NEAR HARRINGTON, Wa--One man, living alone, is storing thousands of records from the National UFO Reporting Center underground in an abandoned nuclear missile silo 50 miles west of Spokane.

Othello Richards

The outside of an old nuclear missile silo near Harrington, WA which now houses part of the National UFO Reporting Center.

Peter Davenport, a former biologist, Russian translator, and now newly elected city councilman for the town of Harrington, WA says he believes the world's governments and the media downplay the existence of UFO’s.

Peter Davenport has taken calls on possible UFO sightings for 13 years.

Most are not as dramatic as the one on August 25, 1995 when a Canadian TV crew on the east coast captured a bright glow in the sky.

 The UFO Center's phone line lit up with up statements from witnesses like, “A big ball of white light, at the height  it was like this orange flame stuff, and it just shot across the sky really fast and all of a sudden it disappeared.”

Peter says the object looked “like the moon and it was strobing and it went from Canada to Southern Pennsylvania in about 30 seconds and it stopped.”

A mobile home went up in flames during the episode.  A professor probed the wreckage with a device that detects radiation, but found no traces of a meteorite. 

Davenport investigated, but says to this day he has not gotten any answers as to what this object was.

Davenport believes that cases like these might be UFO’s.    

 “Our planet is being visited, perhaps on a regular basis, by these things we call UFO’s,” said Davenport. 

 The National UFO Reporting Center right now is housed in one room in Davenport's apartment near Harrington, consisting of a telephone, a tape recorder and a computer.

 Davenport also keeps thousands of his files secured under millions of pounds of concrete and steel in an underground decommissioned nuclear missile silo on the outskirts of town.

 It was at this site five years ago that a state employee, Roger Erdman from Spokane, was murdered when he was investigating tax problems with the former silo’s owner.

 Davenport purchased it last year believing it would be the perfect home for the Reporting Center.

The UFO files sit tucked away in a file cabinet.

Davenport said he can disprove 90% of the calls he receives about UFO sightings.  He said people misidentify stars, planets and landing lights on airplanes

 It's these 10% of cases that keeps him committed to the UFO Reporting Center.

“Sometimes I feel I live on a steady diet of ridicule and skepticism and out-and-out hatred in some cases,” said Davenport. 

 Davenport makes public all of the reports with the exception of the caller's identity.

Davenport said the U.S. Government has contacted him on several occasions about his postings on the Center’s website, including one about a UFO witnessed in close proximity to a commercial airliner.

 Because of his long-standing policy on anonymity Davenport could not tell KREM 2 NEWS who the government officials he's met with are, but he's open about the lengthy conversations he's had with them. 

 “My most fundamental hope is that all of my data are wrong,” said Davenport. “That my opinion that our planet is being visited by these things we call UFO’s is not taking place… but that does not appear to be the case.”

Davenport estimates the center's work cost between $300-$500 dollars a month and he pays for all of it himself.

 He's in the process of cleaning up the missile site.  He says he may remodel it into a home for himself and one day hopes it will be the new home for the National UFO Reporting Center.