The National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena, whose existence was formally announced today, was organized to improve US aviation safety related to various kinds of unidentified aerial phenomena.
Based in Boulder Creek, California, this non-profit scientific organization aims to "provide pilots and air traffic controllers with a special telephone number, confidential reporting web site, and other means to use to report their sightings." Their web site will be located at www.narcap.org.
Ted Rowe is NARCAP’s executive director. Richard Haines is chief scientist. Technical advisors include a retired DC-10 captain and a retired air traffic controller, as well as a physicist, a metallurgist and a meteorologist.
to establish this national-level reporting and analysis center. When he mentioned the idea to his colleagues, it met a groundswell of support.
"Air safety is the first and primary concern of our organization," says Haines. "The second is to collect scientifically reliable data on these anomalous phenomena."
But NARCAP takes no position or the source or nature of such phenomena.
"One of the objectives of NARCAP," Haines says, "is to encourage the government to change its reporting procedures in a responsible way that doesn’t lead to panic but that does encourage pilots to report whatever they see honestly and completely. It doesn’t matter what they call it."
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