Leonard Stringfield Files
Welcome to The Leonard Stringfield Collection
Leonard Stringfield is considered Ufology’s greatest UFO Crash Retrieval Researcher. He was active from the 1950s until his death in 1994.
For several years in the 1950s he operated a newsletter oddly named C.R.I.F.O. Apart from two missing issues, the rest of the newsletter collection is complete. It was graciously donated to MUFON’s Project Aquarius Digital Library by The Swiatek Family.
Additionally, MUFON possesses several hours of radio show interview audio of Stringfield in the 1970s. These recordings were found in an old storage bin at MUFON HQ in Cincinnati, Ohio. They were in an obsolete 8-Track cartridge format but in remarkably good shape and were easily digitized this year.
Most importantly, we are introducing the greatest collection of writings by and about Stringfield himself – his secretary’s chronicling of his work. This “Stringfield Diaries” will be released step by step on a monthly basis going forward.
MUFON possesses all of his secretary’s 65 diaries chronicling Stringfield’s work for almost exactly 16 years. Each diary is approximately 200 pages totaling over 12 thousand pages in all. The diaries run from April 1975 through April 1991. Prior to release, MUFON found it was necessary to form a redaction team to remove certain persons’ names and contact information. This was to guarantee the anonymity of witnesses, a practice MUFON still strictly abides by today, and to also protect the sensitive nature of Stringfield’s contacts in the CIA and NSA.
For several months, MUFON has been preparing to release each of his personal secretary’s diaries at a rate of one per month.
On October 1st, 2024, Diary #1 will be released and additional releases will occur monthly for the next 5 years if all goes according to plan.
In addition to these diaries, several of Stringfield’s other publications will be released digitally here over the next year (2024-2025) including:
1. His book “Situation Red”
2. His book “Inside Saucer Post 3-0 Blue”
3. His booklet series “Crash Retrievals Status Reports Volumes 1-7
4. The Fatal Encounter at Ft Dix-McGuire- A Case Study; Status Report Iv
5. Retrievals Of The Third Kind- A Case Study Of Alleged Ufos And Occupants In Military Custody- Presented At The Mufon Symposium, July 29, 1978
C.R.I.F.O. Newsletters
The “C.R.I.F.O. Newsletter” debuted with Vol. I, No. 1 in April 1954. The unwieldy acronym of the organization “Citizens Research, Interplanetary Flying Objects” became the title with the word “Newsletter” tacked on. By some time in the summer of 1955 the much-improved title had become “C.R.I.F.O. Orbit” with either Vol. II, No. 4 or No. 5. Since we do not have Vol II, No. 4 extant in this collection, it is not clear exactly when the new title was first used.
It is regrettable that two of these valuable issues are missing from this collection; one being the aforementioned Vol. II, No. 4 and the other being Vol. II, No. 7. However, it is believed that many in the UFO field have these issues and will offer up their scanned files for sharing.
Many of the issues in the Idabel Epperson collection were mere photocopies of originals, and as such the “Newsletter” masthead area was extremely faint, nearly completely gone. Also, the photocopy paper was in many cases yellowed to the point of being a deep amber color, making scanning a bit challenging.
We hope you will enjoy this fine reading of the early days of civilian UFO research as well as an exploration of the deepening official cover-up.
–Rob & Sue Swiatek