Stanton Friedman

The nuclear physicist turned Ufologist who put the Roswell UFO incident in front of the public.

Name	Stanton T. Friedman
Age	84
Born	July 29, 1934
Died	May 13, 2019
Famous for	The first civilian to investigate the Roswell UFO incident

Stanton Friedman always had this ethos: Facts in hand before mouth in gear. He always sought the facts before speaking, especially when questioning authorities, such as the government, about his knowledge of the UFO phenomenon. The facts he researched served as the basis for proving the existence of UFOs during his lifetime.

On another note, Friedman preferred using the term “flying saucer” rather than “UFOs.” He said, “Flying saucers are, by definition, UFOs, but very few UFOs are flying saucers.” It was because of this that he called himself “the flying saucer physicist” (“physicist” as a nod to his work as a nuclear physicist for 14 years).

His Entry Into UFO/UAP Studies

Stanton Friedman only became aware of the UFO phenomenon by accident. Back then, he needed one more book to qualify for the bookseller’s free shipping. The book he chose? Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt’s The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects. 

He admitted that he found Ruppelt’s book intriguing, which led him to read 15 more books on the subject. He was drawn to the stories, the data, and the simple wonder of the UFO phenomenon.

What cemented him on the path of Ufology was coming across the Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 at the University of California, Berkeley library. He felt like he was in “data heaven” upon seeing the vast data and analysis on the 3,200 sightings, complete with charts, tables, graphs, and maps. 

The report also included a brief quote from the U.S. Air Force’s (USAF) press release about the study’s results. But he was shocked because what the USAF said in this press release was far from the truth. Anyone who looked at the data could tell they lied.

Believing the facts, data, and evidence the report presented, Friedman was certain of two things:

• Aliens had visited Earth
• The U.S. government was covering things up

In the 1970s, he left his job as a nuclear physicist to become a full-time UFO investigator.

His Works and Contributions to Ufology

Stanton Friedman was always thorough in gathering facts. He did on-site investigations and read through documents and records in the archives. He also, at times, did detective work, in that he: 

• Talked to witnesses and wrote down their accounts
• Followed clues he found while reading or that people told him about

Here were some of the cases he did and was known for.

Roswell UFO Incident

The Roswell UFO incident wouldn’t be widely known if not for Friedman. He was the incident’s first civilian investigator.

He first learned about the incident when someone told him about Maj. Jesse Marcel and the debris of an unidentified object that the USAF recovered. And it was this case that started his decades-long work in uncovering the truth about flying saucers. 

He talked to Maj. Marcel and dozens of witnesses, like ranch owner Mac Brazel who first saw the crash site. According to them:

• The crash site was several hundred feet wide and almost 3/4 of a mile long
• The debris was odd, lightweight, but incredibly strong
• The debris looked like aluminum foil, but would revert to its original shape after being folded
• The debris was covered in strange writing, similar to hieroglyphics
• Small, strange bodies were also recovered and underwent autopsy
• The bodies were grayish to grayish green, had large heads, and large, dark eyes

He also looked for the newspaper article that covered this incident. However, he found that one day after reporting that the Roswell Army Air Force had captured a flying saucer, they retracted their statement and changed it to being pieces of a downed weather balloon.

It seemed like a cover-up, and Friedman was able to confirm this years later when he received an affidavit from the general’s chief of staff. The weather balloon story came up to divert everyone’s attention under the direct orders from the higher-ups at the Strategic Air Command. He wrote all these and more in his and Don Berliner’s book, Crash at Corona: The Definitive Study of the Roswell Incident.

Majestic 12

The Majestic 12 documents, simply known as MJ-12, weren’t well-received when they were made public. However, rather than agreeing with everyone else, Friedman decided to find out the authenticity of these documents.

He spent five years investigating the MJ-12. He collated all the information he had in this report, the Final Report on Operation Majestic 12, and in this book, Top Secret/Majic. 

He believed that there were no substantive grounds to dismiss the documents as fake. After all, the arguments against them didn’t hold up well.

He also said people were asking the wrong question. Instead of “Are all MJ-12 documents real?” we should ask, “Are any of them real?” Just like with UFOs, it wasn’t about whether all of them are alien spacecraft, but if any of them are. And to him, the answer to both was “yes.”

Betty and Barney Hill Abduction Case

Friedman was convinced that Betty and Barney Hill’s abduction was real. In the book he co-authored with Kathleen Marden, Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience, he recounted the complete story of what happened to them, along with the effects this experience had on them. 

It was also through his talks with the Hills that he came across the star map Betty Hill had drawn. He correlated the star map with astronomical data, which in turn helped him come to the hypothesis that flying saucers might be from a planet near Zeta 1 or Zeta 2 Reticuli. 

According to him, the star pattern made sense for every one of them is the “right kind for planets and life in this volume of space.”

His Response to Critics

Stanton Friedman didn’t let critics bother him. These skeptics didn’t believe because they didn’t have the facts. According to him, they followed four basic rules:

• What the public doesn’t know, I won’t tell them.
• Don’t bother me with facts; my mind is made up.
• If one can’t attack the data, attack the people. It’s easier.
• Do one’s research by proclamation. Investigation is too much trouble, and most people won’t know the difference.

If they were willing to listen and be convinced, he’d point them toward the following:

• Over 2,400 landing trace cases from 65 countries where flying saucers left marks or changed the environment
• 3,200 cases in Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14, where 20% remained unexplained and had the appearance of flying saucers 
• 3,500 sightings reported by pilots, collected by a NASA scientist
• Budd Hopkins and the abductees he interviewed 
• Data and information directly and indirectly obtained from the government showing:
  • Aliens had come to our planet
  • Some UFOs were alien spacecraft
  • “Cosmic Watergate,” a term Friedman coined for the massive, long-running government cover-up

His Influence on the UFO/UAP Community

Stanton Friedman worked hard to teach people about flying saucers, giving talks at over 600 colleges and 100 professional groups across the U.S., Canada, and 18 other countries. He did data-driven presentations that challenged his audience to consider UFO evidence scientifically.

Because of this, he helped members of the UFO/UAP community to:

• Care deeply about finding the truth
• Be willing to speak up and be recognized when they’ve done their research
• Understand how important it is to help society whenever possible and not hold back

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