It is my fond hope that making UFO source materials (and other Fortean material) freely available online as searchable PDFs - after obtaining relevant permissions - may help improve the quality of modern online discussions of these issues...
Back in
2007, I posted about the considerable gap between the material available offline and the material available online (and the consequential impact upon the efficiency and effectiveness of UFO research at that time). I have been seeking to reduce that gap.
I am a barrister in England afflicted with an interest in issues relating to "UFOs" and Forteana. I have assisted with making about 300 sets of UFO/Fortean periodicals/newsletters freely available online, plus official documentation and other material. I have previously helped make available online in a searchable PDF format official UFO documents from the FBI, from Canada (with the permission of the Canadian government), Australia (with the permission of the Australian government), Britain and New Zealand. I have also helped make freely available online in a searchable PDF format quite a few out-of-print UFO publications after getting relevant permissions (such as the newsletters of prominent UFO skeptic Phil Klass, the UFO Newsclipping Service periodicals of Rod Dyke and Lou Farish, Germany's CENAP Report, France's LDLN, Spain's Stendek - plus many, many more.
I have helped build up an online archive in conjunction with the Archives for UFO Research (AFU) in Sweden and over 100 other UFO groups/researchers involved in the UFO digitising work I have been helping to coordinate, particularly in relation to material from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada (but more recently also the main UFO publications from Spain, Germany and France) - e.g.:
https://files.afu.se/Downloads/?dir=./
I will refrain from listing all of the 100+ UFO researchers/groups that have assisted in this project in addition to the AFU in Sweden, but it is notable that having a local guide to each national scene has been an extremely important part of making this project as effective and efficient as possible. In particular, such individuals have helped identify priorities and obtain permissions (in addition, in many cases, to also providing some scans). Individuals that have helped me obtain permissions in different countries include, for example, Barry Greenwood and John Reed in relation to the USA (with input from many others, including Jan Aldrich of Project 1947), Dr Danny Ammon in relation to
German publications, Bruno Mancusi in relation to
Swiss publications, Edoardo Russo in relation to
Italian material, Luis R Gonzalez and V-J Ballester-Olmos in
Spain, Keith Basterfield and Paul Dean in
Australia, Chris in
Canada, Steve Coop and others (including Jenny Randles, David Clarke) here in
the United Kingdom, In
France, Gilles Durand of SCEAU, Patrice Seray, Peter EL Baze, Pierre Lagrange and some other researchers seemed to have a vigorous competition to see who could provide the most scans for me to freely share with the UFO community (with Jacques Scornaux of SCEAU also providing significant help in relation to obtaining relevant permissions). My apologies to the many more people that have helped that I have not named. I am just seeking to make the point that this has been a team effort. The AFU has made the largest single contribution of scans, amounting to an impressive amount of -say- about 20% of all the material I uploaded in 2020.
Scanning officials documents and (particularly) UFO newsletters/magazines has been at the heart of this project, but I have also been involved in uploading
over 2 million pages of automated searchable transcripts of UFO podcasts (after obtaining relevant permissions) and documentaries - as reported, for example,
by Vice.
My personal interest is mainly focused on UFOs, but having worked with other researchers/groups that have wider/different Fortean interests I have gradually been extending my areas of interest...
Over the years, I have been increasingly successful in getting permission to upload defunct UFO magazines and other material. In particular, my odds of getting positive responses went from about 60% to above 90% when I drafted a statement in relation to scanning UFO material and started using that statement, and a list of endorsements, in my permission request emails. As a result, it has been possible (with quite a bit of work by a lot of people...) to get most of the main UFO periodicals from France (e.g. LDLN), Germany (e.g. CENAP Report) and Spain/Catalonia (e.g. Stendek) shared online as searchable PDFs - in addition to lots more from the UK, USA and Australia.
Due to the success of that scanning statement and its endorsements, I shared online a similar statement that may help me (and others) obtain expert input statements on UFO issues. I will quote it below and list the relevant endorsements of it:
That expert input statement (set out below) has been endorsed by Dr Kit Green (formerly of the CIA), Dr Hal Puthoff (of TTSA), Dr Eric Davis, Dr Bruce Maccabee (formerly of the US Navy), Dr Danny Ammon (of Germany's GEP), Rev Dr Ray Boeche, Dr Irena Scott, Dr Chris Cogswell, Jim Semivan (formerly of the CIA), Jenny Randles, Colonel Charles Halt (formerly of the US Air Force), Lieutenant Colonel Kevin D Randle (formerly of the US Army), Nick Pope (formerly of the UK Ministry of Defence), Dr David Clarke, Dr Chris French, Dr Gilles Fernandez, James Oberg (formerly of NASA), Robert Sheaffer, Tim Printy, Lance Moody, Curt Collins, Wendy M. Grossman (founder of "The Skeptic"), Jan Aldrich, Barry Greenwood, Edoardo Russo (of Italy's CISU), Frank Warren, Chris Rutkowski, Christopher O'Brien, Richard Doty (formerly of the US Air Force OSI), Dr Mark Rodeghier (of CUFOS), John Schuessler (of MUFON), Tony Eccles (of BUFORA), Mark Allin (co-owner of the AboveTopSecret website), Rick Hilberg, Paul Dean, Keith Basterfield, Jacques Scornaux (of France's SCEAU-Archives OVNI), Mikhail Gershtein (of Russia) and Robbie Williams (English pop star).
[BEGIN QUOTE OF EXPERT INPUT STATEMENT]
"We consider that obtaining input from disinterested experts on specific points regarding reports of 'UFOs' is likely to contribute to the study of relevant physical, historical, psychological and sociological issues. If you are able to help provide such input, we would appreciate you doing so".
[END QUOTE OF EXPERT INPUT STATEMENT]
There is a lot more UFO material (and, possibly more importantly, a lot more data and information) that could be uploaded with further effort and cooperation. In some cases, large quantities of material could be uploaded very promptly, if permission/cooperation could be obtained.
If you have published a UFO newsletter or magazine and would like to see it made freely available online, please let me know. You do not have to wait until I send you an individual request. (I've made such a general permission request elsewhere in the past. I usually get one or two positive responses to such a request. I have never understood why more people do not contact me to give their permission, but nonetheless over 90% of those that I contact are now willing to give their permission.. Feel free to take the initiative!
I can be contacted via email (isaackoi@gmail.com), here on this blog, via Facebook or (although I have not, so far at least, used it as much) via Twitter.
(In case it matters to anyone, I will mention [again] that "Isaac Koi" is a pseudonym I use when writing about UFOs and Forteana. I am a member of a rather old fashioned profession...)
Oh, and I also collect (and share) scans of UFO cartoons...
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