Posted on 06/24/2006 9:27:30 AM PDT by BenLurkin
For decades now, eyes and sky have met to witness the buzzing of our world by Unidentified Flying Objects, termed UFOs or simply flying saucers. Extraterrestrials have come a long way to purportedly share the friendly skies with us.
UFOs and alien visitors are part of our culture—a far-out phenomenon when judged against those "low life" wonders Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster.
And after all those years, as the saying goes, UFOs remain a riddle inside a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Why so? For one, the field is fraught with hucksterism. It's also replete with blurry photos and awful video. But then there are also well-intentioned and puzzled witnesses [See Top 10 Alien Encounters Debunked].
Scientifically speaking, are UFOs worth keeping an eye on?
Unusual properties
There have been advances in the field of UFO research, said Ted Roe, Executive Director of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP), based in Vallejo, California.
"The capture of optical spectra from mobile, unpredictable luminosities is one of those innovations. More work to be done here but [there are] some good results already."
NARCAP was established in 2000 and is dedicated to the advancement of aviation safety issues as they apply to, what they term Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP).
Roe said that a decade from now, researchers should have even better instrumentation at their disposal and better data on UAP of several varieties. His forecast is that scientific rigor will prevail, demonstrating that there are "stable, mobile, unusual, poorly documented phenomena with quite unusual properties manifesting within our atmosphere," he told SPACE.com.
Paradigm shifting
NARCAP has made the case that some of these phenomena have unusual electromagnetic properties. Therefore, they could disrupt microprocessors and adversely effect avionic systems, Roe explained, and that for those reasons and others UAP should be considered a hazard to safe aviation.
"It is likely that either conclusion will fly in the face of the general assertion that UAP are not real and that there are no undocumented phenomena in our atmosphere," Roe continued. That should open the door, he said, to the realization that there's no good reason to discard outright the possibility that extraterrestrial visitation has occurred and may be occurring.
"Physics is leading to new and potentially paradigm shifting understandings about the nature of our universe and its physical properties," Roe said. "These understandings may point the way towards an acceptance of the probability of interstellar travel and communication by spacefaring races."
Sacred cows to the slaughter
As UFO debunker Robert Sheaffer's web site proclaims, he's "skeptical to the max." He is a fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and a well-known writer on the UFO scene.
Being an equal-opportunity debunker, Sheaffer notes that he refutes whatever nonsense, in his judgment, "stands in the greatest need of refuting, no matter from what source it may come, no matter how privileged, esteemed, or sacrosanct … sacred cows, after all, make the best hamburger."
Sheaffer told SPACE.com, in regards to the cottage industry of UFO promoters, there's a reason there are still so many snake-oil sellers.
"It's because nobody, anywhere, has any actual facts concerning alleged UFOs, just claims. That allows con-men to thrive peddling their yarns," Sheaffer said. "UFO believers are convinced that the existence of UFOs will be revealed 'any day now'. But it's like Charlie Brown and the football: No matter how many times Lucy pulls the football away—or the promised 'disclosure' fails to happen—they're dead-certain that the next time will be their moment of glory."
Trash from the past
"I would have to say that we're stuck in neutral," said Kevin Randle, a leading expert and writer on UFOs and is known as a dogged researcher of the phenomena. There's no real new research, he said, and that's "because we have to revisit the trash of the past."
Randle points to yesteryear stories, one stretching back in time to a supposed 1897 airship crash in Aurora, Texas, long proven to be a hoax by two con men—yet continues to surface in UFO circles.
Then there's the celebrated Thomas Mantell saga, a pilot that lost his life chasing a UFO in 1948. There are those that contend he was killed by a blue beam from a UFO, Randle said "even though we have known for years that the UFO was a balloon and he violated regulations by climbing above 14,000 feet without oxygen equipment. I mean, we know this, and yet there are those who believe that Mantell was killed by aliens."
Randle's advice is to the point: "We need to begin to apply rigorous standards of research … stop accepting what we wish to believe even when the evidence is poor, and begin thinking ahead."
Paucity of physical evidence
"I've no doubt that UFOs are here to stay," said Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. "I'm just not convinced that alien craft are here to stay … or for that matter, even here for brief visits. "First, despite a torrent of sightings for more than a half-century, I can't think of a single, major science museum that has alien artifacts on display," Shostak said. "Contrast this paucity of physical evidence with what the American Indians could have shown you fifty years after Christopher Columbus first violated their sea-space. They could have shown you all sorts of stuff—including lots of smallpox-infested brethren—as proof that they were being 'visited,'" he said.
When it comes to extraterrestrial visitors in the 21st century, the evidence is anecdotal, ambiguous, or, in some cases, artifice, Shostak suggested.
Calling it "argument from ignorance", Shostak pointed to the claim that aliens must have careened out of control above the New Mexico desert simply because some classified government documents sport a bunch of blacked-out text. "How does the latter prove the former?"
Sure, the missing verbiage is consistent with a government cover-up of an alien crash landing, Shostak said. "But it's also consistent with an infinitude of other scenarios…not all of them involving sloppy alien pilots," he added.
Shostak said that it is not impossible that we could be visited. It doesn't violate physics to travel between the stars, although that's not easy to do.
"But really, if you're going to claim—or for that matter, believe—that extraterrestrials are strafing the cities, or occasionally assaulting the neighbors with an aggression inappropriate for a first date, then I urge you to find evidence that leaves little doubt among the professionally skeptical community known as the world of science."
Residue of sightings
Why is there precious little to show that world of science that UFOs merit attention?
"Obviously there is not a simple answer, but part of it is reluctance of the scientific community to support such research," explained Bruce Maccabee, regarded as a meticulous researcher and an optical physicist using those talents to study photographs and video of unexplained phenomena.
Why this reluctance?
"In my humble opinion it is largely a result of 'tradition'…tradition set by the U.S. Air Force in the early years when they publicly stated that everything was under control, they were investigating…and finding nothing that couldn't be explained," Maccabee said.
Nevertheless, Maccabee observed, work on the phenomenon will carry on.
"UFO studies will continue until all the old cases have either been explained or admitted to being unexplainable—meaning a residue of sightings that could be ET related—and/or until people stop seeing unexplainable UFO-like events throughout the world," Maccabee concluded.
Again, you and I have been there.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1123484/posts
Sometimes there is hard evidence. Contrast that to Astronomy, and limit the data source to just stars, what physical evidence do you have other than light spectra? Not much. This not to say that astronomy is bunk, it certainly isn't, but if that science can be supported by optics and radar, but not chunks of stars of bits of extrasolar planets, it isn't unreasonable to consider the reality of UFO's. Ufology has photographic data, spectra, soil evidence, physical adjuncts manifested in materials and sometimes people after encounters, and of course the anecdotal evidence - it really isn't a narrow base of evidence on which the study rests.
- - - -
Excellent paragraph.
Won't sway many 'true UNbelievers' but we knew that. They have this addiction to TYPE II errors that they have a Death Grip on.
Am I given to understand that I should expect skeptics to be polite?
Knew I'd been messing something up.
If you think I have not been polite you are wrong.
If you know when and where we - you and I - can go to see such things of which you speak then let us go and see one together.
I don't recall any beef with you.
I tend to reply too often to a generalized gestalt I have in my mind toward all skeptics. My fault.
Sorry.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HAS A UFO SHOW ON CURRENTLY MOUNTAIN TIME.
Channel 276 DIRECTV
All you need to do is look up in the sky, and try to have a camera with you. You may be lucky enough to take a snapshot of an unusual object that defies our perception of conventional aircraft design.
Go piss up a rope. It is the height of arrogance to believe we are the only form of intelligent life in the universe.
Actually, I think this applies more to RightWhale than Ben Lurkin.
Maybe, but not by much. The thread was a setup for a religious lecture. I guess I fell for it because I was tired and cranky after a long day.
I watched it.
Thank you for the heads up.
Evidence counts. Otherwise the experience falls into the subjective.
Has to do with subjective versus objective. We might not know what anything really is, but we can at least set up procedures and get the same numbers. Not so with UFOs; they are all different and there are no procedures.
So it appears. Produce the corpus.
Don't compare UFOs to religious experience. Both are completely subjective, but the similarity ends there.
Maybe we are not looking at the right things the right way, but it does not appear there is any sign of intelligent life anywhere but earth. I wouldn't look far for the origins of UFOs.
*That* is a reasonable response. I don't know what they are, but I know people have been seeing them for a long time. That alone makes them worthy of study, though not of interest to all people.
UFOs have changed a lot in the 100+ years of modern sightings. They seem to have kept up with technology, just a tad ahead of what is already flying out of Air Force bases. The people aboard the UFOs have also changed over the years, seeming to reflect types of persons found in society, all the way fromn NAZIs during the mid 1900s, to bio-scientists now. There are valid studies, mostly in the field of psychology.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.