--- alias: - John E. Mack - John Mack - John Edward Mack - Dr. John Mack - Dr. John E. Mack category: UFO & Anomalous Phenomena created: 2026-10-02 died: 2004-09-27 location: Cambridge, Massachusetts relations: - fn: 1 role: professor of psychiatry; founding chairman of the psychiatry department at Cambridge Hospital start: 1972 type: employed_by with: '[[Harvard Medical School]]' - fn: 2 role: with Robert J. Lifton, as the Center for the Study of Human Continuity and later the Center for Psychological Studies in the Nuclear Age start: 1982 type: founded with: '[[Center for Psychology and Social Change]]' - fn: 4 start: 1993 type: founded with: '[[Program for Extraordinary Experience Research]]' - end: 1995-08 fn: 10 role: faculty committee review chaired by Arnold Relman start: 1994 type: subject_of with: '[[Harvard Medical School]]' - fn: 5 role: invited to the JY Ranch roundtable start: 1993-09 type: participant_in with: '[[Rockefeller Initiative]]' summary: Harvard psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize biographer of T. E. Lawrence who from 1990 studied abduction reports, founded PEER in 1993, and was reviewed by a Harvard committee in 1994 and 1995. tags: - Person - Psychiatry - Harvard - UFO - Abduction - Pulitzer - Rockefeller updated: 2026-10-02 --- John E. Mack was born in [New York City](/places/new-york-city/), took an undergraduate degree at Oberlin College in 1951 and a medical degree at Harvard Medical School in 1955, served in the [United States Air Force](/organizations/us-air-force/) from 1959 to 1961, became chief of psychiatry at Cambridge Hospital in 1969 and professor at [Harvard](/organizations/harvard-university/) in 1972, and won the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for the biography *A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T. E. Lawrence*. He was killed by a car in [London](/places/london/) on September 27, 2004.[^1] ### The Center The John E. Mack Institute's history states that the organization began in 1982 in Cambridge, founded by Mack and Robert J. Lifton as an affiliate of Harvard Medical School studying "the psychological, historical and political complexities that maintain and perpetuate nuclear weapons"; it became an independent nonprofit in 1986 as the Center for Psychological Studies in the Nuclear Age, took consultative status with the [United Nations](/organizations/united-nations/) Economic and Social Council in 1988, and in 1992 became the Center for Psychology and Social Change.[^2] Its newsletters of 1993 to 1995 carry the line "An affiliate of Harvard Medical School at The Cambridge Hospital."[^3] ### Abduction Research and Rockefeller In 1993 the Center formed the [Program for Extraordinary Experience Research](/organizations/program-for-extraordinary-experience-research/); its newsletter of September 1993 states that the project was "Funded by a grant from the Human Potential Foundation," and the Institute states that it was formed "with funding from Laurence Rockefeller."[^2][^4] [Laurance Rockefeller](/people/laurance-rockefeller/) invited Mack to the roundtable he hosted at the JY Ranch in September 1993, and the photograph published by Paradigm Research Group names Mack beside Rockefeller.[^5] Mack's book *Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens* was published in 1994; the Rockefeller correspondence of April 26, 1994 mentions it.[^6] *PEER Perspectives* of Winter 1998/99 reports a panel of scientists "funded by the Laurance S. Rockefeller Fund."[^7] Ben MacIntyre of the London *Times* wrote in May 1995, while Harvard's review was under way, that "His Center for Psychology and Social Change is supported by an annual grant of $250,000 from Laurance S. Rockefeller," and quoted Mack's lawyer Roderick McLeish in the same article.[^8] The Valley News of May 20, 1995 stated that Mack's work "has received generous subsidies from Laurance Rockefeller, patriarch of Woodstock, who reportedly donates a quarter million dollars a year" to the Center, and that a spokesman for Rockefeller "said his policy is not to comment publicly on Mack's projects."[^9] Neither article names a source for the figure. ### Harvard Review Dean Daniel C. Tosteson convened a "Special Faculty Committee" in the summer of 1994 under the chairmanship of Arnold Relman. In the Baltimore Sun's account of August 4, 1995, Tosteson had told Mack the previous Friday that the review had ended; Harvard counsel Anne Taylor, a member of the committee, said that Mack remained a full member of the faculty "with no adverse action taken," and Relman said the committee never considered revoking his tenure. The same report states that the committee's preliminary report, drafted earlier in 1995, "chastised Dr. Mack for 'affirming the delusions' of his many patients" and found him "in violation of the standards of conduct expected of a member of the faculty of Harvard University," and that Mack's lawyer, Eric MacLeish, contested the findings.[^10] [Alan Dershowitz](/people/alan-dershowitz/) criticized the inquiry in the Harvard Crimson on June 30, 1995; Relman replied there on September 13, 1995 that the committee's work was confidential, that Mack's right to research abduction was never challenged, and that the committee was critical because Mack "wasn't doing any scientific research on the problem."[^11] Whether Rockefeller or the [Human Potential Foundation](/organizations/human-potential-foundation/) intervened with Harvard is not documented in any record opened. [^1]: "Professor of psychiatry at HMS Mack dies at 74," *Harvard Gazette*, September 30, 2004, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2004/09/professor-of-psychiatry-at-hms-mack-dies-at-74. [^2]: John E. Mack Institute, "History," https://johnemackinstitute.org/history/. [^3]: *CenterPiece*, February 1994, June 1994 and 1995 mastheads, https://johnemackinstitute.org/CenterPiece_1994_0600.pdf and https://johnemackinstitute.org/CenterPiece_1995_0600.pdf. [^4]: Center for Psychology and Social Change, *CenterPiece*, September 1993, p. 2, https://johnemackinstitute.org/CenterPiece_1993_0900.pdf; John E. Mack Institute, "History," as above. [^5]: Rockefeller to John H. Gibbons, August 4, 1993, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/RID-8-4-93.htm; Paradigm Research Group photograph caption, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/9-14-93_Meeting.htm. [^6]: Rockefeller to Gibbons, April 26, 1994, http://www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/2-26-94%20LR%20Letter%20to%20JG/Letter.jpg; *CenterPiece*, February 1994, https://johnemackinstitute.org/CenterPiece_1994_0200.pdf. [^7]: *PEER Perspectives* no. 2 (Winter 1998/99), p. 1, https://johnemackinstitute.org/PEER_Perspectives_2.pdf. [^8]: Ben MacIntyre, "Harvard professor's stories of close encounters, other-world sex, embarrass university," *The San Francisco Examiner* (London *Times* credit), May 5, 1995, p. 16, https://www.newspapers.com/image/461595501/. [^9]: "Harvard's Mack: The Subject Is Aliens," *Valley News* (West Lebanon, N.H.), May 20, 1995, p. 23, https://www.newspapers.com/image/833962083/. Byline not read. [^10]: "'Kooky' or not, Harvard won't censure its 'UFO professor'," Baltimore Sun, August 4, 1995, https://www.baltimoresun.com/1995/08/04/kooky-or-not-harvard-wont-censure-its-ufo-professor/. [^11]: Arnold S. Relman, "The Motivation for the Mack Inquiry," Harvard Crimson, September 13, 1995, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1995/9/13/the-motivation-for-the-mack-inquiry/.