A
founding member of the Mutual
UFO Network, Inc., John F. Schuessler is
presently the Deputy Director for Administration, a consultant
in Astronautics, and a member of the Board of Directors
of MUFON.
As a staff member, he has written numerous articles for
SKYLOOK and the MUFON
UFO Journal since
1967, and he has been a featured
speaker at MUFON
Symposia six times in the past 24 years. Mr.
Schuessler received a B.S.M.E.
from the University of Illinois and an M.S. in Future
Studies from the University of Houston at Clear Lake.
He
is a member of the UFO Research
Coalition Board of Directors and a member of
the Science Advisory Board for the National
Institute for Discovery Science. He is
a full member of the Society
for Scientific Exploration and an associate
of the J.
Allen Hynek Center
for UFO Studies. He was a founding member
and past President of the UFO
Study Group of Greater St. Louis, and was a
member of the host group for the MUFON
1971 UFO Symposium in St. Louis. He participated
in the founding of the Vehicle
Internal Systems Investigative Team (VISIT)
in Houston, Texas, served as president, and was a host
committee member for the MUFON
1980 UFO Symposium in Clear Lake City, Texas.
He
first became active in UFO research in 1965 when he joined
the Aerial
Phenomena Research Organization.
John
is an aerospace engineering
manager and has been associated with all major manned
U.S. space programs. In an interview with Richard
Thieme, he explains how it all started:
"I
began with the human space flight
program in 1962 at the end of the Mercury program
and retired because of the Gemini
program. I went into design of the environmental
control system and became responsible for the ECS on the
Gemini for all the equipment. I went from there to the
SkyLab program and
did the same thing on a much larger scale. Then I moved
to Houston when McDonnell
Douglas won the support contract for the
space shuttle flight operations; that was before the space
shuttle flew, and worked in the flight operations division
at JSC
(Johnson
Space Center) – we helped write the
procedures and plans that helped get the shuttle flying.
Then, I worked with that job as project manager for flight
operations until 1983, when I became director of engineering
for McDonnell
Douglas. In 1987, I worked on proposals
for the new space station, Freedom.
We won that contract. Then went from there into general
management, responsible for general operations in Houston
for the company, including security, business management,
human resources, and other functions. Later in the early
90s, I was put in charge of building
the new neutral buoyancy facility for NASA – the
largest swimming pool in the world – for training
astronauts. Then I worked a large robot training
project until I retired in 1998. Before being director
of MUFON,
I had a year or so break doing other things – consulting
in aerospace, I’m in the space tourism society and
want to get people into space. We’ve got to get launch
costs down and get lots of people up there – I’m
now working with Buzz
Aldrin, working with John Spencer in the
Space Tourism Society, with Bigalow
Aerospace, and a few others, BG
Enterprises in Houston and consulting with
several different groups just to get things going."
"My
work in the Gemini program
is what really stimulated me into the UFO field. When
they launched the first Gemini which was unmanned, they
were showing on radar two objects that followed Gemini
on the first orbit. Our structural people were really
upset because they thought maybe it had broken up or something.
On the second orbit, they were gone."
"Later
on, a couple or three times, flights where we actually
had people up there, they reported seeing things. McDivitt
actually photographed something, and later, the photographs
shown weren’t what he said he saw. Several others
reported seeing things. They didn’t see "flying
saucers", they saw objects in space. But it was still
enough – these are people, I worked very hard on
life support systems to keep them alive and when they
said something, I believed it. I didn’t question
it at all. That stimulated me to go out and start looking.
It wasn’t long before – I met Walt Andrus by
accident. He got me to join APRO.
For a short time, I was a consultant with APRO.
Iit wasn’t working out in the Midwest and he and
I pushed for the Midwest support network and that’s
how we became founding members of MUFON.
Alan Utke was first international director."
He
is now very involved in NASA's Space Station Freedom.
He is a member of the American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
(AIAA),
the World
Future Society, Houston
Consortium for the Future, and consultant for
various UFO organizations throughout the world.
John
has demonstrated a long-standing interest in advanced
propulsion concepts apparently indicated in many UFO reports.
He has approached his work in this area through the examination
of effects on human systems resulting from UFO close encounters.
He is the principal investigator in the Cash-Landrum
injury case and has appeared on the nationally
televised ABC-TV program That's
Incredible and the NBC-TV program Good
Morning America with Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum,
and Colby Landrum, the victims of a UFO close encounter
near Houston, Texas, on December 29, 1980. Mr. Schuessler
heads up MUFON's
Medical Committee, composed of Consultants with medical
degrees.
Sources:
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/guest/schuessler-john/53389
http://www.thiemeworks.com/an-interview-with-john-f-schuessler-executive-director-of-mufon-mutual-ufo-network/
MUFON 1993 International UFO Symposium
Proceedings
