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Pros and Cons of MUFON

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S

slenzo

Paranormal Novice
Is anyone out there was a member of MUFON?
If so, what are the pros and cons?

How are meetings structured? Whats the "field training" like. etc...

I live in Maryland and if any of you belong to MD MUFON, your comments will be more than appreciated.

Thanks.
 
slenzo said:
Is anyone out there was a member of MUFON?
If so, what are the pros and cons?

How are meetings structured? Whats the "field training" like. etc...

I live in Maryland and if any of you belong to MD MUFON, your comments will be more than appreciated.

Thanks.
Click to expand...


I was years ago. Left due to a bunch of little reasons. I don't care to bash them, so I won't. I was a "field investigator trainee".

Check their site out if you haven't.

As for meetings, you'll get a letter from your state director about them. Usually monthly.

Field investigation training, you basically go on site with an investigator and learn the ropes by watching him or her usually. It's detailed in the guide.
 
A.LeClair said:
I was years ago. Left due to a bunch of little reasons. I don't care to bash them, so I won't. I was a "field investigator trainee".

Check their site out if you haven't.

As for meetings, you'll get a letter from your state director about them. Usually monthly.

Field investigation training, you basically go on site with an investigator and learn the ropes by watching him or her usually. It's detailed in the guide.
Click to expand...

I am a member of MUFON. That said, I am not a field investigator. I carry the membership card, and receive the monthly newsletter and email alerts. Period!
 
Gene Steinberg said:
I am a member of MUFON. That said, I am not a field investigator. I carry the membership card, and receive the monthly newsletter and email alerts. Period!
Click to expand...

Yeh, that's right. I heard you mention that on a show once.

No journal? I still have huge stacks of them somewhere. I don't think they had anything incorporated e-mail-wise when I was a member.
 
A.LeClair said:
Yeh, that's right. I heard you mention that on a show once.

No journal? I still have huge stacks of them somewhere. I don't think they had anything incorporated e-mail-wise when I was a member.
Click to expand...

Yes, as I said the newsletter -- call it a journal if you will.
 
So far thanks, but I have a few followups.

What about issues of credibility? I know outside of the "community", MUFON carries a stigma, but what about within? Bruce Maccabee is a member (he's the Director of MD-MUFON) and is credible minus the rods stuff but is Stanton Freidman a member? How about Jeff Ritzmann? He's from Maryland.

With that said are people like Sean David Morton, Michael Horn, Prophet Yaweh also in it? If so, how do they get kicked them out? Is it fun? Is it time consuming?

I've checked the MUFON site and it is a good resource for research and reporting. It is also a development tool (ie. raise awareness and funds), but I don't see any "experiential" information. How are these members sharing in the MUFON experience?

I am sure you can tell I have been in academia way too long. Soon I'll be talking about diversity. God help me.
Thanks again,
Sal from Baltimore
 
Okay... whether it is a newletter or journal, I won't be signing up anytime soon. I received an email from an officer of the MD chapter and the group has basically disintegrated due to a lack of support from HQ and from the members within.

Thanks for the feedback.
 
slenzo said:
So far thanks, but I have a few followups.

What about issues of credibility? I know outside of the "community", MUFON carries a stigma, but what about within? Bruce Maccabee is a member (he's the Director of MD-MUFON) and is credible minus the rods stuff but is Stanton Freidman a member? How about Jeff Ritzmann? He's from Maryland.

With that said are people like Sean David Morton, Michael Horn, Prophet Yaweh also in it? If so, how do they get kicked them out? Is it fun? Is it time consuming?

I've checked the MUFON site and it is a good resource for research and reporting. It is also a development tool (ie. raise awareness and funds), but I don't see any "experiential" information. How are these members sharing in the MUFON experience?

I am sure you can tell I have been in academia way too long. Soon I'll be talking about diversity. God help me.
Thanks again,
Sal from Baltimore
Click to expand...


MUFON has a stigma now? I figured they would, which is one of the reasons I left.

I can't speak as an insider since I haven't been with them in awhile.


If Bruce isn't credible with rods, neither am I.

I only recently found out about Jeff several months ago. I never heard of him before that. He hasn't frequented here of late. Think he's busy with his blog site and his own forum at ATS. Surprised Gene and David haven't linked to it yet. It doesn't look like he gets a lot of hits.

Don't know if the others you mentioned are members.

Fun? Depends on who you are. MUFON encourages it's investigators to view investigating as a job (without $$) rather than something to do if you are a thrill seeker or looking for fun. As for the meetings? Depends on if you are interested in the given topics of the meeting.

Time consuming? No more than you want it to be. Some investigators got demoted due to being slack though. How much time depends on what you try to be and do with them, as well as ufo activity in your area. You can just do like Gene and get their journal/newsletter. If you want to attend meetings I think you can as a subscriber alone. Not 100 percent sure though.

MUFON keeps a lot of cases anon, so that might be why you don't see many experiential cases at the site. Not sure what you meant by that entirely btw. They do have a sighting database you can look at.
 
slenzo said:
Okay... whether it is a newletter or journal, I won't be signing up anytime soon. I received an email from an officer of the MD chapter and the group has basically disintegrated due to a lack of support from HQ and from the members within.

Thanks for the feedback.
Click to expand...

Funny (well, in a sad way). That's another one of the reasons I left. But not only headquarters, my state director liked to ignore me. Believe it or not, I did nothing to deserve it either:)
 
I am part of MUFON, some of the pro's is that it's a network, you can contact people and share Info with other people to find an answer to the UFO question. The newsletter "journal" call it what you will, is a good in my mind because I like reading cases form other states. Also getting cases investigated, get it out to the field investigator which help us all. Some of the con's is the that case management system is bad, they may seem a little narrow minded, if we don't look at all sides of the story and slowly weed it out, the MUFON has fallen in the hole and standardized the investigative field for all, witch is a good thing but you lose a little when doing that, science is good but sometimes that dose not solve cases. If science want to say UFO are unreal then why don't the science get involved and so us the error in our ways? The closes thing to that is MUFON and people like me and you and UFO magazine and other UFO organizations that want to find the truth. Every people has pro and con, and mud slinging with all ways be there but in a way I think that is a good thing it pushes us to get something done, what I don't like is how other UFOlogyes don't have open mind for other theories, nothing is concrete with the UFO field. But we know that don't we. A open mind is a good mind, close it to one theories then your doing every one a disservice which will not help us.


Don't judged us because one or 3 or more persons is bad in your mind, MUFON is a big network there is some good people in the MUFON trying to get to the bottom of the UFO question. It is a complex field and its easy to get twisted and mixed and sometime assbackwards, i think there should be more networking and more con's so people in mass, talk and Tread cases and stories so people can criticizes cases and find more sides to the coin, every one is welcome, skeptics and close minded people welcome. getting people Involved.
 
A.LeClair said:
Funny (well, in a sad way). That's another one of the reasons I left. But not only headquarters, my state director liked to ignore me. Believe it or not, I did nothing to deserve it either:)
Click to expand...


ya thats a nother problum my state director is ignoring me aswell.
 
Wow...I guess I am officially on the fence. For the record however, the assistant director I went through did not ignore me, in fact he replied to my email in about 6 hours which is great in my opinion. It just seemed from the tone of his email that he has tried and tried and tried over the past 7 years to get this up and running, but to no avail.

I may consider starting a student group at the college I work at and perhaps put the franchise tag on it by making the students apply for MUFON membership. Grassroots approach.

I don't know if I have the time this year. I have a wedding to plan and pay off first, so my focus needs to be much closer to this planet for the time being.

Thanks... and feel free to continue on with this thread.
 
I was interested in getting more info on MUFON here is Arizona. I sent several emails to the state and local directors and never got any reply.

wildcat
 
I used to be a member in the days of Walter Andrus as Director. That was in the early days of computers. I was pushing email and the Web as vital to Mufon, but Walt was old school and thought it was just new stuff to learn and he didn't have time. They were kind of formal in some ways back then. I was designated a "Research Associate in Library Science."

My take on it is that Mufon is a membership organization that will accept anyone interested. Some of the local chapters are quite good in putting on events and keeping people organized. Others are not. The Field Investigation manual is an honest attempt to teach people some of the issues. I think Mufon would LIKE to be seen as the "first line of defense" in terms of being "on scene" after a sighting. At least when I was involved Mufon was into measuring landing traces and lights in the sky. In some ways the course of Ufology has moved beyond those issues, and I'm not convinced Mufon has.
 
Wow, MUFON sounds pretty sorry. It seems everyone is content to just sit on the net reading what happens outside rather than being proactive.

No wonder disclosure is so far out of reach. Disheartening.
 
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