Welcome to the Expanding Frontiers Archive. It has been a long time in the making.
Executive Director Erica Lukes began collecting UFO memorabilia and historic documents in 2015. She stored the material in file cabinets, on shelves, and in digital files in a 4,000 square foot commercial space in Salt Lake City where she operates a health and wellness studio.
Investigators and their families began to donate research collections. Erica was also gifted books, magazines, movie posters, and all kinds of records with rich stories to tell.
The Expanding Frontiers Archive actually began to take shape, however, long before that.
The archive first began when original NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena) investigator Ann Druffel sat down in the mid 20th century at a manual typewriter and hammered out a letter to Dr. J. Allen Hynek. And when she opened correspondence that had arrived to her home in Los Angeles from across the nation in Washington, DC, carrying a message from NICAP Director Maj. Donald Keyhoe. This is when the archive began.
The archive took further form when NICAP Assistant Director Gordon Lore compared reports of UFO cases, probably with his tobacco pipe in hand, and pulled together pen and paper to record his resulting thoughts. Decades later, Lore would befriend Erica, open his collection to her for examination, agree to participate in on-camera interviews, and ultimately present her with his collection of reports, analyses, and other material.
The archive as it stands today continued to evolve through the dictation of memos by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and the declassification of hundreds and hundreds of pages of intelligence reports and records obtained by Expanding Frontiers. The documents will continue to be uploaded for viewing and use.
It evolved through the meticulous record keeping of Emma Woods and her commitment to document the circumstances surrounding her descent into at times volatile and abusive interactions with those claiming to investigate UFOs and their alleged occupants. Emma's story is disturbing and concerning, and ultimately one that needs to be told and told again, and Expanding Frontiers is here to asist her with its telling and to host her collection.
The Expanding Frontiers Archive began when a then-young man named Barry Greenwood took an interest in UFOs and started eyeing NICAP to find out what its investigators were learning. He went on to become a recognized research specialist in government UFO documents and archiving, and is now a member of the Expanding Frontiers Research Board of Directors.
We invite you to look around, browse the records, and cite them in your works and reporting. The Expanding Frontiers Archive is an ever-growing work in progress, with potential to enhance humanities projects, aid scholarly study, and fulfill the recreational desire to learn more about the past that creates the present and future.
Perhaps mostly, however, the archive is about the people who created those timelines, and their both individual and collective search for answers and even the right questions. It is a reflection of humanity's existential search, and of the deep reliance we have on one another to help us with that search.
May it help you with yours.
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Browse an inventory of UFO magazines in the custody of the Expanding Frontiers Research physical archive located in Salt Lake City at the link below. Contact us for further information. Processing fees may apply.
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