A U S T I N UFO FORUM & STUDY GROUP

The First Meeting

Founded in the Summer of '92, our first meeting was on August 2nd. Earlier that year the groups founder, Jean Staffen, had decided to investigate her own UFO sightings and close encounters by contacting Austin MUFON (local chapter for the Mutual UFO Network). Jean found that others were having similar encounters and had no forum within which to explore each others experiences. Jean created the Austin Abductee Support Group and was inundated with correspondences from around the State. About 60 people showed up at the first meeting. Many were simply curiosity seekers and news reporters. Most people were simply interested in UFOs while others had friends who thought they had seen UFOs. Some found the supportive environment for which they were looking to both tell of their own experiences and perhaps find answers to the many riddles of UFO phenomenon. Unfortunately, many of the first attendees who had experience with UFO encounters were frightened away by the sheer numbers of curiosity seekers. Once the initial pandamoneous media attention subsided the groups size settled around a core group of 10 to 20 attendees per meeting.

During the course of past monthly meetings members came to realize that many of them shared not only UFO sightings and encounters but also various other seemingly related experiences of a psychic, paranormal, near-death, and/or spiritual nature. Shortly thereafter it was decided by the meeting's members and founder to change the name from Austin Abductee Support Group to the Austin UFO Experiencer Support Group. About the same time within the UFO research community debates were raging on the terminology of Abductee versus Experiencer. In some circles the terms Encontrant and Percipient were also common. Sensing that UFO Close Encounters and these other experiential phenomena might be related the group opted for the more general title of Experiencer.

The Austin UFO Experiencer Support Group thrived for a few years under the leadership of Jean Staffen until she felt compelled to move out West to Arizona. While there she learned much within the Constitutional rights and UFO research communities. Before she left we discussed with the other group members her suggestion that I (Stephen MILES Lewis) be handed the reigns as organizer and moderator of the meetings. After a unanimous decision I began coordinating the groups, by then, twice monthly meetings.

Not too long thereafter I considered changing the name of the group once again. This time from the Experiencer Support Group to Forum and Study Group. My reasoning hinged upon the actuality of what the group meetings had become:

a supportive networking point within which experiencers and interested individuals could connect with people and information that furthers their understanding and integration of these strange encounters.

We were also keenly aware that despite the supportive non-judgmental environment we created, some people will always be reluctant to tell there stories in front of strangers and/or non-experiencers. Also, at this time there was concern among researchers that a dangerous guru style atmosphere was developing within some support groups. On these grounds the research which centers around such support groups has been both rightly and wrongly criticized. Another unanimous decision by members changed our name to the Austin UFO Forum & Study Group.

After the second name change attendance fluctuated up and down, eventually leveling off at 5-10 people per monthly meeting. This was during the beginning of the recent exponential upswing of UFO media attention and marketing ploys. Some local attention did come about but only due to the Heaven's Gate debacle, Arizona flap and Roswell mania. The result? No marked influx of attendees and the continued negligence of uninsightful news reporting.

What we learned most during these strange days of the Austin UFO Forum & Study Group is that you can not please all the people all the time. Many compliments and criticisms were leveled at our group over the years. For some the group was perfect. For one attendee it lacked structure and he preferred the Austin MUFON meetings. To yet another the same Austin MUFON meetings were painfully unstructured and he could only occasionally stand the level of dialogue within our meetings. For some their enjoyment of the meetings was entirely dependent upon the pressence or absence of specific past attendees. Past attendees who tended to over-enthusiastically exclaim their support for one idea or another, dominate the dialogue, randomly switch topics, rant about the same things, over and over and over and over and . . . .

As a public forum for experiences of strange phenomena we must give attendees a platform to express and explore those anomalous encounters in a non-judgmental environment. However, often this is the ONLY forum attendees have. Such persons in an effort to express their ideas, fears, etc. can come to dominate the forum and it is necessary for the moderator to successfully re-orient such out-of-balance communications scenarios.

1998 marks the return to Austin of our groups founder: Jean Staffen. Having recently moved back to Texas, Jean attended a meeting earlier this year and offered to move back to Austin to become leader / moderator of our group once more. Since that meeting she has returned and rightfully reclaimed her place as facilitator of the Austin UFO Forum & Study Group.

Much needs to be done to improve the current status of UFOlogy. Perhaps it isn't even ufology that close encounter witnesses need to best live with there strange experiences. These Encounters with the Fantastic are an opportunity for transformation. Like any significant life event, they can positively or negatively influence a single person, a family, an entire community. By dialoging on such sacred and profane encounters we can collectively explore the positive potentials latent within all numinous and luminous intimations of our invisible Others.