Section 6 : Discussion forums and UFO groups online
Additional useful websites include various:
Section 6.1 : UFO discussion forums
UFO UpDates is probably the best (public) discussion List for reading the views of the biggest names within ufology. It even manages to get quite a few skeptics discussing issues with pro-ETH researchers.
The “Aliens & UFOs” forum on ATS is the most active UFO discussion forum that I’m aware of. Many stories appear first here.
Various other fairly popular forums include the Aliens-ufos forums.
Somewhat smaller, but worth a look, are the Paracast Forum and the Department47 forum. These forums are particularly interesting because they tend to get a fair number of posts from people that subscribe to views that differ from the usual pro-ETH/anti-ETH polarized views.
Although not bustling with activity on an hourly basis, several of the posters on the Reality Uncovered forum are fairly knowledgeable within their focus upon certain topics and individuals (e.g. SERPO, members of the Aviary, Rick Doty, Kit Green, Gordon Novel etc). Some of them seem a bit obsessed with these topics...
There are numerous regional Lists and forums. For the UK, I’d recommend the Ufologyinuk forum, run by Joe McGonagle.
Various low-profile and/or private discussion lists – e.g. Project-1947, Current Encounters, EuroUFO. These Lists are definitely worth reading if you have the time, but if you think that all the answers are available on such private Lists then you will be very, very disappointed.
Section 6.2 : Websites of UFO groups
I’ll avoid trying to provide a list of all the UFO websites on the Internet. Any such list would be extremely long. However, I’ll provide a few useful links.
Firstly, in terms of the main international UFO research groups, I’ll quickly give links to the following websites:
I think it worth noting in passing that in his "UFO Directory International" (2003), Dave Blevins has referred (at pages 3-4 of the McFarland softcover edition) to some of the "more entrenched and well known entries" in his directory. The relevant list includes several groups from Europe, including the following (quickly annotated by myself with links to their websites, particularly to any section of that website which is in English):
- AFU (Sweden)
- British UFO Research Association (“BUFORA”)
- CENAP (Germany)
- CIFE (Spain)
- CUN (Italy)
- Flying Saucer Review (United Kingdom)
- SUFOI (Denmark)
- SOBEPS (Belgium)
- UFO-Norge (Norway)
- UFO-Sweden (Sweden)
Of course, the above links barely scratch the surface of the number of UFO groups on the Interner. Useful details (albeit sometimes out of date) for groups in numerous countries around the world on the “Ufoinfo” website in this section e.g. this page relating to Britain.
In addition to the information on the “Ufoinfo” website regarding groups within various individual countries, there are numerous websites that contains long lists of links to groups and webpages around the world. Those lists tend not to be grouped by (or even indicate) which country each group is active within. Some of the exceptions are the webpages at the link below:
In addition to the websites of the UFO groups at the above links, I’ll end by mentioning the useful (and relatively undervalued):
The NICAP website operated by Francis Ridge
- The website of CUFON (the Computer UFO Network) : www.cufon.org
- Dimitris Hatzopoulos’ website : www.hyper.net
- The Why Files website : www.thewhyfiles.net
One attempt to provide a directory of UFO websites (ufoseek.com) lists numerous websites, but many websites listed there are low quality and/or defunct.