MUFON Kick Starter - A New Global UFO Database

The Mutual UFO Network has designed a new system to capture UFO reports, display the data, and find answers. Now we need to build it.

First things first. Some good news about taxes: MUFON is a 501(3)c non-profit. Your donation is tax deductible! 

Second important line of business: Existing members and donors! We have you covered. Please be assured that we recognize your support through the years! If you are an existing member of MUFON and select a reward that includes a 2-year Premium Explorer membership, 2 awesome things will happen:

1) Your existing membership will be upgraded to Explorer level. (scroll to the very bottom of the page for the fine print on this new premium membership.)

2) Your membership will be extended 2-years from the expiration date of your current membership. 

**And a special thanks to James Fox for the interview clips at the beginning of the video, as well as his endorsement of this project.**

Now to answer the big questions.

WHAT exactly are we trying to accomplish? 

WHAT are the rewards?

WHO is MUFON? And WHY are we qualified? 

WHEN will we launch our new system? 

WHY do we need 78k? 

Ok, let's dive in.

WHAT exactly are we trying to accomplish?

WHAT exactly are we trying to accomplish?

If you'd rather see it than read about it, check out our prototype. Remember, a prototype is just the visual mock-up of what we are trying to build.

1) Improve the usability of the "Report a UFO" experience to gather MORE data and CLEANER data. With better design, we can ensure that fewer people abandon their report before finishing. We also need to revise which questions are asked, and how. Test out the first draft of our redesign.

The user interface of the existing Report a UFO experience, alongside the proposed redesign

2) Cleaner data will allow us to do more with that data. We want to provide a free, accessible and robust interface to filter, sort, search and visualize the data. This will help professional and armchair researchers find patterns and possibly even answers in the UFO data. 

Here are a few examples of the types of searches you will easily be able to do. 

"Show all black triangle sightings with more than 2 witnesses that occurred in the state of New York during the month of January from 1981-1992"

"Show only reports that have been reported by government officials that include official government documents, involving green lights"

"Show all sightings that happened near airports, in daylight, with more than 3 testimonials, including images"

3) Allow historical, heavily-researched cases to be searched alongside the thousands of incoming reports. Cases from antiquity, Project Blue Book, the COMETA report and other reputable sources will be tagged with metadata and will be searchable as a result. Access to books, articles, papers and other documentation will be integrated into the database. (In a nutshell, get Hangar 1 Case Files Online.)

4) Improve the speed and security of the database. Make sure it's snappy as well as protected from potential hacks.

5) Create a more valuable member experience. Our membership dues are what keep our lights on. With the new online system we will be able to offer more value to our generous members. With a better membership, we hope to significantly grow our member base and our operational budget in kind. Then we can engage in even more investigative journalism and activism and fund important research. It's a win-win. Members get more and MUFON can do more. Here are a few new things we want to offer our members:

A logged in state, with an online member profile (public or private)

Custom saved searches 

Optional alerts when new reports match a save search

Premium database features

Database CSV export ability

Bookmarked reports and articles

Enhanced commenting and community features

Integrated polling and voting on important UFO and MUFON issues

Automatic MUFON Store discounts

Better integrations with local chapter activity and events

Continued early access to the MUFON Journal (but, in the spirit of free information, back issues will be accessible to the public)

Draft of Member Profile page

 6) Improve the general usability, visual design and scientific tone of the website. Create a better content organization that makes MUFON.com more useful and usable on desktop computers, tablets and mobile devices.