Society for Scientific Exploration

The Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE) was formed in 1982, and describes itself as " a professional organization of scientists and scholars who study unusual and unexplained phenomena. Subjects often cross mainstream boundaries, such as consciousness, UFOs, and alternative medicine, yet often have profound implications for human knowledge and technology. The SSE was founded in 1982 and has approximately 800 members in 45 countries worldwide." It publishes the peer-reviewed Journal of Scientific Exploration.

Unidentified flying objects

SSE sponsored a 1997 "Physical Evidence from UFO Reports" study, directed by Peter Sturrock, now Emeritus Professor of Physics at Stanford University,held with the encouragement of Laurance Rockefeller, "agreed that the problem is in a very unsatisfactory state of ignorance and confusion. I expressed the opinion that this problem will be resolved only by extensive and open professional scientific investigation, and that an essential prerequisite of such research is that more scientists acquire an interest in this topic." Philip Klass has written, however, that "SSE’s annual conferences typically feature several pro-UFO speakers, but no UFO-skeptics. For example, at SSE’s 1996 conference—held at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, which SUN’s editor attended—there were four pro-UFO speakers, but no skeptics: Dr. David Jacobs, who spoke on UFO abductions; Stanton Friedman, whose remarks covered crashed saucers and the MJ-12 papers; Dr. Bruce Maccabee, who showed videos of UFOs, including one by Ed Walters (famous Gulf Breeze, Fla., UFO photographer) which seemingly showed a UFO’s ability to stop and reverse direction in a fraction of a second; and a talk by Mark Rodeghier, director of the Hynek Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS)." Jacobs, Friedman, and Maccabee were not selected to present physical evidence to the 1997 symposium.