Well known Australian UFO Researcher Keith Basterfield has officially retired from all UFO related activities. Keith is one of the "Old School" researchers and in my personal opinion was one of the most well respected and caring persons actively researching this subject here in Australia.
Keith began his research in 1968 in the days when Jacques Vallee was promoting the scientific investigation into the subject. Keith has published numerous research papers on the UFO topic, many of these freely available on the Internet.
Keith has now shredded his complete research notes and records on the Alien Abduction studies and personal investigations conducted by him over the years, thus ensuring total confidentiality for the many persons assisting him with his investigations into this serious yet controversial aspect of UFO research topics.
Keith is generously donating his entire UFO book collection to the Adelaide Theosophical Society Library. This Library is open to the public, thus ensuring that his personal UFO reference collection will be available to others for years to come.
Keith will also be closing down his South Australian UFO blog site.
On a personal note, I worked with Keith as a colleague during the 1990's especially when I was setting up the original Australian UFO Researchers Network (AUFORN) email group between 1996 - 1998. In 1996 I had witnessed a high activity rate of UFOs and was just connecting to and learning about the Internet. My enquiries revealed that although some Australian UFO researchers and study groups had email addresses, there was no organised communication network between researchers. So over the next 18 months I contacted all available UFO researchers around Australia and actively encouraged them to participate in regular email contact and to share any UFO sighting reports gathered by these groups and researchers. This began to work successfully, especially with the cooperation of Keith Basterfield.
Each month all researchers and UFO groups were asked to forward their monthly UFO reports to Keith in South Australia. Keith would systematically compile these reports by date and state and finally bulk email the monthly report back to all researchers participating in the original AUFORN mailing list. Giving credit to the contributor. This guaranteed we were all kept up to date with UFO activity Australia wide.
The original AUFORN mailing list was not owned by anyone, it was a medium in which all Australian UFO researchers could freely communicate and share information and ideas between one another. In principle it was an ideal opportunity for advancement.
Brisbane based Robert Frola and his assistant at the time, Diane Harrison (now Mrs Frola) started their own mailing list and with Keith's agreement was called "The Keith Basterfield Network". Using the same list of members as the original AUFORN list, we now had two UFO mailing lists. This of course caused some confusion and internal conflict. It was like dividing a well oiled working machine into two fractured entities. The grab for power was now on. What a great source of information for publication in the "Australian UFOlogist Magazine". Frola being the Editor.
Many healthy debates were learning pains that resulted in the current owners of this network registering the name AUFORN and informed us that they now own the list and no one else could use the name. The original AUFORN list had just been hijacked.
"...so let them sort it out for themselves." The results have been good for some but not so for others. After all, what are we involved in this subject for? Cash, notoriety or knowledge? I suppose it depends upon who you ask.
It has been nice knowing you Keith, enjoy your new endeavours.
