Michael David Hall
Mike Hall's interest in the subject of UFOs began quite by accident while working at Purdue on a paper analyzing the effects of American daylight bombing raids on Germany. Mr. Hall then happened across some obscure UFO accounts filed by allied pilots. Called foo-fighters in those days, the stories he found fascinated him. Michael Hall has researched many aspects of the Project Blue Book days although he had completed a book primarily dealing with the very early years of Air Force investigations into UFOs. That book, Origin of the UFO Phenomenon, documents many fascinating events long forgotten by today's sound bite generation. It is one of very few books that approaches the subject from a historical perspective. Michael David Hall has previously authored a biography on Indiana Senator Henry S. Lane. In The Road To Washington, Rise of an Indiana Politician, Hall traces the drama that took Lane from the chairmanship of the first national Republican Convention in 1856 to his influence four years later in securing Abraham Lincoln with his party's nomination. Dozens of magazine articles on Indiana history followed that work. Several of those continued Mr. Hall's research on the former Indiana senator, taking him from a congressional legislator who worked with Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, to the founder of the Indiana Republican Party, and then on to a powerful Civil War era senator. Hall holds a B.A. from Illinois College and an M.A. from Western Illinois University in American History. In 1984 he began a museum career at the Illinois State Museum and since 1987 has served as Executive Director of the Montgomery County Historical Society and its Henry S. Lane Historic Home in Crawfordsville, Indiana. As he pursues his research he finds diversion in aviation history as a part time guide at the United States Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. Hall also has interest in the era of the great steam trains, serving as a director at the Linden, Indiana, Monon-Nickel Plate Railroad Museum and Historical Society. Residing in Lafayette, Indiana, with his wife Teresa and their collection of five pampered stray cats, both Mr. and Mrs. Hall developed interests in that area's rich heritage in transportation history spawned by technological influences from nearby Purdue University. In fact, Mr. Hall has taken advantage of his proximity to Purdue to further his studies in history and plans in the near future to complete his Ph. D. in American History. Hall was Executive Director of the Roswell Museum and Art Center, a non-UFO-oriented museum in Roswell, NM, from Feb 2014 to Sept 2015.Since Nov 2015 he has been Executive Director and CEO at National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada.