Central research network of extraordinary celestial phenomena

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Central Research Network for Extraordinary Celestial Phenomena
(CENAP)
purpose Investigation of UFO sightings
Chair: Hansjürgen Köhler, Roland Gehardt (since 2014) / Werner Walter (until 2014)
Establishment date: 1976
Number of members: not specified
Seat : Mannheim
Website: cenap.de

The Central Research Network for Extraordinary Celestial Phenomena ( CENAP ) is a private association of people interested in astronomy and para-science who deal with the elucidation of unusual celestial phenomena. This means reports from unidentified objects in flight. CENAP is attributed to the skeptics within the UFO scene.

founding

CENAP was founded in 1976 by Werner Walter (1957–2016) and Hansjürgen Köhler (* 1956) in Mannheim . After Walter had his own UFO sighting in 1973, he and his colleagues founded the Private UFO Research Group Mannheim, initially as an offshoot of the Deutsche UFO / IFO-Studiengesellschaft e. V. (YOU). After the break with DUIST, the CENAP emerged from this.

structure

CENAP is a private organization, but neither a registered association nor does it have association-like structures. There is no executive board in the legal sense or a statute . According to the former partner organization GEP, the number of active members is between three and five. The coordination of the members, who otherwise act independently of one another, as well as the external presentation was the responsibility of the founder Werner Walter until 2014. From the CENAP various local groups were formed in Germany (including Heilbronn) and Switzerland. The so-called inspection investigators, who mostly appear in public for the first time as part of a press campaign, are responsible for a specific area of ​​operation and are largely autonomous. Almost all local groups have since been dissolved again.

In January 2014 one could hear in the media that Werner Walter and his colleagues had meanwhile withdrawn from working on the UFO issue. The reason given is increasing boredom for the topic, in which, according to Walter, "everything repeats itself infinitely, just in new facets" . In July 2014 it became known that Werner Walter could no longer work for CENAP for health reasons. Hansjürgen Köhler and Roland Gehardt took over the management of the group as well as the UFO hotline and the blog, which were still active despite withdrawing from the topic . In the meantime, Hansjürgen Köhler runs the management almost alone and continues the blog.

Work and points of view

CENAP is largely hostile to the extraterrestrial hypothesis and exopolitics . The network is considered to be the main representative of skeptical ufology in Germany.

From its inception until around 2011, the work of CENAP mainly consisted of receiving and evaluating UFO reports. Werner Walter operated a UFO hotline that was manned almost 24 hours a day . In the investigation of the UFO cases, an object-oriented approach in the sense of the stimulus-response model was primarily followed through the means of investigative journalism. In the vast majority of cases, “UFO sightings” could be cleared up by researching what was observed by the witness and traced back to known and natural phenomena, for example a skybeamer projection (disco emitter) on cloud banks or Venus . In May 2011, in the course of a workshop, the usefulness of individual case investigations and UFO hotlines was questioned.

Media impact

Although CENAP as a loose association comprises several active members, the public image was for a long time largely determined by Werner Walter. Various TV and radio broadcasts have been played by him in recent years, occasionally also by other CENAP members. Thanks to numerous press releases initiated by CENAP, the organization was the UFO group with the most media presence in Germany. Until Werner Walter's withdrawal, CENAP determined the perception of German UFO research to a particular degree.

The lawyer Jens Lorek received national media attention in autumn 2006 when he stated for CENAP in the role of the so-called "alien lawyer" that he wanted to represent victims of abductions by extraterrestrials .

criticism

The CENAP is controversial in the "UFO scene". Although the group itself claims to be scientific, it is often accused of inadequate methodology and an inadequate approach to the phenomenon. Some of the identifications provided for UFO reports are supposed to be ideologically motivated ( "every UFO can be cleared up" ) and only come about through inadmissible omission and reduction of the facts. Witnesses themselves complain that the CENAP UFO hotline does not take them seriously. Today, cases are processed almost exclusively at the desk or on the phone, another point of criticism. Data collection, e.g. B. in the form of standardized questionnaires is rarely done today.

The CENAP is also criticized for polemical statements and constantly recurring personal insults in the publications. All other German UFO research associations ( MUFON-CES , DEGUFO , GEP ), as well as the German Initiative for Exopolitics, have publicly distanced themselves from CENAP and its working methods.

Publications

From 1976 to 2002 the CENAP Report (CR) was the group's communication organ. In the 1980s and 1990s, the special volume series "UFOs Grenzenlos" appeared. After the printed version of the CR was discontinued in 2002, it was published as a free online magazine until 2007. The Internet platform UFO-Information.de, which cooperates closely with CENAP, has digitized all 280 issues of the CENAP Report and offers them free of charge for downloading. The last publication channel was the UFO reporting point blog, which was largely run by Werner Walter alone until February 2014 and has been looked after by Roland Gehardt since his departure. The blog was deleted in early 2016. In the meantime it is continued by Hansjürgen Köhler.

Web links

http://www.ufo-information.de/index.php/aktuelles/weblog/19-beispielbeitraege/beitraege/363-cenap-report-archiv - archive of the CENAP reports 1976-2007

https://www.hjkc.de/ - current CENAP blog

Remarks

  1. ↑ GEP - Society for Research into the UFO Phenomenon
  2. ↑ DEGUFO - German-speaking Society for UFO Research

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heike Vowinkel: You hunt UFOs in Mannheim. In: welt.de . July 31, 2004, accessed October 7, 2018 .
  2. ↑ cenap.alien.de
  3. ↑ a b The board of GEP (Hans-Werner Peiniger, Danny Ammon, André Kramer, Christian Czech): GEP eV public declaration on the UFO group CENAP. Society for Research into the UFO Phenomenon, August 8, 2011, accessed on August 11, 2011 .
  4. ↑ UFO over Bremen "There is no extraterrestrial presence on earth". Frankfurter Rundschau, January 7, 2014, accessed on January 10, 2014 : “My colleagues and I have withdrawn from the UFO topic. [...] This is simply because everything repeats itself infinitely, just in new facets. And that's boring. "
  5. ↑ Hansjürgen Köhler, Roland Gehardt: On our own behalf. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 29, 2014 ; accessed on July 20, 2020 .
  6. ↑ heise online: Enlightenment through reason: UFO hunters put archive online. Retrieved June 20, 2020 .
  7. ↑ a b cenap-hjkc: Space + Astronomy Blog from CENAP - Home. Retrieved June 20, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Illobrand von Ludwiger: The state of the UFO research. Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt 1994, p. 17.
  9. ^ Werner Walter: UFO Workshop - The Topics. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 29, 2014 ; accessed on July 20, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Jürgen Helfricht : I am Germany's first lawyer for alien victims. Retrieved October 29, 2014 .
  11. ^ Contributions to UFO research from history, biology and physics . In: Illobrand von Ludwiger (Ed.): MUFON-CES report . tape 12 . Feldkirchen-Westerham 2009.
  12. ↑ Rudolf Henke: From the rain into the eaves - an insider's experience with the German skeptic movement. Retrieved May 25, 2010 .
  13. ↑ Illobrand von Ludwiger, Alexander Knörr, Björn Bossing, Robert Fleischer: Public press statement by MUFON-CES, DEGUFO and EXOPOLITIK. MUFON-CES, November 10, 2007, accessed May 16, 2011 .
  14. ↑ ufo-information.de/
  15. ↑ CENAP Report Archive
  16. ↑ ufo-meldestelle.blog.de ( Memento from July 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive )