Introduction

The earliest incarnation of Robert T. Bigelow's public interest in UAP, and other diverse topics, was The Bigelow Foundation.

Recently, Angela Thompson Smith, PhD, appeared as a guest on Erica Lukes' radio show "UFO Classified." Angela worked at The Bigelow Foundation between October 1992 and April 1994. She was kind enough to send me a copy of a report she prepared on her time with the Foundation. This report appeared in the 4th Annual Crash Retrieval Conference Proceedings, 2006, Las Vegas, Nevada, pp 193-205.

There is much fascinating material in the report, but for the purposes of this blog post I will extract the relevant parts concerning UAP.

Angela Thompson Smith. Image courtesyAmazon.com

Library

Angela's first task was to establish a library at the Bigelow head office. The library consisted of a large number of works relating to UAP, abductions and the paranormal. Interestingly, the library was available for access by serious researchers. Books, research reports, proceedings of conferences, and other documents were collected and catalogued.

Abduction research

Although the Roper unusual personal experience poll had been conducted before Angela joined the Foundation, she did receive phone calls from both health professionals and experiencers relating to the results of the poll.

In November 1992, Angela and Robert Bigelow attended a one day conference in Los Angeles. Here about 150 health professionals heard presentations from a number of key abduction researchers.

UAP research

Angela conducted interviews in such locations as Caliente and Pioche, Nevada, in the fall of 1992 and spring of 1993 to ascertian details of a number of sightings. These reports included ones reporting triangular shaped objects. A topic which the National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) would study in far more depth in later years.

One aspect of which I was previously unaware, was that involving Bigelow's interest in "UFO detectors"' I will therefore, quote from Angela's report about this:

"UFO field detectors

Since starting work with The Bigelow Foundation, I was invited to many sky watches, especially around Blue Diamond, just outside Las Vegas. David Smith, who I had met right after I joined the Foundation accompanied me on the trips. David was asked by Robert Bigelow to construct several UFO detectors. As Dave worked for an engineering company with government contracts, he had to do this in his own time. Subsequently, David constructed two small devices that could detect certain frequencies. The rationale for these frequencies came from an article in the Astronautic and Aeronautics Journal. There was a reference to certain frequencies that had been associated with UFO sightings.

'EMC reconnaissance operator #2 of Lacey 17, RB-47H aircraft intercepted at approximately Meridian, Mississipi, a signal with the following  characteristics, frequency 2995mc to 3000mc; pulse width of 2.0 microseconds; pulse repitition rate of 600cps; sweep rate of r rpm; vertical polarity. Signal moved up the D/F scope indicating a rapidly moving signal source.'

...to my knowledge, David's devices were never used as Robert Bigelow then believed that UFOs communicated using a form of semaphore or morse code."

The Mount Wilson Ranch

Besides Robert Bigelow's interest in the NE Utah "Skinwalker ranch," there was also mention in Jacques Vallee's "Forbidden Science: Volume Four" of Bigelow visiting, in 1996, another ranch, which he subsequently purchased. This ranch was near Pioche, Nevada, and was called the Mount Wilson ranch. I wrote about the Mount Wilson ranch in a blog post dated 12 March 2019. However, what is interesting to me, is that Angela and Bigelow were aware of details of unusual events at this ranch as early as 1993.

"Back in March of 1993, the Foundation received some  information about another ranch, about fifty miles north of Pioche, where there had been reports of UFO sightings. The ranch was, historically, the site of many gunfights and early deaths. One of the ranch occupants told interesting stories of UFO sightings.

He and his partner were in their pick-up truck one night and saw unusual lights that drew their attention. The two men thought that each light was an individual object and that all the lights moved in unison. The colors were off-white and yellow-white. The men estimated that the lights were about a football field distance; there was no noise and no static on their radio.

Later, they had another sighting of several lights over a dry lake bed. This light moved erratically and kicked up a lot of dust from the lake bed. A third sighting was of a single light that seemed to dart up and down above a mountain."

Fyffe, Alabama

"In April 1993 Mr Bigelow asked me to travel to Huntsville, Alabama to follow up on some UFO sightings and cattle mutilations that have been happening in the area...while in Alabama, I met a couple of local newspaper owners, the Bakers, who had reported extensively on the UFO flap over Fyffe, Alabama and a local policeman who was investigating the sightings...After a while he opened up to me and talked very frankly about the UFO sightings, cattle mutilations, and abductions that were happening in Alabama...

On the last day of my residence in the Lake Gunterville Lodge I had a rare UFO sighting. From the balcony of my room I saw a large, round, red and white light rise up vertically. It appeared to rise vertically out of the lake. It did not wink with strobe lights and soon disappeared into the clouds."

Budd Hopkins

In the spring of 1993 Robert Bigelow asked Angela to help abduction researcher Budd Hopkins by going to New York City. There she spent two weeks and helped Hopkins respond to numerous pieces of mail as well as other duties.

Area 2000

Also, in the spring of 1993, Bigelow funded a radio show which commenced on 4 July 1993 and was called the "Area 2000" radio show. This ran for six months until Bigelow lost interest in it. Angela's job was to find interesting relevant news stories, and have them ready for Las Vegas journalist George Knapp to read on air. Later, Linda Moulton Howe joined the station as a news presenter. The show generated reports of sightings and other experiences and "We followd up quite a few UFO sightings around the country."

All in all, an excellent report which provides insights into The Bigelow Foundation.