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Dr. John E. Mack

Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, 1990-2004 (UAP/experiencer research); 1955-2004 (academic career)

Case File
BornOctober 4, 1929 - New York City, New York
DiedSeptember 27, 2004 - London, England (struck by drunk driver)
AliasesJohn Mack, John Edward Mack
Service1990-2004 (UAP/experiencer research); 1955-2004 (academic career)
ClearanceNone (civilian academic)

Summary

Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard psychiatrist who became the most academically credentialed researcher to seriously investigate UAP contact experiences. As a full professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Mack brought rigorous clinical methodology to the study of individuals reporting encounters with non-human entities - finding no evidence of psychopathology in his subjects and concluding that the phenomenon represented something genuinely anomalous that Western materialist frameworks could not accommodate. He founded the Program for Extraordinary Experience Research (PEER) at Harvard in 1993, published two landmark books on the subject, and in 1994 flew to Zimbabwe to personally interview 62 children following the Ariel School incident - the most thoroughly documented mass UAP witness event involving minors on record. Harvard Medical School launched a formal inquiry into his research in 1994; the inquiry concluded in 1995 with no sanctions, representing a significant institutional vindication of academic freedom in a field where most institutions refuse to engage. He died in London on September 27, 2004, struck by a drunk driver.

Roles

  • -Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
  • -Founder, Program for Extraordinary Experience Research (PEER)
  • -Author - Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens (1994)
  • -Author - Passport to the Cosmos (1999)
  • -Pulitzer Prize winner in Biography (1977)

Organizations

Harvard Medical SchoolHarvard UniversityProgram for Extraordinary Experience Research (PEER)Boston Psychoanalytic Institute

Education

  • -M.D., Harvard Medical School, 1955
  • -Training analyst, Boston Psychoanalytic Institute
  • -B.A., Oberlin College, 1951

Early Career

  • -Trained as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst following his Harvard MD
  • -Joined Harvard Medical School faculty; rose to full professor of psychiatry
  • -Won the Pulitzer Prize in Biography (1977) for 'A Prince of Disorder: The Life of T.E. Lawrence' (published 1976) - establishing his academic reputation before engaging UAP research
  • -Developed expertise in transpersonal psychology and cross-cultural psychiatry before turning to experiencer research
  • -Began investigating accounts of anomalous contact experiences in 1990 after being introduced to Budd Hopkins' work