Merged Is ufology a pseudoscience?

[Stray Cat]

He doesn't have to. It's on YOU to prove that ufology does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence/plausibility, cannot be reliably tested or lacks scientific status.

Your claim, your burden of proof. Especially since there is copious amounts of evidence that each of your stated assumptions is wrong.

Here is a thread with 8814 posts that constitutes the amount of pseudo-scientific nonsense, cherry picking, confirmation bias, simple poor quality research and failure to recognise human fallibility that UFOlogists rely on:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156375

Have fun reading it.

 

[ufology]

I'm glad you like my approach, and sorry for cutting out most of your reply but I think we've talked enough about things that have already happened and hopefully we both realise that mistakes have been made and UFOlogy as suffered in it's credibility because of the sheer amount of mistakes, misidentifications and hoaxes that have somehow slipped through the net because of sloppy work from the UFOlogists.

Perhaps it's time to start talking about workable methods for ensuring that the standard of research and evidence is raised for future reports/sightings.

Got any suggestions?

I couldn't agree more with what you just said. The pursuit of truth cannot take sides and must yield to the best explanations we have. We need to recognize when mistakes are made and always try to do better. Regarding suggestions for improvement. I do what I can by recruiting members with a genuine and constructive interest in ufology. I try to build bridges with skeptics by soliciting their opinions and openly advocating the use of critical thinking in ufology. I welcome the submission to USI by original authors, articles that demonstrate constructive critical thinking and/or skepticism. My experience here has also been very positive so far and I would like to think that over time I can make some positive contributions. I'm not really sure what else to say right now, but I'm open to suggestions.

j.r.

 

[carlitos]

Hey look, from the UFI webpage:

CSI has incorrectly labeled ufology a pseudoscience. While it is true that ufology is not a science, neither is it a pseudoscience. It is no more a pseudoscience than bird watching.

To be fair, I skimmed many of the pages there and the actually do seem somewhat skeptical. All of the definitions - "abductee" for example - are clearly referred to as "in ufology." One could easily say "in mythology" or "in the bible" it seems.

 

[ufology]

Hey look, from the UFI webpage:

To be fair, I skimmed many of the pages there and the actually do seem somewhat skeptical. All of the definitions - "abductee" for example - are clearly referred to as "in ufology." One could easily say "in mythology" or "in the bible" it seems.

Perhaps you meant to say "USI Webpage" the one at www.ufopages.com

Here is our basic rule for data screening including an example:

If data is contentious and can not be cross referenced against objective sources, then the information is not presented as fact, but as a myth or opinion based on its context. One such example is the Early History segment of the Sighting entry. In preparing the article, we ran across several UFO sightings by Alexander The Great that were presented as historical fact. However we were not able to trace the sightings to any ancient texts, or confirm how and when they were passed down through history. Inquiries were made with other authors who had also tried to trace the origin of the stories, but all efforts have so far led to dead ends. Therefore USI did not present the incidents as historical fact, but as tales of ancient conquests within the context of myth and legend.

Note: By contentious I mean on a fact by fact basis, not that because UFOs are a contentious topic, evrything about it should be classified as a myth. For example the historical aspect of ufology has well documented accounts of various studies done on specific dates and times by specific people. These are facts and therefore the studies are not considered to be myth ( e.g. Project Blue Book is not a myth ).

j.r.

 

[John Albert]

Actually you don't have it quite right there. You are missing a key element. Just because something isn't science doesn't automatically mean it's pseudoscience. To qualify as pseudoscience, something must first be presented as being actual science.

I beg your pardon, but your disingenuous argument hardly warrants the derisive tone of your post.

"Pseudoscience," as we've already established, is something purported to be science that is in fact not science. You claim ufology is not purported to be science, but its very name implies otherwise.

The "-ology" suffix comes from the Greek logos, meaning "the study of" something, in other words a field of inquiry, a.k.a. a science. Now if you're not attempting to pass your hobby/religion/non-science/whatever off as a legitimate science, then why is it referred by a sciencey-sounding name like "ufology"?

Again, ufology makes no claim to being science in and of itself. Therefore it is neither science nor pseudoscience.

"Ufology" doesn't make any claim whatsoever. "Ufology" (the business of studying UFOs) isn't a person capable of making claims. You, ufology, (a member of the JREF forums) are the one making the claims as to what ufology (the business of studying UFOs) is and isn't.

Ufology is not the invention of a single individual. It is not a sole organization with an established methodology, system of ethics, statement of purpose, or even a specific guiding principle other than an interest in discussing and promoting UFO lore.

Ufology is not an established field of scientific study either, but a general topic of interest pursued by enthusiasts of tales about mysterious and elusive flying aircraft. The entire field of study surrounds a culture of greatly-hyped anecdotes that have never been conclusively proven by science. Participants in this activity are not unlike "ghost hunters" and "Bigfoot hunters" in that sense. Some may be skeptical researchers committed to science, while others resemble frothy kooks prone to making bizarre and unqualified statements such as, "These things outmaneuver fighter jets."

The fact that ufology is a field of study that asserts knowledge about a fringe topic without scientific basis, means it is by definition a pseudoscience.

In a Google quoted search for "ufology is science" I got 9 ( nine ) results. A search for UFOs returned 21,600,000 results. So we have nine out of 21.6 million UFO related webpages that say "ufology is science", and out of those, they are mostly repeats from an obscure discussion thread. This is in no way representative of a consensus among ufologists that ufology is a science, therefore labeling it as pseudoscience is faulty logic ... perhaps even pseudoskepticism.

That Google exercise of yours is "in no way representative" of anything very meaningful at all. I won't even bother to address the failings of that argument, since other posters have already done a fine job of that.

So tell me, is the above quoted argument a good example of the quality of so-called "critical analysis" that you and your group routinely perform?

What we do claim to support ( at least within our group ) is the concept of critical thinking, which is quite different and may make use of whatever evidence, information, and methodology is at our disposal. We also believe that when hard science is being done with respect to ufology, then science is taking place, but even that does not make ufology a science in and of itself. It just means that genuine physics or biology or some hard science is being applied to the study of the subject matter.

In other words, you're engaged in the promotion of a pseudoscience.

Would it be it safe to say that your group professes to apply "critical thinking," and occasionally present the appearance of science at times when you see fit, but at least some of its leadership and the majority of its members are not formally educated in any scientific discipline, or ethically committed to scientific methodology or any specific standard of academic integrity in the course of their studies?

The whole debate about whether or not ufology is a science is a distraction that serves little purpose.

Then why are you even bothering to argue the matter so vehemently?

 

[John Albert]

By the way, I and two of my friends witnessed a UFO in the sky just last night. What follows is a loosely accurate, but true story:

We were out at a friend's farm helping him to renovate one of his outbuildings. After the day's work was done, we enjoyed a few beers and hamburgers on the grill. The three of us all live in a major city and rarely get a good look at the night sky, and this farm is located in rural central Michigan where there's very little light pollution. So, a few hours after sundown, we decided to go outside to do a little stargazing with the aid of my smartphone's skymap applet.

At roughly 1:35 AM EST, we noticed a very faint, gray, star-like object zipping across the sky from the east-southeast to west-northwest at an incredible speed. We noticed it at perhaps 30-40° WSW of apex, and observed as it sped across the firmament, growing fainter and fainter as it approached the horizon and then disappeared maybe 60° from the horizon. I'd say it crossed about a third of the visible sky in about a minute and a half or two minutes.

Now of course I'm not assuming it was an alien spacecraft or super-secret military spy plane. It was most likely some man-made satellite or other. I've seen a few ISS flybys, and this object looked much fainter than that. Judging by its speed and the fact that it was so visible from the ground with the naked eye, I'm guessing it must be engaged in a LEO.

One of my home computers is installed with Gpredict (a satellite tracking program), but the only machine I had on me at the time was my smartphone and a little netbook, and no Internet connection was available there at the farm. So, lacking any reliable means to identify the object, it remains at this point (at least as far as my buddies and I are concerned) a UFO.

Since returning home, I've checked Gpredict and it doesn't indicate any specific satellite that should have been passing overhead lower-central Michigan at that specific time last night. Of course, I might have mistaken the time.

Do any of you intrepid ufology experts have any suggestions for online resources I could use that might help to identify this object?

 

[carlitos]

Perhaps you meant to say "USI Webpage" the one at www.ufopages.com

Here is our basic rule for data screening including an example:

If data is contentious and can not be cross referenced against objective sources, then the information is not presented as fact, but as a myth or opinion based on its context. One such example is the Early History segment of the Sighting entry. In preparing the article, we ran across several UFO sightings by Alexander The Great that were presented as historical fact. However we were not able to trace the sightings to any ancient texts, or confirm how and when they were passed down through history. Inquiries were made with other authors who had also tried to trace the origin of the stories, but all efforts have so far led to dead ends. Therefore USI did not present the incidents as historical fact, but as tales of ancient conquests within the context of myth and legend.

Note: By contentious I mean on a fact by fact basis, not that because UFOs are a contentious topic, evrything about it should be classified as a myth. For example the historical aspect of ufology has well documented accounts of various studies done on specific dates and times by specific people. These are facts and therefore the studies are not considered to be myth ( e.g. Project Blue Book is not a myth ).

j.r.

i did mean USI, my mistake.

In your estimation, what percent of USI members believe that some UFOs are piloted by extra terrestrials?

 

[ufology]

I beg your pardon, but your disingenuous argument hardly warrants the derisive tone of your post.

OK let me put it this way,

In this definition of pseudoscience from Wikipedia, "Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a validscientific method ... bla bla bla." Ufology on the whole makes no claim to be in and of itself "sceintific". It does however advocate critical thinking.

Now note the phrase "critical thinking" in the JREF masthead. It is not a "scientific method", but it is perfectly valid in the study of, hence the "ology" of UFOs; and it leaves the real science up to real scientists, whose data critical thinkers are free to report on and use in their pursuit of truth.

So just because a ufologist quotes a scientific study doesn't make ufology a pseudoscience any more than it would make journalism a pseudoscience if an investigative reporter uses it. The same could be said for history and a number of other fields of study. So why the label?

It can't be just because of the frauds in ufology. Historians, reporters and even scientists have also had fabricators and forgers, but the rest of us haven't slapped some derogatory label on history, journalism and science as a result. Why not? Maybe we should just ask the bigger question. Why do people enjoy slapping derogatory labels on groups of people in the first place?

Under all the self-important varnish it's never really any different. Someone always just wants a nice big fat wide brush to dirty-up the other guys with to make themselves look better.

j.r.

 

[EHocking]

i did mean USI, my mistake.

In your estimation, what percent of USI members believe that some UFOs are piloted by extra terrestrials?

Well, if you are to take the words on their web site as indicative - all of them.

As someone else has already posted:

A New Definition
The semantics problem poses a serious challenge for those who want a well formed acronym. Perhaps best way to resolve it is to simply retain the word UFO and accept that it is time to evolve its definition away from classical USAF definitions that define UFOs by what they aren't, and move toward defining them as what we think they are:
ufou • f • o ( plural ufos ) noun
advanced, intelligent, or intelligently controlled, highly motile entities or craft of non-human, extraterrestrial origin.

Given the a priori position that unidentified flying objects are extra-terrestrial piloted craft, ufology smacks of pseudoscience since it ignores the vevy basics of the scientific method and approach. Claims of critical thinking and research or no.

 

[RoboTimbo]

OK let me put it this way,

j.r.

Is what you do any different than what has been done here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156375

That thread shows the practice of pseudoscience by a UFOlogist. I've asked you before and it went unanswered, do you have anything different to offer than what we've already seen?

 

[carlitos]

Well, if you are to take the words on their web site as indicative - all of them.

As someone else has already posted:

Given the a priori position that unidentified flying objects are extra-terrestrial piloted craft, ufology smacks of pseudoscience since it ignores the vevy basics of the scientific method and approach. Claims of critical thinking and research or no.

Ah, thanks. That pretty much settles it. Our friend ufology is obviously a shill for that website, but at least I thought he was honest about the 'pseudoscience or not' thing.

ufology, what say you about the "new definition" on your website?

 

[Cuddles]

The pursuit of truth cannot take sides

It not only can, but it must. The truth is always on the side of, well, the truth. When people make unfounded, or simply plain false, claims, the truth most definitely takes sides against them. And despite all the protests of yourself and all the other alien believers, that's exactly where ufology currently stands.

and must yield to the best explanations we have.

Indeed.

Most importantly, USI stands with all those people who honestly know from the evidence of their own conscious and unimpaired senses, that Earth is being visited by objects of alien origin.

to help establish the truth regarding alien visitation to planet Earth.

most UFOs are more accurately explained as shuttles that have been dispatched from a mother ship near the Earth.

U • F • O ( plural ufos ) noun

advanced, intelligent, or intelligently controlled, highly motile entities or craft of non-human, extraterrestrial origin.

As noted above, believers' ideas of "best explanations" rarely bare any resemblance to reality.

openly advocating the use of critical thinking in ufology.

Yes, we see this thing a lot. Plenty of believers are happy to advocate the use of critical thinking. It's far less common to see them actually use it, or even understand what it means.

Everybody knows

"Everybody knows" is not critical thinking.

On the other hand the claim is being made that ufologists are claiming ufology is science, which is contentious

No it isn't. After all, everybody knows that ufology is a pseudoscience.

and therefore, if the assertion that the claim is being made is true, a search should provide plenty of results ... it doesn't.

And yet you've completely ignored my post showing that this simply isn't true. A competent search provides plenty of results. An utterly incompetent such as yours that compares the results of one incredibly restrictive search with the results of a completely unrelated search is just meaningless nonsense.

But part of being a respected skeptic also means you need to show respect

Nope. Things and people can be shown respect if they deserve it. Just look at people like James Randi and Penn and Teller. You can hardly argue they're not respected skeptics, but how much respect do they show to people who constantly repeat the same long-debunked, unsupported claims? If you want respect, you're going to have to do a lot better than you've done so far.

and if you must consider it as a contest or argument, demonstrate grace in defeat.

Defeat? My, aren't we getting ahead of ourselves.

 

[Astrophotographer]

At roughly 1:35 AM EST, we noticed a very faint, gray, star-like object zipping across the sky from the east-southeast to west-northwest at an incredible speed. We noticed it at perhaps 30-40° WSW of apex, and observed as it sped across the firmament, growing fainter and fainter as it approached the horizon and then disappeared maybe 60° from the horizon. I'd say it crossed about a third of the visible sky in about a minute and a half or two minutes.

It is hard to say. The direction of travel indicates a retrograde orbit. Those are usually military in nature because it really is not worth the trouble (and extra thrust required) to launch a satellite in that direction. Most satellites are polar (generally north to south/south to north) or from west to east. Are you sure you saw it in the ESE and disappear in the WNW or was it possible the direction was from the south or SSW to North or NNE? I went to "Heaven's above" for the 6th and 7th and there were two Cosmos rocket bodies that were about 3rd magnitude moving in SSW to NNE trajectories around 1:35 AM for Lansing, Michigan (I picked a spot in south central Michigan).

I personally like Heaven's above as a satellite tracker (although Calsky is very thorough too but it is harder to change observing sites) as it seems to cover just about everything that normally can be seen.

 

[Astrophotographer]

The pursuit of truth cannot take sides and must yield to the best explanations we have.

I find when people use the term "truth", it is often their version of the "truth". I consider the "truth" as a term used by lawyers, religions, and politicians.
I like to see it as establishing facts. A fact can be accepted by everyone. It is a fact that people see things in the sky that they can not identify and, therefore, UFOs exist in this sense. However, it is not a fact that these reports of UFOs demonstrate that something "extraordinary", "alien", or "unknown to science" is producing these reports.
Drawing a conclusion based on data that is known to be error prone is pseduoscience. Depending on who you talk to, 75-95% of all UFO reports can be explained. Exactly, how many scientists are going to rely on instrumentation that is wrong a majority of the time? Who is to say the remaining 5-25% of these reports are full of errors as well?
There is nothing wrong with studying UFOs. It is when the leap is made from studying these reports to drawing conclusions about craft that have not been shown to exist other than a "will to believe", that UFOlogy becomes a pseudoscience.

 

[Senex]

It's a discussion thread. I would think the only point that would be required is a genuine interest. Also, being a discussion thread, it isn't always necessary to make an argument. What I've done is make an observation. More observation and discussion and less arguing might actually do us some good. I didn't come here to make enemies with anyone. I'd like to see it go the other way if possible. Would you like to discuss the topic at all ... perhaps there is something new you know of, or a different way of looking at what has already been posted that would be of value?

j.r.

Do you belong to any ufology websites? Does your favorite site require a genuine belief in UFO's to be a member? Could you post the URL's for us to join that site just as you have been welcomed here?

Are we much more unwelcome posting at your ufology website as you accuse us of being unwelcoming to your posts here?

 

[John Albert]

Ufology on the whole makes no claim to be in and of itself "sceintific". It does however advocate critical thinking.

On the contrary, I have seen many claims made under the rubric of "ufology" that purported to be scientific, but lacked basic critical thinking skills, let alone sound scientific methodology or verifiable evidence.

What you're doing here is a bit of PR work: promoting your own justification for this broad pop-culture genre which is highly inconsistent with the majority of output from most professional ufologists.

Despite having chosen "ufology" as your username on this message board, you are not the founder or official spokesman of "Ufology." "Ufology" is not a unified, self-regulated organization with a singular, specific ideological position. Rather, it's a general subject of interest composed of perhaps millions of individual enthusiasts worldwide, promoting many diverse viewpoints from the fairly rational to the laughably outrageous.

The sole unifying fator among all these diverse adherents is a common interest in promoting an unsubstantiated body of popular folklore. Because ufology primarily concerns itself with the validation of unverified urban legends as fact, that alone is the definitive factor that inspires me to brand it a "pseudoscience." I look at ufology websites, watch ufologist spokespersons on TV and YouTube, read books and papers on the subject, and from those sources it appears obvious that the vast majority of this material is every bit as pseudoscientific as other fringe "fields of study" like ghost hunting, cryptozoology, cryptoarchaeology, etc. If you consider those pursuits to be "pseudoscience" (as I do), then ufology also fits that bill.

So just because a ufologist quotes a scientific study doesn't make ufology a pseudoscience any more than it would make journalism a pseudoscience if an investigative reporter uses it.

The same could be said for history and a number of other fields of study.

Those are really weak analogies, considering science journalists, ufology journalists, science historians and ufology historians all exist. Whether or not writers quote scientific studies in their work is not the central issue here. It's the general practice of promoting unscientific, baseless claims (a.k.a. "woo") as verified facts.

To cite your former example, an investigative journalist could certainly engage in the practice of pseudoscience (as many have) by using scientific-sounding language to promote unscientific ideas. Of course a sole individual behaving in such an erroneous (or outright deceitful) way wouldn't justify an indictment of the entire journalism industry.

Likewise, a real scientist like Jacques Vallée or Linus Pauling could conceivably exploit the authority of his distinguished scientific career to promote pseudoscience on the side, as Vallée often does when he forwards the very unscientific opinion that UFO sightings may be extraterrestrial or inter-dimensional craft, and Pauling did with his "Vitamin C megadose therapy". It happens. But all of science isn't to blame. Every individual is ultimately responsible for his or her own actions.

On the other hand, an entire industry built around promoting pop-culture mythology to peddle TV shows and books full of fake science fully deserves the designation "pseudoscience." It's one thing for a few credulous fools to believe that eyewitness UFO anecdotes are proof of alien visitation, but the real damage happens when our culture's science literacy erodes to the point where people are unable to distinguish science from folklore, reality from fantasy.

It can't be just because of the frauds in ufology. Historians, reporters and even scientists have also had fabricators and forgers, but the rest of us haven't slapped some derogatory label on history, journalism and science as a result.

Again, you're conflating the issue of frauds perpetrated against a specific realm of established science, with an entire field of study dominated by fraud, deception, faulty logic, bad science, unverified anecdotes, and even insanity.

If ufology is indeed a legitimate field of study, then where are its results? People have been studying this "phenomenon" for well over half a century now. People keep reporting UFO sightings, abductions, and the like. Books keep getting published, movies keep getting made, yet there's not a single shred of evidence that UFOs are anything but instances of very normal objects and phemonena being commonly mistaken for extraterrestrial craft or paranormal forces.

Under all the self-important varnish it's never really any different. Someone always just wants a nice big fat wide brush to dirty-up the other guys with to make themselves look better.

Aw, come on. It's not so bad. The accusation of "pseudoscience" may seem rather harsh and the accusers may sound arrogant and self-righteous, but there are far worse epithets one could be branded with, and you even admitted that it doesn't really matter all that much.

To clarify your position, let's cut through all the semantics. Would your definition of "ufologist" include a professional astronomer who writes a blog dedicated to debunking UFO sightings? How about a person who picks up a Whitley Strieber book to read purely for entertainment purposes?

And what about me? I posted last night about the UFO sighting I witnessed with my friends on a farm in Michigan. Does my meager, half-assed investigation make me a ufologist in your view?

 

[John Albert]

It is hard to say. The direction of travel indicates a retrograde orbit. Those are usually military in nature because it really is not worth the trouble (and extra thrust required) to launch a satellite in that direction. Most satellites are polar (generally north to south/south to north) or from west to east. Are you sure you saw it in the ESE and disappear in the WNW or was it possible the direction was from the south or SSW to North or NNE? I went to "Heaven's above" for the 6th and 7th and there were two Cosmos rocket bodies that were about 3rd magnitude moving in SSW to NNE trajectories around 1:35 AM for Lansing, Michigan (I picked a spot in south central Michigan).

I personally like Heaven's above as a satellite tracker (although Calsky is very thorough too but it is harder to change observing sites) as it seems to cover just about everything that normally can be seen.

Thanks, Astrophotographer.

I just fired up Celestia on my computer to check the positions of the stars from that location on that date and time, and realized the initial account I related above is woefully inaccurate. Imagine that! And that's the kind of anecdotal data many "ufologists" might solely rely on for their studies.

Our location was very rural, and the only visible landmarks at the moment were a single dirt road, trees and some telephone poles. Being a city boy, I'm rather unfamiliar with the area so I was mistaken about the directions.

In the interest of accuracy, we were in Southwestern Michigan at the time, in the general area between Dowagiac and Eu Claire. The time was most likely between 1:30 and 1:40 AM EST, on July 7th.

Vega was by far the brightest star in the Eastern sky, clearly visible within a few degrees of due East. As I stood facing eastward and looking up, the craft traversed the sky along a secant line maybe 30° East of zenith. It traveled perpendicular to the easterly direction I was facing, from the right to the left side of the sky, eg. directly South to North.

I've rechecked Gpredict and Heaven's Above, and neither of them identify any craft moving in that direction on that night within that time period. Heaven's Above seems quite limited in the number of satellites it tracks. Gpredict appears to track more, but it also returns nothing.

What do you think? At this point, having exhausted all the limited means readily available, I'm ready to throw up my hands and conclude that it's gotta be aliens.

Amirite? I mean, what other explanation could there possibly be?

 

[LashL]

Several posts have been moved to Abandon All Hope. Some of those posts would have easily been acceptable in the moderated UFO thread, but we've already gone through the process of splitting posts from this thread to the moderated thread, and we are not going to permit this thread to become a 'workaround' to the moderated thread. So, either post on topic (reminder: the topic of this thread is: "Is ufology a pseudoscience?") or post in the moderated thread directly, but don't use this thread as a means to circumvent the moderated thread.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: LashL

 

[ufology]

To clarify your position, let's cut through all the semantics. Would your definition of "ufologist" include a professional astronomer who writes a blog dedicated to debunking UFO sightings? How about a person who picks up a Whitley Strieber book to read purely for entertainment purposes?

And what about me? I posted last night about the UFO sighting I witnessed with my friends on a farm in Michigan. Does my meager, half-assed investigation make me a ufologist in your view?

Interesting question. And you make a number of valid points. I should point out however that I make no claim to speaking for all of ufology, but I certainly speak more for it than you do. I've also made my position clear on the use of derogatory labels to tar entire groups of people. Ufology is ufology and science is science. I don't think the twain will ever meet, but I do think we can use critical thinking and reporting to study it, and that it's perfectly acceptable to make use of genuine science in that capacity.

To answer your question regarding what constitutes a "ufologist", I would have to say, speaking from my own experience, that even having had an interest in the subject for over 40 years and maintaining an interest group for over 20 years, and reading and studying literally thousands of books, and having talked with numerous witnesses, and putting together a ufology distance learning course, and contributing regularly to the USI website, and trying to work some inroads with respect to criticism by skeptics, I am still reserved about calling myself a "ufologist", why? Because despite all of the preceeding, I've not had the opportunity to do as much actual field work as I would like. There are ufologists out there who have boxes of reports from on-site investigations. While the rest of us can take some credit, it's the people who get out into the field on a regular basis who I have the most respect for.

As for whom in general I would recognize as a ufologist. If someone were to demonstrate that they have a good working knowledge of ufology and possess a genuine and constructive interest in pursuing it, that's good enough for me. Get out there and do some good. If they also happen to be an astronomer who enjoys debunking UFO sightings, so much the better. Would reading Communion be enough? No.

Would I consider you to be a ufologist? Because you are a critical thinker, have some knowledge in the field, and even bothered to do a "half-assed investigation", you are already doing more for ufology than a lot of people. So if you were genuinely interested, I would gladly to welcome you into the field. We need good people who aren't just blind followers and believe everything they see and hear. A little more diplomacy wouldn't hurt, but I also know that there are people involved with the paranormal that openly attack organizations like the JREF and CSI. If you've been a victim of such, then I can't blame you for wanting to fight back. Just try to remember we're not all like that.

j.r.

 

[John Albert]

Ufology, I don't think most people around here have the attitude they're "fighting back" against the woo purveyors as a reprisal for being censured on their forums. I feel safe in saying that most of us skeptics hold no personal grudges against people with oddball interests or unscientific beliefs; in fact, many of us found the skeptics movement through our own curiosity about such topics.

I personally love the idea of extraterrestrial life, and will definitely throw a huge party if science ever conclusively proves the existence of ET. I just feel the truth is far too important to cast my belief on faith alone, and I know that good science is the best proven technique for discerning what is real.


As for my own unexpected foray into ufology, I'm happy to report that after a couple phone calls and roughly half an hour dicking around on heavens-above.com, I managed to track down precisely the object we'd seen on Wednesday night.

Alas, no alien flying saucer. It was nothing more than a common hunk of space flotsam, an old Soviet research satellite from the late '80s. You can track its travels in real time here.

Attached are 2 maps from Heavens-Above, showing the path it made across the night sky and over the ground. Notice it passed overhead at approximately 9:58 PM.

Astrophotographer, you were obviously correct about the time being earlier than midnight. We'd actually stepped outside to look at the sky at two different times that evening; once just after sunset, and again later in the night. I must have confused the two. Also, the place I was visiting was outside my own native state and time zone, so my assessment of the time was a bit off. And then there was the case and a half of beer we'd drunk.

Luckily, I remembered having made a phone call to my girlfriend shortly before venturing outdoors the first time. Upon checking my call log, I was able to estimate the time of the sighting at around 10:00 PM EST.

It's really quite dismaying to realize how many details I'd gotten wrong in my original account. I suppose it's a pretty good object lesson about the reliability of eyewitness testimony, but damn!

About the history of UFOs: back in the pre-Internet days, regular citizens would have had no access to satellite orbital data for identifying what sort of object they'd seen. It's weird to see an object zipping across the night sky so quickly, and I'm sure lots of people back in the day made all kinds of assumptions: meteors, Russian spy planes, American experimental aircraft, alien spacecraft...

Of course, prior to the 1980s there were far fewer artificial satellites and less space detritus there up there, so it was probably very rare to spot an artificial satellite with the naked eye. I'm sure at least a few people really freaked out over the experience.

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