MN MUFON Featured on TPT

Twin Cities Public Television released a feature on the Minnesota chapter of MUFON (Mutual UFO Network). The public television station brought their cameras to one of the organizations monthly meetings in New Brighton last fall to capture footage for an episode of the “MN Niche” segment. Those sharing an interest in aerial phenomena enough to attend a MUFON meeting or become members of the organization certainly qualify as a unique “niche,” so the title fits. 

The short video segment, just under five minutes, offers a quick montage of clips from the meeting interspersed with short interviews including Tom Maher, the MN Mufon State Director, and several other notables from the chapter. You can watch the video here.

The video is accompanied by a short write-up about MUFON and the work of the MN Chapter. The article offers a glimpse into the organization’s investigation techniques:

MUFON Field Investigators are certified after they receive online training and pass a stringent exam – and the process they follow mirrors what you might expect from any detective. Investigators interview witnesses and look for consistency between the accounts recorded online and the verbal accounts. On-site visits are conducted when advantageous, and investigators diligently search for a conventional explanation for what is reported. When they can’t quite settle on a reasonable explanation, the object or phenomenon is classified as “Unknown-UAV” (Unidentified Aerial Vehicle) or “Unknown-Other,”  for phenomena that do not appear to be a vehicle.

The story also features a brief retelling of three Minnesota cases by Bill McNeff, MN Mufon Chief Investigator. McNeff offered up the classic Val Johnson/Warren MN story, the less well-known but related story of a high speed pursuit of a UFO through Warren County, and a bizarre abduction story from Bagley, MN (1966) which reminds us of just how quickly the limits of credibility dissolve into high strangeness while in the pursuit of UFO stories.

Finally, as a sort of deep-cut bonus, MN Niche posted an additional video titled “Plausible or Improbable,” with MN Mufon members offering their opinion on the plausibility or improbability of a variety of UFO-related topics: WWII Foo Fighters, alien abductions, alien telepathy, the Roswell crash and conspiracy, ancient alien theory, and Nordic aliens. Viewers will probably feel that the short bonus cut gauges the teams’ credulity as high, especially in the absence of supporting argumentation, but the segment is a lot of fun nonetheless. Cheers to TPT for doing the story, and congratulations to MN MUFON.