MUFON Georgia Newsletter

History

Georgia Sky Watch launched in late 1995 as the newsletter for MUFON of Georgia, with Chris Early serving as State Director and John C. Thompson as the chapter's most prolific field investigator and writer. Thompson, a State Section Director based in LaGrange, wrote the operational backbone of the publication: investigator training guides, case reports, and detailed accounts of his fieldwork across western Georgia's Troup and Heard counties. Henry and Kelley Owens ran Public Relations from their home, hosting meetings, managing the chapter hotline at (770) 935-7865, contracting with a clipping service to monitor Georgia's 450 newspapers, and publishing the newsletter through Kelley's printing company.

The chapter held meetings at the Gwinnett County Justice and Administration Building in Lawrenceville, with field investigator training classes running on alternate Saturdays. By January 1996, approximately twenty active members attended meetings. Annual dues of $22 funded the newsletter and chapter activities. Michael Norris served as Assistant State Director. The chapter's approach to organisation was thorough: Henry and Kelley Owens built a database of every police department, fire department, airport, and military base in Georgia that might receive UFO reports, and mailed each one requesting information.

By November 1998, the chapter had moved substantially online. Early sent "MUFONGA Updates" via email every one to two weeks, reporting cases under investigation, sighting reports, and organisational news. The chapter maintained its cases on ISUR's website (isur.com) and held bi-monthly informal dinners at Shoney's on Piedmont Road in Atlanta, drawing seventeen members to the inaugural gathering. New positions had been created: Officer Mike Hitt of Roswell served as state historian and archivist, William Lester of Jonesboro joined the special projects research group, and Roberta Puhalski served as senior special projects coordinator. George Filer's weekly international bulletin reached members electronically.

The publication shifted from monthly to quarterly by 2000. The final archived issue (No. 19, Fall 2001) reported four solid cases investigated that year, including a glowing silver acorn-shaped object over Fayetteville witnessed by MUFON personnel Carl and Helen Thim, and cylinder-shaped objects over Wray and Roswell, Georgia (the town, not the New Mexico incident). Cases were posted to WUFOD (the World UFO Database) with assigned case numbers. The newsletter ran continuously from Issue 2 (December 1995) through Issue 19 (Fall 2001), with a gap between Issues 8 (July 1996) and 11 (November 1998) where no copies survive in the archive.