Center for the Impossible
OrgArchiveCenter for the Impossible
OrgArchiveThe Center for the Impossible is Rice University's archive of UFO, abduction and paranormal research, holding the papers of Jacques Vallée, John Mack and Whitley Strieber.
The Center for the Impossible is Rice University's archive of UFO, abduction and paranormal research, holding the papers of Jacques Vallée, John Mack and Whitley Strieber.
The Center for the Impossible, known until recently as the Archives of the Impossible, is a special collection at Rice University in Houston devoted to UFOs, alien abduction, psychical research and other anomalous experiences. It is a joint project of Rice's Woodson Research Center and its Department of Religion, housed in Fondren Library, and its stated aim is to "preserve and make available for research significant document collections related to the study of paranormal experiences." The religion scholar Jeffrey Kripal, who holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought, founded it and oversees it. Rice reported in August 2026 that it held more than a million documents, recordings and files across 18 collections.
The archive grew out of a December 2014 conversation between Kripal and the computer scientist and UFO researcher Jacques Vallée after Kripal visited him in Berkeley. Vallée's papers, spanning 1960 to 2015, became its first collection after about four years of negotiation, with parts embargoed until as late as 2031. Later gifts brought in the papers of the Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack, about 150 boxes or 450 linear feet from his abduction research, and the collection of Whitley Strieber, which includes 3,400 letters from strangers, mostly written in the late 1980s and 1990s. Other collections come from the psychologist R. Leo Sprinkle, the researchers Richard Haines, Larry Bryant, Brenda Denzler and Wendelle Stevens, and Edwin May, who directed research for the Stargate remote-viewing program from 1985 to 1995.
The physical collections are kept in climate-controlled storage outside Houston, and researchers request material to review in the Woodson reading room. Because Mack's files contain medical information about the people he interviewed, Rice has worked to de-identify that collection. Karin Austin, a former participant in Mack's research who later worked as his assistant, joined as project manager in April 2024 and now serves as managing director. That year Rice announced a two-year metadata study with the John Mack Institute to anonymize and analyze the abduction material. The archive has also held conferences at Rice in 2022, 2023 and 2025.
Its public profile grew in 2026. The six-part documentary series Archive X: Unexplained Phenomena, hosted by Kripal and filmed largely at the Woodson Research Center, premiered on October 1 on SundanceTV, AMC+ and All Reality, with episodes on telepathy, near-death experiences, precognition, mediumship and alien abduction drawn from the Mack and Strieber papers. "People are used to simple debunking or simple belief," Kripal told Rice News of the series. In July the center and the John Mack Institute co-sponsored "Breaking the Taboo," an online symposium on academic research into UAP, abduction and experiencer reports, and in October Kripal discussed the archive with Ross Coulthart on NewsNation's Reality Check.
The library journal Alki has described the collection as the first publicly accessible archive where UFO and paranormal research is "a primary focus." By placing the working papers of Vallée, Mack and Strieber in a university special collection, the center has given the private records of modern ufology and abduction research a permanent institutional home open to scholars.
We did a little special thing in recording the AMA in podcast form. We took answers from this post on r/HighStrangeness and will be replying to each person that asked these questions in the original post as well! 00:00 Welcome & Intros 06:21 Q1 — Evidence of the unexplained, stories from the show 15:43 Q2 — The Extratempestrial theory 23:38 Q3 — Altered states of consciousness, shared environments 36:01 Q4 — Finishing John Mack’s book 38:56 Q5 — Fear of the paranormal, documenting experiences...
We did a little special thing in recording the AMA in podcast form. We took answers from this post on r/HighStrangeness and will be replying to each person that asked these questions in the original post as well! 00:00 Welcome & Intros 06:21 Q1 — Evidence of the unexplained, stories from the show 15:43 Q2 — The Extratempestrial theory 23:38 Q3 — Altered states of consciousness, shared environments 36:01 Q4 — Finishing John Mack’s book 38:56 Q5 — Fear of the paranormal, documenting experiences...
[Retweeted] Dr. Jeffrey Kripal: Disclosure is a literal translation of apocalypse. People mostly think of it as the ending of a world, but it is also a revelation of reality 🛸👽 A Rice University professor of religious studies who founded the Archives of the Impossible says that in 2017 Lockheed Martin Skunk Works engineer Charles Chase invited him to MIT to lecture on historical accounts of levitating saints. Chase believed these events related to how UFOs propagate through space and time....
Dr. Jeffrey Kripal: Disclosure is a literal translation of apocalypse. People mostly think of it as the ending of a world, but it is also a revelation of reality 🛸👽 A Rice University professor of religious studies who founded the Archives of the Impossible says that in 2017 Lockheed Martin Skunk Works engineer Charles Chase invited him to MIT to lecture on historical accounts of levitating saints. Chase believed these events related to how UFOs propagate through space and time. Kripal expla...
Dr. Jeffrey Kripal: "Disclosure means apocalypse. It's a literal translation of apocalypse. It means disclosing, an unveiling of reality." 🛸👽 Rice University professor of religious studies Dr. Jeffrey Kripal, who founded the Archives of the Impossible with UFO researcher Jacques Vallée, revealed that Lockheed Martin Skunk Works engineer Charles Chase invited him to MIT around 2017. Chase, then head of Revolutionary Technologies, wanted Kripal to lecture on historical accounts of levitating...
Kripal, in The Super Natural: “The gods were not ancient aliens. The aliens are modern gods.” Well, if we can lure and “shoot them down,” then… not so fast. htt [Quoted] 🚨BREAKING🚨: Rice University Professor of Religion says a Lockheed Martin Skunk Works engineer sought his advice on whether levitating saints could explain UFO flight. Dr. Jeffrey Kripal a professor of religious studies at Rice University runs one of the largest archives in the world on historical anomalies (alien abductions...
Probed ingest of: Religious Scholar: “UFO Disclosure Is THE APOCALYPSE!”
The Basement: Jeffrey Kripal | Inside the Archives of the Impossible
Our latest REALITY CHECK is with Professor Jeffrey Kripal, host of the new TV series 'Archive X', who has been delving through the archives of Rice University's ARCHIVES OF THE IMPOSSIBLE for some its most perplexingly mysterious cases: https://t.co/X7YCy1nFno via @YouTube
I've been waiting for this one, dear James. Thanks for sharing! BTW, I think the Archives of the Impossible are the most important anomalous data repository in [Quoted] #UFOx: Make sure to watch AMC+’s new series, Archive X, based on Rice University’s Archives of the Impossible. Jeff Kripal is a legend, and I’m proud to say I’m working with the center to help accomplish its mission. The first episode is on telepathic kids. @pavelibarrameda @ufophilosophy @DrewzerNC @TheZignal @ufouapam @Garry...
