BIO
Biography: Erica Lukes
Erica Lukes was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. Professionally, she has been a Pilates instructor
for over 20 years but also is an accomplished singer, having performed with successful Utah
bands like "The Groove," "Straight, No Chaser" and "Zion Tribe." As a result of this
background, Erica performed with "Straight, No Chaser" at the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt
Lake City. Following a family trait, she is a skilled artist, specializing in figure and landscape
paintings. Her work has been exhibited and sold. Her father, R. Jeffrey Blackburn, specializes
in spectacular southwestern and western landscape art for which he is well-known in the art
world.
Erica Lukes also has an undying passion for the mysteries of the universe, particularly UFO
reports and other strange aerial phenomena. Since childhood she has been fascinated with
imagery of how vehicles and beings from space might appear and she pursued this interest
quietly but with determination. Due to her already established abilities with singing and some
voice-over production, she was approached to perform media broadcasting work.
This, coupled with her long-term interest in strange phenomena of nature, led her to take her
first steps into radio in 2014 by developing her own programming and interview techniques of
known figures in this topic. UFO reports became her specialty and she joined the Mutual UFO
Network (MUFON) in 2014 as a field investigator. She eventually became its State Director for
Utah. Within MUFON, she also became an associate producer for the MUFON
Communications Team and a part of the MUFON Experiencer Research Team, having been
cited for recognition of this work at both the 2014 and 2015 MUFON Symposia.
In 2014, she was the lead investigator into the American Airlines 434 UFO incident of the
same year. The report was notable because of radar and audio data attesting to a large
unidentified flying object passing underneath the airliner while in flight. The report was
ranked as one of MUFON's "Top Ten" cases for 2014.
Additionally, Erica was a team leader for "Project Orange," a program to study so-called "Balls
of Light" phenomenon that have ramification in real world science in the form of ball lightning
and other peculiar luminous phenomena. An offshoot of this was research into the luminous
ball phenomena in Hessdalen, Norway where she conducted on-site research with the
guidance of Hessdalen scientist Dr. Erling Strand. Hessdalen has been the site of strange
luminous light ball sightings since the 1980s.
With her proximity in the state of Utah, Erica has had a persistent interest in the Skinwalker
Ranch, a location of regularly reported paranormal activity. She has assembled several
decades worth of case reports of mass UFO sightings, alien abduction reports and animal
mutilations from her years of field research in and around the ranch.
In more recent years, and due to the information mass she has accumulated, she has chosen
to specialize in archiving of the UFO topic, finding rare and out-of-print books, periodicals,
audio and video recordings and other ephemera in an effort to create a regional library for
use by researchers in the western US. She has recently visited area universities to study their
holdings of early UFO researchers and "phenomenologists" like those of the late Dr. Frank
Salisbury of the Department of Plant Science at Utah State University. Salisbury contributed
important work on UFO reports in Utah with the help of "Junior" Hicks, a well-known UFO
investigator.
Erica is working on a forthcoming book with co-author Gordon Lore about her experiences.
with paranormal matters and investigations.
Erica can be seen on UFOs: The Lost Evidence on the Travel Channel, Ancient Aliens on The History Channel and Nasa's Unexplained Files on the Science Channel



