MUFON: The World’s Largest UFO Investigation Network

The Mutual UFO Network — MUFON — was founded in 1969 by Walter Andrus in Quincy, Illinois, at a moment when the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book had just been shut down and the institutional infrastructure for civilian UFO investigation was collapsing. Andrus and a small group of researchers recognised that the end of Blue Book was not the end of the phenomenon — it was merely the end of the government’s public interest in documenting it. Someone had to fill the gap. For over fifty years, MUFON has been that someone.

MUFON operates on a straightforward model: trained field investigators, organised into state and national chapters, receive reports from the public through the organisation’s online Case Management System, assess their credibility, and conduct interviews, site visits, and physical evidence collection where warranted. Each case is logged, rated, and archived. As of the mid-2020s, MUFON’s case database contains over 70,000 individual reports — the most extensive civilian UFO archive in the world. The data is available to researchers, journalists, and members of the public in a way that no government database matches for transparency.

The training and certification of field investigators is one of MUFON’s most significant contributions. Investigators are required to complete a comprehensive field investigator training programme that covers interview technique, evidence documentation, photographic analysis, radar data interpretation, and the psychological dimensions of witness testimony. The programme is designed to produce investigators capable of distinguishing between misidentifications, hoaxes, and genuine anomalous events — and to document whatever they find in a form that stands up to scrutiny. The organisation has trained hundreds of certified investigators across its chapters.

MUFON has investigated many of the most significant cases in recent UFO history. Its state chapters have been first responders to mass sighting events, crop circle formations with associated anomalies, and physical trace cases where craft have left impressions or chemical signatures in the ground. Its annual symposium brings together researchers, witnesses, government insiders, and scientists to share findings in a format that has, over the decades, produced some of the most substantive public discussion of UFO evidence available anywhere.

The organisation has faced its share of controversy. Internal disputes over leadership and direction have periodically created turbulence. Some critics have argued that MUFON’s open membership model allows ideologically motivated investigators into the field. These are legitimate concerns, and MUFON has worked to address them through revised training standards and investigative protocols. What has not wavered is the core mission: to investigate UFO reports with rigour, integrity, and an open mind, and to make the results available to the public.

For anyone serious about the UFO phenomenon — whether as a researcher, a witness seeking to understand an experience, or simply a citizen who wants to know what is being seen in the skies — MUFON’s database and investigative reports are an indispensable resource. The website is mufon.com. Reports can be submitted directly through the case management system. Field investigator training is open to the public. In a field where institutional gatekeeping has historically suppressed more than it has revealed, MUFON’s commitment to public access is its most important characteristic.