NUFORC
NUFORC (National UFO Reporting Center) is an American civilian organization founded in 1974 that collects public UFO sightings through telephone and online reports and publishes them in a public database.
NUFORC, the National UFO Reporting Center, is a civilian organization operating in the United States, founded in 1974 by Robert Gribble with the aim of collecting and recording UFO sightings reported by the public. The organization was later led for a long time by Peter Davenport, who received reports via a telephone hotline and over the internet.
What it does
NUFORC (National UFO Reporting Center) is not a government agency but a nonprofit organization founded in 1974 and registered in Washington State that collects and archives UFO reports. Anyone can submit their own sighting through an online form, and the organization publishes the accounts in its public database, organized by date, location and the shape of the object seen; the database now contains close to 170,000 reports. NUFORC does not investigate cases using scientific methods: it primarily collects and publishes the reports. For a few selected cases, however, its staff interview the witnesses, and from time to time they highlight accounts they consider noteworthy.
Significance and criticism
The NUFORC database is one of the largest and longest continuously growing public collections of UFO reports, used as a source by researchers, journalists and interested members of the public alike. Because the reports arrive voluntarily and without verification, the reliability of the data varies: the accounts include identifiable aircraft, natural phenomena and sightings that remain unexplained alike. According to skeptical researchers, the NUFORC database is more a reflection of public interest and media influences than scientific evidence for the UFO phenomenon, while the organization itself takes on a primarily documentary rather than analytical role.
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