Say It Aint So Mufon

I got a rather distressing tweet last night from one of the many #UFO tweeters out there saying that MUFON International Director Clifford Clift is resigning his post, and handing the reins over to a new guy in Ohio. I was little alarmed at first; I've exchanged a few pleasant emails with Mr. Clift and found him to be a very personable guy. It's more than a bit discouraging to realize that I'm going to have start all over again buttering up a new International Director... And, oh yeah, I just shelled out 90 for my MUFON Field Investigator Guide and t-shirt; am I suddenly going to find out that the Guide and t-shirt are no longer recognized by the new leadership?

What's even more discouraging is that, when I did a search today for more news about the changing of the guard, I discovered that MUFON seems to have a history of abrupt, and sometimes contentious, turnovers in leadership. Mass firings! Secret tapings of board meetings! Say it ain't so, MUFON, say it ain't so! You're supposed to be proving that UFOs are real and pressuring the government to disclose everything it knows about Roswell, not bickering amongst yourselves!

Sadly, I also discovered that the news of Mr. Clift's departure is not mentioned anywhere on the MUFON website... Hmmm.

It's enough to make a guy want to go off and found his own UFO research organization. And I can say that because MUFON itself rose out of the ashes of another UFO group that bit the dust back in the 1970s. If it was good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

But what to call my new organization? All the good UFO acronyms have already been taken: MUFON, CUFOS, FUFOR, NUFORC, UFOIL, UFORNA, UFORM, UFOLATS, GUFOA, ACUFOS, UFOSS, BUFOS, NUFON, PRUFO, HUFOS, RUFOR, SUFOR, KPUFO, BUFONET--my God, these people are creative.

As far as I can see, there is only one name left to use: BUFORD. As you may know, Buford is a boy's name that reached the zenith of its popularity sometime around 1910 (according to thinkbabynames.com). It also makes a handy acronym for the Bureau of UFO Research and "I hit a brick wall with 'D.' I'm sure I'll come up with something, but if you have any ideas feel free to post them.

Man... I just wanted to become a Certified UFO Field Investigator... I never bargained on all this.