1973: Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) is Created

The Center for UFO Studies was founded in 1973 by I Allen Hynek and based in Illinois, America. Dr Hynek was professor of astronomy at Northwestern University, and spent twenty years as scientific consultant to the USAF on UFOs.

CUFOS has a core of twenty-six scientists, assisted by field investigators from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON). They operate a free phone number for police departments across the United States, and hold computer files on over eighty thousand reports.

CUFOS set out to act as a central clearing house for UFO reports, to facilitate technical analysis, to share reports with other groups and individuals, encourage research and promote a clear understanding of the phenomenon to the public and the media. The group reports their activities in the well-respected journal the International UFO Reporter.

In 1972, Hynek wrote the classic book The UFO Experience - A Scientific Enquiry , but a few years later, his feelings regarding the source of the phenomenon shifted away from the hard nuts and bolts theories of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1977 and 1978 he told interviewers:

"Certainly the phenomenon has physic aspects. For instance, UFOs seem to materialize and dematerialize. There are people who have had UFO experiences, who have claimed to have developed psychic abilities. I am more inclined to think in terms of a sort of parallel reality."

After Hynek's death in 1986, CUFOS was renamed the Dr J Allen Hynek Center for UFO studies, in his honor.

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