Friedman graduated from the University of Chicago, earning a Bachelor of Science (1955) and Master of Science (1956) degree in nuclear physics.[1] Friedman used to bill himself as "The Flying Saucer Physicist" due to his nuclear physics degrees.
He currently refers to himself as a "scientific ufologist." (Moseley & Pflock 2002:201-2) Friedman was employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist for such companies as General Electric, General Motors, Westinghouse, TRW Systems, Aerojet General Nucleonics, and McDonnell Douglas where he worked on highly advanced, classified programs on nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets, and various compact nuclear power plants for space applications.
Since the 1980s, he has done related consultant work in the Radon-detection industry. Friedman is a member of the American Nuclear Society, the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and AFTRA.
In 1970 Friedman departed full-time employment as a physicist to pursue the scientific investigation of UFOs. Since then, he has lectured at more than 600 colleges and 100 professional groups in 50 states, nine provinces, and 16 foreign countries. Additionally, he has worked as a consultant on the topic. He has published more than 80 UFO related papers and has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs. He has also provided written testimony to Congressional hearings and appeared twice at the United Nations. (About the Author:Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience)
He is the original civilian investigator of the Roswell UFO incident and supports the hypothesis that it was a genuine crash of an extraterrestrial spacecraft. (See Crash at Corona: The Definitive Study of the Roswell Incident.) Friedman has been criticized among skeptics and other Roswell researchers for refusing to accept that all of the Majestic 12 papers are fakes, although he was the first to provide evidence that some are clearly hoaxes.
Friedman has criticized the scientific SETI program to search for extraterrestrial life, and has debated its director on the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
In 1968 Friedman argued to a Committee of The House Of Representatives that the evidence suggests that earth is being visited by intelligently controlled extraterrestrial vehicles. Friedman also stated he believed that UFO sightings were consistent with magnetohydro-dynamic propulsion - a technology that may be feasible in the near future, and which is currently being investigated by aeronautical engineer Leik Myrabo. This is consistent with his theory that most observed UFOs are similar in size to our own aircraft and represent atmospheric scout craft, whereas much larger so-called "mother ships" sometimes reported may be interstellar craft and operate on different, unknown principles, similar to aircraft carriers utilizing different energy and propulsion systems from the smaller aircraft that they host.
Friedman further hypothesizes that UFOs may originate from relatively nearby sun-like stars, what he terms the "galactic neighborhood". A piece of evidence that he often cites is the 1964 star-map drawn by alleged alien abductee Betty Hill during a hypnosis session, which she said was shown to her during her abduction.
Astronomer Marjorie Fish constructed a 3-dimensional map of nearby sun-like stars and claimed a good match from the perspective of Zeta Reticuli, about 39 light years distant. The fit of the Hill/Fish star maps was hotly debated in the December 1974 edition of Astronomy Magazine with Friedman and others defending the statistical validity of the match.
