Archives of the Impossible

The Archives of the Impossible (AOTI), sometimes called the Center for the Impossible, is a special collection at Rice University in Houston, Texas, United States. Founded in 2014 by Jeffrey J. Kripal, AOTI is based at the Woodson Research Center in the Fondren Library. It stewards collections on UFO and paranormal subjects, including the papers of Jacques Vallée, declassified United States Army Stargate Project materials, correspondence sent to Whitley Strieber after the publication of Communion, and materials related to John E. Mack. By 2025 the archive comprised eighteen collections and more than a million documents, has been identified by the Washington Library Association as the first publicly accessible archive in which UFO and paranormal research materials are a primary focus, hosts recurring conferences at Rice, and since 2024 has supported a two-year research initiative on its collections.