Aerial Phenomena Perspectives

History

Allen H. Greenfield distributed Aerial Phenomena Perspectives free of charge from 3200 Lenox Road, D-203, Atlanta, Georgia 30324. The newsletter was a publication of "Owlexandrian Multipublications," Greenfield's personal imprint. No exchanges with other publications were solicited, though letters of comment were welcomed. Readers could request placement on the free mailing list and would also receive "other ufo material at our discretion."

Greenfield had been in the UFO field since the early 1960s, when he served as one of three executive directors of the American UFO Committee. A decade later, he remained centrally involved in the National UFO Conference (originally the Congress of Scientific UFOlogists), which had been running annually since the first gathering in Cleveland, Ohio in 1964. By 1973, the conference had "kicked around the Northeast and Midwest" for nine years before Greenfield brought it to Atlanta for its tenth anniversary.

The newsletter covered conference business in detail: votes taken, by-laws amended, commendation awards issued, site bids approved. It documented the administrative machinery of organised American ufology at the precise moment when the post-Blue Book civilian movement was reorganising itself. With the Air Force officially out of the UFO business since December 1969, civilian groups had no government programme to lobby or critique. They had to define their own purpose.

Volume 1, Number 3 reported on the Atlanta conference results, while earlier issues had covered the convention planning. The format was modest: typewritten, single-spaced, probably photocopied and mailed to a few dozen recipients. Production quality was functional rather than polished. Greenfield wrote as someone addressing a community he knew personally.