Watch for changes as the web grows and the saucers fly.

Data-rich UFO sites, larded with photos, historical information and endless speculation, abound on the web. But where do you turn if you simply want to report your own sighting? Right here, of course. The National UFO Reporting Center not only maintains a 24-hr telephone hotline (206 722-3000) but also their own home page. Incoming calls are farmed out to the nearest field investigator associated with one of the major UFO groups, typically MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network, for follow-up. The page also contains month-by-month maps and summaries of recent reports and a few detailed case histories. Online info could use some updating, but the voice box remains current and active. Don't anticipate a busy tone unless the country is in the middle of a flap. Peter Davenport, email ufocntr@nwlink.com, is the Director.

Saucer Smear makes the cut of best UFO sites not for technical excellence (which is competent enough), but because of the window it opens into the living (and on occasion, bed) rooms of the people who study UFOs -- ufologists themselves. Part personal diary, part tabloid headlines, Saucer Smear (edited and produced in print by the irrepressible Jim Moseley with all the glee and production capabilities of an off-campus highschool newsletter) is where those in the know, or reportedly in the know, turn first for news of the latest gossip and personal scandal involving their fellow ufologists. The letters section is typically devoted to a series of ongoing personal feuds between this or that point of view or prominent UFO practitioner. You won't learn so much about UFOs here as you will about the peccadilloes of the prevailing extraterrestrial camp.

AUFORA WEB is the home of -- yawn -- The Alberta UFO Research Association. While the name doesn't exactly dazzle, these Canadians have produced one sharp-looking site. It's true the contents are pretty standard: news, a place to report sightings (though why anyone but Canadians would want to report their sightings here is a bit of mystery to me), pictures of UFOs and related subjects, a guide to UFO information, and a links section, which is rather anemic with its four links. (We've heard of exclusive, but this is ridiculous.) So why does this rate a best bet, you wonder? Simple. Who else will deliver UFO news right to your cyberspace mailbox -- gratis? AUFORA, that's who. But hey, cut down a bit on the astronomy news, guys and gals. Let's keep the focus on UFOs.

It might seem like a conflict of interest to have the MUFONsite featured here, given that one of us also happens to be the editor of the MUFON UFO Journal. But it's your other editor reviewing this site and the reason I chose it is simple: the Mutual UFO Network is the largest UFO organization in the United States (perhaps the world) and their site on the web gives everyone instant excess to the biggest group of people actually doing something about UFOs. They're investigating sightings, analyzing pictures and videos, holding annual conferences . . . well, you get the idea. There may be better, flashier UFO sites on the web, but most of the people behind them are couch potatoes compared to this bunch.

We keep waiting for someone to be abducted from their car, cellular phone at the salute, while deep in conversation with Rush Limbaugh or Larry King. Given persistent reports of paralysis and missing time associated with UFO abductions, however, such a provocative scenario hardly seems likely. If you feel you have been abducted, however, and have already exhausted all the ordinary avenues, you might want to surf the new web page posted by abductee John Velez for Budd Hopkins' Intruders Foundation. Hopkins, a New York abstract artist, is the author of three abduction books which all raise their commercial heads here. It's a graphics-heavy page and can be somewhat slow to download. Confidentiality assured.

If you have nothing to do for the next 365 days, you might want to follow all the links listed on HAV A~CIGAR. If links are the web's greatest pleasure, then this page should be absolute ecstacy for UFO buffs. With its 750 or so links on UFOs and related subjects, this is without a doubt the mother(ship) of all UFO link sites. Sure, the relatedness of some links to UFOs is rather questionable (Beautiful Buds is about marijuana plants) and with that many links on your site it's inevitable that some will be dead (I found three pretty quickly), but hey -- by the time you've checked out everything here the aliens will have landed anyway -- so who cares!