Center for UFO Studies

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The Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) is a privately-funded unidentified flying object (UFO) research group. It was founded in 1973 by Dr. J. Allen Hynek, a professor of astronomy at Northwestern University in Chicago. Dr. Hynek was also a top scientific consultant for Project Blue Book, the US Air Force's official study of the UFO mystery from 1948 to 1969. Although Dr. Hynek started out as a skeptic and helped the Air Force to debunk most UFO reports, he gradually became convinced that a small number of UFO cases were not hoaxes or explainable as misidentifications of natural phenomena, and that these cases might represent something extraordinary - even alien visitation from other planets. When the Air Force shut down Project Blue Book in 1969, Dr. Hynek decided to establish his own organization to continue to study UFO reports in a scientific and unbiased manner. Based in Chicago, CUFOS continues to be a small research organization stressing scientific analysis of UFO cases. Its extensive archives include historically valuable files from defunct civilian research groups such as NICAP, one of the most popular and credible UFO research groups of the 1950's and 1960's. Following Dr. Hynek's death in 1986, CUFOS was renamed the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies in his honor. The current leader and scientific director of CUFOS is Dr. Mark Rodeghier, who holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Illinois.