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

Born in 1935, she has worked as a certified teacher both in Belgium and Congo,  since 1954 through 1965, and later in the industry.

She became interested in ufology after a personal sighting in 1991 and joined Belgian UFO organization SOBEPS, serving as Director of Investigations for four years.

She left SOBEPS in 1995 and has since investigated UFOs privately. Her main effort in the last few years has been compiling an online chronology of UFO reports since 480 b.C.

Website : http://users.skynet.be/sky84985/index.html

Born in 1965 in Florence, where he had been living until 2002 and followed university courses in political science. After his marriage, he moved to Pinerolo, where he is working for a real estate firm.
A UFO buff since his teen years, he has been a council member of Sezione Ufologica Fiorentina (SUF) since 1986 and an editorial staff member of the monthly Il Giornale dei Misteri between 1987 and 1997. A former member of Centro Ufologico Nazionale (CUN) in 1986-1987, since 1988 he has been an active member of Centro Italiano Studi Ufologici (CISU), as a field investigator and regional coordinator for Tuscany, later as the editor-in-chief of its internal newsletter UFO Forum (2000-2001) and as one of the editors of CISU journal UFO – Rivista di informazione ufologica (2002-2017), as well as a member of CISU board (1994-2017).
A specialist in UFO storiography, he is the author of about one hundred articles, a few monographs and six books (Scrutate i cieli!, 2000; Ultimatum alla Terra, 2002; Il quinto cavaliere dell’Apocalisse, 2006 and 2016;L’alba di una nuova era, 2004;Un cielo rosso scuro, 2015;) about the UFO waves of 1950, 1952, 1946, 1954 and 1947 in Italy and the rest of the world.
He has been the coordinator of three research projects:
– Operation Origins: recovery, filing and analysis of everything concerning the early years 1946-1954 in Italy;
– Earth Lights Project: updating a bibliography on ghost lights, St. Elmo’s fire, will-o-the-whisp, etc., also keeping  the database ELIA (Earth Lights International Catalog) on places where localized, recurrent light phenomena are reported;
– CrashCat: a catalogue and archive of Italian reports of unidentified flying objects seen falling from the sky to the ground since 1870.
Since 2018, he moved his activism to CICAP (the Italian skeptics organization), as an editorial board member with their Query online e-zine, and wrote the book Alieni ma non troppo (2022).
Address: via Enrico Cravero, 31, I-10064 Pinerolo (TO), Italy
e-mail: giuseppe.stilo@usa.net

Born in 1960, Thierry Rocher is a cartographic designer by profession and he is now retired.

He contributed to several French UFO groups and magazines, as field investigator, editor and drawer (GEPO since 1978, CIGU since 1983, LDLN since 1987, AESV since 1983, SOS OVNI since 1991, SERPAN since 1991).

Since 1991 he published La Circulaire, monthly information bulletin on ufology and related topics, later renamed Le Répertoire.

In 1991 he helped to create and organize the Répas Ufologiques Parisiens (Paris Ufological Dinners), still gathering dozens of people interested in UFOs for a monthly dinner and conference.

His present activities are with CNEGU (Comité Nord-Est des Groupes Ufologiques, which he’s been a member since 2002) and with SCEAU (Sauvegarde et Conservation des Etudes et Archives Ufologiques), of which he was a co-founder, in 1990, and is presently assistant secretary.

Born in 1956, he has been interested in strange phenomena since he was a child. He began active investigation and research of UFOs in 1983. He has been active in many investigation groups, including BUFORA and the IUN (Independent UFO Network) and has contributed to many local and national TV and radio shows.

He is co-author of several UFO books: “UFOs 1947-87” (1987), “Phenomenon” (1988), “Phantoms of the Sky” (1989), “Earthlights Revelation” (1991), “The UFOs That Never Were” (2000), “Out of the Shadows”(2002). He edited the magazine UFO Brigantia for 25 issues and also the sporadic The Armchair Ufologist.

His main fields of study are: the social history of ufology in the UK, UK contactees, UK UFO crashes, specifically the Berwyn Mountain UFO crash, foo-fighters, the Warminster phenomenon, UFO hoaxes, and witness perception.  His forthcoming book (due in April 2007) is “Flying Saucerers”, with Dave Clarke.

His position statement on UFOs is: Humans have witnessed unexplained aerial phenomena for millenia. Each generation has it’s own interperatation of what these phenomena are, from flying dragons to phantom airships to extraterrestrial craft. As no physical evidence for any of these interpretations has been found it is a reasonable assumption that all UFO phenomenon is a mixture of witness perception and belief, together with the processes of folklore and mythology, well stirred by a compliant media.

Besides a dedication to the subject of ufology Andy is also active in the field of Fortean research, a frequent contributor to Fortean Times.

When not answering the call of the weird he manages several hostels for homeless young people in Wrexham and pursues many other interests including hill walking, kite flying and UFO hoaxing.

e-mail: andy@darkstar.fsnet.co.uk

http://www.flyingsaucery.com

Paolo Toselli was born in 1960, lives in Alessandria and has been employed for twentyfour years by a major national gas distribution company.

First interested in UFOs since he was 12 years old, he founded local group ACOM in 1973 and had been  editing its bulletin (Notiziario Ufologico ACOM)  between 1974 and 1979, later merging into Clypeus – Ufologia (1979-1985).

An active field investigator, a prolific writer (of articles published in Italian as well as international UFO periodicals, plus some book chapters), a frequent speaker at UFO congresses in Italy and abroad, he has also been very involved in public education, with dozens of interviewes on papers, radio and TV.

Since 1978 he has been concentrating on psychological, perception and sociological issues of the UFO experience, with a specific interest for IFOs. His paper on “The IFO Experience” at the International UPIAR Colloquium on Human Sciences and UFO Phenomena (Salzburg, July 1982) has become a classic in the specialized literature.

A former member and provincial director of CUN (Centro Ufologico Nazionale, 1978-1985), he was a founding member of CISU (Centro Italiano Studi Ufologici) in 1985 and has long been on CISU council (as a President between 1996 and 1998) and in the editorial  team of its journal UFO – Rivista di informazione ufologica.

Besides ufology, since 1990 he has also been active in the “urban legends” collection and study, about which he became a nazional expert, founded the Italian Center for Rumours and Contemporary Legends (CeRaVoLC), published its newsletter TutteStorie and wrote four books.

He is presently coordinator of a few CISU research/catalogue projects:

• BLITA (Ball Lightning Italian Database)
• UFO in Advertising (an international catalogue and archive of UFO/ET image in commercials)
• UFO in Music (international catalogue of UFO motives in pop music)

Within the EuroUfo.net, since 2007 he has been charged to keep the catalogue of European Trans-national flaps of UFO/IFO sightings.

Since the demise of the specialized web catalogue by Jacques Poulet in 2006, Paolo is also keeping and updating the international catalogue of University Theses and Dissertations about UFOs.

Mailing address: via Mondovì 4, I-15100 Alessandria, Italy
e-mail: ptoselli@tin.it

Involved in Paris UFO groups (expecially SPEPSE and GEOS) since his teen years, in the early ’70s, he was in the editorial team of Les extraterrestres magazine.

At first interested in the logics and semantics of ufology (“The Babel’s Law”), he later concentrated on the psychological and sociological issues with an experimental “Project Magonia” (meant to check the “UFO image” diffusion in the public eye) and some analysis about the UFO stereotype dispersion to non-Western people (eg. China and Algeria).

Among the first to raise a critical voice against Monnerie’s neo-skepticism, he nonetheless adopted some of its crucial issues vs. the “true believers”, and thus became one of the coordinators for the Paris university-oriented UFO collective, the organizer of the UFO meeting in Le Bugue (France, 1981) and co-organizer of the First European Congress on anomalous aerial phenomena hosted by SOBEPS in Brussels (Belgium, 1988), which he co-edited both proceedings of.

Author of the book “Le noeud gordien ou la fantastique histoire des OVNI” (1979), a consultant to the French official UFO study group GEPAN, a former French editor for UK Magonia magazine, he is also author of several articles published in UFO journals in France, Italy and the UK and was co-editor of the anthological book: “OVNIs: vers une anthropologie d’un mythe contemporain” (1993).

After an active involvement in studying English “crop circles” first summers (his article about the VECA mission in the UK was published in popular science magazine “Science et vie”), in the last few years his main activity has been focused on the recovery and inventory of old UFO archives, through the SCEAU association.

e-mail: thierry.pinvidic@sncf.fr

Edoardo Russo was born in 1959, is married, has got a daughter and a son, lives in Turin. After classical studies, he graduated in economics and has worked as a tax consultant and chartered accountant. He can speak French and English, can read Spanish but has forgotten nearly all what he once knew of German, Latin and Greek.

An avid UFO teenage buff since 1973, he has been active with a few UFO organizations (Gruppo Clypeus since 1976, Centro Ufologico Nazionale 1978-1985, Centro Italiano Studi Ufologici 1985-) and with the editorial boards of several UFO publications (Clypeus 1976-, Ufologia, 1979-1984; Notiziario Ufo, 1978-1984; Quaderni Ufo, 1981-1983; Ufo Phenomena International Annual Review, 1981-1984; Ufo ­ Rivista di informazione ufologica, 1986-; Notizie UFO, 1985-2000; European Journal of Ufo and Abduction Studies, 2000-2003).

He is the author of a few hundreds articles published both in Italian and in international UFO periodicals, plus several chapters in UFO books and the UFO Field investigation methodology manual. (For a list of his articles and books, see Edoardo Russo’s Bibliography)

He also presented some dozens papers at UFO congresses in Italy and abroad; and has been interviewed a few hundreds times on radio, TV and newspapers.

Since 2012, he has been MUFON National Director for Italy. Since 2023 he’s actively involved in UAP Check initiative.

Address: Corso Vittorio Emanuele 108, 10121 Torino, Italy
e-mail: e.russo@cisu.org

Marco Orlandi was born in Bologna, in 1958. There he also graduated in Law and is working in a scientific research institute as an administrative clerk. He is married and his son Simone has also been an active ufologist.

He has been a member of Centro Italiano Studi Ufologici since its foundation, in 1986.

Since 1994, he has been the coordinator of CISU Project AirCat, meant to collect, file and catalogue all Italian UFO/IFO sightings by pilots and UFO/aircraft interactions. He wrote several articles on this subject (see Marco Orlandi’s bibliography), as well as two editions of the AirCat catalogue itself, published as CISU monographs in 2001 and 2004.

History, Astronautics and Science Fiction are among his other interests.

e-mail: orlandi.nx-01@libero.it

Born in 1974, Järfälla, Sweden.

Vice chairman of UFO-Sweden and also chairman of the local UFO-Sweden Association in Stockholm (Stockholms UFO-förening). A regular contributor to UFO-Sweden’s magazine UFO-Aktuellt. Secretary on the board of Archives for UFO Research.

Education: Late 1990’s studied Ethnology at Stockholm and Uppsala Universities. Bachelor of Arts degree with major in History at University of Stockholm.

Bachelor thesis on the political issue regarding suspected intrusions of Soviet submarines in Swedish waters during the 1980’s, Carl Bildt och ubåtsfrågan.

In 2003, Master thesis in History, The Ghost rocket sightings in 1946 (Spökraketerna 1946).

Former Editorial Assistant at the economical newspaper Affärsvärlden.

Direct email: andreas_ohlsson@chello.se