TUFOIC Newsletter

History

The Tasmanian UFO Investigation Centre (TUFOIC) was established in the late 1960s in Hobart, Tasmania, with the earliest archived newsletter (No 7) dating from 1971. The Centre operated continuously for over four decades, publishing its final newsletter (No 109) in January 2016. Initially based at 62 Leonard Avenue, Koonah 7009, the Centre later moved to 366 Huon Road, South Hobart 7000, and finally to P.O. Box 99, North Hobart. Meetings were held every two months at the Adult Education Centre in Argyle Street, Hobart.

Early leadership included E. Bantick as President, Ken Bennetto as Sightings Officer, Keith Roberts, and Mrs J. Bigwood as Secretary/Treasurer. By 1978, Neil Russell-Green had taken the presidency, with Jan Drew as Secretary, Paul Jackson as Treasurer, and a committee including M. Harris, G. Marshall, and C. Mortimer. Keith Roberts remained central to investigations throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, eventually handling most fieldwork. Paul Jackson carried much of the administrative burden by the early 1980s.

The Centre maintained a network of area representatives covering Tasmania's geography: John Dean in Launceston (200 Allanvale Road) handled the north, and Mrs M. Harris covered the remote West Coast from Queenstown. Sighting reports were funnelled through dedicated phone lines (236009 and 278449 in the Hobart directory) that members staffed during evening hours.

TUFOIC's output was structured around annual investigation reports supplemented by two newsletters per year to keep members informed of ongoing sightings. The annual reports carried systematic statistical analysis: yearly totals broken down by category (Unidentified, Investigating/Insufficient Info, Astronomical, Aircraft, Satellites, Ground Lights, Birds, Other Explanations). Comparative figures tracked activity from 1971 onward, showing peaks of 184 reports in 1976 and 171 in 1975, with a consistent proportion of 20 to 33 percent remaining unexplained after investigation.

The Centre appeared on Radio 7HO's "Talking Point" programme in August 1971, discussing theories, sighting analysis, and even the Snippy the horse case. Twenty to thirty listeners phoned in during the broadcast with queries and sightings. TUFOIC maintained relationships with other Tasmanian groups: the UFO Observer from Launceston and the Tasmanian Flying Saucer Observers Association (whose sighting files were absorbed into TUFOIC's records when it folded, with member Peter Dumbabin continuing his research through TUFOIC).

By 1983, TUFOIC had developed a significant publications catalogue: a Tasmanian UFO Catalogue compiled on computer file ($3.00), a Tasmanian Landings Catalogue ($2.00), the Maatsuyker Island Document ($2.00), and annual UFO Tasmania magazines (five issues available for $4.00). The Maatsuyker Island case, involving sightings from one of Australia's most isolated lighthouse stations in the Southern Ocean, was considered significant enough to warrant its own standalone publication.

The newsletter's later decades (1990s through 2016) saw publication shift to annual issues as sighting activity declined and the original investigators aged. The Centre adapted to changing technology, eventually maintaining the sighting telephone line alongside newer communication methods, though a 1982-83 experiment placing the number in the telephone directory showed it made little difference to incoming report volume except for a brief burst of calls in August 1983.

Connections

TUFOIC was the southern-island node of the Australian national civilian-research network across forty-five years. The Centre's investigators (Bantick, Bennetto, Roberts, Russell-Green, Jackson, Drew, Dean, Dumbabin and the rest) do not yet have canonical encyclopedia entries; the relational record below is built from the national-network figures and the case-and-publication connections the Tasmanian work sat inside.

National network the Centre operated inside

The mainland-Australian principals whose state-level work TUFOIC filed alongside through the national clearinghouse arrangements.

• Keith Basterfield, the South Australian who ran the UFORA Research Digest as the national case-clearinghouse from 1989 and the parallel AUFOASC publication during the same period
• Bill Chalker, the Sydney-based NSW researcher whose long-running national-coverage work the Tasmanian record sat alongside
• Colin Norris, the long-running South Australian researcher whose AUFORS, GAFIA and UFO Research SA period spanned the same decades as TUFOIC's run
• Paul Norman, the Victorian Australian Flying Saucer Research Society veteran whose Bass Strait coverage included the Valentich case
• Glennys Mackay, the Queensland UFOR(QLD) principal whose state-level work fed into the same national network
• Mark Moravec, the NSW psychologist and entity-encounter researcher whose work ran in the same Basterfield-coordinated period

Australian cases the Tasmanian record sits alongside

The major Australian cases that anchor the country exhibition and that TUFOIC's Bass Strait and Southern Ocean coverage was geographically closest to.

• The Valentich Disappearance, the 21 October 1978 Cessna 182 disappearance over Bass Strait, the body of water TUFOIC's Hobart base looked directly across
• The Westall Encounter, the 6 April 1966 daylight close encounter in Melbourne's south-eastern suburbs, the mainland event the Tasmanian work pre-dated by five years
• The Cruttwell Papua exhibition, William B. Gill's 1959 Boianai sightings and the Cruttwell collection, the Australian-tradition foundation case the TUFOIC network sat in the lineage of
• The Maatsuyker Island case, sightings from one of Australia's most isolated lighthouse stations in the Southern Ocean, significant enough that TUFOIC issued it as a standalone publication
• The December 1971 Tasmanian flap (Mt Wellington dome light, Lynchford possible landing, Cethana car pacing, Brighton bell-shaped UFO, Wilmot landings) that opened the Centre's first decade of fieldwork

Related Australian publications

The mainland-state newsletters and national clearinghouse publications TUFOIC's monthly investigation reports filed into and drew correspondents from.

• UFORA Research Digest, Basterfield's monthly national case-clearinghouse from 1989, the formal organ TUFOIC's case files entered the national record through
• UFORAN, the earlier UFORA journal that ran through TUFOIC's middle-period decades
• Australian UFO Bulletin, the VUFORS Melbourne publication that carried Victorian-state field work TUFOIC cross-referenced
• Australian Flying Saucer Review, Paul Norman's Victorian-state journal whose Bass Strait coverage included the Valentich case alongside TUFOIC's contemporaneous local work
• Australian CUFOS Journal and ACUFOS, the Australian Centre for UFO Studies' academic-rigour counterpart publications that ran alongside TUFOIC through the 1980s and 1990s
• Australian UFO Abduction Study Centre and Newsletter of the AUFOASC, Basterfield's parallel abduction-research publications from the same Prospect, South Australia period

Cross-cutting themes and surfaces

• Abductions, the theme the Centre's later-decade work joined as the Basterfield-era national network expanded into abduction research
• Australia, the country exhibition the entire national civilian-research network's record sits inside
• Timeline, the chronological record TUFOIC's forty-five-year run sat alongside
• Newsletter Archive, the catalogue surface for all 246 newsletter collections