Center for UFO Studies
 | |
| Founded | 1973 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Chicago, Illinois, United States |
Key people | J. Allen Hynek, Founder |
| Website | http://www.cufos.org/ |
The Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) is a privately funded UFO research group. It was founded in 1973 by J. Allen Hynek, the Chairman of the Department of Astronomy at Northwestern University in Illinois.[1][2]
Hynek was also a scientific consultant for Project Blue Book, the United States Air Force official study of the UFO phenomenon from 1948 to 1969.[3] Although Hynek started out as a skeptic and helped the Air Force to debunk most UFO reports, he gradually became convinced that a small number of UFO cases were not hoaxes or explainable as misidentifications of natural phenomena, and that these cases might represent something extraordinary — even alien visitation from other planets. When the Air Force shut down Project Blue Book in 1969, Hynek decided to establish his own organization to continue to study UFO reports in a scientific and unbiased manner.
Started in Evanston, Illinois, but now based in Chicago, CUFOS continues to be a small research organization stressing scientific analysis of UFO cases. Its extensive archives include historically valuable files from defunct civilian research groups such as National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), the largest UFO research group of the 1950s and 1960s. Following Hynek's death in 1986, CUFOS was renamed the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies in his honor. The current Scientific Director of CUFOS is Mark Rodeghier. Ufologists who have served on the CUFOS Board of Directors are Jerome Clark, UFO historian and author of the "UFO Encyclopedia"; Michael D. Swords, a retired professor of natural science from Western Michigan University; and Thomas E. Bullard, a folklorist at Indiana University.
In popular culture
The center was mentioned in the The X-Files television series by Fox Mulder in the episode Conduit.
References
- ↑ http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ufo_briefingdocument/orgs.htm
- ↑ Franch John, The Secret Life of J. Allen Hynek. Skeptical Inquirer Volume 37.1, January/February 2013
- ↑ Hynek, J. Allen, The UFO Experience: A scientific enquiry. (1972) ISBN 978-1-56924-782-2
External links
- www.cufos.org — official site