Born in England in 1924, Sturrock got his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Cambridge, then moved to the USA and had been a professor at Stanford University since 1961. He has been known for his research first on plasma physics, then on astrophysics.

He got interested in UFOs when he met astronomer and informatician Jacques Vallée  and read the so-called “Condon Report” (Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects, 1969), whose conclusions he felt contradicted by the evidence presented about that two-years study by the Colorado University committee itself.

Peter Sturrock became known in our field when he conducted two surveys among his fellows: in 1973 he polled the San Francisco branch of the  American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)   about their opinions on the subject, also asking whether they had had a personal UFO sighting; in 1975 he conducted a larger survey  among fellow astronomers within the American Astronomical Society (AAS): both gave a 5% positive answers.

In 1982 he was one of the founders  (and has been a president for 20 years) of the Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE), aiming to encourage scientific research of  anomalist and unconventional topics (including  paranormal phenomena and UAP).

In 1997 Peter Sturrock was the organizer and chairman of a four-days scientific workshop financed by Laurance Rockfeller,  reviewing physical evidence of the UFO phenomena: eight prominent UFO researchers submitted their best evidence to a panel of nine scientists, which produced a final report, later expanded in a book titled The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence (1999). 
 
He told about his UFO research involvement in his autobiography  A Tale of Two Sciences: Memoirs of a Dissident Scientist (2009).