Raymond E. Fowler

{{Short description|American author and ufologist (born 1933)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2025}} {{use American English|date=August 2025}} {{Infobox person | name = Raymond E. Fowler | birth_name = Raymond Eveleth Fowler | image = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1933|11|11}} | birth_place = Salem, Massachusetts | alma_mater = Gordon College | occupation = Author and ufologist | known for = | boards = | spouse = | children = | website = }}

'''Raymond Eveleth Fowler''' (born November 11, 1933) is an American author and ufologist. His 1979 book ''The Andreasson Affair'' is regarded as breaking new ground by introducing the topic of Alien implants to ufology.<ref name="NHMag">{{cite web |url=https://www.nhmagazine.com/ufos-in-new-hampshire/ |title=UFOs in New Hampshire |last=Berry |first=Michael |date=August 12, 2015 |website=nhmagazine.com |publisher=New Hampshire Magazine |location=Manchester, New Hampshire |access-date=September 9, 2025}}</ref> In 1974, J. Allen Hynek called him "an outstanding UFO investigator and fact-finder."<ref name="SeaCoast">{{cite web |url=https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/news/local/york-star/2011/07/28/out-this-world-tales/49954229007/ |title=Out-of-this-world tales |last=Hearn |first=Kelly |date=July 28, 2011 |website=seacoastonline.com |publisher= Seacoastonline (USA Today Network news site) |location=Portsmouth, New Hampshire |access-date=September 9, 2025}}</ref> In 2015, ''New Hampshire'' magazine described him as "one of the top respected authorities on the subject along with Dr. Jacque Vallee and Dr. Allen Hynek"<ref name="NHMag" />

== Early life and education == Raymond Fowler was born in Salem, Massachusetts on November 11, 1933. After elementary and high school, he enrolled at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude.

== Career ==

Fowler joined the U.S. Air Force in 1952 during the period of the Korean War.<ref name="AsburyPark">{{cite web |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/asbury-park-press/180948704/ |title=The Andreasson Affair (book review) |last=Grosser |first=Dorothy I. |date=May 23, 1979 |publisher=Asbury Park Press |location=Neptune, New Jersey |page=31 |access-date=September 14, 2025 |via=newspapers.com}}</ref> After he was discharged, he became a member of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) and in his spare time began investing UFO cases. In his association with NICAP, he served as Chairman of the Massachusetts Subcommittee.<ref name="NewarkAdvocate">{{cite web |url=https://newspaperarchive.com/newark-advocate-dec-07-1973-p-11/ |title=Air Force Denies UFOs Dent Security |date=December 7, 1973 |publisher=Newark Advocate |location=Newark, Ohio |page=11 |access-date=September 11, 2025 |via=newspaperarchive.com}}</ref><ref name="LowellSun">{{cite web |url=https://newspaperarchive.com/lowell-sun-jul-30-1974-p-14/ |title=Mystery object stirs new Hampshire folks |date=July 30, 1974 |publisher=Lowell Sun |location=Lowell, Massachusetts |page=14 |access-date=September 11, 2025 |via=newspaperarchive.com}}</ref> In his capacity as a NICAP representative, he gave illustrated lectures to the public on the topic of UFOs and case investigations.<ref name="PortlandPressHer">{{cite web |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/portland-press-herald/180753402/ |title=Air Force Clamping Secrecy Lid on UFOs, Group Told |last=Dodge |first=Robert L. |date=May 5, 1966 |publisher=Portland Press Herald |location=Portland, Maine |page=13 |access-date=September 14, 2025 |via=newspapers.com}}</ref><ref name="NashuaTelegraph">{{cite web |url=https://newspaperarchive.com/nashua-telegraph-feb-01-1966-p-6/ |title=Raymond E. Fowler chairman of Nicap Massachusetts subcommittee |date=February 6, 1966 |publisher=Nashua Telegraph |location=Nashua, New Hampshire |page=6 | via=newspaperarchive.com |access-date=September 12, 2025}}</ref>

He was a civilian employee with the United States Air Force Security Service and then employed 25 years with GTE Government Systems, a U.S. defense contractor specializing in defense electronics, telecommunications systems, and information services. It was at the time a division of GTE Corporation.

By 1979, with NICAP nearly defunct (1980), he had switched his primary membership to MUFON and was the Massachusetts State Director for the organization.<ref name="AsburyPark" /> He was Director of Scientific Investigations for MUFON and authored an early edition of the MUFON Field Investigators Manual.<ref name="NHMag" /><ref>{{cite web |url=http://paul.rutgers.edu/~cwm/MUFON/fi-manual-toc.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060909041145/http://paul.rutgers.edu/~cwm/MUFON/fi-manual-toc.html |archive-date=2006-09-09 |title=THE MUFON FIELD INVESTIGATOR'S MANUAL: Table of Contents}}</ref><ref name="UPI">{{cite web |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/10/20/UFO-hunters-keep-eye-on-the-sky/7846498628800/ |title=UFO hunters keep eye on the sky |last=Tortorano |first=David |date=October 20, 1985 |website=upi.com |publisher=United Press International |access-date=September 9, 2025 |archive-url= |archive-date= |quote=Fowler, of Wenham, Mass., author of several UFO books and the man who developed MUFON's investigative technique.}}</ref>

Also by 1979 he was affiliated with J. Allen Hynek's Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) as a Scientific Associate.<ref name="AsburyPark" /> In the Forward to Fowler's 1974 book ''"UFOs: Interplanetary Visitors'', Hynek wrote of him: "This foreword is primarily a tribute to an outstanding UFO investigator and fact-finder. I know of no one who is more dedicated, trustworthy or persevering than Ray Fowler."<ref name="SeaCoast" /> Hynek also contributed the Forward to Fowler's second book, ''The Andreasson Affair''.

Fowler estimated that most UFO sightings can be explained as man-made objects or natural phenomena and only about 10 percent are worthy of investigation.<ref name="CentralMaine-1">{{cite web |url=https://www.centralmaine.com/2014/03/07/in_maine__we_are_not_alone__ufo_trackers_say_/|title=In Maine, we are not alone, UFO trackers say |last=Byrne |first=Matt |date=March 7, 2014 |website=centralmaine.com |publisher=Maine Trust for Local News |location=Portland, Maine |access-date=September 9, 2025}}</ref>

As an author and ufologist, he has had media appearances on ''Today'', ''Good Morning America'', ''The Dick Cavett Show'' (October 26, 1972), ''Mike Douglas Show'' (June 12, 1979), ''Unsolved Mysteries'' (September 18, 1994), ''Sightings'' (April 23, 1995), and numerous radio shows and documentaries.<ref name="SeaCoast" /><ref>{{cite book |last1=Fowler |first1=Raymond E. |url=https://sfpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S93C5449517 |title=Fowler, Raymond E. - About the author |website=sfpl.bibliocommons.com |date=June 23, 2023 |publisher=Red Wheel/Weiser |isbn=978-1-60163-440-5 |oclc=893677510 |quote=Raymond E. Fowler is an international authority on UFOs and has appeared on numerous television shows and networks, including Good Morning America. |access-date=September 10, 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://ctva.biz/US/TalkShow/DickCavettShow_1972-73_s7.htm |title=The Dick Cavett Show, Season 7, Episode 28, October 26, 1972 |website=ctva.biz |publisher=The Classic TV Archive |quote=Guests: author Ray Fowler |access-date=September 10, 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://ctva.biz/US/TalkShow/MikeDouglasShow_18_(1978-79).htm |title=The Mike Douglas Show, Season 18, Episode 157, June 12, 1979 |website=ctva.biz |publisher=The Classic TV Archive |quote=Guests: Raymond E. Fowler, author |access-date=September 10, 2025}}</ref>

== UFO research == Fowler is best known for his UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) investigations and books focusing primarily on UFO sightings and close encounters in the New England area of the U.S., including the Betty Andreasson Luca Alien Abduction case written about by Fowler in his 1979 book ''The Andreasson Affair'' and two follow-up books, ''The Andreasson Affair - Phase Two'' (1983) and ''The Andreasson Legacy'' (1997). He is credited in the initial work with bringing the topic of alleged alien implants to ufology in the discussion of alien abductions.<ref name="NHMag" />

On the 50th anniversary of the Andreasson case, the Massachusetts newspaper ''The Gardner News'' described it as "one of the nation's most celebrated accounts of an alien abduction"<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.thegardnernews.com/story/news/2017/01/21/an-ashburnham-close-encounter-50/11419625007/ |title=An Ashburnham close encounter 50 years ago |date=January 21, 2017 |website=thegardnernews.com |publisher=The Gardner News / Gannett |location=Gardner, Massachusetts |access-date=September 13, 2025 |quote=Known as "The Andreasson Affair," the subject of a best-selling book by the same name written in 1979 by Raymond Fowler, it would become one of the nation's most celebrated accounts of an alien abduction.}}.</ref>

Fuller was the lead investigator for NICAP on the 1965 Exeter incident investigation.<ref name="SeaCoast2">{{cite web |url=https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/news/local/exeter-news-letter/2012/08/28/investigating-ufo-reports/49436139007/ |title=Investigating UFO reports |last=Hearn |first=Kelly |date=August 28, 2012 |website=seacoastonline.com |publisher= Seacoastonline (USA Today Network site) |location=Portsmouth, New Hampshire |access-date=September 14, 2025}}</ref> He filed an 18-page report on the nighttime UFO sighting case that involved citizens and police officers witnessing a large object with flashing red lights at tree-top level just south of Exeter, New Hampshire.<ref name="NHMag" />

Fowler also investigated and wrote about the 1976 Allagash Abductions, an alleged multiple persons abduction case in Maine that occurred along the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, which was cast into doubt by one of the four witnesses in 2016.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Potila |first1=Jessica |date=2016-09-10 |title=Subject of 1976 UFO incident casts doubt on 'Allagash Abductions' |url=http://staging.fiddleheadfocus.com/2016/09/10/news/community/top-stories/subject-of-1976-ufo-incident-casts-doubt-on-allagash-abductions/ |journal=Fiddlehead Focus |archive-date=2024-05-27 |access-date=2024-05-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240527155236/http://staging.fiddleheadfocus.com/2016/09/10/news/community/top-stories/subject-of-1976-ufo-incident-casts-doubt-on-allagash-abductions/ |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://thecounty.me/2016/09/28/community/how-much-of-a-famed-1976-ufo-abduction-is-true-3/ |title=How much of a famed 1976 UFO abduction is true? (Part 2) |last=Potila |first=Jessica |date=September 28, 2016 |website=thecounty.me |publisher=The County / Bangor Publishing Company |access-date=September 9, 2025}}</ref> As in the earlier Andreasson case, Fowler had the four male witnesses undergo regression hypnosis to recall their claimed experiences.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.pressherald.com/2013/09/07/unafraid-of-alienating-themselves_2013-09-07/ |title=Unafraid of alienating themselves |last=Byrne |first=Matt |date=September 7, 2013 |website=pressherald.com |publisher=Portland Press Herald / Maine Trust for Local News |location=Portland, Maine |access-date=September 12, 2025}}</ref>

In 1973, Fowler was employed as a civilian program supervisor for an Air Force Minuteman missile program in the Boston area, while also representing NICAP outside of work.<ref name="LowellSun" /> During this time he investigated for NICAP reports of UFOs having flown over the restricted airspace of Minuteman missile sites in North Dakota years earlier, intrusions that allegedly caused system malfunctions in the subterranean launch control facilities. Fowler interviewed an unnamed Air Force officer who claimed that on August 25, 1966, operators in the underground facilities observed on their screens unidentified objects moving above the base. When asked about these claims by the press, an Air Force spokesman responded that "the Strategic Air Command which operates the site could find nothing in its unit histories to confirm the presence of unidentified flying objects over it or indeed malfunctions in its equipment on the date mentioned".<ref name="NewarkAdvocate" />

== Reception ==

Frank Sikora of ''The Birmingham News'' wrote in his review of Fowler's book ''UFOs: Interplanetary Visitors'' that "UFO buffs – and those who have a casual interest in the possibility that creatures from other planets may be vising our earth – will find this just what they've been waiting for."<ref name="BirminghamNews">{{cite web |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-birmingham-news/180948939/ |title=A book for all UFO buffs |last=Sikora |first=Frank |date=July 7, 1974 |publisher=The Birmingham News |location=Birmingham, Alabama |page=103 |access-date=September 14, 2025 |via=newspapers.com}}</ref>

Evalyne C. Robinson of the ''Daily Press'' in a review of Fowler's book ''The Watchers'' wrote that "though extensively researched and documented, ''The Watchers'' is a strange book, necessarily so, because as Whitley Strieber author of ''Communion'' warns in his forward: 'If aliens are actually here, we can expect them to be .. stranger than anything we can possibly imagine.'"<ref name="DailyPress">{{cite web |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-press/180948866/ |title=Space beings: Why are they here? |last=Robinson |first=Evalyne C. |date=November 18, 1990 |publisher=Daily Press |location=Newport News, Virginia |page=113 |access-date=September 14, 2025 |via=newspapers.com}}</ref>

Dorothy I. Grosser of the ''Asbury Park Press'' wrote in her review that ''The Andreasson Affair'' by Raymond E. Fowler "will inevitably evoke pro and con opinions" on "the subject of unidentified flying objects and close encounters."<ref name="AsburyPark" />

The Canadian newspaper ''The Ottawa Journal'' in a review called the events in ''The Andreasson Affair'' "disturbing" and concluded "the effect on unstable UFO cultists may be enormous."<ref name="newspapers_180767061">{{cite web |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-ottawa-journal/180767061/ |title=Disturbing account of a UFO 'abduction' (book review) |last=Anderson |first=Dorothy |date=August 18, 1979 |publisher=The Ottawa Journal |location=Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |page=31 |access-date=September 14, 2025 |via=newspapers.com}}</ref>

Psychiatrist Ernest H. Taves in a review of Fowler's 1979 book ''The Andreasson Affair'' in the Winter 1979–1980 issue of ''Skeptical Inquirer'' accused Fowler of an "attempt to inject mystery into a situation where there is none" and that, in Taves' view, "Betty recalled, or relived, in hypnosis, a dream or fantasy (or a number of them) that had meaning and utility in terms of her life history and her emotional needs." Taves concluded his review by saying that the investigation was "flawed throughout by a failure to ask obvious questions" and "as a serious investigation into an unusual happening ''The Andreasson Affair'' is a failure."<ref name="SI-Winter7980">{{Citation |last=Taves | first=Ernest H. | title=Betty Through the Looking Glass | magazine=Skeptical Inquirer | volume=4 | issue=2 | pages=88–95 | date=Winter 1979–1980 | url=https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2019/03/Issue-02-2.pdf | access-date=September 13, 2025}}</ref>

Psychologist Robert A. Baker, in ''Skeptical Inquirer'' in 1988 in a review of Philip J. Klass's 1988 book ''UFO-Abductions: A Dangerous Game'', wrote about Andreasson's alien abduction claims as they were presented in Fowler's 1979 book. Baker: "Written by Raymond Fowler, the book tells how Andreasson, a Massachusetts mother of seven, was kidnapped only a few months after the Betty and Barney Hill case broke but waited seven years before going public herself. Klass shows, in a careful analysis of the regressive-hypnosis material and the other facts surrounding the case, that several parts of Andreasson's story were indisputably 'pure fantasy.' He [Klass] concludes: 'If any part of Andreasson's story is inventive fantasy, the entire incident must be suspect.'"<ref name="SI-Summer1988">{{Citation | last=Baker | first=Robert A. | title=Extinguishing the Fires of Unreason | magazine=Skeptical Inquirer | volume= 12 | issue= 4 | pages=419–423 | date=Summer 1988 | url=https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2019/03/Issue-04-9.pdf | access-date=September 13, 2025 }}</ref>

Skeptic Robert Sheaffer in ''Skeptical Inquirer'' in 2007 wrote in his column ''Psychic Vibrations'' that "In the world of UFO abductions, the Betty Andreasson case ranks among the most prominent and most esteemed, often discussed in the same reverenced tones as the case of 'abduction' pioneers Betty and Barney Hill." He added that Fowler's 1979 book is the "best-known account of this abduction story," but due to the hypnosis used to allegedly recover Andreasson's memories, the large body of ufological data collected on the case is dubious.<ref name="SI-JulAug2007">{{Citation | last=Sheaffer | first=Robert | title=First They Came for Darwin, Then They Came for Copernicus and Galileo | magazine=Skeptical Inquirer | volume=31 | issue=4 | pages=24–25 | date=July–August 2007 | url=https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2019/03/SI-JA-07.pdf | access-date=September 13, 2025}}</ref>

== Abduction == Later in life, Fowler wrote about being an abductee himself sharing this information, most in-depth, in his autobiographical book ''UFO Testament: Anatomy of an Abductee''.<ref name="SeaCoast" /> During an interview with Rosemary Ellen Guiley<ref name="visionaryliving.com">{{Cite web |url=http://www.visionaryliving.com/articles/fowler%20interview.pdf |title=Interview with Raymond E. Fowler by Rosemary Ellen Guiley |access-date=2010-07-20 |archive-date=2016-03-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303165731/http://www.visionaryliving.com/articles/fowler%20interview.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> Fowler listed some of his abduction experiences that seem to mimic other abductee testimony such as Betty and Barney Hill abduction and Betty Andreasson Luca.

Fowler's claim of being an abductee, and his UFO research as a whole, were not always welcome by his family members, because of their religious beliefs on the subject of UFOs. Fowler's extensive investigations in the UFO field lessened after the publication of ''The Watchers I'' and ''The Watchers II'', in which Fowler initially acknowledged his UFO abduction experiences.<ref name="visionaryliving.com"/> He continued writing books on the subject, however, including his own experiences as well as local investigations he had not previously published.

== Personal life == Born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1933, Fowler has also lived in Wenham, Massachusetts, and Kennebunk, Maine.<ref name="UPI" /><ref name="CentralMaine-2">{{cite web |url=https://www.centralmaine.com/2014/10/30/off-radar-the-andreasson-affair/ |title=OFF RADAR: "The Andreasson Affair" |last=Wilde |first=Dana |date=October 30, 2014 |website=centralmaine.com |publisher=Maine Trust for Local News |location=Portland, Maine |access-date=September 11, 2025}}</ref> An amateur astronomer, in Wenham, he built and operated an observatory from 1970 to 2001 that he named the Woodside Planetarium & Observatory. Before his retirement, he taught classes on the paranormal in association with the Kennebunk Adult Education Department.<ref name="NHMag" /> A bass instrument soloist, he also performed with his wife Margaret to benefit a local food bank.<ref name="SeaCoast" /> He has four children.

== Books == * ''UFOs: Interplanetary Visitors'', 1974, 2001 (forward by J. Allen Hynek)<ref name="SeaCoast" /><ref name="NHMag" /> * ''The Andreasson Affair'', 1979, 2014 (forward by J. Allen Hynek)<ref name="CentralMaine2">{{cite web |url=https://www.centralmaine.com/2014/10/30/off-radar-the-andreasson-affair/ |title=OFF RADAR: "The Andreasson Affair" |last=Wilde |first=Dana |date=October 30, 2014 |website=centralmaine.com |publisher=Maine Trust for Local News |location=Portland, Maine |access-date=September 9, 2025}}</ref> * ''Casebook of a UFO Investigator'', 1981 * ''The Melchizedek Connection'', 1981, 2001 * ''The Andreasson Affair - Phase Two'', 1983<ref name="CentralMaine2" /> * ''The Watchers'', 1990 (forward by Whitley Strieber) * ''The Allagash Abductions'', 1993, 2005 (introduction by Budd Hopkins)<ref>{{cite web |url=https://thecounty.me/2016/09/21/houlton/how-much-of-a-famed-1976-ufo-abduction-is-true-4/ |title=How much of a famed 1976 UFO abduction is true? (Part 1) |last=Potila |first=Jessica |date=September 21, 2016 |website=thecounty.me |publisher=The County / Bangor Publishing Company |access-date=September 9, 2025}}</ref> * ''The Watchers II'', 1995 (forward by Whitley Strieber) * ''The Andreasson Legacy'', 1997<ref name="CentralMaine2" /> * ''UFO Testament: Anatomy of an Abductee'', 2002 * ''SynchroFile: Amazing Personal Encounters With Synchronicity And Other Strange Phenomena'', 2004

== References == {{Reflist}}

== External links== * [https://www.nicap.org/bios/WHO-IS/fowler.htm Raymond E. Fowler] – NICAP bio * {{IMDb name|7391007}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fowler, Raymond E}} Category:1933 births Category:20th-century American male writers Category:Writers from Massachusetts Category:American writers on paranormal topics Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers Category:Ufologists Category:Paranormal investigators Category:Living people