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Archives for the Unexplained (AFU)

Archives

Swedish foundation in Norrköping preserving UFO, Fortean, paranormal, folklore, and anomalous-phenomena archives for international research access.

Archives for the Unexplained (AFU) is a Swedish archival foundation preserving paper archives, book libraries, recordings, electronic files, objects, and other materials related to UFOs, Forteana, paranormal claims, folklore, and other unexplained phenomena.1 Its importance is not that it decides which claims are true, but that it preserves the documentary record of sightings, investigations, organizations, debates, beliefs, skeptical responses, and research communities that might otherwise disappear.23

  Origins and Name

AFU began in Södertälje, Sweden, in 1973 as Arbetsgruppen för ufologi, the Working Group for Ufology.3 The original aim was to build a specialized lending and research library for UFO and Fortean literature, starting from a bookshelf-and-wardrobe collection associated with founders Anders Liljegren, Håkan Blomqvist, and Kjell Jonsson.43

The book library formally started in 1974, AFU moved to Norrköping in 1979, and in 1980 it became a self-owning, non-profit foundation under Swedish law.5 The acronym originally meant Archives for UFO Research, but AFU changed the English name in April 2013 to Archives for the Unexplained as the collection broadened beyond UFOs into related anomalous-phenomena fields.5

  Purpose and Governance

AFU's by-laws define it as a foundation whose purposes include managing and developing an international archive and library for unexplained-phenomena documents and literature, supporting research, encouraging critical but open-minded scientific discussion, and serving as the archive and library unit for UFO-Sweden.2 Its required activities include obtaining, cataloging, and caring for printed media, documents, magazines, clippings, picture archives, audio and video recordings, and personal or organizational collections.2

The institution is board-governed from Norrköping rather than organized as a conventional membership society.2 Anders Liljegren is described by AFU as a co-founder, administrative manager, archivist, and designer of the PhenCode classification system; he was also among the founding members of UFO-Sweden in 1970.4

  Collection Scope

AFU's 50th-anniversary account, published in 2023, described four kilometers of shelves holding books, documents, photographs, audio tapes, and other material on the unknown.3 The same institutional account reported tens of thousands of books, millions of documents and newspaper articles, thousands of pictures, films, and tape recordings, hundreds of posters and objects, and perhaps 50,000 UFO reports from multiple countries across fourteen rooms totaling 550 square meters.3

The archive's collection logic is intentionally broad. AFU says it keeps believers and critics side by side, preserving arguments, explanations, debunking, and unresolved claims rather than arranging the holdings around one interpretation.3 Its subject range includes UFOs, Forteana, cryptozoology, parapsychology, folklore, religion, occult and theosophical movements, unusual natural phenomena, conspiracy materials, cult records, science fiction, skeptical periodicals, and relevant mainstream science or defense materials.67

  Books and Classification

The AFU library began with a 225-title donation from Swedish ufologist Lennart Johansson plus founders' donations, forming an initial collection of about 350 titles.6 By March 2017, AFU reported more than 29,400 cataloged unique titles and editions distributed across three library facilities, including a main UFO library, the Hilary Evans library of more than 10,000 phenomena-literature volumes, and a third library emphasizing behavioral-science subjects.6

AFU classifies books with PhenCode, a mnemonic subject-classification scheme devised by AFU in 1983 and formerly called UfoCode.6 The scheme is designed to help researchers locate literature across more than 700 subject areas, with main groups for ufology, contactees, ancient cultures, Fortean subjects, natural sciences, mythology and folklore, paranormal topics, religion, science fiction, behavioral sciences, and related categories.6

  Serials, Reports, and Clippings

AFU's serial-publication collection includes more than 73,000 individual issues belonging to more than 12,000 annual volumes, representing 57 nations on its magazines page.7 The serials cover UFOs as a primary topic while also spanning cryptozoology, Forteana, psychic and paranormal phenomena, theosophy, occultism, religious cults, science fiction, borderland sciences, skeptical journals, mainstream science, and defense journals.7

The UFO report-file archive draws from Sweden and many other countries.8 AFU receives 300 to 500 Swedish reports each year through UFO-Sweden's report center and accredited field investigators; its Swedish report archive is described as more than 200 binders and over 20,000 cases, with about 17,000 reports in the ScanCat database at the time of the collection page.8

The report holdings also include copies of Swedish Defence reports from the 1930s ghost-flier waves, the 1946 ghost rockets, and post-1947 cases; Danish SUFOI files dating back to 1958; BUFORA material digitized into about 10,000 pages; Spanish CEI folders and indexes; Austrian Luis Schönherr files and CODAB database printouts; Russian files of about 1,200 reports; Cynthia Hind investigative files; UFOCAT material; and Project Blue Book microfilms.8

AFU's clipping collection contains more than 500,000 items about phenomena from around the world.9 Its Swedish clipping files include a continuous clipping-bureau subscription dating to 1970, more than 35,000 retrospective articles, and substantial coverage of the 1930s ghost fliers, the 1946 ghost rockets, and 1980s Swedish coastal submarine incidents.9 AFU also reports scanning more than 66,000 articles from the Charles Fort Institute clipping collection and preserving British, Scandinavian, North American, New Zealand, and other clipping files.9

  People, Groups, and Research Use

AFU treats personal papers and organizational records as central evidence for how anomalous-phenomena communities formed, argued, investigated, and remembered their subjects.10 Its People and groups collection page states that believers, skeptics, collectors, writers, small circles, and large organizations can all matter archivally because their correspondence, case files, journals, proceedings, and administrative traces document the social history of phenomena research.10

Since 1993, AFU has belonged to Folkrörelsernas Arkivförbund, the Swedish federation for popular-movement archives, and it has entered Swedish organization references into the national archival database managed by the Swedish National Archives.10 This places AFU in a Swedish archival tradition focused on preserving the records of civil associations and movements, while applying that model to UFO, paranormal, Fortean, and skeptical communities.10

Digitization is part of AFU's preservation strategy, especially for fragile files and donor collections.3 AFU's 50th-anniversary account says hundreds of thousands of pages on UFOs, paranormal phenomena, sea monsters, crop circles, Atlantis, conspiracy theories, and related topics have been scanned, and that the archive also preserves thousands of recorded interviews, lectures, radio programs, and television programs.3

  Significance and Limits

AFU's value for UAP and anomalous-phenomena history lies in provenance, scale, and survival.13 The archive preserves case files, periodicals, correspondence, catalogs, clippings, organizational records, audiovisual testimony, and unusual objects that document both extraordinary claims and ordinary human processes: witnessing, classifying, doubting, believing, publishing, debunking, fundraising, and saving endangered records.310

That archival role has limits. AFU is not a government investigative authority, scientific adjudication board, or official disclosure office; it is a repository built to keep source materials available for future research.12 Its strongest contribution is therefore evidentiary infrastructure: making it possible to trace claims through original files, collections, donor histories, classification systems, and the long international paper trail of UFO and unexplained-phenomena research.238

  References

  References

  1. AFU - "What is AFU?" https://www.afu.se/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. AFU - "By-laws" https://www.afu.se/about-afu/by-laws/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  3. AFU - "AFU turns 50 and continues to grow" https://www.afu.se/afu50/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11

  4. AFU - "Anders Liljegren" https://www.afu.se/about-afu/afu-people/anders-liljegren/ ↩ ↩2

  5. AFU - "About AFU" https://www.afu.se/about-afu/ ↩ ↩2

  6. AFU - "Books" https://www.afu.se/books/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  7. AFU - "Magazines" https://www.afu.se/collections/magazines/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  8. AFU - "UFO report files" https://www.afu.se/collections/report-files/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  9. AFU - "Clippings" https://www.afu.se/clippings/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  10. AFU - "People & groups" https://www.afu.se/collections/researchers-activists/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

Published on January 1, 1973

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