What a success! This was the 5th year that Phoenix MUFON has sponsored the MUFON 2022 Field Investigator Boot Camp, held November 5/6/7 in Mesa, AZ.
28 participants came from all over the U.S., and Canada, to learn the methods of becoming a trained, certified UFO Field Investigator.
The event started with a Meet-n-Greet dinner on Friday evening, with a beautiful mild evening, just steps from the door of the event’s host hotel. It was a relaxing and friendly way for the group to get to know one another in preparation for the weekend ahead.
Saturday morning started promptly at 8am with 4 hours of classroom instruction. First up was the entertaining duo of Marianne Robb and Dave Rich, both Gilbert Police Officers and MUFON Field Investigators, and their presentation on Advanced Interviewing Techniques. Next the group learned about forensic fieldwork from the experts: retired Navajo Rangers Stan Milford and Jon Dover. Mental Health Practitioner Brett Leifson then presented information on Healthy vs. Unhealthy Mental States, and the classroom instruction ended with an Astronomy lesson by Marc D’Antonio, who is MUFON’s Chief Video/Photo Analyst.
The afternoon session entailed a trip out to the beautiful Sonoran desert where the guest speakers had a chance to interact with the participants before a desert cookout dinner was enjoyed by all. Marc D’Antonio followed up on his earlier Astronomy lecture with a skywatch under the dark Arizona skies.
Sunday morning started again at 8am with lectures by Katie Griboski Paige (Colorado MUFON State Director) on “Working a Case from A-Z”, followed by Dennis Freyermuth (Arizona MUFON Chief Investigator) on Photo and Video Analysis. Shane Hurd (Arizona MUFON Asst State Director) then spoke to the group about MUFON’s Experiencer Resource Team (ERT), and the classroom instruction ended with Bob Manning (Arizona MUFON Field Investigator) informing the participants how to work a CMS case quickly and efficiently.
Sunday’s afternoon session was once again a trip to the desert where the participants broke into 5 groups and exercised their learning of forensic fieldwork. The site had been planted with artifacts that were to be found, with evidence collected correctly, documented, tagged and bagged. This exercise, known as The Practical, had our guest speakers as the Team Leaders who led the group in proper procedure.
The Boot Camp wrapped up Sunday evening with a poolside barbeque at the host hotel where bellies were filled, email addresses were swapped, and Certificates of Completion were handed out to the hard-working future Field Investigators.
The whole weekend consisted of incredible information, good weather, lots of fresh air, beautiful desert sunsets, and friendships formed.
A special thank you to our professional photographer, Nathan Cowlishaw, for the wonderful photos, and to Arizona MUFON Field Investigator Tara Diulus, for her help with the whole weekend, as assistant to Boot Camp Organizer Stacey Wright, Arizona MUFON State Director.
Good luck to all our prospective MUFON Field Investigators!! We look forward to seeing your name in an upcoming MUFON Journal!
