The many lives of Peter Davenport

Te-Ping Chen's Sept. 1 article in the Wall Street Journal, entitled "UFO spotting has replaced bird watching as pandemic obsession," stated that the "non-profit National UFO Reporting Center reports sightings this year are up 51 percent so far over the same period in 2019. Among 5,000 incidents recorded this year, 20 percent occurred in April, as much of the nation remained in lockdown."

An excerpt from her article continues, "At Peter Davenport's home in Harrington, Wash., the phone rings all day long, and into the night. Davenport has served as the group's director since 1994, collecting firsthand accounts through his website and by phone, answering 25 to 50 calls a day. The group is an independent, two-man shop that consists of Davenport and a webmaster, both volunteers, whose work is well known among the UFO-watching community. It's a herculean task", says Davenport, 72, who turns off the phone's ringer at night to try to get some sleep. 'It's literally taken over my life.'"

Davenport sounds exactly like himself whether you speak with him in Harrington, on the phone or read about him in the Wall Street Journal. He is absolutely transparent and as straightforward as a human can be. As in his local presentations previously at the Harrington Opera House, the article quotes Davenport as saying, "Reports of aliens haunting the skies have waxed and waned over the years. Interest in extraterrestrials boomed in the 1990s, fueled in part by pop-culture phenomena such as 'The X-Files' and 'Men in Black'. Talk of UFOs has gotten a boost in recent months, with the Navy releasing three archival videos of unidentified flying objects glimpsed by pilots and the topic getting highlighted by podcaster Joe Rogan and the History Channel, which has devoted a new show to the subject."

"Most Americans who witness something strange never report it," says Davenport, who cautions that most of the reports have another identifiable cause, a drone, for example, or a plane. In particular, he says, "The 2019 launch of the Starlink satellite constellation being built by SpaceX to provide internet access has meant many more false sightings."

The article acknowledged his service in the U.S. Army, but did not mention that during the Cold War he was as a Russian translator in 1970-71, stationed on the Elbe River in Germany for two years. Davenport has a fascinating history with a very diversified work history including teaching at Peninsula College in Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula in Fishery Science, Fishing Anatomy, Net Mending and Weaving, and Micro-technique; 10 years as a flight instructor; teaching at the U of W in International Business; and 26 years as director of the National UFO reporting center. In addition to his stressful occupation as a ufologist, Peter Davenport has served on the Harrington City Council for 12 years under the following mayors: Paul Gilliland, Dillon Haas, Justin Slack and current Mayor Nathan Luck. For the full article in The Wall Street Journal visit https//www.wsj.com/articles/ufo-spotting-has-replaced-bird-watching-as-pandemic-obsession-11598986541

Peter Davenport says he was honored to be featured in the Wall Street Journal. He also owns the missile site located between Harrington and Davenport, and on Sunday, Sept. 6, he took a tour group of about 10 for a tour of his site, providing his guests with a brief historic review of the purposes of the missile site and explaining the various functions of different areas of the site. His guests included Beth and Bob Rose of Wilbur, Mark and Sheryl Stedman of Mohler, Carol and Sonya of Odessa, a local Harrington student, Myrna Bischoff and her son-in-law, Bill Dougherty of Virginia and his brother Jimmy Dougherty of Florida. Following the tour, Davenport was preparing for his weekly UFO radio broadcast.