UUFOH- MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH

INTERNATIONAL UFOLOGY

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH

___________________________________________________________________________

REPORTING ON THE STATE OF UFOLOGY IN THE US, BRUCE WRIGHT REVEALS THAT FOLLOWING THE PURCHASE OF UTAH'S UFO RANCH AND ITS TRANSFORMATION INTO A RESEARCH CENTRE, THE SAUCERWATCHERS ARE FAR FROM UNITED. BRUCE LANIER WRIGHT is A PUZZLED FORTEAN AND POP-CULTURE HISTORIAN LIVING IN AUSTIN. TEXAS.

HIS BOOK NIGHTVVALKERS WAS PUBLISHED IN 1995 BY TAYLOR PUBLISHING

In October 1996, saucer enthusiasts were intrigued to learn that Utah's famous 'UFO ranch' had been purchased by Las Vegas millionaire Robert Bigelow who plans to transform it into a scientific installation devoted to the study of the abundantly weird phenomena said to occur in the area.

Eastern Utah's Uintah basin has long been a hotbed of UFO sightings and associated oddness, but, according to recent press accounts, the 480-acre Sherman ranch near Fort Duchesne would appear to be the epicenter the Borley Director of ufoio~ Terry and Gwen Sherman. whose story made national news in July 1996, have been putting up with a plethora of bizarre events since purchasing the ranch in 1994.

According to Utah's Deseret News, several cows disappeared, including one whose tracks led to a circle of broken vegetation. Three family dogs also vanished after chasing a strange bluish- white ball of light"; other livestock have been found mutilated, at least one with the now-traditional, cored- out rectum- The family has reported sightings of many mystery craft, including an object the size of several football fields, as well as airborne lights that emanate from 'orange, circular door- ways' that appear in mid-air .

Terry Sherman, reportedly, saw a 9ft humanoid leaving a UFO and heard disembodied voices speaking from the skies. Understandably the Sherman family tired of this behavior and, in September 1996, sold the ranch to Bigelow for $200,000, at-. a loss NOW' relocated to a smaller ranch 15 miles away, Sherman continues to maintain the UFO ranch for Bigelow and two scientists assigned there by the new owner, Bigelow's involvement with the UFO ranch is as interesting to saucerheads as the phenomena A secretive sort of fellow - to whom the term, 'shadowy' inevitably seems to attach itself. Bigelow has a history of toying with hinge projects. In 1990, for instance, lie formed the short-lived Zeta Reticuli II Corporation with Area 51 cult figure Robert Lazar, presumably to capitalize on Lazars alleged insights into ERG technology. More recently, he was briefly associated with the Consciousness Research Laboratory at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and has granted funds to animal mutilation researcher Linda Mouton Howe. Bigelow seems to prefer the Lowest possible profile, but none the- less made headlines in the saucer world in late 1994 when it was announced that his Bigelow Foundation would begin funding the three largest remaining UFO organizations. the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON~, the Center for CEO Studies (CUFOS) and the Fund for UFO Research (FUFOR). This announcement of a 'UFO Research Coalition' naturally excited a good deal of interest. In less than a year. however came news that the financial link had been severed, apparently due to "irreconcilable differences' among the parties. (An associate of Bigelow's told James Moseley's colorful Saucer Smear that the Coalition members had "no understanding of the 'golden rule' whoever has the gold makes the rules') Research at the Sherman ranch will be directed by Bigelow's newest venture, the National Institute of Discovery Science (NIDS). His partner in this venture is the even more shadowy John Alexander former head of the non-lethal weapons program at Los Alamos National Laboratories. In a rather delicious irony. Alexander is also a Doctor of Thanatolo~" and former protege of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Saucer Smear has noted whisperings that the Bigelow Foundation is a "CIA conduit" while defrocked psychologist and high-profile saucerhead Dr Richard Boylan has catalogued Alexander as 'Penguin in the infamous Aviary' of spy-types thought by some to be mucking about the ERG world since the early 1980s < Others have identified Alexander as the 'Colonel Phillips who spouted at length about secret US UFO research in Howard Blums highly controversial book Out There.

According to its skimpy public statements, NIDS will be guided by an unnamed "world-class science advisory board" - Genial sceptic and Area 51-watcher Glenn Campbell has named as NIDS associates astronaut Edgar Mitchell, aircraft designer Burt Rotan and physicist Hal Puthoff (who is, by the way the 'Owl in Boylan's Aviary roster).

NlDS maintains a website (http://www.accessnv.com/nids/) that features a handful of interesting if rather opaque technical reports., including analyses of the alleged alien implants discovered in 1995 by California podiatrist Roger Leir.

Alexander has promised that reports of investigations at the UF0 ranch will appear on the NIDS website but at present no one is talking Sherman has been required to sign a nondisclosure agreement. More news as we get it.