National UFO Reporting Center
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🏢 Organization
Contents 5
| Type | Organization |
|---|---|
| Also known as | NUFORC |
The National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) is a non-profit organisation in Washington State that collects reports of UFO sightings from the public. Founded in 1974 by Robert J. Gribble, it has catalogued close to 170,000 reports, most from the United States, and is one of the most widely cited sources of sighting data.[1]
Operations
Since its founding NUFORC has run a 24-hour telephone hotline for people to report sightings as they happen, later adding an online report form. It publishes reports and has supplied statistics, graphs and maps to others; Slate published an interactive map based on its data.[1][2]
Peter Davenport
Peter Davenport, a businessman with degrees from Stanford University and the University of Washington, has directed the centre since 1994. He has said he became interested after hearing of the 1955 Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter. Davenport has described himself as a believer but a skeptic, and debunker James Oberg has praised the service the centre provides. He and technology entrepreneur Christian Stepien, the centre's technology officer, have funded much of its work themselves.[1]
The missile site
Until 2006 the centre was based in Seattle. Davenport then bought a decommissioned Atlas nuclear missile site in rural eastern Washington, about 50 miles west of Spokane, and stored the centre's files underground there while working from an apartment in nearby Harrington.[1][3]
Use of the data
Police departments, including in Arizona during the 1997 Phoenix Lights, have referred callers to NUFORC, and the centre has worked with MUFON to publicise reporting trends. Its database is widely used by journalists and data analysts, though the reports are unverified accounts from the public, and many describe objects later identified as aircraft, satellites, stars or other ordinary causes.[1][4]
References
- National UFO Reporting Center — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- NUFORC, "About us" · nuforc.org · archived copy
- "Seeking UFOs, deep underground", Los Angeles Times (March 2008), archived · web.archive.org · archived copy
- "Close encounters: everything you need to know about UFOs", The Economist (2014), archived · web.archive.org · archived copy
This page was last edited on 31 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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