Thursday, November 11, 2021

Spain/Catalonia : Gaps filled in "Nous Papers d'Ovnis" and "El Ojo Crítico" in online archive

Jordi Ardanuy, from Catalonia, has provided 3 further issues of his "Nous Papers d'Ovnis" (2018, 2019 and 2020). With his permission, I have now added these to the Spanish section of the online archive of UFO/Fortean newsletters and magazines.

Diego Zúñiga has helpfully provided several of the missing issues of the Spanish magazine "El Ojo Crítico". (Manuel Carballal, editor of that magazine, has previously given me permission to upload "El Ojo Crítico").

I anticipate uploading some further titles in Spanish shortly, including more material in Spanish from South America.

 



Thursday, November 4, 2021

Manuals for UFO/anomaly investigators : BUFORA and MARA (UK groups)

From the 1950s onwards, several UFO groups and investigators have sought to produce investigative manuals and guides to help new field investigators. Several more of these manuals are now freely available online.

Tony Eccles of MARA (the Merseyside Anomalies Research Association) has now given me permission to upload a copy of MARA's "Members Handbook and Investigative Guide" (2003). This guide aimed to set out steps that investigators should take "to gather the data required to achieve our goal, and prove the existence of the phenomenon to non-believers..." (including complying with a Code of Practice set out in the handbook). This brief manual extended beyond UFO sightings to ghost sightings / photographs and also conducting experiments into the paranormal.

For ease of reference, I have now also added several of BUFORA's investigative handbooks published in the 1960s and 1970s to the same folder as the MARA handbook and the investigative manuals of some other UFO groups and researchers. (BUFORA has previously kindly given me permission to upload a large collection of the journals and monographs that it had published over the last few decades). This includes a copy of BUFORA's 161 page "UFO Investigation" handbook first published in 1976 and revised in 1979.




The other investigative manuals that I have previously uploaded (to the same folder) include the following:




(1) "UFO Investigators League Field Manual"

This manual was published in 1979. It was written by Timothy Green Beckley and Harold Salkin of the UFO Investigators League. As I have previously mentioned, this particular manual is one of the briefer manual's for UFO investigators, being only 10 pages long. It includes advice on the "challenge, hard work and adventure" ahead of those that have decided to become UFO field investigators. The manual suggests that "You will meet interesting people, go to intriguing places, and perhaps even come up with some new evidence that will help solve the ever-expanding mystery of the skies".







(2) APRO's Field Investigators Handbook

The APRO handbook for UFO investigations, "Recommended Procedures for APRO Field Investigators" was a rather brief (29 page) training manual for new UFO investigators.


(3) "UFO Study" by Jenny Randles, as updated by Robert Moore

The book "UFO Study" was originally written by veteran ufologist Jenny Randles. It was subsequently updated by another British researcher, Robert Moore.  That book aimed to present a concise guide to the many skills and techniques required in UFO investigation.  It also included some attempts to make such investigations more systematic, including attempting to create a flowchart to identify some common candidates for explaining UFO reports.






Wednesday, November 3, 2021

"SOul Searchers" magazine (Australia, 2011-2016) now in archive : ghosts, hauntings, parapsychology, UFOs etc

The first issue of the "SOul Searchers" online magazine, in 2011, stated that it aimed to provide "topical information to keep you up to date on news and the latest developments happening in the Australian Paranormal community" and to contain articles on "the paranormal, parapsychology, ghost tours, mysterious locations, psychics and mediums, etc."

This magazine included some material relating to UFOs (particularly details of the various UFO groups active in Australia and their events/publications) but most of the content related to wider Fortean/paranormal phenomena (e.g. articles on ghosts, hauntings, demons and parapsychology).

Janine Donnellan, the founder of SOul Searchers Investigations and the editor of the "SOul Searchers" magazine, has kindly given me permission to add searchable copies of this magazine to my online archive. 

The "SOul Searchers" paranormal magazine is no longer published, but it continues to have a website. Janine also operates the "Spheres of Light" website. According to that website, "Spheres of Light" is "an eclectic witchcraft organisation whose members include a combination of pagans, wiccans, witches, Luciferians, shamans etc".

Click on the image below for a link to the relevant folder, which is within the section relating to Australian UFO/paranormal magazines and newsletters.







Sunday, October 31, 2021

USA : UFO articles from 5 more mainstream magazines (1950s-1970s) - "Science & Mechanics", "Movieland", "Minutes", "Valor" and "Voice of Faith"

The section of the online archive containing UFO articles from mainstream American magazines has grown again today, thanks mainly to scanning by veteran American ufologist Barry Greenwood. 

The additions include several articles from "Science & Mechanics" (including material on alleged UFO sightings by astronauts), plus material from "Movieland", "Minutes" (including views expressed by J Allen Hynek), "Valor" and "Voice of Faith".

The "Minutes" article containing views by J Allen Hynek includes the following:

"Unfortunately, much of what is printed [about UFOs] contains more fiction than science.  The most deplorable aspect of this sensationalism is that it creates misconceptions about a serious problem. The public is concerned and wants to know what it can believe. Too often it is led astray by garbled or false stories in the news media".




Saturday, October 30, 2021

26 issues of Australia's "Phenomenon Times" (UFO & Paranormal research) now added to online archive

Larraine Cilia is the president of the "UFO and Paranormal Research Society Australia" ["UFO-PRSA"]. Larraine has kindly given me permission today to upload searchable copies of that Society's publication, "The Phenomenon Times". 

I've obtained copies of 19 issues from an archive of that Society's website and Neville Smith has very promptly provided copies of a further 7 issues to me.

I think that this may be a complete set (but will, of course, be happy to add any further issues that emerge).

I've added this newsletter to the relatively large section of the online archive relating to Australian UFO newsletters/magazines (much of which arose from a previous successful collaborative effort between Keith Basterfield and others in Australia, me, and the AFU in Sweden).  I'm attempting to obtain permissions for uploading some further Australian material at the moment, particularly from Robert Frola.






Friday, October 29, 2021

USA and UK: UFO articles from "Time", "American Legion" and "Royal Air Force Flying Review" (1940s-1990s)

I've created a new section for UFO articles from UK mainstream magazines in my online archive and uploaded (thanks to Fran Ridge of the NICAP.org website) a scan of a "RAF Flying Review" article about UFOs from 1957.

If anyone in the UK has already scanned any significant articles on UFOs from UK mainstream magazines (particularly any significant ones from, say, the 1940s-1960s) then please let me know so that I don't waste time reinventing the wheel.  

The USA section relating to mainstream magazine articles also continues to grow, with the addition of about 25 articles from "Time" scanned by the AFU in Sweden and also an early article on foo fighters (the "American Legion" article by Jo Chamberlin).

(Again, these new sections for material from mainstream magazines are separate from the existing large sections in the online archive of UFO newsletters from the USA and UFO newsletters from the UK).





Thursday, October 28, 2021

Another batch of 1950s French UFO articles: "Le Pelerin", "Aviation", "Noir et Blanc", "Semaine du Monde", "Spoutnik"

Another batch of 1950s UFO articles from various mainstream French magazines is now online. I've been able to upload these today due to further work by French researcher Patrice Seray.  

(Patrice Seray and Pierre Lagrange have been having a friendly competition this week to see which of them can add the most to this part of the online archive...).

This further batch includes material from "Le Pelerin" (from about 7 different issues), "Aviation", "Noir et Blanc", "Semaine du Monde", "Spoutnik".

(Again, this new section for articles from mainstream French magazines is separate from the previous - and currently much larger - section for French UFO newsletters).



Wednesday, October 27, 2021

More French UFO articles (1950s-1960s) - "Voila", "Point de Vue", "Radio Cinema", "Meccano", "Sciences et Mecaniques"

The new folder for articles from mainstream French magazines is growing rapidly, with further material from various researchers (particularly French researchers Patrice Seray and Pierre Lagrange). The "Paris Match" folder has grown substantially in the last few hours and I have uploaded new folders for UFO articles from "Voila", "Point de Vue", "Radio Cinema", "Meccano", "Sciences et Mecaniques". 




France: UFO articles from "Science et Vie", "Paris Match" and "Le Scooter" - "For Americans, flying saucers have become an obsession"

Thanks to Patrice Seray and others in France, UFO articles from various mainstream French magazines are now being added to a new section of my online archive.  (A large collection of French UFO magazines and newsletters is already included in a separate section of the online archive. Most of the main French UFO magazines and newsletters are in that section, thanks to the efforts of the AFU, Gilles Durand of SCEAU, Patrice Seray, Pierre Lagrange, Peter El Baze and others in my informal network of UFO groups and researchers scanning and helping to get relevant permissions).

I have now uploaded several articles from "Science et Vie", "Paris Match" and "Le Scooter".

I note in passing that an article in "Paris Match" in 1953 stated "for Americans, flying saucers have become an obsession"...



  

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

USA: "Pic", "Coronet", "New Yorker" (1950s) - More UFO articles from mainstream magazines

Thanks to scanning efforts by various researchers around the globe, the online archive continues to grow rapidly.  The latest uploads of 1950s articles about UFOs from mainstream magazine include articles from "The New Yorker", "Pic" and "Coronet" (thanks to various UFO researchers and groups, particularly Pierre Lagrange in France and Mikhail Gershtein in Russia).  

I'll probably extend this little project beyond the USA today by adding folders for articles from mainstream magazines in other countries, probably starting with the United Kingdom, Canada and France.  (Of course, the online archive that I've been developing already includes large folders of UFO magazines/newsletters from those countries already - but I want to keep individual articles from mainstream publications from each country separate from the collections of UFO/Fortean newsletters).




Sunday, October 24, 2021

90 issues of rare NICAP Reporter and APRG Reporter (Gribble, USA, 1950s-1960s) now added to online archive

It is hard to find many issues of Robert Gribble's "NICAP Reporter" and his "APRG Reporter" UFO newsletters on sale online.  A few issues are being sold at about $300 per issue on AbeBooks.  

(At that sort of price, a complete set would cost over $25,000).

Now, thanks to the generous efforts of veteran American ufologist Barry Greenwood scanning 90 issues, I have been able to make a set available online for my usual price (i.e. nothing...) in the online archive currently hosted by the AFU.

Sadly, as with some of Barry's other recent scans, there are apparent technical flaws with the scans which mean that when I attempt to render the files searchable then various pages appear to become blank.  After spending quite a bit of time trying to remedy these problems, I have resorted to uploading the unsearchable original scans. (Some of you will be aware of my strong preference for searchable copies of material...). I'll see if I, or others in my informal network, can resolve these technical problems and hopefully prevent them arising again with Barry's scans.











Saturday, October 23, 2021

Gap fillers: more UFO articles from USA's "Life", "Saturday Evening Post", "True" + "Male" and 2 more issues of Italy's "UFO Express"

I don't usually post when a gap or two gets filled in a previously announced incomplete upload, or if a better copy of an issue/article is uploaded. 

However, this gradual filling of gaps is a significant part of the international collaborative work done by an informal global network of over 100 UFO groups/researchers in relation to the scanning project so I occasionally post examples of such work. 

I thought I'd just post today a few examples of gaps filled in the last 72 hours to thank those involved and to highlight the global nature of the scanning project.  

(1) American archivist Rod Dyke has supplied 2 of the missing 100 or so issues of the Italian UFO periodical "UFO Express" - issues 099 and 127. (The previously uploaded issues were all from the AFU in Sweden).

(2) Another American, Barry Greenwood, has supplied complete copies of the 2 articles from "True" that I had previously highlighted as being incomplete.

(3) Russian researcher Mikhail Gershtein has provided a better copy of the May 1952 "Popular Science" article.  I also located another 9 or so articles from "Male" (mainly by John Keel) that had been supplied by Mikhail Gershtein in Russia - they are also now online.

(4) French researcher Pierre Lagrange has provided more issues of, and some better copies of, articles from various mainstream American magazines - including "Life" and the "Saturday Evening Post". 

(I've also received material today from various other countries and will be uploading it this weekend).





13 issues of "The Researcher" (UK, 1990s-2000s) - UFOs, Flying Triangles, anomalies, mind control - MARA/Tony Eccles

Yesterday, Tony Eccles (a British UFO researcher) kindly donated copies of "The Researcher" publication (of which he was the primary editor) to the AFU. Today, searchable copies of "The Researcher" are freely available online - with his permission.

Tony edited most issues of "The Researcher", with the final few issues being edited by the late Mark Rosney.  

"The Researcher" was associated with "MARA", which was the "Merseyside Anomalies Research Association".  It focused mainly on UFOs, with articles featuring various UFO incidents (especially from the United Kingdom, including Rendlesham and the "Knutsford Flying Triangle") plus some articles on various other "anomalies", including Alien Big Cats, Remote Viewing and parapsychology.  It also included some articles on mind control and Jack the Ripper.

Tony has commented that "The Researcher" was "supposed to be a research mag but it became a mix of scepticism and belief. MARA started off as NARO members but who had a Liverpool base in common". He recalled that "One of the issues is concerned with Chinese lanterns which had only just became popular, so we had been puzzled by these lights for some time".




Friday, October 22, 2021

USA: UFO articles from "Popular Science" (1950s onwards) : Area 51, Rendlesham, and skeptical theories (including by Donald Menzel)

"Popular Science" magazine has published a number of UFO articles from the 1950s onwards.  

These have included material on Area 51, SETI and the Rendlesham Forest incident, plus material on skeptical theories regarding UFOs (including by Donald Menzel regarding mirages).

Thanks to the AFU in Sweden and Mikhail Gershtein in Russia, scans of these articles are now available.

I'm not sure whether to include the most recent material (although it seems common to see copies of news articles posted on UFO websites, Facebook etc so perhaps I'm worrying over nothing...).

Click on the image below for a link to the relevant folder I've created on the AFU's website.





Thursday, October 21, 2021

USA: UFO articles from "Mechanix Illustrated" and "Tempo" (1950s-1960s)

With thanks to Mikhail Gershtein in Russia for the scans of these early (1950s-1960s) American magazine articles, I have now uploaded articles from "Mechanix Illustrated" (including articles by Willy Ley and Otto Binder) and "Tempo" (including an article featuring the photographs below of members of the Flying Saucer Service Center (London, UK, 1956) with spotter using "special Geiger counter" and other Sighting Club members checking out "latest discoveries against drawings on group's saucer identification chart".

Lots more articles will follow soon. Many American UFO articles have been scanned by researchers in Russia, Sweden, France and Australia.  Heck, even a few Americans have scanned a few American articles. :) 









Wednesday, October 20, 2021

USA 1940-1960s: UFO articles from "Saturday Evening Post", "Saturday Review", "Challenge for Men", "For Men Only", "Male", "Man to Man" + "Modern Man"

After a few small test uploads in recent days (relating to "True", "Life" and "Look"), I have reorganised the new folder I created for UFO articles from non-UFO publications and resolved a few other issues.

I've now uploaded scans (mainly from Russian researcher Mikhail Gershtein) of a couple of publications which also gained considerable attention in the USA in the 1940s-1960s : "Saturday Evening Post" (including an article by J Allen Hynek) and "Saturday Review" (including material by, and about, UFO researcher John Fuller).

Also, as further evidence in support of a previous comment that I made regarding the publication of UFO articles in many magazines in the 1940s-1960s that were explicitly aimed at men and contained sexist material and tag-lines, I've also now uploaded UFO articles from "Challenge for Men", "For Men Only", "Male", "Man to Man" and "Modern Man". [NOTE: the covers of some of these publications included photographs of scantily clad women. I have not included those ones in the sample covers below]. 


 

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

USA: UFO articles from "True" magazine (1950s-1960s) - Ruppelt, Keyhoe and others

"True" magazine published some of the most influential articles about UFOs during the 1950s and 1960s, including articles by Donald Keyhoe and Edward Ruppelt (particularly in the January 1950 and May 1954 issues respectively).  

The same magazine also published a significant skeptical article: J P Cahn's article "Flying Saucer Swindles" in the August 1956 issue which focused on the Silas Newton hoax.

This magazine was another of the magazines featuring UFOs in that period that was explicitly aimed at men. The title of the magazine was "TRUE : The Man's Magazine".  I'll refrain from posting here some examples of the sexist cartoons in that publication, including one of a father telling a boy "You must remember your mother is a wonderful woman - for a woman" (in the January 1950 issue that featured Keyhoe's influential UFO article). Not exactly politically correct, nor hilarious.

Thanks to Russian researcher Mikhail Gershtein and French researcher Pierre Lagrange for most of the scans of this American publication. 

I've also included some material from Jan Aldrich's "Project 1947" website in relation to two articles (marked INCOMPLETE) pending full scans being obtained.  (Jan has kindly given me permission to include some relevant material from his website in the archive, but I need to speak with Jan about the extent of that permission since I have a few ideas...).

(The publishers of True also published several issues of a publication devoted solely to UFOs, the True Report on Flying Saucers.  I'll deal with them separately).

Click on the image below for a link to the folder containing relevant articles.






Germany's "Magazin fur Grenzwissenschaften" (1990s) [ Magazine for Frontier Sciences] now online

In 2018, I requested permission from Walter Kelch to upload his "Magazin fur Grenzwissenschaften" [Magazine for Frontier Sciences].  He published that magazine in Germany in the 1990s.

In one interview Kelch stated that this magazine "dealt with the fringes of science".

A few days ago, Hans-Werner Peiniger let me know that he now had permission from Walter Kelch for me to upload scans of this magazine.

So, thanks again to scanning by the AFU in Sweden, most issues of "Magazin fur Grenzwissenschaften" have now been scanned. I have added these scans to the folder for German magazines that I previously created on the AFU website (with considerable help from various researchers in Germany, particularly Danny Ammon).

I hope that some German colleagues can help fill in the few gaps. Hans-Werner Peiniger has already offered to scan copies and make them available to me, so I'm confident the gaps will be filled soon.




Monday, October 18, 2021

"UFO Update" newsletter (Canada, 1970s) now online

"UFO Update" was published by Tom Grey of the Northeastern UFO Organization (Canada) in the 1970s.

Most the content of comprised UFO clippings from newspapers. 

All issues of "UFO Update" contain a statement that material can be used by other UFO publications, provided UFO Update is mentioned. I thought that probably amounted to giving permission for me to upload scans of this one. But one issue also states on the cover "Direct reproduction prohibited". 

In an attempt to confirm the position, I did try to track down Tom Grey recently. That effort involved Chris Rutkowski, Yan Vadnais and some others in Canada.  Drew Williamson helpfully made enquiries with Bonnie Wheeler (the former editor of another Canadian UFO newsletter, CUFORG - which I uploaded with her permission a couple of years ago). She confirmed that Tom Grey passed away about 2 years ago.  

So, in light of the permission to use material from "UFO Update" and the inability to clarify matters further, I have uploaded these newsletters to the Canada folder I created in the online archive on the AFU's website.

These issues have kindly been scanned by Matthew Riot.


  


UFO articles from "Life" magazine (1947-1960s)

"Life" magazine published several articles about UFOs that gained considerable attention. The cover of the issue dated 7 April 1952 featured Marilyn Monroe on the cover and also a statement that "There is a case for Interplanetary Saucers". That article contained an article by H B Darrach and Robert Ginna entitled "Have We Visitors From Space?" which highlighted the fact that "The Air Force is now ready to concede that many saucer and fireball sightings still defy explanation".

A subsequent issues (dated 9 June 1952) contained a follow-up article by Robert Ginna which reported that the original article "provoked a tremendous barrage of letters".  That article commented that many readers "expect a landing momentarily". It noted that some still argued that the saucers were "super-secret US weapons" but that the original article had "dismissed this argument on the ground that the government would hardly allow one branch of the service to spend vast sums of money on a saucer investigation which would have the primary effect of fooling another government branch even more completely than the enemy". 

I have created a folder for UFO articles from Life magazine.

Click on the image below for a link to that folder. 



Sunday, October 17, 2021

UFO articles from "Sir!" magazine, "A Magazine For Males" (1950s, USA)

Hopefully sexism has reduced in publications relating to UFOs since the 1950-1960s.  Back then, it was fairly common for UFO articles to be published in magazines such as "Sir!", which had the tagline "A Magazine For Males".  

I've been surprised how many of the UFO articles I've seen from magazines in the 1950s-1960s time period were aimed explicitly at men and had titles such as "Male", "Man to Man" and "For Men Only". A considerable number also appeared in magazines such as Playboy.  

I'm not sure what this says (if anything) about the sociology/demographics of the UFO readership at that time - or today.

Personally, I find some of the sociological issues relating to UFOs, and ufologists, to be pretty interesting and would like to see more material by academics looking into these issues .  I wrote an item back in 2014 on the PhD dissertations I'd found relating to ufology [see "Dr Who?? : UFO PhD dissertations - free online"- most of which had a sociological or psychological focus.  I may revisit that project now that I have more material and connections. 

Some of the pre-1964 material is, I think, now in the public domain under relevant copyright rules in the USA, but I'm slightly hesitant to post that material due to the nature of the covers of the relevant magazines.  (As some of you may have noticed, I tend to use covers of the publications when sharing material, to indicate at a glance the content of my post to those scrolling down a page).

For now, I've just uploaded a sample from a single publication - "Sir!" - with thanks to Mikhail Gershtein for these scans.

Click on the image below for a link to the relevant folder.




Saturday, October 16, 2021

Chile's "NOUFA" - first 75 issues; Italy's "UFO Express" upload started

Chile section : "NOUFA" added

Raúl Núñez Gálvez has kindly me permission to upload copies of his "NOUFA" newsletter [the "Noticiero Ufologico Autonomo"], with thanks to Pablo Petrowitsch and Diego Zuniga for their help and advice in relation to material from Chile.

The Dogma Cero blog has commented that this Chilean UFO newsletter has been produced with "dedication and diligence" by Raul. 

I have added the first issues 75 of NOUFA so far.

(I think there may be a few more recent ones. I have found references on Raul's blog to issues up to 83, so will try to get issues 76 onwards very soon and add them).



Italy section : "UFO Express" added

Daniela Giorfano has kindly me to upload searchable scans of her "UFO Express" newsletter.]

Daniela (a former Miss Italy) published this newsletter in the 1980s-1990s. It largely comprised newspaper cuttings about UFOs from Italian newspapers and also American newspaper cuttings with Italian translations.

Daniela has also written a book which has been published in English, "The Dream Visitor" - available on Amazon. The book was also published last year in Italian with the title "Tre Vite in Una". A summary on Amazon includes the following: "I have seen children move things with their minds. I have seen the unexplained flying in the night sky. And most importantly, I have been visited by someone-something-I cannot ignore and given by him/it a message I must convey".

Unfortunately, the obvious candidates in my informal network (including the AFU in Sweden, Barry Greenwood in the USA, and Edoardo Russo in Italy) only had a handful of issues of this publication. So, at present I have only been able to upload about 7 issues out of the first 125 issues (with thanks to the AFU for 6 scans and Barry Greenwood for 1 scan).  

I'm fairly optimistic that starting the uploading of this publication (with Daniela's kind permission) is likely to prompt others in Italy to come forward with some further scans, which I will of course upload to the folder containing the existing scans.


 




Friday, October 15, 2021

"Look" magazine special issue on "Flying Saucers" (1967) - and some other "Look" UFO articles

A special issue of "Look" magazine entitled "Flying Saucers" was published in 1967.  

That special issue included one of the few instances of material relating to Roswell published between 1947 and the late 1970s, in addition to material about Kenneth Arnold, the Mantell incident and Dr Hynek. It included numerous photographs including "rare color photographs" of various "UFOs".

About 5 years ago, I had some contact with a Reddit user ("OK200") who had helpfully scanned that special issue. 

At that time, I was reluctant to post a searchable PDF version for copyright reasons. However, looking into this more recently, I think that the publishers surrendered their copyright in at least the images in this magazine (and possibly the text) to the US Government and a lot of the photos/material from Look is now on Government websites. Also, OK200's scans of this publication have been online for the last 5 years without any apparent problem. So, I have now uploaded a PDF version of this publication. 

I have also uploaded scans of several UFO articles from other issues of Look magazine, from between 1952 and 1968. Some of those are incomplete.

Click on the image below for a link to the relevant folder.




Thursday, October 14, 2021

Gaps filled in several rare USA and UK UFO newsletters (with thanks to Barry Greenwood) - "Interplanetary News Service", Searchlight, WYUFORG News,

Barry Greenwood, the veteran American UFO researcher, has kindly helped fill in the gaps in several rare UFO newsletters from the UK and the USA.


USA section - "Searchlight" (Tim Beckley, 1960s)

Barry has provided: 

Volume 1 Number 1, 

Volume 3 Number 9, 

Volume 3 Number 12.

(31 other issues were previously uploaded, with permission from its editor - Tim Beckley).


USA section - "Interplanetary News Service" (Tim Beckley, 1960s)

Barry has provided Interplanetary News Service Supplement No 1.

(11 other issues were previously uploaded, with permission from its editor - Tim Beckley).


UK section - WYUFORG News  (West Yorkshire, UK, 1980s)

Barry has provided issues 1, 2 and 3 of this publication.

(Issues 4, 5 and 6 were previously uploaded - with permission from its publishers, Paul Bennett and Martin Dagless).




Tuesday, October 12, 2021

More UFO magazines from Italy, Chile and Russia ("Clypeus", "DIOVNI", and "Priroda i Anomalnye Yavleniya")

I have now uploaded more UFO magazines from ItalyChile and Russia (including "Clypeus", "DIOVNI", and "Priroda i Anomalnye Yavleniya") to various sections I had previously created on the AFU's website.



Italy section:

I have added scans of 79 issues of "Clypeus" and associated supplements to the Italy section.  "Clypeus" was edited by Italian UFO pioneer Giovanni ("Gianni") Settimo [1929-2017] for over 50 years. According to one of his friends and fellow Italian researchers, Edoardo Russo, Gianni Settimo "was strongly opposed to contactees and cultists, in years when most Italian UFO buffs were accepting them". 

 A small association called "Amici di Clypeus" (Clypeus Friends) was created and Gianni Settimo sold the journal name and rights to it (for a nominal fee of € 1). Edoardo Russo is the secretary of that group, which includes some Italian contacts (Gian Paolo Grassino, Paolo Toselli) and some of Clypeus long-time collaborators (Roberto D'Amico, Mario Cerrato, Luciano Bruno). I was informed by Edoardo Russo earlier today that the members of that group kindly unanimous voted to grant me permission to upload any and all Clypeus issues to the AFU's website. 

I hope that the 79 issues uploaded today (helpfully scanned by the AFU in Sweden) will be added to soon.


Chile section:
I have added "DIOVNI" magazine has been added to the Chile section. 

Overlapping scans of this publication were provided to me by Spanish researcher Luis R. González (author of a new book on aliens/UFOs on stamps, "An Alien in my Mailbox") and veteran Chilean researcher, Pablo Petrowitsch.  Pablo Petrowitsch helpfully let me know that the editors of "DIOVNI" magazine allowed reproduction of that magazine free of charge, which I think gives me sufficient permission to upload it.


Russia section

29 issues of "Priroda i Anomalnye Yavleniya" (AIAUFO) [Nature and anomalous phenomena] has been added to the Russia section, with thanks once to Ukrainian researcher Igor Kalytyuk for providing scans and letting me know that I am free to upload this publication.  



Although my main focus is now on progressing some other UFO projects, I'm continuing to upload some searchable PDFs. I hope to be able to upload another 100,000 or so pages of searchable PDFs to the online archive during the next few days, if permissions are received.  






"UFO Intelligence Newsletter" (USA, 1990s - Fran Ridge of Nicap.org, including MADAR UFO detection system) now online

Fran Ridge (of the excellent Nicap.org website) has kindly given me permission to upload scans of his "UFO Intelligence" newsletter. Fran published this newsletters in the USA in the 1990s.

This newsletters included material on Fran's "MADAR" UFO detection system. He described his "Multiple Anomaly Detection And Recording" system as a "magnet variometer detection unit with a light beam scanning method" built in 1970 and "equipped with a mechanical chart recorder and an alarm system, as well as a stop-clock". He stated that the "main purpose was to provide 'early warning' of a UFO presence within the system's umbrella" which was approximately a 5-mile radius.

The AFU in Sweden has scanned 12 issues.  Barry Greenwood in the USA has a few additional issues, so I'll ask him if he can scan those.

This is the latest addition to the USA folder I've created on the AFU's website.







Monday, October 11, 2021

RealityUncovered forum searchable PDFs - 43,000+ pages (UFO disinformation, the Aviary, SERPO, UFO skepticism and hoaxes)

The "Reality Uncovered" forum (founded by Ryan Dube and Stephen Broadbent) was one of the primary places for critical analysis of the Project SERPO saga and for delving into issues regarding UFO disinformation, the Aviary, and various UFO hoaxes.  There were numerous relatively detailed discussions relating to Rick Doty, Ron Pandolfi and others.  


With the kind blessing of one of the former owners of the "Reality Uncovered" forum, Ryan Dube, I've been attempting to create and share a searchable PDF archive of posts to that forum.

While the results are far from perfect (and involve considerable duplication for various technical reasons that do not seem worth resolving), I've uploaded 43,904 pages of searchable PDFs of posts to the "Reality Uncovered" forum (in about 3,000 separate files).

No one responded positively when I asked on Facebook and elsewhere if anyone had an archive of posts to that forum. That would have made life easier. :) In the apparent absence of anything better, I've downloaded an incomplete set of pages from the Wayback Machine's Internet Archive. Many pages of that forum (which used to be at realityuncovered.net) are preserved in the Wayback Machine archive, but sadly that archive is not easily searched. Thus, I thought it worth making pages of posts to that UFO forum available in one or two easily searched formats (including as PDF files, as I did with a Rendlesham UFO forum a few years ago). 

After installing Ruby (a first for me...), I used the free "Wayback Machine Downloader" available on Github to download over 7,000 archived files from the realityuncovered.net website (most of those files being html files for individual pages of posts to that UFO forum).

I've had some help from a Facebook contact, who prefers not to be named, and spending quite a bit of time (okay, a _wholly_ unreasonable amount of time...) learning about the use of Regular Expressions to find and replace links. Even after that work, only about 50% of the internal links work, but at least searching the collection of PDFs is possible.

To make the archive as complete as possible, I have not sought to eliminate all duplication (since the only ways that I could devise to eliminate duplication resulted in a loss of some content.  

Anyway, on a more positive note, this searchable PDF archive has resulted in my being able to find most of the things I wanted to find so I thought other UFO researchers might also benefit from it.

I've uploaded the PDFs to the AFU's website.













For anyone interested in the technical details of the steps that I took to get at least some of the internal links working, after downloading the material from the Wayback Machine using the software I mentioned above:


In Bulk Rename Utlity
Replaced .php with _php
Added file extension .html


In Notepad++, under the Search menu select Find then “Regular Expression” and tick “matches newline” and then:
Replaced .*<a name="start_here"></a> with <a name="start_here"></a>
Replaced <script([^/script]*) with nothing


In Notepad++, under the Search menu select Fine then “Normal”, and then:
Replaced .php with _php
Replaced ?f= with %253ff%253d
Replaced start= with start%253d
Replaced t= with t%253d
Replaced sid= with sid%253d
Replaced &amp; with %2526
Replaced ?avatar= with %253favatar%253d

In Notepad++, under the Search menu select Find then “Regular Expression” and tick “matches newline” and then:
Replaced _php([^"]*) with _php\1.html
Replaced .jpg.html with .jpg
Replaced .gif.html with .gif
Replaced viewtopic_php([^\.]*).html with viewtopic_php\1.pdf"

(I'm pretty sure there will be more efficient and effective ways of getting more of the internal links to work, but I don't know them...).




Sunday, October 10, 2021

5 more sets of Russian UFO magazines now online : "Neyadomoye", "Kontakter", "Ekspres UFO", "Pyatoye Izmereniye", "Mir Nepoznannogo"

With thanks again particularly to Ukrainian researcher Igor Kalytyuk, 5 more sets of Russian UFO magazines are now online. The relevant collections of magazines are:

(1) "Ekspres UFO" [Express UFO]

(2) "Kontakter" [Contactee 47]

(3) "Mir Nepoznannogo" [World of the Unknown, AIAUFO]

(4) "Neyadomoye" [Unknown]

(5) "Pyatoye Izmereniye" [The Fifth Dimension, Ufologists Club Penza]

Igor Kalytyuk kindly provided the scans of these publications and has been working to liaise with others in Eastern Europe to obtain relevant permissions/material. Igor Kalytyuk has let me know that it is okay for me to upload these scans.

(A growing number of others in Russia and Eastern Europe have been joining my informal network and providing UFO material, more of which will hopefully be online soon).

The rapidly growing folder that I created on the AFU's website for Russian UFO magazines is at the link below. I may add a separate folder soon for Russian UFO documents, but for various reasons such documents are not always easy to deal with.



Saturday, October 9, 2021

Russia's "UFO Tayny Neopoznannogo" magazine now online

Russia's "UFO Tayny Neopoznannogo" magazine [UFO mystery unidentified] is now online.

Ukrainian researcher Igor Kalytyuk has kindly provided me with scans of issues 1 to 6 of "UFO Tayny Neopoznannogo".  

Advice and help obtaining permissions/information from UFO groups/researchers in Eastern Europe has also been provided by Igor Kalytyuk (and by some other Russian/Ukrainian contacts, including George Fedorovskiy in Moscow and Mikhail Gershtein in St Petersburg).  Igor Kalytyuk has let me know that it is okay for me to upload these scans. 

For some of the previous uploads that I've helped arrange from Russia and Eastern Europe with help from Igor and other contacts, see some of my previous posts - e.g. at:





More from Russia and Eastern Europe (and the USA, Canada and Australia) will follow shortly - once permission issues are resolved.

Click on the image below for a link to the relevant folder on the website of the AFU.




Thursday, September 30, 2021

"UFO Investigators League Field Manual" (1979) now online

The "UFO Investigators League Field Manual" (1979, by Timothy Green Beckley and Harold Salkin of the UFO Investigators League) is now online. 

The UFO Investigators League was founded by Timothy Green Beckley in the early 1970s.  Tim sadly passed away in May 2021.  A few years ago, Tim kindly gave me permission to upload his out-of-print UFO publications and I have previously uploaded various newsletters he published, including "Inner Light", "Interplanetary New Service", "Searchlight", "UFO Review" and "UFO Sightings".    

This field manual is the latest in a series of publications I have helped get online intended for the training of new UFO investigators (e.g. APRO's Field Investigators Handbook and Robert Moore's "The Ufology Handbook"). This particular manual is one of the briefer manual's for UFO investigators, being only 10 pages long.  It includes advice on the "challenge, hard work and adventure" ahead of those that have decided to become UFO field investigators. The manual suggests that "You will meet interesting people, go to intriguing places, and perhaps even come up with some new evidence that will help solve the ever-expanding mystery of the skies". 

My thanks to Matthew Riot for scanning this item extremely promptly. 




Tuesday, September 28, 2021

"Journal of Vampirology" (USA, 1980s, John Vellutini) now online

John Vellutini has kindly given permission for me to upload searchable scans of his "Journal of Vampirology", with thanks to Anthony Hogg for having provided information that helped me contact John Vellutini.

The "Journal of Vampirology" was intended to address "the broad spectrum of fact, opinion and controversy concerning the phenomenon of vampirism, both in its traditional and contemporary manifestations".

Scans of 10 issues (out of 19 that were published) have been produced so far by the AFU in Sweden.  

I hope to upload further issues shortly (and, of course, would welcome hearing from anyone that has already scanned any of those further issues...).

As some of you know, my personal interest is primarily in UFO publications/material but I don't mind doing a bit of work to help get other Fortean material online.  (The AFU has a collection of material that extends beyond UFOs and has been willing to scan and host material on, for example, crop circles, cryptozoology, folklore, "Earth Mysteries" and other topics - where I have been able to obtain permissions from relevant editors/groups).  

There is frequently a degree of overlap in wider Fortean material with issues relating to UFO reports/discussions. Sometimes that overlap pops up unexpectedly. 

For example, I did not expect the Journal of Vampirology to include any UFO material, but (as John Vellutini helpfully pointed out to me) Volume 2 Number 1 discusses the possibility that vampirism has an extraterrestrial origin, whereas the last page of vol. 1, no. 4 implies that the viscera sucker of SE Asia may have a similar origin.




Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Rare USA, 1960s "Controversial Phenomena Bulletin" and "Probe" UFO magazines (Joseph Ferriere) now online

Joseph Ferriere, an American UFO researcher, edited the "Controversial Phenomena Bulletin" and its continuation under the title "Probe" in the 1960s. 

A friend of Joseph Ferriere, Paul Eno, has commented that Joseph L. Ferriere (1939-2012) "was a respected broadcaster, UFO researcher, writer, publisher and a true gentleman".

In addition to various interesting articles, these magazines included a considerable number of photographs of UFO researchers and witnesses from that era (including material from August C Roberts).

Matthew Riot has commented that "Controversial Phenomena Bulletin" has "some some awesome old art".

I have been trying to contact members of Joseph Ferriere's family for the last two or three years with permission requests to make this material available online. Yesterday, his grand-daughter kindly let me know that I can go ahead.

Matthew Riot has helpfully scanned 5 issues of "Controversial Phenomena Bulletin". That publication is rather rare (with the AFU's huge archive in Sweden only having 2 issues, which it has also kindly scanned). The AFU has also scanned 8 issues of Joseph Ferriere's subsequent "Probe" magazine.  







Saturday, September 18, 2021

More French PDFs - SERPAN newsletters and reports

La SERPAN (the "Societe d'Enquete et de Recherche sur les Phenomenes Aerospatiaux Non-identifies") published a newsletter and several reports in the early 1990s, including a report on the Trans-En-Provence case. 

Patrice Seray, the French UFO researcher, not only provided me with scans of those newsletters and reports but also obtained permission from Eric Maillot and Gilles Musch for me to make the scans available online.

I have now added this material to the France folder on the AFU's website.





"MUFON Medical Committee Newsletter" online

John Schuessler (former International Director of MUFON, probably best known for his work on the Cash-Landrum incident) has kindly given me permission to make the "MUFON Medical Committee Newsletter" freely available online.

This adds to the material that I've helped make available online, or hope to make available in the future, by various UFO researchers in relation to alleged biological effects associated with UFO sightings. That material has included, for example, the NICAP "Special Report" on "Strange Effects from UFOs" which I have previously uploaded with permission of Gordon Lore, thanks to a scan by Barry Greenwood. That contained an early catalogue of UFO cases with alleged physiological effects. Obviously, some of the more recent work by Kit Green, John Schuessler, Richard C Niemtzow and others that I've been looking into during the last few years is more extensive, but I like tracing the history of a research topic.

I'm not sure how many issues existed of the MUFON Medical Committee newsletter. I've only obtained (or seen references to) a single issue.

A scan of that issue has helpfully been provided to me by Matthew Riot. Click on the image below for a link to the relevant folder.

John Schuessler has previously kindly given me permission to upload his "UFO Potpourri" and "Potpourri News" newsletters. I uploaded over 140 issues of those publications in 2016, with thanks to the AFU in Sweden for scanning those publications.

(I may try again to get some further permissions for more MUFON publications soon. Since getting permission from MUFON HQ a couple of years ago to upload MUFON state/specialist newsletters where the relevant entity gives permission, I've helped get online the newsletters of MUFON Arizona, MUFON Colorado, MUFON Georgia, MUFON Massachusetts, MUFON Michigan, MUFON Minnesota, MUFON Missouri, MUFON New Hampshire, MUFON New Jersey, MUFON New Mexico, MUFON New York City, MUFON Ohio, MUFON Pennsylvania, and MUFON Tennessee).





Gaps filled in several rare French UFO newsletters - "Echo du CERPA" and "Vimana"

Patrice Seray, the French UFO researcher, has kindly provided further scans from France, which I have added to the French section I created on the AFU's website.

"Vimana" gaps : Guy Tarade kindly gave me permission to upload his "Vimana" magazine in 2018 (thanks to Edoardo Russo and Bruno Mancusi for their help liaising with Guy). A total of 7 issues were provided at that time by Patrice Seray, Pierre Lagrange and the AFU, which I uploaded in 2018. Patrice Seray has now obtained and scanned a further 5 issues.

"Echo du Cerpa" gaps : I received permission from Bernard Hugues of CERPA Marseille to upload "Echo du Cerpa" in 2018 (along with Univers Ovni and AMA). Gilles Durand of SCEAU kindly provided one issue of "Echo du Cerpa" at that time (which I uploaded in 2018). Patrice Seray has now provided a further issue (Issue No 1).

More French newsletters will follow soon (and, of course, more from other countries...). I also hope to finish a big UFO database project soon that has a large French element.
  



Saturday, July 31, 2021

Civil exchanges between skeptics and ufologists - Rendlesham-incident.co.uk forum (2006-2011) - PDF archive online

The Rendlesham-incident .co.uk forum operated between about 2006 and 2011. It was one of a limited number of forums on which skeptics and pro-ETH ufologists had (generally...) civil exchanges. It focused on the Rendlesham UFO incident(s).

The individuals that posted on that forum included various prominent Rendlesham researchers and witnesses. For example, John Burroughs posted on there in August 2011 that "this was a good forum to be on I enjoyed the exchanges".

Unusually, that forum also attracted some prominent skeptics. (Most UFO forums and groups are echo chambers, with only similar views being tolerated by many members...). For example, Ian Ridpath, posted in August 2011 that he had "a lot of fun", "learned a few things" on that forum and that "Although things got tetchy at times they never descended to the levels I see currently on the Justice for the 81st site, which now seems to be populated by the deluded, the dishonest and the plain demented".

That forum went offline in 2011. Thousands of posts about Rendlesham were (temporarily) lost. It appears that the binary code episode resulted in a substantial loss of serious interest in the Rendlesham incident. When I contacted one of the moderators of that forum in 2012 with a request for permission to upload an archive of that forum, he advised me not to waste time on the Rendlesham incident.

About a year after the forum went offline, one of the old members of the Rendlesham-incident.co.uk forum, “Daniel”, kindly took the time to provide me with a copy of the archives of the posts to that forum. I found the archive very useful and converted most of its contents to PDF format to make it easier to access and search (as I have done with the archives of various other UFO email discussion Lists, including UFO Updates).

The administrator's final posts on his forum (in a thread entitled "'Goodbye' - the forum's fate "Important"), indicated that he was keen for members to download a copy of the posts on the forum and try to keep the forum online.  

I thought many other people interested in the Rendlesham Forest Incident could find it useful to have a copy of the archive so shared it online in May 2012 as a PDF archive and a HTML archive via a free file sharing website. (I used a free site back then, mainly to demonstrate that the protestations by some UFO groups that they couldn't share UFO material online without more funding or technical assistance were - well - bollocks).  

Laurent Chabin subsequently let me know that he had helpfully uploaded the html archive to the ufowaves.org website (at which each page can be easily viewed online without downloading the entire archive).

For those (like me) that like to have a searchable offline PDF archive of material, the PDF archive can now be found by clicking on the image below.