British-American plasma physicist and solar astrophysicist, emeritus professor at Stanford, and the scientist who did more than anyone to get the UFO question examined by people with reputations at stake.
Three contributions
He surveyed the memberships of the American Astronomical Society and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in the 1970s and found both a higher rate of personal sightings and a higher appetite for study than the public posture of either body suggested. He founded the Society for Scientific Exploration in 1982 to give anomalous topics a peer-reviewed venue. And he chaired the Sturrock Panel 1997, the physical-evidence review at Pocantico.
Why he is the model rather than the exception
His method was consistently to ask what could be measured and to leave the conclusion open, which is why his panel’s finding satisfied nobody. Jacques Vallee treats him in Forbidden Science 7 as one of the friends whose deaths mark the book, and as the standard against which the later academic turn led by the SOL Foundation should be judged.
Connections
Sturrock Panel 1997 · Jacques Vallee · Forbidden Science 7 · SOL Foundation · Condon Report · Garry Nolan · J. Allen Hynek