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| Founded | 1964 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | United Kingdom |
Key people | Jenny Randles (Director 1982 – 1994) [1] Philip Mantle (Director 1995) [2] |
| Website | bufora.org.uk |
The British UFO Research Association or BUFORA is a UK organisation, formerly registered as "BUFORA Ltd", dedicated to investigating UFO phenomena in the British Isles. In 1997 the organisation was reported to have around 1,000 members. [3]
In 1991, the book UFO Encyclopedia was compiled for the group by Major Sir Patrick Wall. [4]
BUFORA investigates over 400 cases a year, with the organisation reporting 95% of them as hoaxes. [5] They run witness support groups for those who believe they have encountered extra terrestrials. [5] The organisation has held an annual conference at Sheffield Hallam University since 1987 [2] and hold meetings across the country; with Rendlesham Forest being a frequent spot for gatherings. [6] They have been outspoken critics of the UK government's Freedom of Information Act as it relates to UFOs. [7]
An entry in the UFO Encyclopedia, which was a sighting confirmed as genuine by BUFORA, was later found to be a hoax. The supposed contactee, who claimed to have seen a UFO hovering over the town of Warminster, admitted to the hoax in 1994.[ citation needed ] In 1995, the group were the only official UFO organisation to endorse a film, purportedly by the US government, showing an alien autopsy at Roswell. [8]
An unidentified flying object (UFO), or unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP), is any perceived airborne, submerged or transmedium phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. Upon investigation, most UAPs are identified as known objects or atmospheric phenomena, while a small number remain unexplained.
Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is a 1995 pseudo-documentary containing grainy black and white footage of a hoaxed alien autopsy. In 1995, film purporting to show an alien autopsy conducted shortly after the Roswell incident was released by British entrepreneur Ray Santilli. The footage aired on television networks around the world. Fox television broadcast the purported autopsy, hosted by Jonathan Frakes, on August 28, 1995, under the title Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction, and re-broadcast it twice, each time to higher ratings. The footage was also broadcast on UK's Channel 4, and repackaged for the home video market. The program was an overnight sensation, with Time magazine declaring that the film had sparked a debate "with an intensity not lavished on any home movie since the Zapruder film".
UFO conspiracy theories are a subset of conspiracy theories which argue that various governments and politicians globally, in particular the United States government, are suppressing evidence that unidentified flying objects are controlled by a non-human intelligence or built using alien technology. Such conspiracy theories usually argue that Earth governments are in communication or cooperation with extraterrestrial visitors despite public disclaimers, and further that some of these theories claim that the governments are explicitly allowing alien abduction.
Majestic 12, also known as Majic-12, and MJ-12 for short, is a purported organization that appears in UFO conspiracy theories. The organization is claimed to be the code name of an alleged secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, formed in 1947 by an executive order by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to facilitate recovery and investigation of alien spacecraft. The concept originated in a series of supposedly leaked secret government documents first circulated by ufologists in 1984. Upon examination, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) declared the documents to be "completely bogus", and many ufologists consider them to be an elaborate hoax. Majestic 12 remains popular among some UFO conspiracy theorists and the concept has appeared in popular culture including television, film and literature.
The Roswell incident is a collection of events and myths surrounding the 1947 crash of a United States Army Air Forces balloon near Roswell, New Mexico. Operated from the nearby Alamogordo Army Air Field and part of the top secret Project Mogul, the balloon was intended to detect Soviet nuclear tests. After metallic and rubber debris was recovered by Roswell Army Air Field personnel, the United States Army announced their possession of a "flying disc". This announcement made international headlines but was retracted within a day. Obscuring the true purpose and source of the crashed balloon, the Army subsequently stated that it was a conventional weather balloon.
Ufology is the investigation of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by people who believe that they may be of extraordinary origins. While there are instances of government, private, and fringe science investigations of UFOs, ufology is generally regarded by skeptics and science educators as an example of pseudoscience.
The Rendlesham Forest incident was a series of reported sightings of unexplained lights near Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk, England, in December 1980, which became linked with UFO landings. The events occurred just outside RAF Woodbridge, which was used at the time by the United States Air Force (USAF). USAF personnel, including deputy base commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles I. Halt, claimed to see things they described as a UFO.
Paul Frederic Bennewitz, Jr. was an American businessman and UFO investigator. According to multiple sources, Bennewitz was the target of a government disinformation campaign that ultimately led to his psychiatric hospitalization.
Many works of fiction have featured UFOs. In most cases, as the fictional story progresses, the Earth is being invaded by hostile alien forces from outer space, usually from Mars, as depicted in early science fiction, or the people are being destroyed by alien forces, as depicted in the film Independence Day. Some fictional UFO encounters may be based on real UFO reports, such as Night Skies. Night Skies is based on the 1997 Phoenix UFO Incident.
Jenny Randles is a British author and former director of investigations with the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA), serving in that role from 1982 through to 1994.
Ray Santilli is a British musician, record and film producer. He is best known for his exploitation in 1995 of the controversial "alien autopsy" footage and subject of the Warner Bros. film Alien Autopsy.
William J. "Bill" Birnes is an American author, the incoming auditor for Solebury Township, Pennsylvania, the chairman of the board at Sunrise Community Counseling Center, and ufologist.
This is a list of notable alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the United Kingdom. Many more sightings have become known since the gradual release, between 2008 and 2013, of the Ministry of Defence's UFO sighting reports by the National Archives. In recent years, there have been many sightings of groups of slowly moving lights in the night sky, which can be easily explained as Chinese lanterns. Undertaken between 1997 and 2000, Project Condign concluded that all the investigated sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena in the UK could be attributed to misidentified but explicable objects, or poorly understood natural phenomena.
Kevin Douglas Randle is an American ufologist, science fiction and historical fiction writer and a military veteran. Within the UFO community, he is often regarded as one of the preeminent experts on the reported crash of a UFO near Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947.
A flying saucer, also referred to as a flying disc, is a descriptive term for a type of flying craft having a disc or saucer-shaped body, commonly used generically to refer to an anomalous flying object. The term was coined in 1947 but has generally been supplanted since 1952 by the United States Air Force term unidentified flying objects, UFOs for short. Early reported sightings of unknown "flying saucers" usually described them as silver or metallic, sometimes reported as covered with navigation lights or surrounded with a glowing light, hovering or moving rapidly, either alone or in tight formations with other similar craft, and exhibiting high maneuverability.
This is a list of alleged sightings of unidentified flying objects or UFOs in South Africa.
Karl Tomlinson Pflock was a CIA intelligence officer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration, strategic planner, UFO researcher, and author of both fiction and non-fiction. He was best known for his book Roswell: Inconvenient Facts and the Will to Believe.
The Aztec, New Mexico, UFO hoax was a flying saucer crash alleged to have happened in 1948 in Aztec, New Mexico. The story was first published in 1949 by author Frank Scully in his Variety magazine columns, and later in his 1950 book Behind the Flying Saucers. In the mid-1950s, the story was exposed as a hoax fabricated by two con men, Silas M. Newton and Leo A. Gebauer, as part of a fraudulent scheme to sell supposed alien technology. Beginning in the 1970s, some ufologists resurrected the story in books claiming the purported crash was real. In 2013, an FBI memo claimed by some ufologists to substantiate the crash story was dismissed by the bureau as "a second- or third-hand claim that we never investigated".
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