CRISIS AT CUFOS

The continued existence of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) is in question. By “continued existence” I mean that CUFOS as it has existed since 1973, when Dr. Hynek and Sherman J. Larsen created it, may fold within the next few weeks.

That was the issue discussed at length in the board meeting I attended in Chicago last Saturday (October 5). Revenue has been down significantly, and soon it will no longer be possible to keep the office – with its extensive files and resources, a world-class collection – open. Already discussions have opened with a university which has expressed interest in the materials.

CUFOS’ principal revenue source is International UFO Reporter (IUR), published four times a year for $25. IUR is often described as the best UFO magazine in the English language, with its emphasis on sober research and analysis. Like most (possibly all) other UFO journals, however, our subscription base has eroded over the years, a victim of the Internet and other forces beyond our control.

Without a substantial number of new subscriptions and renewals to IUR, CUFOS will be reduced to a kind of skeletal state, at worst surviving only as an website with occasional articles and reviews under the IUR title. The archives, with their convenient central location in Chicago, have been used by ufologists from all over the world, but they will no longer be available at their old address.

Allen Hynek started CUFOS as a scientific clearing house for reliable UFO data. He died in 1986, but those of us who survived him have done our best to keep his mission alive. We’re now turning to you to make it possible to continue.

If you haven’t seen IUR lately, here are the tables of contents for the past two issues:

Spring 2002:
UFO/Vehicle _Very_ Close Encounters by Mark Rodeghier
Angel Hair: An Australian Perspective by Keith Basterfield
Was There a Second Estimate of the Situation? by Michael Hall
The Trivialist by Jerome Clark
The 1952 Nash/Fortenberry Sighting Revisited by Thomas Tulien

Summer 2002
What’s Convincing About UFOs?, by Michael D. Swords
Media Bias and UFOs by Haiko Lietz
Do Nuclear Facilities Attract UFOs? by Donald A. Johnson
Interpreting the Ramey Memo by James Houran & Kevin D. Randle
Cold Case Ufology by Jenny Randles
Letters
Abductees and the Paranormal by Mark Rodeghier

Subscriptions are available for $25 (US) or $30 (non-US) from:

CUFOS,
2457 West Peterson Avenue,
Chicago,
Illinois
60659
USA

Please help us. We need you.

Jerry Clark
CUFOS officer
IUR co-editor

Web: http://www.cufos.org

UFOINFO would like to thank UFO UpDates for granting permission to use this article. You can subscribe to UFO UpDates by writing to Errol Bruce-Knapp at: ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net