Society for UAP Studies

COMMUNITY READING CIRCLES - Society for UAP Studies will be developing a number of community reading circles, focused not on traditional "ufology" texts, but rather on a careful reading of current #UAP works in conjunction with more traditional academic and scientific work that can put the texts in UAP Studies in proper context. As the science and scholarship on the subject of UAP and related phenomena increases in appeal and acceptance, it is important to keep grounded in works that help foster a wider critical - and historical - perspective. To view our suggested reading list and join the conversation visit: https://lnkd.in/gspEHp3F

"Many of us have heard the phrase that data in context creates information and that information in context can further provide us knowledge. In my nearly six decades of UFO/UAP investigation and research, the most frustrating and time-consuming issue is identifying where data is and finding out how to access it. From government projects like Sign, Grudge, and Blue Book by the US Air Force, to public organizations like APRO, NICAP, BUFORA, MUFON, NARCAP, NUFORC and the list goes on, they each maintained their own repositories of data containing sighting reports. (...)What person, or organization can lead the charge towards data integration and centricity, with the funding to develop the single big database, implement it, store petabytes of information, and implement a security architecture that gives access to serious researchers?" - Rich Hoffman, Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU), The Need for a Data Centric Coalition in Support of UAP Research https://lnkd.in/eNsyUnaZ

"Our goal is to foster the?development and stabilization of UAP Studies as a recognizable academic field,?alongside other established disciplines in contemporary scholarship. With this second issue, we continue the essential task of publishing work that forms the foundation of the field and furthers its development. As UAP move further into?the structured discourse of academic scholarship, they take on more nuanced, subtle, and complex resonances, shaped by their conceptual, phenomenological, and experiential dimensions. These dimensions, as situated within a variety of?academically inflected discourses, contribute to the constitution of the field." - Michael Cifone, Editorial for Limina — The Journal of UAP Studies 2(1) (2025) https://lnkd.in/ezjEjJKC

Michael Vaillant, Director of UAP Check and member of the Society for UAP Studies Board of Advisors, has a new publication exploring the cognitive, psychological, and sociological forces that shape extraordinary experiences, from UFO encounters to the broader dynamics of belief formation.

“…the sheer diversity of the communities Eghigian visits shows us that UFOs are perhaps most powerful when they are least explained. Lights in the sky could be anything, and exploring how these varied interpreters struggled to resolve them allows Eghigian the opportunity to make sense of how humans make sense of the world.” - Matthew Bowman, PhD, Review of: Greg Eghigian’s After the Flying Saucers Came, Limina Journal of UAP Studies, Vol. 2, Issue 1 (2025) https://lnkd.in/eWG2Kbgc

"Roswell, 1947. Washington, DC, 1952. Quarouble, 1954. New Hampshire, 1961. Pascagoula, 1973. Petrozavodsk, 1977. Copley Woods, 1983. Explore how sightings of UFOs and aliens seized the world's attention and discover what the fascination with flying saucers and extraterrestrial visitors says about our changing views on science, technology, and the paranormal. Greg Eghigian tells the story of the world's fascination with UFOs and the prospect that they were the work of visitors from outer space. While accounts of great wonders in the sky date back to antiquity, reports of UFOs took place against the unique backdrop of the Cold War and space age, giving rise to disputed government inquiries, breathtaking news stories, and single-minded sleuths.?After?the Flying Saucers Came?traces how a seemingly isolated incident sparked an international drama involving shady figures, questionable evidence, suspicions of conspiracy, hoaxes, new religions, scandals, unsettling alien encounters, debunkers, and celebrities. It examines how descriptions, theories, and debates about unidentified flying objects and alien abduction changed over time and how they appeared in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Russia. And it explores the impact UFOs have had on our understanding of space, science, technology, and ourselves up through the present day." We are honored to welcome Dr. Greg Eghigian on Saturday March 15th, for our next Community Reading Circle. For more information on how to participate: https://lnkd.in/gspEHp3F The Society for UAP Studies Community Reading Circles focus on a careful reading of current UAP Studies works in conjunction with more traditional academic and scientific work that can put the texts in UAP Studies in proper context. As the science and scholarship on the subject of UAP and related phenomena increases in appeal and acceptance, it is important to keep grounded in works that help foster a wider critical - and historical - perspective.

Professor Greg Eghigian, Penn State University, will be joining us on March 15th to engage in discussion and answer questions on his latest book - After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon (Oxford University Press, 2024), offering a unique opportunity to gain deeper insight into his research. Mark your calendar for our next Community Reading Circle: ?? Date: Saturday, March 15th ? Time: 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM EST ?? Location: Online via Google Meets https://lnkd.in/gspEHp3F As before, our meeting will be held online via Google Meets. To keep the conversation flowing between sessions, we encourage you to join the Community Reading Circle Group on the Society’s website. In this space, members can share thoughts, insights, and questions about the books we explore.

The latest edition of the Limina Journal of UAP Studies is now online for reference and download! https://lnkd.in/ezjEjJKC The fascinating and insightful essays and research articles include Dr. Kimberly S. Engels (“The importance of phenomenology for UAP Studies”), Dr. Bertrand Méheust on “The Mystery Of Elusiveness”, Dr. Brenda Denzler (“The Discovery of O.I.L. (Some Thoughts on Finding Other Intelligent Life)”), Sean Grosvenor; Larry Hancock and Ian Porritt on “UAP Indications Analysis?1945-1975 United States Atomic Warfare Complex”, and Dr. Matthew Szydagis’ predictions on “How much time do we have before catastrophic disclosure occurs?”

"This talk will explore the information and communication ecosystems surrounding the rapidly growing and highly interdisciplinary ecosystem of UAP Studies. I will discuss issues related to scholarly communication, knowledge organization, information governance, information behavior, and data curation, while highlighting the roles of organizations and institutions in collecting, analyzing, and disseminating UAP information. Along these lines, I will present outcomes of a recent National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded workshop “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP): A Dialogue on Science, Public Engagement and Communication”. Overall, the talk will address optimizing this knowledge ecosystem to advance UAP research, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and enhance public engagement." - Dr. Gretchen Stahlman, Information and Communication Ecosystems of UAP Studies, presented at the 2024 Society For UAP Studies Annual Summer Conference - Varieties and Trajectories of Contemporary UAP Studies https://lnkd.in/eWQwHR4Z

"When I wrote my dissertation in the late 1990s on the UFO and alien abduction movement, one of my committee members was horrified when I mentioned the 1947 Roswell crash as a part of the history of UFO events (and the ideas and behaviors of followers) in the United States. I had simply presented the bare facts: something crashed outside Roswell, the US Army retrieved the debris and issued a formal press release saying they had captured an unidentified flying object, they soon issued a retraction and said it was just a weather balloon, and there was controversy in the UFO field over exactly what had really happened. ? My advisor looked up at me with big, wide-open eyes after reading the paragraph aloud. "You can't say things like this, Brenda," he said with genuine alarm. "It makes you sound like a believer." - Brenda Denzler, Thoughts on THINKING AND WRITING ABOUT UFOS https://lnkd.in/eiKTbqNw