National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena
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| Non-Profit Organization | |
| Founded | October 24, 1956 |
| Defunct | 1980 |
| Headquarters | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Website | www.nicap.org |
The National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) was a unidentified flying object (UFO) research group active in the United States from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Though NICAP was a non-profit organization, the group faced financial collapse many times in its existence, due in no small part to business ineptitude among the group’s directors. Following a wave of nationally-publicized UFO incidents in the mid-1960s, NICAP's membership spiked dramatically, and only then did the organization become financially stable. However, following publication of the Condon Report in 1968, NICAP's membership declined sharply, and the organization again fell into long-term financial decline and disarray.
Despite these internal troubles, NICAP probably had the most visibility of any civilian American UFO group, and arguably had the most mainstream respectability; Jerome Clark writes that "for many middle-class Americans and others interested in UFOs but repelled by ufology’s fringe aspects, it served as a sober forum for UFO reporting, inquiry, investigation, and speculation". NICAP advocated transparent scientific investigation of UFO sightings and was skeptical of "contactee" tales involving meetings with space visitors, the alien abduction phenomenon, and the like. The presence of several prominent military officials as members of NICAP brought a further measure of respectability for many observers.
Throughout its existence, NICAP argued that there was an organized governmental cover-up of UFO evidence. NICAP also pushed for governmental hearings regarding UFOs, to at best limited and occasional success.
Though any UFO-related group attracts a number of uncritical enthusiasts along with a small percentage of cranks, astronomer J. Allen Hynek cited NICAP and Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) as the two best civilian UFO groups of their time, consisting largely of sober, serious-minded people capable of valuable contributions to the subject.
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