Coral Lorenzen
Coral Elsie Lightner Lorenzen co-founded the Aerial Phenomena Research Organisation with her husband Jim in January 1952, four years before NICAP and seventeen years before MUFON. She edited the APRO Bulletin for all 258 issues across thirty-six years and directed the organisation through three relocations: Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin to Alamogordo, New Mexico to permanent headquarters in Tucson, Arizona. Her institutional design distinguished APRO from its American peers: rather than concentrating resources at home, she built a global network of field representatives across more than fifty countries, with particular strength in South America. She published eight books between 1962 and 1977, three solo-authored and five co-authored with Jim, drawing on APRO's case files and her direct correspondence with witnesses and investigators.
A Life
Coral Elsie Lightner was born in 1925 in Hillsdale, Wisconsin. In the summer of 1934, at age nine, she saw an unidentified object in the sky while playing at Ward School in Barron, Wisconsin. She reported it to her father; they investigated the next day whether a pilot had crashed near the town, but none had. Three years later, at the office of family doctor Harry Schlomovitz, she encountered the books of Charles Fort, whose catalogues of unexplained aerial phenomena placed her childhood observation within a documented pattern stretching back decades.
She graduated from high school in 1941. During the Second World War she worked in defence plants as a lathe machinist and shipfitter, and at Douglas Aircraft. She married Leslie James Lorenzen circa 1943 in Minnesota. By the early 1950s the couple were living in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, where Coral worked as a correspondent for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. The volume and consistency of reader mail she received in response to her articles on flying saucer reports convinced her that a centralised civilian research body was needed. In January 1952 she and Jim co-founded the Aerial Phenomena Research Organisation.
APRO relocated from Sturgeon Bay to Los Angeles in 1954, then to Alamogordo, New Mexico, near Holloman Air Force Base where Jim worked as a civilian engineer, and in 1960 to permanent headquarters in Tucson, Arizona. Coral quit her paying job in 1956 to direct the organisation full-time. She served as international director and editor of the APRO Bulletin for thirty-six years, building a field investigation network with representatives in more than fifty countries. She died on 12 April 1988 in Tucson, aged 63, of coccidioidomycosis, a fungal lung infection endemic to the Arizona desert. She had broken her neck in a fall in 1979 and required supplemental oxygen daily in her final years. She was buried at Arlington National Cemetery beside Jim Lorenzen, who had died in 1986.
On UAP
APRO was the first of the major civilian UFO research organisations. It predated the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP, founded 1956) by four years and the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON, founded 1969) by seventeen. At its peak in 1967 the organisation had approximately 1,500 members. Its institutional architecture was distinctive: rather than concentrating resources in the United States, Coral built a global network of field representatives, with particular strength in South America, where cases involving physical traces and close encounters were reported with a frequency that drew her sustained analytical attention.
The APRO Bulletin was the organisation's primary publication, a bimonthly newsletter that ran for 258 issues from 1952 to 1988. Coral edited every issue. The Bulletin functioned as a clearinghouse for case data, field investigation reports, and scientific commentary from across the network. This archive holds the full run, with 207 issues deep-read and over 1,100 articles catalogued.
I've just about had it. Everybody's fighting to be on top. They all want to be famous and nobody wants to do the work.Coral Lorenzen, as recounted by Robert Barrow, memorial essay for Pursuit journal, revised August 2000.
Coral published her first book, The Great Flying Saucer Hoax: The UFO Facts and Their Interpretation (William-Frederick Press, 1962), under her name alone. Flying Saucers: The Startling Evidence of the Invasion from Outer Space (Signet, 1966) was a revised and expanded edition for a mass-market readership. From 1967 onwards she co-authored with Jim: Flying Saucer Occupants (Signet, 1967), UFOs Over the Americas (Signet, 1968), UFOs: The Whole Story (Signet, 1969), Encounters with UFO Occupants (Berkley, 1976), and Abducted!: Confrontations with Beings from Outer Space (Berkley, 1977). The books drew on APRO's case files and Coral's direct correspondence with witnesses and investigators across the network.
Among the cases APRO investigated under Coral's direction were the Ubatuba, Brazil, fragments case, in which Coral arranged spectrographic analysis of material allegedly recovered from an aerial object; the Antonio Villas-Boas encounter in Brazil (1957), documented in Flying Saucer Occupants; and the Lonnie Zamora sighting at Socorro, New Mexico (1964), which APRO investigated in parallel with Project Blue Book.
Career Record
- 1925, Born, Hillsdale, Wisconsin.
- 1934, First sighting of an unidentified object, Ward School, Barron, Wisconsin, aged nine.
- 1937, Encountered Charles Fort's books at the office of Dr Harry Schlomovitz.
- 1941, Graduated high school.
- 1941 to 1945, Defence plant work (lathe machinist, shipfitter, Douglas Aircraft).
- Circa 1943, Married Leslie James Lorenzen, Minnesota.
- Early 1950s, Correspondent, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.
- January 1952, Co-founded the Aerial Phenomena Research Organisation with Jim Lorenzen, Sturgeon Bay.
- 1954, APRO relocated to Los Angeles, then Alamogordo, New Mexico.
- 1956, Left paid employment to direct APRO full-time.
- 1960, APRO established permanent headquarters in Tucson, Arizona.
- 1962, Published The Great Flying Saucer Hoax (William-Frederick Press). First book, sole author.
- 1966, Published Flying Saucers (Signet).
- 1967, Published Flying Saucer Occupants with Jim Lorenzen (Signet). APRO membership reached approximately 1,500.
- 1968, Published UFOs Over the Americas with Jim Lorenzen (Signet).
- 1969, Published UFOs: The Whole Story with Jim Lorenzen (Signet).
- 1976, Published Encounters with UFO Occupants with Jim Lorenzen (Berkley).
- 1977, Published Abducted! with Jim Lorenzen (Berkley).
- 1979, Broke her neck in a fall. Required supplemental oxygen thereafter.
- 12 April 1988, Died, Tucson, Arizona. Buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Document Trail
Coral's eight published books constitute her primary documentary contribution. The Great Flying Saucer Hoax (1962) and Flying Saucer Occupants (1967) are the most substantial treatments of her investigative methodology and APRO's case archive.
The APRO Bulletin, 258 issues spanning 1952 to 1988, is held in this archive's newsletter collection. Coral edited the full run.
APRO's organisational files, comprising thirteen file cabinets and fifty boxes of case files, correspondence, and administrative records, were transferred to the National UFO Historical Records Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on 25 November 2023. David Marler, the NUFOHRC director, has catalogued the collection. Rice University's Woodson Research Center in Houston holds a separate run of the APRO Bulletin from 1955 to 1972. Robert Barrow's memorial essay, written for Pursuit and revised August 2000, is the most detailed personal account of Coral's later years.
In the Archive
- APRO Bulletin Collection, 258 issues, 1952 to 1988, edited by Coral Lorenzen.
- Jim Lorenzen, husband and APRO co-founder.
- J. Allen Hynek, who cited APRO and NICAP in The UFO Experience.
- Socorro Landing, the 1964 case APRO investigated in parallel with Project Blue Book.
- United States country profile.
