by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear
On Saturday, January 11, I paid a visit to David Marler at the new facility in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, housing the contents of the National UFO Historical Records Center. The NUFOHRC is a recently formed non-profit organization, and the facility consists of two buildings provided by Rio Rancho Public Schools on the campus of the Martin Luther King Elementary School. In one of the buildings is a treasure trove of, well, UFO Historical Records, including the case files of the big three in twentieth century UFO investigation: the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena, the Center for UFO Studies, and the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization. The APRO files had been in private hands since APRO ceased being active in 1988, and I was particularly eager to see those, as well as see the facility and offer congratulations to David.
Martin introduced me to David via email in 2020 while I was staying in Magdalena, New Mexico. At that time, David’s collection of records and memorabilia was kept in an addition to his home he had built just for the purpose. We talked over the phone and immediately hit it off. We talked about our mutual fondness for newspaper accounts (David was editor of the UFO Newsclipping Service from 2009 until the final issue in 2011), about how we both approached the flying saucer/UFO subject as historians, and about some of the credibility issues among certain researchers and organizations. According to David, “Credibility is like virginity; once you lose it, you don’t get it back.”
At that time, David was making arrangements to take on the stewardship of the NICAP and CUFOS files, which would arrive at his house in November. Unfortunately, there was that bug going around, so he wasn’t opening his space to visitors, but when he did in 2021, I was privileged to be the first one in. When I arrived, David offered me coffee and then took me through the collection. According to him, he started collecting in 1990 when he “actively became involved in UFOs.”
On the walls were old newspapers containing articles on now-classic cases, photos, paintings, and covers of La Dominica Del Corriere with their artful renditions of saucer/UFO encounters. Scattered throughout were toy saucers and aliens, and along one wall was a row of glass-doored wooden cabinets holding a library of saucer/UFO books. However, the majority of the space was taken up with rows of four-drawer filing cabinets lining two walls and going up the center of the space, which was about the equivalent of a large two-car garage.
Writing for Martin, I had often referred to the digitized versions of the CUFOS and NICAP files, but going through the actual physical files was another thing altogether. It was visceral, and to be able to hold a document with the signature of Donald Keyhoe, J. Allen Hynek, Jim and Coral Lorenzen, and many others I had written about made the history that much more real. When I found the original watercolor paintings of the humanoids and the robot described by Donald Shrum in 1964 (Cisco Grove, California), I felt like a twelve-year-old boy, and I think the picture taken by David of me holding them up reflects this.
When I visited the next time, David took me to his garage where he was storing the recently received files of a researcher whose name I’ve forgotten at this point, and I remember thinking, as I saw how crowded his garage was with other saucer/UFO-related material, “This man is going to need more space.” When he mentioned that he might be closing in on a deal to take on the APRO files, I honestly wondered how he was going to accommodate them.
In November 2022, David formed the NUFOHRC 501 (c) (3) non-profit along with “Jan Aldrich, Rod Dyke, Barry Greenwood, Dr. Mark Rodeghier, Rob Swiatek, and others” according to the official announcement. As of this writing, Barry Roth, Michael Schratt, and Micah Hanks are listed as part of the team. This opened the door for funding and donations to enable the acquisition of a building to better house the growing collection.
Then, on June 24, 2024, a partnership agreement was signed between Rio Rancho Public Schools and the NUFOHRC that led to the collection finding a five-year home in two double-wide portable classrooms on the campus of the Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School. David told me that the date, which anyone with a passing knowledge of flying saucer/UFO history should know, was a coincidence. The collection was moved to the new facility and a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on November 22, 2024.
When I arrived, David was on the phone, and I was met by Diego Diaz, a young man from Peru who was one of the volunteers working that weekend. Diego explained that the building to my right is serving as a museum as part of a proof of concept in the effort to get a dedicated permanent building, and that the building on my left is where the archives are kept.
In the museum building, there are paintings and prints of classic photos displayed, along with an Air Force officer’s uniform (for display purposes and not tied to anyone in particular according to David), and some “alien heads” sitting on a glass cabinet. Inside the cabinet is an artifact I didn’t expect, which is, as Diego explained, the partially melted glove and burned shirt worn by Stefan Michalak when he had his reported encounter with a landed saucer at Falcon Lake in Manitoba, Canada, in 1967. According to Diego, they were donated by Michalak’s family.
Diego then took me into the building where the archives are kept and opened the door using an id badge he wore on a lanyard around his neck. Besides the protection offered by the security doors, the windows, he told me, are made of bullet-proof glass.
In the first room, I saw three workstations. They are described by David as “(3) digitization workstations w. ability to scan: papers/photos, slides, microfilm, full-size newspapers, audio tapes (cassette, microcassette, and reel-to-reel), VHS tapes, DVDs and (1) database station that runs both the *U* UFO database (contains over 17,000 cases) and UFOCAT database (contains over 140,000 cases).”
In the next room, I saw what I was most excited about and that was the collection of APRO files which had arrived at David’s house in November of 2023. These are contained in 14 four-drawer filing cabinets lining almost an entire wall. Above these on the wall is an APRO sign with a map of the United States on the left with push pins in it (presumably marking UFO sightings) and a map of the world on the right. David later showed me a picture he had sitting on top of the cabinets of the same maps on the wall of the APRO office in Tucson, Arizona.
As I had limited time, I went for the 1981 Cash-Landrum case file (documents contained in it were made available online by Curt Collins), which I had just recently written about. As I began regaling Diego with the drama reflected in the files, he seemed genuinely interested, so I continued. The drama involved APRO member Bill English taking the case out from under the Lorenzens and selling it to the National Enquirer, and it comes out in the angry (more like irritated) correspondence between Coral Lorenzen and John Schuessler, sparked by the disinformation about the craft reportedly seen by Cash, Cash, and Landrum being a government test vehicle (likely from Richard Doty to APRO member William Moore) that Coral wrote about as fact in the June 1982 APRO Bulletin.
As I went to look for a file on the 1976 humanoid report by country singer Johnny Sands, David walked in, and I greeted and congratulated him. I explained the story in the Cash-Landrum file I had out, much of which was news to him, and when we went to put it back, David found a cassette tape sitting in the drawer that had a recording of Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum talking about the case for, if I remember right, That’s Incredible. It was a good indication of the amount of exploring David and the team have left to do to find out what else might be in the files.
We talked about what we’d been up to since we’d last seen each other, recent UFO-related events and ridiculousness, and far too quickly it was time for me to leave. I’ll hopefully be heading back there later this year, and if there was ever a mandatory pilgrimage for a UFO history buff, a visit to the National UFO Historical Record Center is that.