What Does CUFOS Do?

A UFO over Allegheny Summit in 2012

Near Rt. 22

In the last blog, we discussed the activities of MUFON. As we found out MUFON is not the only organization that does research into UFO activities. The Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) is an international group of scientists, academics, investigators, and volunteers dedicated to the continuing examination and analysis of the UFO phenomenon. CUFOS purpose is to promote serious scientific interest in UFOs and to serve as an archive for reports, documents, and publications about the UFO phenomenon.

CUFOS currently engages in several activities. The Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) has three principal activities. First, it maintains a library and archives of UFO-related materials. These materials include books, articles, documents, and sighting reports. Second, the Center publishes reliable information about the UFO subject through its quarterly magazine, the International UFO Reporter (IUR), and its annual scholarly publication, the Journal of UFO Studies. CUFOS also publishes books, such as Encounter at Buff Ledge and Examining the Earthlight Theory, as well as monographs that examine specific cases or other aspects of the UFO phenomenon. Third, the Center supports and conducts investigations into areas of particular interest and concern to contemporary ufology.

Nuclear Physicist Stanton Friedman

Currently, some Center associates are investigating the alleged crash of a UFO near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, while others are developing a psychological profile of individuals who claim to have been abducted by aliens. Of course, the Center for UFO Studies continues to investigate UFO sightings and to collect and evaluate UFO reports from around the world. This sighting information is summarized in a computer database called UFOCAT, available only to serious scholars and researchers.

Flight of UFO over Washington DC, seen by millions of American in 1950

Governments have been concerned about UFO sighting reports since WWII, but historians have never made a concerted attempt to understand their often contradictory responses to the phenomenon. How could something of such potential technological and national security consequence have left no visible trace in the history books? Whether it's a conspiracy or not, the subject has been marginalized to such an extent that it's as if the military never acted with alarm on the heels of a UFO sighting, as if the intelligence community never took up the issue behind closed doors, as if government research and development efforts never attempted to duplicate the phenomenon. But they have.

The Vatican in Rome

So now a collection of veteran UFO historians and researchers have attempted to address this historical oversight with the publication of a new book entitled UFOs and Government, published by Anomalist Books. The authors have spent more than four years researching thousands of government documents and archives in order to present a work of historical scholarship on the U.S. government's bungling response to the UFO phenomenon.

How and why the U.S. government-and other governments around the world-have dealt with the UFO phenomenon during most of a century is the focus of this historical inquiry. The remarkable story explains much that is new, or at least not commonly known, about the seriousness with which the military and intelligence communities approached the UFO problem internally. It also reveals how the subject became treated as if it were a triviality, and why the United States government deemed it wise to treat it so.

Though the book focuses primarily on the U.S. government's response to the UFO phenomenon-revealing how bureaucracies fight amongst themselves, protect themselves, and in the end fail to serve the public-also included is the treatment of the subject by the governments of Sweden, Australia, France, Spain, and other countries. The book's international cast of authors was headed by Michael Swords, a retired professor at Western Michigan University with an extensive knowledge of UFO history, and a board member of CUFOS, and managed by Robert Powell, director of research at the Mutual UFO Network.

CUFOS encourage people to become involved in their activities, including the reporting to CUFOS of local sightings and articles about UFOs, searching for UFO archival material, helping to maintain UFOCAT, the CUFOS computer database of reports, or assisting with specific research projects. Additionally, if you become an Associate of CUFOS, your contribution is tax deductible and helps to support all these projects and others.

To volunteer your assistance or for more information about the Center for UFO Studies that you can't find here or for comments and suggestions about the CUFOS site, http://www.cufos.org/index.html contact CUFO at Infocenter@cufos.org .

http://www.mufonpa.com/wp1/

This link tells you how to order tickets for the up coming conferences.