcoming our brothers and sisters from the establishment, whether that be our government, DOD, private industry, or the intelligence community, who wish to share the truth with us. We are more than ready for it, as is the rest of humanity. Welcome to 2018!  

As 2017 draws to a close, I want to thank you, our many loyal members, for all you do making MUFON what we are today. Your membership in MUFON helps fund the great work we do and keeps us as the leader in UFO investigations and information on the web. It takes the hard work and dedication of volunteers across the globe to make this all happen. So again, thank you!

We accomplished quite a lot in 2017 starting with the launch of our new website with its member’s only section where an archive of the past five years of e-Journals resides, as well as other exciting content.  Next is the launch of MARRS (MUFON Anomaly Research and Reporting System) with its sophisticated document management system designed to help one easily find information in our files. To date, over 1,000 Pandora cases have been redacted and loaded into MARRS. We hope to have it fully loaded by sometime mid-year 2018. Katie Griboski, the project lead, could use your help to get it done even faster if you are interested. We are very excited about what MARRS will do for the future of UFO Research.

A third project in the works for nearly a year now is the­­­­ rollout of the new front-end to CMS designed to make it mobile friendly. We also plan to upgrade CMS to allow the easier collection of Entity and Experiencer cases. As it ­­­becomes more and more evident that we are not alone, the public is going to want to know “who are those guys?” And we intend to be able to answer that question with facts and data rather than hysteria and conjecture thanks to the great work of our investigations and communications teams.
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Year 2017 also saw the move of our offices from Newport Beach to Irvine, CA, precipitated by our building being sold, as well as our most successful Symposium ever in Las Vegas, NV. And finally, as we approach year-end, we are launching a new crowdfunding initiative to drive new memberships in MUFON. Your participation is certainly encouraged, but what we really need your help with, is getting the word out by forwarding emails, Facebook posts, and Tweets you receive to those on your personal distribution lists. You never know who may have an interest in UFOs and ETs and it may just rekindle an old relationship. Thank you and Happy Holidays.

A major event in the UFO Community happened a few short weeks ago when several Department of Defense and Intelligence community insiders stepped to the podium in a live broadcast to announce that not only are UFOs real, but the technology they are displaying is something we should try to understand and engineer for our own advancement as humans – something I have been saying for many years now. Most of them are now retired, and knowing what they know from their former positions in government and the intelligence community, want to see this information come to light and be used for the good of all and the advancement of our civilization.

I was pleased to see Dr. Hal Putoff and Chris Mellon, two men I know personally, involved in this new venture titled, “To The Stars… Academy of Arts and Science.” The team members include;

Tom Delonge –  CEO & Founder
Jim Semivan – Former senior intelligence service member of the Central Intelligence Agency
Dr. Hal Putoff - President and CEO of EarthTech International, Inc. (ETI)
Steve Justice - Former Program Director for Advanced Systems from Lockheed Martin Advanced Development Programs
Luis Elizondo – Former intelligence special agent last responsible for sensitive DOD threat identification program focusing on unidentified aerial technologies.
Chris Mellon – Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in the Clinton and Bush Administrations.

I had the opportunity to speak with Chris after the presentation to better understand the purpose behind the new venture.  His answer, in short, was to get to the Truth. Chris is very forthright and firm in his resolve to get to the bottom of the UFO question regardless of where the truth leads. Having worked on Capitol Hill he wants to keep it simple by focusing on one case which he outlines in the video of the Live event https://dpo.tothestarsacademy.com at the 10:40 mark. It is the 2004 Nimitz encounter with an unknown object off the coast of San Diego, CA.

I see this as a major step forward in the DOD-Government-Intelligence apparatus finally telling the American public, and the world that UFOs are Real, and the technology is so advanced that if we can find a way to duplicate it, we will advance our civilization centuries in a very short period of time. Pretty exciting stuff!
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The Call to Action is for each of us to write our congressmen and senators and ask for a congressional inquiry regarding the Nimitz 2004 incident where multiple F18s were scrambled to chase an unknown object. Certainly, Congress, with its ability to request information will be able to get to the bottom of this and in so doing it may open the floodgates that will finally drain this swamp. I certainly hope so. My letters are already in the mail. I hope yours go out shortly.

There are 7.2 billion people on planet earth, and surveys tell us that 1 in 10 have had their own personal UFO experience. Either seeing a structured craft at close range (less than 500 feet), or encountering non-human entities, or both. And what those individuals have in common is a burning desire to know the truth about the UFO phenomenon. That’s 720 million people worldwide who have a keen interest in UFOs, quite a number to wrap one’s head around, and that’s where MUFON comes in. These are the people who value the good work that MUFON does.

As you know, MUFON operates as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, supported by those who choose to become members and/or donate, which allows us to do the important work that we do. We are 100 percent publicly funded. Our work includes collecting sighting reports from the public, carefully investigating them to determine their veracity, and doing research on the most important cases reported to us. There is no other organization on the planet, government or otherwise, that is collecting and analyzing the number of UFO reports that MUFON does and making this information available to the public.  That very simply is what we do.

The more important question is Why do we do it? It’s because we believe the study of this phenomenon will lead to 21st Century solutions to the many problems and opportunities we face as a planet. Especially in the fields of energy and transportation, as well as perhaps answers to the social and economic challenges we currently face on this planet. Not to mention bringing closure to one of the most important questions humankind has ever asked, “Are We Alone in The Universe?” The short answer is, no, we are not.

While some demand more proof, others are already taking what’s known and extrapolating it into working models for faster than light travel, possible new energy systems, and so much more. Meanwhile, MUFON continues to collect, analyze, and research UFO and Experiencer reports one by one, knowing that the payoff is just around the corner. Soon, we’ll be looking at new analytical tools like IBM’s Watson to help us in our research and analysis efforts. There is much to do in this regard.

Along these lines, there are two important changes we are in the process of making. One is moving from reporting on incoming reports, formerly known as the UFO Traffic Report, to a Cases of Interest format that will highlight the latest and best cases recently investigated by our field investigators. This will focus our attention on real UFOs that are more likely true extraterrestrial visitations. A second change is offering our long-time members easy transition to the new membership levels announced in 2016. Look for a special offer in your mailbox on this very soon.
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I hope you are as excited as I am about our mission and what we are doing to move the needle on UFO research. It is a labor of love and doesn’t come without a price, whether it be new computer systems to collect and analyze the data, office staff to support our membership and reporting systems, or research dollars to fund the detailed analysis and ultimate communication of the results to our membership and the public via our website, monthly Journal and public outreach. We are making a difference in the field with more people than ever before knowledgeable about MUFON and the global UFO situation. Thank you for your ongoing support and for being part of the MUFON family.

The 2017 MUFON Symposium held in Las Vegas was the best attended symposium in the last 20 years, if not all time for MUFON. More than 1,000 people from 20 different countries from Australia and Brazil, to Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates, attended the event over the three-day period. This all took place at the JW Marriott in Las Vegas, NV, the weekend of July 21-23, 2017.

The theme, The Case for a Secret Space Program, explored the possibility that one or more secret space programs exist and could in fact give rise to some of the many unknown UFO cases being reported around the world to MUFON. This particular symposium seemed to resonate with people. There was a buzz in the air all weekend long with people discussing the latest presentation or speaker, and sharing their own thoughts on what had just been presented, discussing and debating what they had just heard.

Feedback was overwhelmingly positive with attendees equally excited about the large, spacious rooms at the JW Marriott, the quality and selection of on-site restaurants and entertainment available, as well as the many outstanding speakers, each presenting their case for a secret space program over the three-day symposium.

Probably the highlight of the weekend was the Sunday panel showcasing Corey Goode, Andrew Basiago, William Tompkins, Richard Dolan, and Michael Salla hotly debating the evidence, or need for more evidence, for some of the more extraordinary claims being made by some of the speakers. In fact, one state director stepped up to the Q&A microphone and asked a very salient question, “How would you propose that we as MUFON investigators investigate these claims?” The answer is on the Panel DVD. But, if only half of what was presented is true, I can see why those in control would not want this information available to the public. It would be way too shocking to people’s worldviews and our current way of life on this planet.

If you didn’t have the chance to attend the symposium, I strongly encourage you to purchase one or more speaker DVDs, or the entire set of 13, and see for yourself what all the excitement was about. This may be done through the MUFON Store.  Or join MUFON.TV as a subscriber and all the presentations are available to watch for a full year. Or, upgrade your membership to Classic or VIP, and MUFON.TV is FREE with your membership upgrade. l had my favorite speakers from the weekend, and if you watch the 13 presentations, I know you will too.
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All in all, some great presentations about our current state of technology in the non-classified world, or what we know about, contrasted with what is being seen in the MUFON database of UFO sightings, and finally, what is being told by so-called whistleblowers as to the broader extent of our military and intelligence community capabilities for deep space travel and colonization of planets within our own solar system. Could any of it be true? Hopefully one day we will all find out. I, for one, hope to be alive if and when it happens.

MARRS, or the MUFON Anomaly Research and Reporting System, is the culmination of several years of trying to find the best online database to store MUFON’s half-century of case reports and paper files. It was demonstrated live last month to the State Directors at the MUFON Symposium in Las Vegas, NV. There are several criteria that needed to be satisfied before finding the perfect computer software that would become MARRS.

These capabilities include the need to be content searchable on keywords and phrases to allow easy retrieval of all documents pertaining to a given search parameter. It also needed to be easy to use with a friendly user interface similar to Windows and the Windows file structure that most everyone knows. Finally, it had to have the capability for someone to be able to download and print any document that had been retrieved. These criteria were used to search hundreds of options, including developing the system ourselves, before we ultimately landed on just the right software fit for MARRS.

Now that the online repository has been selected, the hard part begins:  pouring in 9,000 Pandora files, 85,000 Case Management System (CMS) files, and many, many more that exist at MUFON headquarters in both digitized and paper form. A team of volunteers is at this moment working very hard to enter, clean-up, and redact sensitive witness information in our Pandora files before making them available for MUFON researchers worldwide. This will be the first time they have been made available on a widespread basis since we began collecting UFO information in 1969.
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If you have an interest in participating in this project, please contact Ken St. John at dot@mufon.com. We are looking for volunteers who have a background and experience as an FI, are familiar with directories and computer file structures, and enjoy playing the role of an archivist.  The user interface for MARRS looks very similar to the Windows file structure most of us are familiar with. In addition, there is a need at MUFON headquarters for a volunteer or two who would like to scan documents using OCR into the new database. We have many boxes and file cabinets full of UFO information we’d like to see digitized and made available to our MUFON members. Again, please let us know if you’re interested!

Last month we talked about the ebb and flow of UFOs and the fact that there is a repeating cycle of UFO reports that occurs every year. The peak of this flow is in the summer months of June, July and August and the low point is always in the winter months of January, February and March. The other consistent thing we have seen is that we get between 6,000 and 8,000 cases reported to us each year that have happened in the same year they were reported. We also get a lot of historical cases from prior years which can skew the number of cases reported in a given year. This equates to between 500 and 1,000 UFO reports monthly.
We also mentioned that of these cases reported 30 percent remain unexplained after being investigated, and these are the reports we call “Unknowns.” The search for answers does not end there, however, but continues with the Top 10 Committee which reviews each month’s “Unknown” cases looking for the truly unusual ones that may just be extraterrestrial craft. The purpose of this team is to find our very best cases for inclusion in our annual report for that year. The team is headed by our Director of Research, Robert Powell, along with several volunteers who help dig through the data looking for the best of the best.  Each case that has been closed out as an unknown is scrutinized based on multiple criteria, including, but not limited to;
 

1. Close encounters – Structured craft less than 500 feet
2. Multiple credible witness accounts of a given sighting
3. Unusual, abrupt, or extremely fast movement of the craft observed
4. Quality of the investigation report completed

 
Cases that match these criteria are then put into a Cases of Interest file to be reviewed by the team mentioned above. Each month after carefully reviewing each case, the very best from this list are moved to the Top 10 file. At the end of the year, the Top 10 file is provided to the Science Review Board for a final determination of the very best cases to be included in the MUFON Annual Report. It is a very time consuming process, but one that ultimately results in MUFON being able to put its best foot forward.
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One may see our past annual reports on our website at MUFON.com. Click on the RESEARCH Tab and then select ANNUAL REPORTS. The more exciting news is that, in this issue, as a MUFON member, one is getting to see the Best cases of 2016 before the list is released to the general public and the news media. Please make sure to check out our lead story in this issue of The MUFON Journal. 

MUFON has been collecting UFO reports for some 48 years now, but only in the last 14 or 15 years have we been collecting the data electronically via the Internet. The last 10 of those years through the Case Management System, or CMS. One of the interesting things to note is that, just like throughout history, the number of UFOs being reported has a kind of ebb and flow to it. Looking at the graph of UFOs reported to us from 2008 through 2016, one can see the rhythmic peaks and valleys of the incoming UFO sighting reports. From a low of 325 in March 2008 to a peak of 1,402 in June of 2015.

The second thing to note is that UFO reports peak in the summer months June thro­­­ugh­­­­ August and wane in the winter and early spring months, of January thru April, which would make sense as good weather brings people outdoors where they are more likely to see a UFO and stormy weather keeps them inside safe and warm. A third item to note is that the number of UFO reports peaked in 2015 at nearly 11,000 cases, primarily on the popularity of the “Hangar 1” TV show that brought people out of their armchairs and onto the Internet to report sightings they had had both recently, as well as long ago. Lots of good historical data was gathered from the success of the “Hangar 1” TV show. 
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If one factors out historical cases and only looks at UFOs observed and reported in the same year, the numbers have been very consistent the last five years at 6 -8,000 cases per year, or around 500 to 700 cases a month. The trick of course is to figure out which of those cases are the real McCoy and that is the job of our Top Case team under the direction of Robert Powell, our Director of Research, who, with the help of the Science Review Board, will be publishing the very best cases of 2016 just in time for our July Symposium. We’ll be sure to share the results with you, our valued members, first. So, keep your eyes on the MUFON Journal and enjoy all the great NEW cases coming your way!

It was late February 1993 when a flyer arrived in my mailbox from the UCLA School of Engineering inviting me to a presentation by Ben Rich, the recently retired CEO and Chairman of the Lockheed Skunk Works. Ben, a UCLA Engineering alumni, would be sharing his 40 years at the Lockheed Skunk Works with fellow Engineering alumni at the Faculty Center on the UCLA campus on March 23, 1993. It was an offer I could not refuse, in fact it was so intriguing that I invited my good friend Tom Keller, also a UCLA Engineering alum to attend with me.

Arriving early, we took our seats in the front row eager to hear what Ben had to say to the 150 or so engineers gathered in attendance. His slideshow and talk did not disappoint starting with the U2 spy plane, then the SR-71, and a host of other projects Ben had personally worked on. It was a peek behind the curtain of the Skunk works and the marvelous job they do for the U.S. Air Force and CIA building top secret aircraft. The last aircraft Ben spoke about was the F117 which was built and tested in 1983 a full ten years before his talk. He even mentioned the fact that there was a ten-year gap between what he was showing us and where they were technologically joking that we should invite him back in ten years and he would be happy to tell us.

He was particularly concerned with the overbearing secrecy that he and his team had to endure while working on their projects at the Skunk works. Referencing the spooks in dark suits and sunglasses who would stand silently in the corners of the hangar and watch his team build an aircraft. His point was that this was 1993, four years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War and there was no reason for this level of secrecy in his mind. He then surprised all of us when he projected his last slide of a black disc zipping off into outer space and ended his talk by saying “we now have the technology to take ET home.” The entire room burst out laughing while Tom and I just starred at each other and in unison said, “Did he just say that?” We understood the magnitude of what he was trying to convey even if it came across as a joke to many of the others in the room.
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So how does this fit in with UFOs? Well every year we have 30% of our cases closed as unknowns. Could some of these “unknowns” be top secret aircraft or spacecraft built under Unacknowledged Special Access Projects (USAPs) by the likes of the Skunkworks? I think the short answer is Yes. After his talk when questioned Ben stated that “we have discovered an error in the equations and we now know how to travel to the stars and it won’t take us a lifetime to do it.” So how far have we gone? Are we currently traveling within our solar system or beyond with these technologies we’ve discovered? Interesting questions and one I hope to get answered at this year’s MUFON Symposium in Las Vegas. If these questions interest you, why not make plans now to join me at the 2017 MUFON Symposium and find out for yourself.

One of our goals in 2017 is to provide our Field Investigators and staff with the tools and resources they need to maintain the highest level of proficiency and professionalism in the UFO field. To this end, I am pleased to update you on three exciting projects now under active development in MUFON.

The first is the MUFON Anomaly Research and Reporting System (MARRS) which will soon begin archiving historical resources in preparation for beta testing with the plan to go live later this summer. This global database will provide users with unprecedented levels of access to historical resources such as documents, articles, witness reports, journals, media, etc. And will include reports from the very beginning of MUFON in 1969 when we were first founded, as well as other files MUFON has like the Leonard Stringfield (Redacted as appropriate) files and more. The plan will be for MARRS to become a valuable research tool for investigators, researchers, and the scientific community at large when it comes to studying and researching the UFO subject.

A second project is our Case Management System (CMS) which is the backbone of our UFO witness reporting system. CMS is now more than 10 years old, and running on software that is in need of major updating. The good news is that we have begun the redesign of CMS in order to improve usability, security, and integration with our other in-house systems such as MARRS and NEON, our new membership system. These improvements will be important to the future of UFO research and reporting. The plan is to model it on the current CMS system with lots of new software and usability updates.
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And finally, the plan is to put a new front-end on CMS and our Report a UFO (RaUFO) sighting form to address the need for a more user-friendly witness reporting submission process. This new Report a UFO responsive mobile app will simplify the reporting process, increase the number of witness reports by making it easier to report a sighting, and should reduce the time from sighting to reporting because of its ease of use. I have asked Ken St. John to be the project leader on these three initiatives and he has graciously agreed. If you’d like to help out, or learn more you may reach Ken at  dot@mufon.com.  ∆