Raymond E. Fowler

Raymond Fowler was a Massachusetts-based aerospace engineer, working for decades on missile and satellite programs including the Minuteman and Sentinel systems, who applied that technical background to civilian UFO field investigation with MUFON and, earlier, NICAP. His defining body of work is the multi-decade, multi-volume investigation of Betty Andreasson (later Andreasson-Luca), a Massachusetts woman who reported a 1967 abduction experience and continued contact over subsequent decades; Fowler's resulting books, beginning with The Andreasson Affair (1979) and continuing through several sequels into the 1990s, are among the most detailed and longitudinal single-witness case studies in the field's history, combining hypnotic-regression sessions, polygraph testing, and psychological evaluation in an attempt to establish the account's internal consistency and the witness's credibility. The case became one of the most frequently cited detailed abduction narratives, admired by supporters for its documentary thoroughness and criticized by skeptics for relying heavily on hypnosis, a technique later memory research showed could shape as much as recover recollection. Fowler also authored a memoir on his own family's alleged multi-generational UFO contact experiences. He remained active in the field for over 50 years and died in 2022 at age 88.