Aerial Phenomena Research Organization

Founded in January 1952 in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin by Jim and Coral Lorenzen, the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) was a civilian UFO research group that operated until late 1988 and was, during its active decades, one of the two most respected civilian investigative bodies in the field alongside the National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP). Relocating through Alamogordo, New Mexico and settling permanently in Tucson, Arizona after 1960, APRO built an international network of state and country representatives, maintained a staff of consulting Ph.D. scientists, and published The APRO Bulletin, a periodical that recorded and analyzed UFO sightings, close encounters, and abduction reports for more than three decades.

History

Founding and relocation

APRO was established in January 1952 by Jim and Coral Lorenzen in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. In Casebook of a UFO Investigator, Raymond E. Fowler recorded that "the Aerial Phenomena Research Group (APRO), also founded in 1952 by Mrs. Coral Lorenzen, is currently directed by Coral's husband, Jim, and has grown into one of the most respected groups of its kind in the world," and cited The APRO Bulletin as a paid-subscription publication available to the general public. The Lorenzens moved to Alamogordo, New Mexico during the mid-1950s, and thereafter to Tucson, Arizona, where APRO's headquarters remained from 1960 onward at 3910 E. Kleindale Road.

Coral Lorenzen later reported that shortly after the move from Alamogordo to Tucson the couple were approached by unusual visitors — including a purported exterminator who asked questions not about the house but about the Lorenzens' reasons for moving, Jim's future employment, and UFOs — incidents APRO's founders interpreted as covert surveillance directed at their investigative work.

Scientific investigations

APRO stressed scientific field investigations and retained a large consulting staff of Ph.D. scientists. Among the most prominent was James E. McDonald of the University of Arizona, an atmospheric physicist often described as the leading scientific UFO researcher of his time; another was James Harder of the University of California, Berkeley, a civil and hydraulic engineering professor who served as APRO's director of research from 1969 to 1982. Both McDonald and Harder were among the six scientists who testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science and Astronautics on July 29, 1968, when the committee sponsored a one-day symposium on UFOs.

Astronomer J. Allen Hynek — who had served as scientific consultant to the Air Force's Project Blue Book — cited APRO and NICAP as the two best civilian UFO groups of their era, characterizing them as consisting largely of sober, serious-minded people capable of valuable contributions to the subject.

Harder's published investigative writings in The APRO Bulletin were later recirculated in field-research compendia; researcher Albert S. Rosales cited Harder's 1984 article "The Ins and Outs of UFOs and Secrecy since 1940" in APRO Bulletin Vol. 32 No. 2 as a primary source for period case documentation.

Notable investigations

During its active period APRO was involved — directly or through its consultants — in several of the most widely discussed civilian cases of the 1960s and 1970s. Jim Lorenzen, as APRO's international director, alerted the Condon Committee to the October 1967 Shag Harbour incident off Nova Scotia; investigators Don Saunders and Roy Craig of the committee conducted their inquiry largely by telephone and did not travel to Canada, a fact later criticized by researcher Chris Styles and documented by Kevin D. Randle.

In November 1975 APRO played a central role in the handling of the Travis Walton abduction case in Snowflake, Arizona. On the day of Walton's reappearance, Coral Lorenzen personally spoke with his brother Duane, arranged confidentiality from the press, and, through APRO's network of medical consultants, coordinated the prompt examination of Walton by doctors Joseph Saults and Howard Kandell at Duane's home in Phoenix.

The APRO Bulletin also served as the organization's primary venue for case reports on incidents that later became widely cited according to ufology, including coverage of the 1897 Aurora, Texas UFO incident ("The Aurora, Texas Case", The APRO Bulletin, May/June 1973) and the "Little Frozen Aliens" account (The APRO Bulletin, January/February 1975). The Lorenzens' co-authored books Flying Saucers: The Startling Evidence of the Invasion from Outer Space (1966) and Flying Saucer Occupants (1967), both published by Signet, drew heavily on APRO's accumulated case files.

APRO was likewise a primary point of contact for early researchers entering the field. Nuclear physicist Stanton T. Friedman, then employed at Aerojet General in California, recalled joining both NICAP and "the Tucson-based Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO)" during his initial years as a UFO investigator, a period from which he later developed his full-time research career.

MUFON schism and decline

In 1969 a sizable portion of APRO's midwestern membership broke away to form a new organization, the "Midwest UFO Network", which soon expanded geographically and was renamed the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON). MUFON's own historians record that its early ranks were largely drawn from APRO affiliates and from the SKYLOOK newsletter of Stover, Missouri, and that MUFON effectively succeeded APRO as the primary civilian investigative body after APRO's dissolution.

Activity wound down through the 1980s, and the organization ceased operations in late 1988 following the deaths of the Lorenzens.

Archive transfer (2023)

After almost 35 years in storage, the APRO case-file collection was transferred to the National UFO Historical Records Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico on November 25, 2023.

Relationship to other organizations

APRO operated contemporaneously with NICAP — the two were widely regarded as the leading civilian UFO organizations of the 1950s–70s — and with smaller groups such as Albert K. Bender's International Flying Saucer Bureau (IFSB) and Leonard Stringfield's Civilian Research Interplanetary Flying Objects (CRIFO). Its most significant organizational descendant, MUFON, grew directly out of its membership in 1969 and continues to operate as APRO's functional successor in the civilian field-investigation role. Travis Walton later recalled that at the time of his 1975 encounter "MUFON existed but they were not at the forefront at the time like APRO was" — a generational handoff that was effectively complete by APRO's dissolution in 1988.

Prominent members and consultants

• Coral Lorenzen — co-founder, secretary-treasurer, author
• Jim Lorenzen — co-founder, international director
• James E. McDonald — consulting atmospheric physicist
• James Harder — director of research (1969–1982)
• William Moore — member and later independent researcher

Publications

• The APRO Bulletin (periodical, 1952–1988)
• Coral Lorenzen, The Great Flying Saucer Hoax (1962)
• Coral Lorenzen and Jim Lorenzen, Flying Saucers: The Startling Evidence of the Invasion from Outer Space (Signet, 1966)
• Coral Lorenzen and Jim Lorenzen, Flying Saucer Occupants (Signet, 1967)

See also

• Alien abduction
• Close encounter
• List of UFO organizations
• Project Blue Book
• National UFO Historical Records Center

References

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External links

• History of the APRO
• History of MUFON (with references to APRO)
• National UFO Historical Records Center — holds the APRO archive since 2023