Vrijdag 9 juni 2017
When Flying Discs Invaded Our Skies For The First Time | 70th Anniversary of The Beginning of a New Epoch - PART II
When Flying Discs Invaded Our Skies For The First Time | 70th Anniversary of The Beginning of a New Epoch - PART II
Part II
Thomas E. Bullard
Seventy years have passed since Kenneth Arnold reported the first “flying saucer,” the biblical threescore-and-ten that comprises the years of a natural lifespan. Perhaps this anniversary more than any other marks a symbolic moment in the history of the subject, a time to evaluate what we have learned, to look ahead, and to ask hard questions.
Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos is a legendary name in ufology. He has a sterling reputation for research and thought, a long and deep familiarity with the field in all its aspects. When he speaks, the wise pause to listen, and his reflections in “The Nature of UFO Evidence” carry a special weight.
His thoughts in this article express not the usual pep talk to the faithful, or a statement of progress made, or of plans for future research. His topic is heavier, his tone somber and mournful. He wonders, has the subject of UFOs run its course? Has the time come to admit that its life has reached an end?
He recalls that he took up UFO study with the same youthful enthusiasm that so many of us remember, drawn by the hope that beings from other planets were visiting the earth and a desire to be on the cutting edge in solving the greatest mystery of all time. He has shared the disappointment that many of us have felt when the years passed and the desired solution continued to elude us.
Unlike some proponents, Ballester Olmos has not closed his eyes to the shortcomings of ufology, or committed himself to defend the phenomenon in spite of all reason. On the contrary, he has confronted the evidence with clear-eyed scientific judgment, and concludes that despite enormous time and effort invested in UFO research, no convincing evidence has resulted to indicate that extraterrestrial spacecraft have visited the earth.
The thoughts our colleague has written for this occasion do not call us to redouble our efforts and soldier onward; rather they serve as an obituary for a failed quest. I do not want to hear that we have tilted at windmills for decades, but sadly, I have to agree with most of what he says.
Ballester Olmos argues that UFOs constitute a mythic belief rather than a phenomenon accessible to science. The basis of the belief rests on genuine sightings but the sightings themselves reduce to conventional phenomena, reshaped into something strange by ideas of what UFOs are, how they should look, and what they do. The operational term here is ideas rather than an objective truth that corresponds to them. The extraterrestrial theory quickly took control of the popular understanding of UFOs. Ufologists accepted this proposition, the news and entertainment media promoted it, and witnesses conformed their reports to the expectations it sowed. Reports multiplied and grew stranger as both witnesses and ufologists made emotional commitments to their beliefs. The story expanded, its supporters rationalized and defended it, and in the end they enclosed themselves in their bubble of belief, a mythic narrative self-confirming and impervious to challenge that had taken on the semblance of truth.
Although ufologists seek to portray their efforts as science, the evidence they gather does not meet scientific standards. It is voluminous but largely anecdotal and subject to the shortcomings of human observation, the illusions, misperceptions, and preconceptions that can turn Venus into a shining spaceship about to land. With UFO evidence no replication is possible, no controlled experiments, no predictions, no falsification. Photographs are abundant but almost invariably questionable either as conventional phenomena or as hoaxes. No convincing physical trace, no alien technology, has ever fallen into human hands except as rumors. Consistencies in UFO data are few and mostly of the broad stereotypical type that could be borrowed from popular expectations, and the properties reported for UFOs are indistinguishable from properties reported for IFOs. The subject has undergone scientific investigation and been debated in more than one official forum but no reason to credit a genuine unknown phenomenon has emerged. A complaint that science ignores the UFO evidence is really a complaint that UFOs have not produced any evidence worthy to attract scientific attention.
There are certainly anomalous UFO cases. They lend a sense of mystery, but any great mass of evidence based on human observation will have a residue of unexplained cases. Their unknown status is more likely due to human factors, like a tendency to combine unrelated observations and ascribe a desired meaning to them, than to a distinctive unknown phenomenon. No standout recurrences distinguish the body of unknowns as coherent and unique. Even the best cases diminish in number under close skeptical investigation, suggesting with ever-growing likelihood that UFOs are not objective phenomena but products of human imagination, error, expectation, and desire. UFOs come from inner space, from the human imagination and myth-making capability. They provide subject matter for sociologists, psychologists, folklorists, and the like, but in the end Condon was right: The study of UFOs contributes nothing to physical scientific knowledge, much less proof of alien visitation.
This reckoning is hard but fair. It exposes ufology as so barren in its results that anyone who doubts that this is the last word pretty much convicts him- or herself as a committed true believer. For my part I agree with the reasoning of the argument, yet I still cannot accept the absoluteness of the conclusion. I still find some substance among UFO reports and see a path, albeit narrow, that may lead to a true anomalous phenomenon, and without detours into the “alternative facts” of UFO mythology.
Both Ballester Olmos and I agree that UFOs are mythic in character. I think we also agree that the appropriate sense of “myth” here is not the mere false belief of popular usage, or the slightly more sophisticated sense of a way of understanding experiences that is not acknowledged by authoritative consensus. UFOs are mythic because a complex system of facts, alleged facts, understandings, arguments, and speculations have grown up around them. Many people accept all or part of this system and view some aspects of the world as if UFOs were factual truths, even though both the evidence and the interpretations attributed to UFOs remain in question. UFO ideas shape entertainment and imagination. They become part of informal education and inform expectations of things to see in the sky. The myth influences—or contaminates—perception, conception, memory, verbal formulation, communication, argumentation, in other words every aspect of the UFO narrative and discussions about it. We do not hear of, speak of, or even observe a pure phenomenon. Our relationships with UFOs are always mediated by the myth.
UFOs as we know them are indisputably human products serving human purposes, but the myth is not necessarily everything. People still see something. Often the object of observation is conventional but rendered strange by the distorting influences of the myth. Sometimes, perhaps, the object observed is strange in itself and rendered into suitable “UFO” form by the force of expectation and the need to assign an unknown to an understandable category. The myth distorts both ways.
A toxic entanglement between observation and comprehension is the common lot of humankind. The situation grows worse in the case of UFOs since official understandings seem inadequate or unsatisfying and unofficial versions take over. Ufology presents vivid examples of extreme distortion, like the case of a satellite reentry in 1968 where several people reported windows and hull plating on an object at treetop level, when the actual stimulus was half a dozen flaming fragments a hundred miles overhead in the upper atmosphere. Yet the appearance of anomalous sights does not automatically spell the end of objectivity. Many more observers of this reentry described it accurately whether or not they identified it for what it was. Considerable evidence confirms that people deserve more credit than they receive as observers of strange sights in the sky. For example a 12th-century monk, John of Worcester, entered a detailed account in his chronicle that we now recognize as a fine example of a large and brilliant meteor. He limited himself to a clear description of a phenomenon unknown to him without any effort to force the sighting into a medieval interpretive scheme.
Are UFOs mythic? Of course they are, and our human bias will always threaten to muddle observations, our human efforts to give meaning to experiences will intrude on the facticity of the objects we wish to understand. These complications are inescapable but not necessarily fatal. A disease can be explained as the result of germs, humors, or witchcraft, but while the interpretations differ, the disease remains the same and all too real. UFOs can be both mythic and phenomenal at the same time. This duality complicates the job of understanding, but we can live with it and work around it by learning to separate the human contributions from the objective basis.
The fundamental unit in any argument for UFOs is the individual sighting. At least one UFO report must describe a genuine unknown phenomenon or the case in favor of UFOs collapses as empty. We know what we want—a landing on the White House lawn, a piece of unmistakably unearthly technology, indisputable instrumental records. We do not have these Holy Grails. What we have are vast numbers of witness reports describing lights in the night or fleeting objects in the distance, claims of close encounters and occupants without firm evidence to back them up, indefinite landing traces and ambiguous radar contacts and photos that may be fakes. The great majority of these reports have conventional answers or lie in a broad “gray area” where nothing can be proved either way. No wonder Ballester Olmos has grown cynical. Anyone who has confronted these mountains of disappointment feels the pangs of despair
At the same time, ufology does have a collection of unsolved cases that is significant in size and meaningful in evidential value. These cases describe unknowns not just in the trivial sense of insufficient information or nobody has really tried to solve them, but in a robust sense of cases rich in description, provocative in strangeness, and impervious to conventional solution even though skeptics have attempted time and again to explain them. Astronomer Lincoln La Paz and others saw a white rounded object maneuver during daylight in 1947. He was able to triangulate it and calculate its speed. Its actions distinguished it from either a balloon or an aircraft. In 1968 the crew of a B-52 approached Minot AFB when a very large object appeared on radar, heading toward the plane and turning away just before a collision. At the behest of ground control the plane circled the area and observed a large glowing object on the earth below. These highly trained personnel confirmed the presence of an unknown object also detected from the ground by radar and visual witnesses. Multiple persons at O’Hare Airport in 2006 saw a disk-shaped object just below the cloud deck. The object rose and punched a “cookie-cutter” hole in the clouds, a process that would require a great deal of heat energy. Cases such as these offer multiple quality witnesses and instrumental support or the chance to “do some science” with results that suggest an unusual phenomenon. Here is the foundation for a genuine and puzzling UFO phenomenon.
Ballester Olmos readily admits that ufology has its unknowns. His concern is that they do not remain unknowns forever and yield sooner or later to conventional solution. This course has certainly become familiar. The Yukon “giant mother ship” UFO of 1996 and the Phoenix Lights of 1997 attracted a great deal of attention among ufologists. These cases seemed strong until skeptics provided convincing explanations of a satellite reentry for one and a flight of military aircraft for the other. Yet the skeptics are not always the safe bet. The Exeter case of 1965 has had numerous solutions, some that actually addressed the sighting and some that were laughable, but the skeptics took their best shot when they attributed the UFO to a refueling aircraft. This was an intelligent proposal but it fell apart under close analysis; so have all the others. About one-fourth of the cases investigated by the Condon Committee emerged as unknowns. Some cases, among them the best in the files, do seem to be “ironclads” defensible against conventional solutions. Conversely, some explanations such as Blue Book personnel used to clear their docket of difficult reports, amount to no more than slipshod excuses that explain nothing. A number of explanations succeed only as reminders that the rationalizing of skeptics can distort the truth as grievously as the credulousness of UFO enthusiasts.
In this light a readiness to give up on UFOs seems premature. New cases continue to enter the “unknowns” pool—for recent examples consider the Southern Illinois police chase case of 2000, the O’Hare sighting, and MUFON’s “phone receiver” object of 2013. Since a high standard ought to apply to explanations as well as to unknowns, older cases explained in dubious terms deserve to be thrown back into the pool. We may not have the full story from the Government files, either. I have never favored conspiracy theories, but I have noticed the abundance of quality unknowns from military and civilian pilots in 1947. After 1952 military reports became scarce in Blue Book files and unknowns of any sort diminished to a trickle. This change follows JANAP 146 and AFR 200-2, regulations that barred both military and civilian pilots from revealing UFO sightings to the press, and the Robertson Panel, which created a policy of defusing public interest in UFOs. A sudden end to pilots seeing UFOs seems unlikely. Perhaps rumors of a dual system—Blue Book that was a public relations front, and a hidden system that secluded reports of the highest quality—have substance after all. And if so, significant files comprising a “ufologica irredenta” may yet await the light of day deep in the bowels of Government secrecy.
A healthy body of unknowns even now underlies the UFO mystery. These cases hint that the apparent downward spiral of unknowns toward zero, or to a minimal residue of intractable rather than truly anomalous events, may be an historical illusion rather than an inevitability after all. Perhaps some consistent level of unknowns persists throughout UFO history. The level of occurrence may be a low one, but a stream of “ironclads” duly recognized might emerge as a clear signal in the noise. Shouldn’t we at least consider this hypothesis before we surrender the phenomenon altogether?
Nothing stings ufologists so painfully as the rejection of their subject by official science. They regard their enterprise as scientific and crave approval, only to find themselves like small children closed out of the game by the big kids at the gate. Complaints that scientists do not listen or ignore the facts overlook the nature of UFO evidence. It is sloppy in the extreme, overwhelmingly anecdotal and intangible. UFOs offer little or nothing to carry into the laboratory for analysis or experiment. The rare exceptions have proved inconclusive or at least not compelling. This empty-handedness along with a reputation as pseudoscience assure that ufology will continue to get the brush-off from laboratory scientists.
Field science offers an alternative approach that is more congenial to the nature of UFO events. When scientists cannot control their object of study, they must approach it on its own terms, in its native environment, and gather observational data for indirect analysis. This model sounds like a good match for UFO reports, though with the added complications that the observers are numerous and widely-scattered individuals with differing temperaments, abilities, and expectations, who witness rare and ephemeral sights in the sky, most of which turn out to be false alarms. The witnesses most likely to report probably have preconceived notions and biases. No standardization in the observational process and little in the descriptions of sightings is possible. Face-to-face meetings between investigator and witness are rare. The resulting data is raw in the worst sense—heterogeneous, inconsistent, and suitable only for crude analysis. UFOs make unruly subjects even for field techniques.
If individual reports of unknowns comprise the foundation of a case for UFOs, patterns of consistency in these reports add the next essential layer. Each separate unknown may be impressive in itself but only multiple cases with significant similarities build evidence for a recurrent phenomenon. Without this support the unknowns remain random oddities and may have no further significance. With a consistent pattern to unify them, these oddities begin to acquire an identity. Unknowns and their patterns provide mutual support and the case in favor of UFOs grows at once in strength—if, of course, we find such patterns.
The typical studies applied to mass UFO data are statistical comparisons, either content analysis for consistent descriptions of appearances and activities or frequency searches for patterns in the time and place of UFO events. These efforts have led to limited results. A finding like more UFOs are seen in early evening than at any other time may be consistent but not surprising, while discovering that UFO reports are more frequent on one weekday than on any other comes as a surprise but carries no apparent meaning. Searches for a recurrence pattern in UFO waves have led to predictive successes but they did not hold true for very long and might have been artefactual after all. Content analyses that show most UFOs are round and most occupants are short humanoids enjoy an unmistakable robustness, but as Ballester Olmos warns, such findings hold equally true for IFO cases and reflect popular images.
This sort of analysis offers ufology its best option to make a case for UFOs with the data in hand. Rather than waiting for a piece of spaceship to fall into our laps, or for the Government to show us the bodies, all those intriguing cases we have accumulated transform from dusty files into tools for actual scientific work. But have we tried and failed at this enterprise already? I don’t think so. From my own experience, a comparison between abduction reports with high reliability and those of low reliability revealed that consistency in sequence of events and descriptive content was much higher in the high-reliability cases. In the low-reliability cases where presumably more of the stories were hoaxes or fantasies, plots and content varied far more. A comparison of two samples of UFO occupant cases found stronger preferences for certain descriptive options among the high reliability reports than in the general run.
The reason behind these consistencies might be cultural influence or investigator bias, but actual observation in contrast to imagination might also be the cause. At least the possibility is worth exploring. So many IFO reports in the sample, so many human errors and shortcomings in descriptions plague the record that they threaten to smother the signal from the very much smaller body of UFOs. In the past good minds have had to work with bad data limited in both quantity and quality, and the disappointing results come as no surprise. Today we have much larger samples and data of better quality to escape the garbage in-garbage out problem that dogged earlier efforts. I see reason to believe that some distinctive consistencies in the phenomenon may yet be forthcoming, and that reliance on quality cases as the database will reveal those consistencies in sharper relief. At least the effort should be made before we give up the spaceship.
Vicente-Juan invited me to collaborate in a dialogue of views on UFOs for this 70th anniversary event. He may not have expected quite so much difference in conclusions, but in fact we disagree on very little. His criticisms of ufology are on target and his exposure of its failures as a scientific enterprise are as necessary as they are painful. We differ only in the conclusions we draw. He is ready to drive nails in the coffin and lower ufology into the grave; I still see sparks of life and wish to avoid a premature burial. A very much alive Mark Twain once quipped that reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated. A similar pronouncement for UFOs may not stretch the truth quite so much, but even this 70th anniversary need not be the end of the line. Maybe I grasp at straws like a true believer still holding out, but I still perceive a mystery amid the clutter and avenues, or at least alleyways of research not yet explored, or not adequately followed up. Until that happens I will continue to see a future for ufology.
Valencia (Spain) and Bloomington (USA), June 24, 2017.
FOTOCAT Project: Apartado de Correos 12140, 46080 Valencia, Spain
Email address: ballesterolmos@yahoo.es
Thomas Eddie Bullard took an interest in UFOs as early as 1957 when he was eight years old. The interest persisted and he wrote his doctoral dissertation on the subject while a graduate student in folklore at Indiana University. He published studies of UFO abductions for the Fund for UFO Research and the Journal of UFO Studies, as well as The Myth and Mystery of UFOsfor the University Press of Kansas in 2010, a book comparing UFO accounts and beliefs with extranormal encounters in myth, religion, and folklore. He has served as a board member for both the Fund for UFO Research and the Center for UFO Studies. Recently retired, he continues to write on UFO phenomenology and pre-1947 anomalous aerial objects from his home in Bloomington, Indiana.E-mail address: tbullard@indiana.edu
HOW YOU CAN COLLABORATE WITH FOTOCAT PROJECT
There are several options you can follow:
· Volunteer work, onsite or remotely
· Deliver sighting reports, photographs, archives, bibliography, etc.
· Donations to help defray research expenses
You can reach us directly by writing to the following postal address:
Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos
Apartado de Correos 12140
46080 Valencia
Spain
Alternatively, through e-mail: ballesterolmos@yahoo.es
See Also:
UFO Waves - An International Bibliography
The Singular Adventure of Mr Kenneth Arnold
Flying Saucers and Kenneth Arnold
Project Grudge: Report On Incident 17
By J. Allen Hynek - Primary Witness - Kenneth Arnold
UFO Waves - An International Bibliography
The Singular Adventure of Mr Kenneth Arnold
Flying Saucers and Kenneth Arnold
Project Grudge: Report On Incident 17
By J. Allen Hynek - Primary Witness - Kenneth Arnold
Geschreven door peter om 21:57
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