Half a world away, the University of Melbourne in Australia announced this week it is bestowing its first doctorate degree in ufology to a man whose research took him to the three places in the world most key in the history of the subject. The No. 1 spot listed? You guessed it: Roswell, N.M.

In a press release, the university announced:
 

Martin Plowman, from the School of Culture and Communication, investigated hundreds of UFO sightings and interviewed dozens of ufologists as part of his PhD thesis.

Mr. Plowman will become Dr. Plowman next Saturday (August 9) when he is conferred with a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne.

As part of his research Mr. Plowman visited key sites in the history of ufology, including Roswell, New Mexico; crop circle hotspots in Wiltshire, England; and the Valley of Elqui in the Chilean Andes, and examined the links between UFO sightings and religion, politics, national security and popular culture.

According to the Australian publication The Age, Plowman is the first Australian to receive such a degree.

Dr. J. Allen Hynek, professor of astronomy at Ohio State University, and later, chairman of the astronomy department at Northwestern University, is credited with creating the genre and is known as the Father of Ufology. He served as an astronomical consultant to the government in the 1950s and 1960s and created the Center for UFO Studies in 1973.

The university release adds that "after 80,000 words and seven years devoted to the subject, Mr. Plowman remains open-minded about whether UFOs exist or not."

“When a person tells me they have seen something in the sky that they can’t explain I tend to believe them,’’ he says.

“But belief must be tempered by curiosity, and this curiosity has taken me to the edge of the unknown without falling into it.”