Journal of the Fortean Research Center

History

The Fortean Research Center was incorporated on February 12, 1986 in Lincoln, Nebraska as a non-profit corporation, operating from P.O. Box 94627, Lincoln, NE 68509. Ray W. Boeche served as Director, Scott Colborn as Associate Director, Nancy Boeche as Treasurer, Bonnie Summerlin as Secretary, David White as Associate Director for Business, and Clyde Adams as Associate Director for Ancillary Activities. Membership cost $15.00 per year and included the quarterly journal, discounts on special publications, and reduced conference fees. The journal sold for $3.50 per issue.

Boeche brought 20 years of field investigation experience to the directorship. He held a B.A. in Art and Education from Peru State College and worked as a graphic artist for one of the 20 largest printing companies in the United States, while investing 30 to 40 hours per week in anomalous phenomena research. He simultaneously served as Nebraska State Director for MUFON and sat on the Board of Advisors for Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS). Since October 1984, he and Colborn had co-produced an hour-long weekly radio show on Lincoln's KZUM-FM covering all aspects of the unexplained.

The FRC had already hosted two national conferences on Unexplained Phenomena at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1982 and 1983, before the formal incorporation. The 1988 MUFON National Symposium was held in Lincoln with FRC involvement. A 1995 symposium on psychokinesis at the Nebraska Center for Continuing Education featured Dr. Berthold Schwarz and demonstrations by Joe A. Nuzum.

The journal's scope matched its Fortean mandate: UFOs, cryptozoological mysteries, out-of-place animal sightings, geological and archaeological anomalies, and psychic phenomena. The first issue opened with a "winged weirdie" report from Falls City, Nebraska (a 1956 sighting of a winged humanoid with mechanical apparatus, paralysis effects, and 23 years of resulting nightmares) alongside a piece on recently released DIA documents. Later issues covered the Gulf Breeze UFO incident, cattle mutilation field investigations across Nebraska, bipedal humanoid sightings, and Dr. Berthold Schwarz's decade-long study of psi-induced spontaneous combustion. The Great Plains location gave the journal access to rural witnesses and ranchers who would never have contacted a coastal UFO organisation.