interview by Simon Sellars

Originally published on Sleepy Brain, 1 April 2004.

Gloria Dixon is Director of Investigations with BUFORA, the British UFO Research Organisation. She co-ordinates all reports that come into BUFORA, passing them on to teams of investigators throughout the UK.

Although BUFORA is now in its 40th year, building a reputation for solid research in the field of ufology, it has had its share of controversy over the last few years. Accusations and general invective have been directed its way, followed by key BUFORA resignations. Its probably fair to say that a lot of this is the result of professional rivalry and jealousy manifested in various forms; such a state of affairs is endemic to the field of UFO research, which would appear to be riven by more factions than a South American democracy.

However, Gloria Dixon’s reputation has always seemed to be above this sniping. Even BUFORA’s detractors praise her work and her commitment to the values of ethical research – the perfect interview subject, then, for an impartial observer such as myself. And so it proved. Gloria’s intelligence and open-mindedness are immediately obvious in the following transcript. I came away with more questions than answers regarding the subject of UFOs, but that’s what it is all about: Gloria doesn’t offer any easy solutions, because there are none. There is only hard work.

The mystery remains.

How did you become interested in UFO research?

It was when I lived in the United States back in the 1970s. My father was a naturalised American and an aeronautical engineer who worked on the Space Program during the 1960s, which was of course a very exciting time. This led me to read “Project Blue Book”, the United States official Air Force investigation into UFOs from 1952 to 1969. Dr J Allen Hynek, one of the world’s leading ufologists, was scientific adviser to Project Blue Book for several years.

Have you ever witnessed a manifestation of the UFO phenomenon?

I have never observed anything in the sky for which I could find no possible explanation.

What drives you to pursue a field of research that is often the cause of derision and ridicule from media and scientific circles?

I am exploring the idea of UFOs and how perceptions and beliefs influence the way people observe things. UFOs mean “unidentified flying objects”, not extraterrestrial spacecraft. It is very important to understand the inaccuracy of most observations of lights and objects that people perceive to be UFOs, when within the correct resources and time parameters, these could actually be explained and become IFOs: “identified flying objects”.

A very high percentage of cases could be explained if reported within 24 hours and with the correct information from the witness. Of course there are many problems that emanate from media and scientific disciplines about this field of research, but this does not disturb me in the least. First of all, the scientific community has limited knowledge of the amount of raw data that organisations such as BUFORA receive. There is no doubt that this data should be investigated in order to evaluate just what could be going on with a residual of sightings that cannot be explained at this time.

The media is another matter: they are selling entertainment to the public. It is rare for a documentary or program to do much more than this, as they usually manage to misinform the public completely about the real possibilities of this field of research. And so the beat goes on, with the general public soaking up the idea of alien abduction and fleets of spaceships in our skies without an ounce of definitive proof to back this up. The real and significant issues are edited out or never addressed in the first place.

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