| Archives of the Impossible | |
|---|---|
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| 29°43′4.021″N95°24′0.730″W / 29.71778361°N 95.40020278°W /29.71778361; -95.40020278 | |
| Location | Woodson Research Center in theFondren Library, Rice University, Houston, Texas, United States |
| Scope | Paranormal,UFO, andanomalous phenomena research archives |
| Established | 2014 (2014) |
| Access and use | |
| Circulation | Special collection (rare materials): does not circulate |
| Other information | |
| Director | Jeffrey J. Kripal (Curator), Amanda Focke (special collections) |
| Affiliation | Rice University School of Humanities |
| Public transit access | METRORail Red Line (Hermann Park/Rice University station) |
| Website | impossiblearchives |
TheArchives of the Impossible (AOTI) is aspecial collection atRice University inHouston, Texas, United States. Founded in 2014 byJeffrey J. Kripal, AOTI is based at theWoodson Research Center in theFondren Library. It stewards collections onUFO andparanormal subjects, including the papers ofJacques Vallée, declassifiedUnited States ArmyStargate Project materials, correspondence sent toWhitley Strieber after the publication ofCommunion, and materials related toJohn E. Mack. By 2025 the archive comprised eighteen collections and more than a million documents, has been identified by theWashington Library Association as the first publicly accessible archive in which UFO and paranormal research materials are a primary focus, hosts recurring conferences at Rice, and since 2024 has supported a two-year research initiative on its collections.
The Archives of the Impossible (AOTI) ofRice University atHouston, Texas, is aspecial collection founded in 2014 byJeffrey J. Kripal, aprofessor of religion.[1][2] AOTI is based at theWoodson Research Center (WRC).[3] AOTI materials are housed in theFondren Library.[2] Kripal is director and curator of AOTI and Amanda Focke is head of special collections at the project.[4] AOTI was identified by theWashington Library Association (WLA) in their journalAlki as the first such publicly accessible archive of UFO and paranormal research materials as "a primary focus".[5]: 17 Besides UFO and abduction material, Kripal has stated that the archive also holds collections on mediumship, out-of-body experiences and telepathy.[6] Kripal compared AOTI with earlierparapsychological archives at theUniversity of West Georgia andDuke University, noting that the largest related collection is theArchives for the Unexplained inNorrköping, Sweden.[7]
Kripal developed AOTI by building relationships with other researchers over time, with their team at Rice identifying collections to consider foraccession.[5]: 16 According toOxford American, the project aimed to counter "damage" caused to the study of such topics by theCondon Committee report in 1969.[2] By 2024, AOTI contained fifteen separate collections of materials.[1] AOTI was identified as the "most utilized collection within the institution."[5]: 16 The physical collection archives are maintained in climate-controlled storage off-site from the main Rice University campus.[8] The overall size of the collections in 2024 was estimated at "certainly over a million documents" by Kripal.[1] Access to the archives is available by request for review locally in the Fondren Library reading room, as well as digital archives on Rice websites with additional oral histories available.[8]
AOTI was initiated with a donation by Frenchufologist and authorJacques Vallée of his collected lifetime research materials.[3][1] Vallée initially asked Kripal in December 2014 if he could help locate a university archive to store his collections, due to worries about "potential loss or commercialization" of his research.[9] After four years of negotiation, Vallée donated his collection to AOTI.[1] Vallée formalized the accession process at Rice by holding a lecture of his research in 2018.[9] In 2022,Wired reported that Vallée's collection in AOTI would include files on about 500 anomalous events that he investigated.[10]
AOTI holds a collection of material fromJohn E. Mack ofHarvard University.[2] Karin Austin, previously Mack's personal and research assistant, worked with his family after his death in 2004 and later Rice University, Kripal and the (WRC) on assembling and digitizing the Mack collections.[9] Austin became AOTI project manager in 2024.[9]
Rice University in 2024 began a two-year study of the materials in AOTI, after ten years of collection and archival work.[1] The research includedartificial intelligence driven analysis of the Strieber and Mack collections.[2] Rice University began an extensivede-identification process for Mack's collection, to protect the identities of claimed experiencers in medical records.[5]: 8–9 Similar anonymization efforts were reported underway for the Strieber collection.[5]: 14–15
Kripal remarked in 2025 that "now we call it theCenter of the Impossible.[2] According to Kripal, AOTI encompasses "the whole university", by including matters of anthropology, art, astronomy, biology, genetics, history, philosophy, and physics.[9]
Conferences for AOTI occurred in 2022, 2023 and in 2025; Rice University reported videos of conference panels had surpassed 300,000 views.[8] AOTI conferences are held at Rice University.[5]: 17 In 2025, Rice University hosted the conference,The Archives of the Impossible: The UFO and the Impossible, drawing three hundred attendees.[2]
AOTI has drawnfilmmakers; Rice University reported that by 2024, "half a dozen"production crews had visited the archives.[9]ABC News visited AOTI in 2025.[7]
As of April 2024, AOTI held fifteen total collections.[9] In October 2025, Kripal reported that AOTI had grown to eighteen collections.[7] AOTI houses mail correspondences thatWhitley Strieber, author of the bookCommunion, received from the public about their reportedalien abduction claims.[4][3] Kripal highlighted 3,400 letters to Strieber in particular; Strieber had received hundreds of thousands of letters that his wife Anne curated, and the particularly significant letters were donated to AOTI.[7][1] Additional collections to AOTI were donated by Larry W. Bryant, Brenda Denzler, Richard F. Haines, R. Leo Sprinkle and Wendelle C. Stevens.[5]: 14–16 Both the Sprinkle and Vallée materials have embargoes requested by the creators on some content due to their "sensitive nature", according to the journal of the WLA.[5]: 15
AOTI holds declassified research material of theUnited States Army's 1972-1995Stargate Project[3][4] Christopher Senn was identified as organizing the Stargate Project collection for Rice University.[11]: 129 The collection was donated by Edwin May, theU.S. Army's program director from 1985 to 1995.[3][4] InRoutledge'sHandbook of Religion and Secrecy byHugh Urban and Paul Christopher Johnson, Kripal and Senn detailed that May's donation to AOTI encompassed thousands of pages of declassified materials.[11]: 129
The archives were described as holding "thousands" of "firsthand abduction accounts".[3]KPRC-TV described AOTI collections as containing "photos, drawings, sketches, and personal testimonies, all claiming to document encounters with the unknown".[1] Editor Derek Askey of theThe Sun in 2025 detailed his visit to AOTI, and his examination of materials from the government's Stargate Project andCommunion readers.[4]
