UFO Records Center explores history of the phenomena

PHOTOS: National UFO Historical Records Center

Oct 21, 2025

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RIO RANCHO — Are we alone?

It’s one of the biggest questions of humanity. And the answer might just be in Rio Rancho.

During an open house of the National UFO Historical Records Center Saturday, Oct. 18, David Marler, executive director, was eager to show off the many aspects of the center.

The event coincided with the approximate one-year anniversary of the center opening in two module buildings at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School and comes on the heels of some landscaping and other projects at the center.

“We’ve been working on this for about a year,” Marler said of the partnership with Rio Rancho Public Schools. “Working on getting organized; we’re getting archive after archive.

“This is the largest collection of UFO files ever assembled in the U.S. — foreign and domestic. We have almost every country included in the files,” he said, noting that sightings and reports are part of history and culture. “It really underscores the global interest in the phenomena.”

And, he said, they are expecting to receive 10-20 more collections in the next two years.

Marler said the ultimate goal for the center is to “centralize and preserve” the history of UFOs and to digitize the material — written documents, audio files, VHS and other video, artwork, artifacts and more — and upload it to the website for the world to access.

He noted one particular collection they received was literally saved from a Dumpster in New York State. The documents belonged to Dr. Leon Davidson, and among the rescued files was a certificate on the work he did on the Manhattan Project. That collection serves as an example of another aim of the center: to ensure no more documents and records get thrown away.

“We ultimately want to have an interpretive museum with archives,” Marler said, noting that the aim is for the archive to be a legitimate historical center that avoids playing up conspiracy theories and is instead “much more serious and academically oriented.”

He also said that despite being in the same state, the center doesn’t focus too much on Roswell. “It’s been done to death,” Marler said. “We want to focus on the stories people don’t know.”

The museum part of the center features original front pages of newspapers reporting on sightings, artwork, displays of artifacts related to UFO encounters, and a display devoted to Project Blue Book, a 22-year military investigation on the phenomena. It also houses shelves of audio and video files the center has accumulated. That same building also holds a large room dedicated to storing files the center continues to collect before they get organized and incorporated into the existing files.

Across the way in the second module building is the document center, where file cabinets line the walls, with documents arranged chronologically. A large table for research sits in the middle, while desks of digitization equipment line the remaining walls. The remainder of that building houses a library, which features books, international newsletters and still more documents. Here, there is another table for visitors to sit and peruse materials, lighted with antique green lamps that add to the library atmosphere.

“We don’t have a narrative; we have the history, and people can come in and look at it,” he said. However, he did note that 90-95% of UFOs are identified but just not known by the public, such as weather balloons and top-secret military projects. The center, Marler said, is for those who are “curious and open-minded with a healthy dose of curiosity about the subject.”

However, he he did acknowledge the existence of the phenomena with a caveat: “It doesn’t mean alien, but there’s a mystery. Let’s explore the mystery.”

The ideal, he added, we to develop the center into something akin to the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History.

As for Saturday, Marler said it was quite successful, noting that several people were waiting to get in before the 9 a.m. opening with people continuing to filter in throughout the day.

Currently, the center, which operates as a nonprofit, is open by appointment only. To make in appointment or for more information, visit nufohrc.org.