Ohio MUFON (OHMUFON)

MUFON was originally established as the Midwest UFO Network in Quincy, Illinois in 1969. Most of MUFON’s early members had earlier been associated with Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO). In 1973, it was renamed the Mutual UFO Network to reflect membership growing outside of the Midwest.

As of 1973, Larry Moyers (of Akron, Ohio) was the State Director for Ohio³. In 1999, William E. Jones’¹ Mid-Ohio Research Associates (MORA) was renamed, incorporated and reorganized as the Mutual UFO Network of Ohio to affiliate the organization with the national Mutual UFO Network (MUFON).² Mr. Jones remained OHMUFON State Director until the late 2010s⁸. After his death in 2022, his UFO files were donated to Ohio State University where they remain in the Rare Books & Manuscripts Library.

As long as Mr. Jones’ tenure was, it was not without controversy. He worked for Battelle until at least 2012, and sent his MUFON emails via their servers. Battelle has a long history in US government UFO studies dating back to Project Blue Book and the Robertson Panel⁹. Mr. Jones never clarified the relationship between his Ufology work and his employer. His MORA co-founder and Battelle co-worker, Dr. Irena Scott, discussed a meeting she and Mr. Jones had within Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio:

Bill Jones, Battelle contract officer, and I attended a UFO meeting in [the Blue Room building, part of the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC)], which we wrote up in The Ohio UFO Notebook. I [took] photos of the building … in the Wright-Patterson AFB secured area.¹⁰

NASIC was later publicly revealed to be in the business of analyzing Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP).¹² Scott also claims to have worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency.¹⁴

Ufologists Leonard H. Stringfield, Kenny Young, and Donnie Blessing have served as State Section Directors for Southwestern Ohio.⁴ Dr. Irena Scott has also served as a State Section Director (section unknown)¹¹ and Pat Packard as a “State Regional Director.”

From 2012 to 2013, after the disastrous tenure of Clifford Clift, David MacDonald took over MUFON and Cincinnati served briefly as the international headquarters of MUFON out of a location near Lunken Airport.⁶ MacDonald’s prior MUFON donations had earned him a Board seat, Kentucky MUFON (much to the dismay of long time KYMUFON State Director Earle Benezet), and membership in the “STAR” rapid response “strike team.” Jan Harzan took over and moved the headquarters to Irvine, California in 2013. In June 2021, the headquarters moved back to Lunken Airport where it remains to this day.⁷

Publications

Ohio UFO Notebook published 25 issues and a precursor supplement, beginning in July 1992 and ending in 2005. In some instances, the Ohio UFO Notebook was coupled with the Mutual UFO Network of Ohio Newsletter (for example, issue #6), but MORA remained the publisher.⁵ Beginning with issue #21 (2000), OHMUFON was the sole publisher.
Mutual UFO Network of Ohio Newsletter - Issued at least yearly since 2002.

UFO Hotlines

OHMUFON found several UFO case leads by operating UFO hotlines over the years. The general public would use their telephone to call in UFO reports. The first known hotline number had a 614 area code (Columbus, OH) and was associated with Irena Scott¹³ circa 1996. Kenny Young operated the Cincinnati UFO hotline from 2003 until his death in 2005. Sean Feeney continued operating the Cincinnati UFO hotline until 2017.

In the media

MUFON has been mentioned in:

The X-Files series
The 2008 History Channel series UFO Hunters
The 2008 Discovery Channel documentary television miniseries UFOs Over Earth
The History Channel’s Ancient Aliens series
Hangar 1: The UFO Files series

References

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