There is a pop-culture fascination with UFOs. With the anniversary of Roswell coming up as well as World UFO Day, I’ve wanted to do an article on the love of saucer-based spacecraft, and thought of well known UFO history events such as in Snowflake, AZ (from the movie Fire in the Sky).
I also thought of the “Boomerang” sighting in 1997 over Phoenix, Arizona.
And the one my family and I are most familiar with, the Earthnaut landings of Saturday night June 10, 2017 over Monument, CO and . . . well . . . I have a whole series of stories about that one as you might already know. ???????????
Related to that latter one, no doubt by now that you see flying saucers appear prominently in an entertaining way here in “The Gimmick”. Writing about this is fun for myself and my family in celebrating some of the strongest genres related to Space, namely spaceflight, interstellar travel, the science/engineering behind it, and even intelligent life beyond our own Solar System.
While working on these stories, my curiosity in the whole UFO phenomena began to grow. I heard about organizations and individuals dedicated to looking for and/or investigating their appearance. I started searching the web and found an organization called MUFON.
I wanted to contact them to talk about the history of their organization, how some / all of them got involved, what inspired them or currently does, what their activities are, how many reports they get, how many unsolved reports they have, and other items like if there are any efforts by the government to suppress/trivialize their findings.
MUFON stands for Mutual Unidentified Flying Object Network. Its goal is to investigate UFO sightings and fill a related database for researchers from all parts of the world to use.
MUFON encourages the study of UFOs to discover what they really are with a slant towards increasing scientific knowledge and improving our planet. Finally, MUFON educates the masses on UFOs and how the effect the world we are in.
MUFON started nearly 50 years ago, on May 31, 1969, in Quincy, Illinois. What they have established during that time is that UFOs exist and need to be investigated. But the purpose of MUFON is to try and explain WHAT is being seen in each UFO sighting . . . EVEN if it’s NOT alien in origin.
Jim and Stacey, two leaders of the Phoenix MUFON (a.k.a. the chapter in Phoenix, AZ) spoke with me recently about what they do. From the outside, you would think that MUFON is made up of numerous Trekkies, blog conspiracy theorists, Comic-con attendees, and others. But MUFON has many from various walks of life and vocation such as law enforcement, engineers, scientists, outdoor guides, and even a minister.
Their purpose is to identify the UFO sighting, ask questions, and investigate based off of factors such as reports of aircraft in the area, optical illusions, fires, lightning, and other elements that could contribute to a sighting. MUFON even has specialized training for those who want to be Field Investigators.
Field investigators apply the scientific method of investigation to what they do, namely, they produce a theory about a sighting, and try to simultaneously prove or disprove it. Their first theory is that “the UFO sighting can be explained conclusively” and then they set out to confirm this. With the diverse background skills of the investigators, they have been able to take the “U” out of UFO, namely the “Unidentified” term and confirm exactly what the sighting was.
Jim and Stacey say that around 95% of the time this can be done. But a very small 2-3% have not been explained. So why would the world care about such a small number? It actually is rather large considering there are thousands of encounters around the world each year, which could lead to potentially hundreds of unexplained sightings.
Pictured here are common shapes and appearances seen during a UFO encounter. With those numbers, there is something notable enough to encourage further research and investigation.
For the 95% IFO’s (or IDENTIFIED Flying Objects), valid investigation findings have been drones, lenticularis clouds, weather balloons, meteorites, and others.
But the greatest interest to the public and die-hard UFO/Government/Alien conspiracy theorists is the 2 to 3% of cases. I spoke to Jim and Stacey about what they believe this percentage might be.
UFO’s seen in these cases could be the top-secret efforts by the US Government with craft from Lockheed’s SkunkWorks such as (in the past) the F-117 Nighthawk, the B-2 Spirit, and the F-22 Raptor.
But there is the possibility of more powerful craft that is being developed like the rumored “TR-3B Flying Triangle”.
This could also be a Lockheed SkunkWorks production craft capable of incredible speeds and propulsion and control systems more advanced than mainstream craft.
THEN there is the obvious “extra-terrestrial ” hypothesis about the 2 to 3%. The thought of a craft from another world, like the famed saucers from ancient to modern times, with technologies far beyond our known. There could be “visiting scientists” among us that could confirm this, but it’s likely they aren’t ready to make a full appearance. This could be possible for UFO’s, but for MUFON the focus is on explaining WHAT THE UFO IS . . . EXPLAINABLE OR NOT. The likelihood of a UFO has provided the benefit of driving scientists and engineers (like myself) to fill in the X-variable of how a speculative, advanced spacecraft might work, and how to make it work by modern conventions.
The US Government itself began to experiment with exotic craft back in the 1940’s around the time of the Roswell incident. On the visible side, it was to mimic what was being seen.
Conspiracy theorists might argue however that it was part of an elaborate effort to try to “prove” what was seen to dissuade the public from thinking there was something bigger than Humanity out there . . . and bigger than THEIR GOVERNMENT.
Perhaps it might be for the reasons Kal-El stated in the recent Superman movie “Man of Steel”, namely that the government fears what it cannot control. Could that be the jest of any possible cover-up? It’s yet to be known for sure.
There are members of MUFON that believe that if life exists anywhere beyond Earth’s gravity, they could be from our own universe, other undetected universes, another dimension, other locations in space-time, be indigenous to our planet (originally or currently), temporal time-travelers, celestial beings, or a simultaneous blend.
Here in Colorado Springs, I’ve heard of one race being bioengineered by a Great Scientist using the dust of a planet beyond our own with a pure-water stream not far from the Dead Sea . . . but that’s another story for another article on The Gimmick. ?✨
What matters most is that UFO’s are a fantastic subject matter for scientific research and the inspiration they have brought to the world is helping produce massive technological and scientific advances. The implications for society and our relations with all other fellow Humans can be positive ones if the right focus and truth is a part of it.
Now that the philosophy of MUFON has been covered, here are some facts gathered online:
MUFON is the largest and longest-lived UFO organization in the world and is the sole organization that has the following:
- A corporate office with full-time staff including a board of directors.
- Publishes a monthly hardcopy and online UFO journal.
- Holds an annual symposium.
- Membership numbering around 2,800.
- A highly-developed, computerized UFO case management system with over 80,000+ UFO cases.
- A structured field investigator training program with more than 500 trained field investigators.
- Has a rapid response team for high-value investigations known as the STAR Team.
- Has trained underwater dive team specialists.
- It has broadcast its own, 2-season History Channel called Hangar 1 with episodes based upon its own case files.
Membership in MUFON is open to the public and has many chapters across the USA. MUFON is an organization that is dedicated to explaining the unexplainable and using the best, proven method to explain the UFO phenomena without being quick to jump to conclusions. For most, they have done this but something greater has come from the very few they haven’t explained . . . inspiration. Inquiry. Investigation. The thought that there might be sentient life beyond our World has inspired countless droves of written and broadcast science fiction epics and inspired many legions of scientists/engineers to develop similar technologies. Books, movies, plays, and shows like Transformers, Voltron, Independence Day, Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who and others are quick to present this.
UFO’s exist, they should be researched and who knows what wonders we will witness when we pursue this further. For more information about joining MUFON, visit www.mufon.com for greater detail.
For the ? Great Galactic Space Gimmick, ? I’m Gimmick Commander Ben Faltinowski! ?
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