Paul Dong was born in Canton, China, in 1928, but now lives in Oakland, California. He has been studying the UFO phenomenon for many years and has written over fifty articles for newspapers and journals in China, a number of books, including The Four Major Mysteries of Mainland China and UFOs over Modem China.
In 1981 Paul Dong lectured on UFOs throughout China, speaking to packed audiences at the Peking China Hua University Students Union, Canton Sci ence Museum, and Canton Jinan University, etc.
Paul Dong is an editor of the Chinese language magazine Journal of UFO Research (see Appendix)
PAUL DONG
UFO research has continued for forty years, but has yet to reach any satisfactory conclusion. Because of its mysterious nature, bordering between fact and fantasy, it has attracted the interest of researchers from all countries to track it down, hoping it will some day give us a “signal”
Because China was closed to the world for thirty-five years, it only came to recognize UFOs in 1978. This immediately generated much interest, and in the short span of the past ten years, China has compiled over 6,,000 UFO cases, including those from ancient times. Of course, among these are many false reports. The percentage of clear-cut cases which cannot easily be explained away was found to be twelve percent, over twice as high as the rates found by English and U.S. UFO researchers (Dr. Allen Hynek, for example, estimated that five to six percent of UFO reports cannot be explained away). However, because China’s researchers were lacking in scientific methodology, further analysis explains a half of those cases, so those which cannot be explained away are also six percent.
Considering that UFO researchers from other countries have continued to study UFOs with undiminished interest for forty years, while China’s UFO researchers started just ten years ago, it is only natural to expect that the Chinese would have a stronger interest in UFOs than researchers from other countries. Just look at our Journal of UFO Research. When it came out in 1981 , it sold just 150,000 copies. Since then it has been on a steady rise, and its 1988 circulation was 325 ,000 copies. Isn’t that any excellent indication? A further indication is that when people all over mainland China first became interested in UFOs, there were no more than twenty-eight UFO re search associations, while today the number has increased to thirty-six.
China’s UFO researchers lack funding, communications, photographic equipment, instruments, and scientific techniques; otherwise, China would have even more UFO students and our UFO magazine would have even wider circulation (an initial estimate would be 500,000 copies).
To mention a few examples, at the second National UFO Convention, held on February 24 in Guangzhou (Canton), the number of delegates giving presentations was no more than 121 , from a base of thirty-six local branch UFO associations. Thus, each organization sent only three dele gates. Afterward, I inquired why they had so few speakers.
The answer was that they were unable to buy train tickets-China has a population of one billion, and it usually takes one month to buy a train ticket!
It was ten years on July 30, 1988, since the founding of China’s UFO associations, and they held a “Ten Year Commemorative Exhibition”, also in Guangzhou. Be cause participation was not limited to UFO association members, it attracted UFO amateurs, journalists, and tele vision film teams from all over the country. An estimated one million people saw the exhibition. The display showed UFO photography from around the world, books, magazines, slide shows, UFO postage stamps from many countries, special publications of all the local branch research associations, and so on. Our Journal of UFO Research sold 36,000 copies during the week of the exhibition.
UFOs over China, an eighteen-minute color documentary film shot five years earlier, was also shown at the exhibition. Since it came out, theaters all over the country have clamored for it, because the film’s length does not interfere with the time for the main feature film, and also because China has about ten million UFO enthusiasts. As a result, this film has continued playing for a long time.
In view of the large number of UFO followers, some people might wonder why the Journal of UFO Research sells only 325,000 copies. [Even allowing for China’s huge population, this is an enviable figure compared to Western UFO magazine sales-Editor.] Permit me to explain. Since everybody there has a low income (on average, 120 yuan in Chinese currency per person per month, equal to 30 U.S. dollars), one magazine or book is usually passed along and read by more than ten people. Everyone lends books to one another. Also, many people do not buy books but do go to the library to read them.