Stanton T. Friedman was born in New Jersey on July 29, 1934. He was named valedictorian of his 1951 Linden, New Jersey, high school class and spent two years at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey before switching to the University of Chicago in 1953. He received BS and MS degrees in Physics from UC in 1955 and 1956, where Carl Sagan was a classmate.

He worked for fourteen years as a nuclear physicist for such companies as General Electric, General Motors, Westinghouse, TRW, Aerojet General Nucleonics, and McDonnell Douglas on such advanced, highly classified, eventually canceled projects as nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets, and nuclear power plants for space.

Since 1967 he has lectured on the topic "Flying Saucers ARE Real" at more than 600 colleges and over 100 professional groups in fifty states, nine Canadian provinces, England, Italy, Germany, Holland, France, Finland, Brazil, Australia, Korea, Mexico, Turkey, Argentina, and Israel. He has published more than 70 papers on UFOs besides his dozens of conventional articles and appeared on hundreds of radio and TV shows. These include the TNT Larry King UFO Special on Oct.1, 1994; Nightline; Sally Jessy Raphael; Unsolved Mysteries; Entertainment Tonight; Leeza; Sightings; Canada AM; Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell and many more.

Stan is the original civilian investigator of the Roswell Incident, who co-authored Crash at Corona and instigated the Unsolved Mysteries Roswell program.

He was heavily involved in both the 1979 documentary UFOs are Real and the 1993 & 1996 videos Flying Saucers Are Real.