Ted R. Phillips

Ted Phillips was a Missouri-based engineer, professional photographer, and field investigator who became UFO research's leading specialist in physical trace evidence: burn marks, soil compression, vegetation damage, and other ground effects reportedly left behind at landing sites. He began investigating UFO reports in 1964 and met J. Allen Hynek during the Socorro, New Mexico landing investigation that same period, beginning an association that lasted until Hynek's death in 1986; at Hynek's suggestion, Phillips specialized in trace cases from 1968 onward. Over more than four decades he personally investigated hundreds of cases and catalogued more than 4,000 physical trace reports from over 90 countries through his Center for Physical Trace Research, publishing an influential 1975 catalogue that remains a reference source for researchers studying the physical residue of alleged landings. His best-known personal investigation is the 1971 Delphos, Kansas case, in which a glowing ring left in soil reportedly exhibited unusual soil chemistry and continued to fluoresce under ultraviolet light years later, a case still cited by researchers as one of the strongest physical-evidence UFO reports. Phillips was part of a small delegation, alongside Hynek, Jacques Vallée, and astronaut Gordon Cooper, invited to brief the United Nations Secretary-General on UFO research in 1978. He died in 2020 at age 77.