Have some concerns over a group I joined.

I'd leave it. It looks as if set up by a "ufo-spotting" group who let their "UFO-chasing" hobby get out of hand.

"Government experience" is an empty claim. What would matter are the author's name, and his or her qualifications and c.v.; or at least some indication of relevant knowledge and experience. Any civil-service wages-office worker or storekeeper could claim "government experience" without lying, but such experience is hardly relevant to meteorite-spotting.

Not explaining acronyms and abbreviations* used in the text is bad practice, so is the lack of author's name and peer-review.

Non-credible equipment shows this is not a credible group. Any decent amateur research organisation endeavours to take a professional pride in its efforts.

No revisions by the original author suggests he or she is no longer involved. None by anyone else means the publication is dormant at best.

Do any of its members publish papers in respected technical journals, and become cited by other authors in later works?


Are you paying a subscription to this club, as it seems to be? Are you receiving the services you expect, or are led to expect? Are you given an annual, audited set of accounts, Annual General Meeting notices, and other material normal to any properly-constituted voluntary organisation?

It claims being a non-profit organisation but.....

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I set out to find what it is. That raised more questions.

MUFON is, I learnt, a large, American "Ufology" club or (it claims) non-profit company that says it has many members in other countries. That does not make MUFON "international" as it tries to call itself. I belong to two clubs with members living abroad, but no-one would claim these clubs are "international". It is only international if it has branches operating in a number of other countries - not just members.

Having a very high-flown web-site does not make it credible.If anything the web-site presentation looks rather desperate, losing more credibility.

It also seems MUFON does attract a lot of criticism for poor scientific methods.

A donations-request system tabbed on its home-page looks odd. It is not a charity by any normal definition of such, but proper voluntary organisations that are not charities run on subscriptions, sales of services or goods to members, and occasional fund-raising events. Not wild donations-requests on their web-sites.

So how much money does it turn over, and how? Where does the money go? Not on observatories and technical publications worth that appellation?

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I am not surprised you have "concerns" over it.


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*(An acronym is a type of abbreviation but most abbreviations are not acronyms.)

MUFON, sure.

J. Allen Hynek had his own center but was involved with MUFON.

So you have rewritten some of the manuals?