New Jersey MUFON Chronicle

History

Donald A. Johnson, Ph.D., launched The New Jersey Chronicle in September 1990 as the state chapter's first dedicated newsletter. Johnson served simultaneously as State Director and editor. His Assistant State Directors included George Filer (Southern New Jersey, based in Medford), Susan Van Slooten (Northern New Jersey, Randolph), Tom Benson (a former State Director with an extensive periodicals library), Robert J. Durant (State Section Director for Mercer County), Paul Ferrughelli, and Bob Gross. Bob Sylvester also served in an editorial capacity. Subscriptions cost $12 per year, and the publication ran bimonthly. All State Section Directors received copies free.

The inaugural issue set the tone immediately. Johnson's lead article, "Congressional Inquiry Urged for Roswell Testimony," disclosed a conversation he had with a senior CIA policy analyst who told him that two colleagues were convinced, based on documents from the mid-1980s, that the government had retrieved at least one crashed craft of alien technology during the late 1940s or early 1950s, with parts stored at a military installation in Nevada and used for NASA materials research. The CIA analyst offered the professional opinion that such a secret could be maintained for 40 years provided fewer than 20 people held it. Johnson used this to argue for congressional immunity for fifteen witnesses identified by Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt, noting that CUFOS planned to send 200 copies of their forthcoming book to key members of Congress.

The Chronicle covered New Jersey cases in detail: McGuire Air Force Base sightings (cargo plane departures timed against UFO disappearances), the South Bound Brook case (Vol 4 No 2, 1994, where investigators "bungled" the initial response), and ongoing surveillance of the Newark-JFK-Philadelphia corridor. Johnson personally investigated CE-1 and CE-2 cases, applying his academic training to field methodology. The publication also tracked New Jersey's historical UFO record, noting that CE-1 and CE-2 cases collected from the state had previously gone unpublished in national journals.

By 1994, the publication had reached Volume 4, covering the cultural moment of that year: the CBS special on UFOs (described as "surprisingly unbiased"), the debut of Fox's "Encounters" series, the X-Files renewal, the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet impact, and the upcoming Roswell TV movie. The last archived issue dates to April-June 1994.