In 1987 – just five years after Steven Spielberg’s smash hit “E.T.” was released – UFO sightings were a regular occurrence.
So regular, in fact, that the Daily Nebraskan published a story on “Lincoln UFO-busters,” also called the Fortean Research Center of Lincoln.
The Fortean Research Center Journal said that the “group also investigates all aspects of cryptozoological mysteries, out-of-place animal sightings, geological and archaeological anomalies, psychic phenomena and all other areas of study which may provide data useful to the resolution of these perplexing mysteries.”
The reporter of the Oct. 16 article, James Lillis, said the group didn’t focus just on the potential for aliens, however. The team also had members who researched ghosts and “bipedal humanoid” (Bigfoot) sightings.
Scott Colborn, the associate director of the research team at the time, saw a UFO firsthand at his Lincoln home in 1974.
“My father and I were sitting on the patio of his house,” Colborn said to Lillis. “We saw a round, silvery sphere about 500 feet off the ground. That’s when I first got seriously interested in UFOs.”
He said that southeast Nebraska had many UFO sightings, in particular and that the “typical UFO experience” published in the Fortean Journal may relate sightings, communication with the UFOs and even abductions.
“Abduction cases are rapidly becoming standard fare in UFOlogy,” Colborn said. “The abduction of an individual or individuals and the subsequent medical examination which have been related on countless times are familiar to most researchers.”
One woman described in the article, Joan, talked to Colborn and his team about a recurring dream she’d had since childhood. In the dream, an entity appeared outside her bedroom window and attempted to coax her to come with him. When Joan was hypnotically regressed to when the dream first occurred, the team found the date to be Oct. 7, 1955. Joan recalled the entity bringing her to his ‘craft’ and performing a medical exam where he took a sample of skin tissue, blood and hair. While he was examining her, Joan claimed to understand what the entity’s leader was telling his subordinates.
For those readers who wanted to read more about UFOs and other unexplained phenomena were told to pick up copies of the Fortean Research Center Journal. The group fizzled out in 1996, according to the Lincoln Journal Star.