UFO Intelligence Newsletter

History

Francis L. Ridge published the UFO Intelligence Newsletter from the UFO Filter Center at 618 Davis Drive, Mt. Vernon, Indiana 47628, telephone (812) 838-9843. Ridge served as director, writer, and editor. The first issue appeared in August 1992; the last in the archive dates to April/May 1997. Publication was irregular, with some months producing issues and long gaps between others.

The newsletter was inseparable from Ridge's MADAR project: Multiple Anomaly Detection And Recording. Ridge built the first MADAR unit in 1970, equipping it with a magnet variometer, a light beam scanning method, a mechanical chart recorder, and an alarm system. The device monitored for anomalous magnetic disturbances within approximately a five-mile radius, operating on the premise that UFO close approaches generate detectable magnetic field variations. A secondary radiation detection device was added later. The system ran intermittently from 1970 through the 1990s, interrupted by Ridge's company transfers and unsuitable sensor locations in 1971 and 1972, then recommissioned in 1973 with improved vertical light beam detection.

By 1995, the newsletter had expanded its scope. Ridge was coordinating with Dr. Richard Haines on the Mongo, Indiana photographs (a series of four night-time UFO photos from 31 August 1994, later supplemented by daytime reference photos for trajectory plotting). He maintained contact with John Timmerman at CUFOS and worked within MUFON's Indiana investigator network. The newsletter's phone listing expanded to two numbers: (812) 838-9843 and 838-3120.

The January 1993 issue presented a twenty-year statistical study overlaying MADAR detection events against close encounter reports nationally. Ridge expected local, short-timeframe correlations. What the data showed instead was evidence of a wider operational pattern, one that Ridge argued was confirmed independently by the 1992 Roper Poll on unusual personal experiences.