Born: 12 April 1958 in Mariestad, Sweden.
Education: Journalist since 1978 after studies at Journalisthögskolan in Gothenburg.
Occupation: Journalist at Mariestads-Tidningen (Mariestad) 1978-1983, Norrbottens-Kuriren (Luleå) 1983-1990 and Dagens Nyheter (Stockholm), Sweden’s largest morning newspaper, since 1990. Works as a reviewer for UFO, science fiction and other related books for the Swedish libraries.
Family: Wife Anneli and two children, Niklas (born 1992) and Markus (born 1994).
Hobbies: UFO research, amateur astronomy.

UFO-history:
Founded the local organisation UFO-Mariestad on 17 May 1974, member of UFO-Sweden’s board since 1988 and chairman since 1991. Vice chairman of Archives of UFO Research, AFU, in Norrköping. Co-editor of UFO-Sweden’s magazine “UFO-Aktuellt”. Publications (UFO books): “Domstensfallet – en svensk närkontakt 1958″ with Anders Liljegren (“The Domsten case – a Swedish close encounter in 1958″, AFU 1989), “Mötet i gläntan” with Gösta Carlsson (“The encounter in the clearing”, NTB Parthenon, 1995), “UFO-Mysteriet – från flygande tefat till cirklar i sädesfälten” (“The UFO mystery”, Parthenon 1998), “Fakta om UFO” (“Facts about UFOs”, Parthenon 1998) with Göran Norlén and by himself “UFO – möte med det okända” (“UFO – encounter with the unknown”, Semic 2000). In 2002 he was the main contributor to the book “Världens största konspirationer” (“The world’s largest conspiracies”, Semic).

Contributions to other books:
One chapter in “UFOs 1947-1987 – The 40 Year Search for an Explanation” with Anders Liljegren (Fortean Tomes 1987, ed. Evans/Spencer); One chapter in “Phenomenon” (Futura 1988, ed. Spencer/Evans); On chapter in “Sweden’s Ghost Rocket Delusion of 1946″ with Robert Bartholomew and Anders Liljegren (“UFOs & Alien Contact”, Prometheus Books 1998, Bartholomew/Howard); One chapter in “The Swedish Ghost Rocket Delusion of 1946″ with Robert Bartholomew, Glenn Dawes and Anders Liljegren (Fortean Studies Volume 6, John Brown Publ. 1999, ed. Steve Moore).

UFO related books:
One chapter about crop circles in “Övernaturligt” (1997); four chapters in the sequel “Oförklarligt” (1998) and seven chapters in “Gåtfullt” (1999).

Non-UFO related books:
Contributor to “Olösta mord” (“Unsolved murders”, Semic 2004).

Translations:
Colin Wilsons “Psychic Powers” to Swedish in 1999.

Other media:
Svahn has also co-produced several domestic TV-programs in Sweden as well as SciFi Channels “Earthscan” and “Sweden special”. He has contributed with articles in many Swedish and foreign UFO magazines. He is currently working on a cd-rom project that will be published during 2001. Svahns pictures have been published in many books and magazines, such as: Evans/Spencer, ed: UFOs 1947-1987 (1987), Stone: UFO Investigation (1993), Moran: Alien art (1998), Clark: The UFO Encyclopedia (1998), Bord: “The World of the Unexplained (1998) and Nylén: “Den nödvändiga boken om Allsvenskan” (2004).

e-mail: clas.svahn@dn.se

Ferhat Talayhan was born in 1978 and is currently studying media economics in the university.

He first became interested in the phenomenon at the age of 8, when he found an article on UFOs in a children magazine: he then went to the local library, read Hynek’s books and has stuck to the subject ever since.

Ferhat joined GEP and CENAP in 1990 and has since been a member of both.

Talayhan had also been a member of the Turkish organization TUVPO (which unfortunately came to an end when its founder Erol Erkmen died), he is one of the few experts on the UFO phenomena in Turkey and has held lectures on UFOs in Islam, the Djinn and the perspective of the muslim community on UFOs.

In 2000/2001 he and a friend started publishing their own critical magazine called Ufozine, which later became glossy and professional and has recently been renamed Incognitas.

Combined with Roland Gehardt, Ferhat Talayhan owns the largest existing collection of UFO literature in German language. He is currently writing on a comprehensive German bibliography, on the Nazi UFO Myth and other projects, mainly from a sceptical viewpoint.

Contact details:
Incognitas,
c/o Ferhat Talayhan,
Rutesheimerstr. 3/1,
71272 Renningen, Germany
Email: KleinerGrauer@googlemail.com
www.incognitas.de

Born in Turnhout, Belgium, in 1959.

Studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp.

Wim started off in the mid 70s as a “field investigator” for the Studiegroep voor Progressieve Wetenschappen/Groupement pour l’Etude des Sciences d’Avant-Garde (SPW/GESAG).

He headed the Studiegroep voor Vreemde Luchtverschijnselen (SVL) and edited the group’s journal (SVL Tijdschrift) from 1982 till 1987.

In 1994 Wim initiated CAELESTIA, a research initiative that seeks to find explanations rather than promote mysteries.

In 2007, together with Frederick Delaere, he set up the Belgisch UFO-meldpunt to monitor UFO reports in Belgium.

Wim is co-author of:

• Unidentified Aerial Object photographed near Zwischbergen, Switzerland, on July 26, 1975 (CAELESTIA, 1995, with Frits Van der Veldt)
• Belgium in UFO Photographs (UPIAR, Vol. 1/2018, with Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos)
• Redemption of the Damned (Anomalist Books, Vol. 1/2019, Vol. 2/2021, with Martin Shough)

Contributions to various UFO magazines and books include Skepter (journal of the Stichting Skepsis), International UFO Reporter (J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO studies), UFO 1947-1997 (John Brown Publishing, 1997) and Ronald D. Story’s Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters (New American Library, 2001).

His special areas of interest within the UFO/UAP field are photographic evidence and identified case reports.
Areas of interest besides UFOs/UAPs include painting and photography.

Postal address: Italiëlei 100/15, B-2000 Antwerp, Belgium
E-mail address:
wim.van.utrecht@skynet.be
Websites: www.caelestia.be and ufomeldpunt.be

Born in 1946 in Belgium, Jacques Scornaux has got a Ph.D. in chemistry from the Brussels Free University.

He has been active in ufology since 1971, when he joined the Belgian UFO group SOBEPS (Société Belge d’Etudes des Phénomènes Spatiaux), of which he has always been a member.

He wrote many articles for SOBEPS magazine Inforespace, and later on for the French UFO magazines Lumières dans la Nuit and OVNI Présence, when he emigrated to France for working in an international organization.

In 1976, he co-authored with Christiane Piens the book “A la recherche des OVNI”. In 1993, he was one of the co-authors of the collective book “OVNI – Vers une anthropologie d’un mythe contemporain”, edited by Thierry Pinvidic. His 1981 monograph about the new wave of French UFO skepticism (“Du monnerisme et de son bon usage”, Info-OVNI) was also published in Italian, and he co-signed a chapter in the international anthology “UFOs – 1947-1997″ (Evans, H. & Stacy, D., 1997).

As a co-organizer of the international UFO meeting in Le Bugue (France, 1981) and SOBEPS European UFO Congress in Brussels (Belgium, 1988), he co-edited the proceedings of both.

In recent years, his main ufological activity has been working with the organization called Sauvegarde et Conservation des Etudes et Archives Ufologiques (SCEAU, of which he is now president) to the preservation of ufological archives.

Postal address: 33 avenue de la République, F-94300 VINCENNES, France
E-mail address: e-mail: j.scornaux@wanadoo.fr

Born December 10, 1948 in Kharkov, then the USSR. He received his M.S. degree in computer science in 1972 and then joined the laboratory of Dr. A.V.Zolotov in Kalinin (now Tver), where he studied the problem of the Tunguska explosion for three years. He received his Ph.D. degree in the philosophy of science from the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, where in 1980 he defended his doctoral thesis “Philosophical and Methodological Aspects of the Problem of Extraterrestrial Civilizations” (the first of its kind in the former USSR).

His professional fields are methodology of interdisciplinary research, sociology of science and technology, and general epistemology. He is currently Director of the Research Institute on Anomalous Phenomena, a new scientific research body that has been established in Kharkov by the Ukrainian Aerospace Company “Vertical”, as well as the Editor of its newsletter RIAP Bulletin.

He has been involved in ufological studies since 1966 (his paper “Guests from Outer Space or Atmospheric Phenomena?”, published in the popular-scientific journal Znannia ta Pratsa, Kiev, 1966, No. 9, was in fact the first positively-oriented ufological paper ever published in the Soviet press). As far back as 1981, he organized in Kharkov one of the first half-official UFO Study Groups in the USSR.

He is taking a specific interest in the application of the scientific method to this field of investigations. He has authored more than 100 articles on ETI and UFO problems in the Soviet, post-Soviet, and foreign press, as well as two scientific monographs: The Problem of Extraterrestrial Civilizations (with A.D.Ursul, Kishinev: Shtiintsa, 1984 & 1987) and UFOs and Modern Science, (with Y.V.Platov, Moscow: Nauka, 1991).

He is a full member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics, an associate member of the Society for Scientific Exploration, USA, a member of the Expert Group on Anomalous Atmospheric Phenomena of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the MUFON representative for Ukraine, as well as a co-director of the Joint USA-CIS Aerial Anomaly Federation.

He can be contacted at: RIAP, P.O.Box 4542, 61022 Kharkiv-22, Ukraine. E-mail address: tolimak@mail.ru.

Awards: Award of Moldavian Academy of Sciences, 1984.

Publications:

Book: The Problem of Extraterrestrial Civilizations: Philosophical and Methodological Aspects. Kishinev: Shtiintsa (Science) Publishing House, 1st edition: 1984, 2nd, enlarged, edition: 1987 (with A.D.Ursul).

Book: UFOs and Modern Science. Moscow: Nauka (Science) Publishing House, 1991 (with Y.V.Platov).

Selected Papers:

Visitors from the Space or Atmospheric Phenomena?, Znannya ta Pratsa, Kiev, 1966, No. 9.

The Discovery by Dr. Gurlt (with Y.N.Morozov), Tekhnika-Molodyozhi, Moscow, 1976, No. 7.

A “Flying ‘Man’ in Black” in Russia, Flying Saucer Review, 1979, Vol. 24, No. 4.

The Dichotomy “Natural-Artificial” and its Role in the Problem of Extraterrestrial Civilizations, Proceedings of XV Tsiolkovsky Readings, Kaluga, 1981.

The Problem of Paleovisits (Corr.), Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 1983, Vol. 36, No. 11.

Open Letter to Ancient Astronaut Theory Proponents, Ancient Skies, 1984, Vol. 11, No. 4.

Beyond the Sirius Lore, Ancient Skies, 1985, Vol. 12, No. 4.

Anomalous Phenomena and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Civilizations, Non-Periodical Transient Phenomena in the Environment. Interdisciplinary Scientific-Technical Conference. Abstracts of Papers. Tomsk, 1988.

The Problem of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena and Its Methodological Lessons, MUFON UFO Journal, 1988, No. 248.

UFOs: from Controversy to Investigations, Zemlya i Vselennaya, Moscow, 1990, No. 3.

Encounter in Kazakhstan (Corr.), Fortean Times, 1990, No. 56.

Criteria of Artificiality in SETI, Bioastronomy: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life – The Exploration Broadens. Berlin etc.: Springer-Verlag, 1991.

On the Question of Paleovisits. – Ibid.

Soviet Ice Ring, MUFON UFO Journal, 1991, No. 282.

Ukraine Research Institute on Anomalous Phenomena, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1993, Vol. 7, No. 3.

Alien Contacts and Abduction Experiences: a Look from the C.I.S., MUFON 1994 International UFO Symposium Proceedings. Seguin, 1994.

Los Ovnis Del Rio Mzha, Enigmas, Madrid, 1996, Vol. 2, No. 9.

Soviet Ufology in Its Human Dimensions, UFOs 1947-1997. London: John Brown Publishing, 1997.

SSE Member Vladimir V. Rubtsov. Profile. The Explorer, 1998, Vol. 14, No. 1&2.

The Unknown Tunguska, Fate, 2001, May.

Domes of Wrath, Fate, 2002, April.

Soviet Ufology, Fate, 2005, December.

http://www.anomalousphenomena.com

José Ruesga Montiel  was born in Sevilla, on December 14, 1947. He studied technical architecture at the Sevilla University (1970), anthropology and theology at the Salamanca University (1991) and is working as a director for the regional government.

Interested in UFOs since 1965, he has been an active investigator and an organizer with several associations: founder and president of RNC (Red Nacional de Corresponsales, 1969-1983), editor in chief of Ovni (Malaga, 1969-70), secretary of CEFO (1980-81), editor of Cuadernos de ufologia (1983-1997) and of @nomalia (2000-2003), he was among the founders of Fundacion Anomalia (1996) and its president (2000-2004). A frequent speaker at UFO congresses and conferences, as well as in radio and TV (1974-1999), he has written countless articles in Spanish and international UFO journals, as well as chapters in collective UFO books.

Among his ongoing UFO projects, he is coordinating “Proyecto Mèliès” (UFOs and ET in cinema) and “Music and UFOs”.

Besides ufology, his interests include art (as an awarded  painter and photographer) and archaeology (working with Museo Arqueologico Hispalense).

His home address is: Domicilio: C/ Antoñita Colomé, 7 -2º B, 41007 Sevilla, España

e-mail: jose.ruesga@supercable.es

Born 1949 and has lived all his life on the peninsula of Vikbolandet, east of Norrköping, Sweden.

Interested primarily in the contactee aspect of UFOs, has been collecting contactee stories into an international catalogue since 1970, when he first became a member of UFO-Sweden. Nowadays his outlook on the UFO phenomena is very skeptical – yet open.

Since 1980 Sven-Olov works a few hours each day as the archivist and librarian with Archives for UFO Research, keeping order to the collections, sending out newsletters, copies, loans and sold materials to our contacts & customers world-wide.

His other interests include Swedish literature, Swedish folk music and football. He has also assembled a vast collection of materials on unsolved crimes in Sweden, including the murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986.

Sven-Olov has no Internet connection or email, but can be researched through afu@ufo.se

Born December 15th, 1952, Jean-Luc has been fascinated by UFOs and strange phenomena for more than 40 years. After graduating from law schools in France and NYC, he moved on to manage subsidiaries of french companies and his own companies in Europe, the Middle-East and the USA while traveling extensively worldwide.

In the mean time, he was pursuing his own ufological interests, being a member of the GEPA and LDLN in France, of the MUFON in the US – cofounding with Alain Gamard the French Humanoid Study Group, after being a member of the MUFON Humanoid Study group founded by his old friend Ted Bloecher -, meeting UFO researchers everywhere and attending numerous UFO conventions and gatherings in Europe and America. Except for writing with Alain Gamard the postface of “Les apparitions d’humanoïdes” by Eric Zurcher (1979) and the chapter devoted to the abduction phenomenon in “Le temps et les OVNI” by Jean-Luc Chaumeil (1992) plus a few articles, Jean-Luc was too busy collecting and reading books and magazines (1800 UFO books, 2000 fortean books, countless collections of UFO and paranormal magazines) and using them as a data bank for the use of his researchers friends.

Beside pursuing his own interests  (CEIII, abductions and pre-arnoldian sightings plus nazi saucers, Hollow Earth and Rennes-le-Château mythologies), he is in the mean time the editor-in-chief of “La Gazette Fortéenne” ( a yearly volume on all fortean topics, now in its fourth year) and responsible for the “Bibliothèque Fortéenne” (publishing books on fortean topics) and the “Bibliothèque Heuvelmansienne” (which will republish all of the cryptozoological books written by Bernard Heuvelmans, the ‘father’ of cryptozoology), plus numerous book projects, all at the editions de l’Oeil du Sphinx in Paris.

Some of his major other interests are in the science-fiction litterature where he has been busy reading and collecting books too since the age of 9. He is the founder and organizer of the “Festival de science-fiction et de fantasy de Sèvres”, now in its second year.

Werner Walter was born in 1957 in Mannheim, Germany and is a trained retail salesman.

He became interested in UFOs as a young man, when he had a UFO sighting himself, which later turned out to be a laser projection. In those days he happened to meet and get to know Hans Jürgen Köhler. Fed up of the contactee movement and ufological lies spread in Germany, in 1976 they founded CENAP, the Central Exploration Network on Unknown Aerial Phenomena. The Cenap Report has been published bi – monthly for decades and has become an online magazine (pdf) still appearing bi-monthly to this very day.

His homepage is: www.cenap.de Walter also published dozens of books by himself and also wrote a bestseller called “UFOs – Die Wahrheit” (UFOs – The Truth), which was published by Heel publishing house in 1996.

Contact details:
Werner Walter
Eisenacher Weg 16
68309 Mannheim, Germany
Telephone number and Germany´s UFO hotline: 0621-701370
Email: cenap@addcom.de

www.cenap.de

Maurizio Verga - 2010

Born in 1963, he has been dealing with UFOs since 1976, producing a large number of monographs and articles published in several Italian and international UFO magazines.

One of the founders of the Centro Italiano Studi Ufologici (CISU), he has been involved in many projects, including the collection and analysis of the Italian UFO close encounters, traces cases and photo cases.

Pioneering the use of personal computers for UFO research in the early ’80s (then editing “The Computer UFO Newsletter”, an early attempt to discuss how computer technology could be helpful to UFO research), he has created and managed some UFO WEB sites, including the leading UFO.it (http://www.ufo.it) and the Electronic UFO Bookstore UPIAR (http://www.upiar.com). He has designed and set up several online databases of Italian UFO sightings, clippings and collections leading the way in the shared management of UFO-related resources.

He contributed several Italian and international UFO Magazines and book anthologies, while he authored the large Monographs devoted to the Italian close encounter and trace cases. One of them is the ITACAT large monograph, actually the testbed for the later “When saucers came to earth” English language book. Such a book (definitely a much expanded and different thing than the original Italian version) delivered for the first time ever a comprehensive look at the most interesting close encounter cases happened in Italy until 1954, during the so-called “golden age” of the flying saucers. More information here.

Maurizio is also involved in the highly controversial topic of the legends of the so-called “Nazi UFOs” (see the old site at http://www.naziufos.com). Following a severe approach, he wrote the most detailed survey to date of the origins and early development of the German saucers, exposing myths, hoaxes and obscure news. The text is currently in Italian only, but it can be quite easily understood when using an online translator.

He created and then managed together with Giuseppe Stilo the WikiUFO project, a Wikipedia-like encyclopedia aimed at providing the best and most accurate documentation about the most important topics of ufology and UFO resaearch.

Maurizio has a peculiar interest in UFO-related imagery, stockpiling a large quantity of paper and digital visuals. He likely owns the largest collection of sci-fi film posters portraying saucers or featuring a UFO-related theme. He also owns the Italian largest private library of UFO books.

In 2009 he began a new project to study how and why the saucer phenomenon was born in 1947, focusing on the (underestimated) presence of the ET motif and expectation in the American culture of the time. The project was later temporarily suspended in order to keep working on an important sub-project: the development of the idea of life on Mars and likely communication to/from the red planet, as precursor and cause of the acceptance of the flying saucers and their astrounding penetration into the modern popular culture. The whole work looks pretty huge and an unprecedente quantity of documents has been found so far, and counting! An Italian-language book is scheduled for 2013.

Maurizio is currently an entrepeneur dealing with E-Business services to the fashion industry and is the creator and founder of the ItalianModa B2B online marketplace.

E-Mail: mauverga@ufo.it

Postal Address:
via Matteotti 85
22072 Cermenate (Como)
ITALY