by William Bengston

Peter Sturrock, founding President of the SSE, passed away peacefully in his home, surrounded by his friends and family, on August 12, 2024, at the age of 100. Peter was a leader among those rare scientists who made major contributions in both conventional and non-conventional science.  On the conventional side, Sturrock was known worldwide for his profound contributions to the fields of astrophysics, plasma physics, and solar research.  He continued that work until the very end of his life as a distinguished physicist and emeritus professor at Stanford University.

On the less conventional side, Peter, along with peers such as the late Bob Jahn, was among the visionary founders of the SSE. In 1981 they called for a new, generalist society that could function as a magnet for scientists and researchers doing rigorous scholarly work in areas we now label as anomalous.  These early founders pushed back against the balkanization of knowledge acquisition which prohibited scholars from veering too far from orthodoxy.  Peter and the founders recognized that without a means to network and share ideas, little progress could be made in areas shunned by traditional fields. And so the Society for Scientific Exploration was born to sponsor regular conferences, and the Journal of Scientific Exploration was soon after founded as a peer-reviewed scholarly journal.

We wouldn’t be here without Peter.

A simple recitation of his many accomplishments, however impressive, doesn’t grasp the profound influence he had on generations of scholars, both conventional and not so conventional.  Some personal anecdotes: I first met Peter in 1999 while attending my first SSE conference. After giving a presentation to the group of luminaries assembled, and having no history with them, I was somewhat uncertain what to expect.  Soon after I finished, both Peter (and Bob Jahn) approached me with nothing but encouragement and inquired what they could do to help. 

That offer never wavered over the quarter century I knew Peter. When I’d be in California we’d try to meet at a restaurant, or at his home in Palo Alto.  Sometimes he’d already assembled a group of people who were interested in providing various types of support for me.  I would find myself, with his encouragement, giving a spontaneous presentation of some recent work.  He obviously took pleasure in being a magnet for scholarly discussions.

When we were at an SSE conference in the US or Europe, we’d try to spend some time in private conversation, catching up with whatever we were working on.  I’d be interested in his recent thoughts on UAPs, or the Shakespeare authorship question, or his conventional research on dark matter or neutrinos or whatever.  While excited about his ongoing research, he was equally interested in whatever I was working on.