On 31 May 1969, four years before J. Allen Hynek founded CUFOS, a group of civilian researchers met in Quincy, Illinois, to create the Midwest UFO Network. Dr Allen Utke, an associate professor of chemistry at Wisconsin State University, served as its first director. In 1973 it was renamed the Mutual UFO Network to reflect its expansion beyond the Midwest. Walter Andrus Jr. directed the organisation for three decades, from 1970 to 2000. MUFON is now the oldest continuously operating civilian UFO investigation network in the world.
The organisation’s Case Management System holds over 140,000 witness-submitted cases, the largest civilian sighting database in existence. MUFON receives between 8,000 and 10,000 reports annually; approximately 34 per cent are identified as conventional phenomena. Roughly 5 per cent are considered unexplained after investigation. Over 600 volunteer field investigators, trained through a 265-page manual and a background check, operate across all 50 US states and 46 countries.
MUFON publishes the MUFON UFO Journal (originating as the SKYLOOK newsletter in 1969) and has held an annual international symposium since 1970. The Project Aquarius Digital Library, launched in 2023, encompasses nearly two terabytes of historical material including reports, journal issues, symposium proceedings, and private collections from researchers including Leonard Stringfield and Captain Edward Ruppelt.
The Institutional Record
The documentary record requires honest treatment of MUFON’s institutional failures alongside its contributions.
In 2008, MUFON entered a contract with Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS), Robert Bigelow’s company that was the primary contractor for the Pentagon’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. MUFON’s STAR team provided high-quality case data to BAASS in exchange for funding. This relationship made MUFON a data conduit for a classified government programme without the knowledge of most members.
In April 2018, Newsweek reported anti-immigrant, anti-trans, anti-Muslim, and anti-Semitic sentiments among MUFON officials and donors, including a Pennsylvania state director and a major donor. The report triggered the resignations of the director of research, two state directors, and others who cited a failure to address sexual harassment as well.
On 3 July 2020, executive director Jan Harzan, who had led the organisation since 2013, was arrested in Newport Beach, California, by the Huntington Beach Police Department for allegedly soliciting sexual activity from an undercover detective posing as a thirteen-year-old. MUFON’s board permanently removed him effective 15 July 2020.
David MacDonald, a professional pilot and charter airline operator in Cincinnati, was reinstated as executive director. He relocated the headquarters from Irvine, California, to Cincinnati in June 2021. MUFON continues to operate and accept reports. Its database remains the most comprehensive longitudinal civilian sighting record in existence.
The archive documents MUFON because it ran the largest sustained civilian case-collection effort in the United States, and the history is consequential. Both the contributions and the failures are part of the record.
Related: CUFOS | The Black Vault | Americans for Safe Aerospace
