Robert Bigelow's role
Las Vegas hotel and aerospace entrepreneur Robert Bigelow funded NIDS, bought Skinwalker Ranch, ran BAASS and lobbied his friend Harry Reid for government UFO research.
1995 CE · 36.17, -115.15 · status: account
The account
Bigelow told the Deseret News in 1998 that his interest began as a boy, when his grandparents described a fireball that rushed at their car near Las Vegas and turned away. He said he was spending over a million dollars a year on NIDS to prepare people for eventual contact. He also funded research on survival of consciousness after death and on abduction claims.
The sceptical view
James Randi gave him a tongue-in-cheek Pigasus Award in 1997 for funding the ranch and abduction researchers. Critics note that his money shaped much of the modern 'UAP disclosure' story, which raises questions of independence.
Connections in the atlas
- BAASS in the Uinta Basin
- ▶ From Skinwalker Ranch to the 2017 AATIP story
- NIDS buys the ranch
- The skeptical case on Skinwalker Ranch
- James Lacatski's ranch visit and the Pentagon money
- AAWSAP at Skinwalker Ranch