NASA would like for you to be really, really, sure it’s aliens.
There’s a growing consensus in the scientific
community that there’s alien life out there, somewhere, in some form or
another. It’s only a matter of time and scientific rigor before we find
it.
By David Axe The Baily Beast
11-5-21
If this summer’s spasm of excitement over “UFO sightings” is any indication, the
public is primed to run with any evidence, however thin, that we’re not alone in
the universe. Even if our extraterrestrial company is merely some microbe,
living or long-dead.
Anticipating mounting evidence of alien life, and also anticipating that the
media might mischaracterize that evidence, NASA’s good-natured chief scientist
wants to put some guardrails on the story—by placing potential evidence of
alien life on
a seven-step scale
that ranges from interesting to definitive.
Our generation could realistically be the one to
discover evidence of life beyond Earth. With this privileged potential
comes responsibility. The magnitude of the question of whether we
are alone in the Universe, and the public interest therein,
By James Green ... Nature.com
10-27-21
opens the possibility that results may be taken to imply more than the
observations support, or than the observers intend. As life-detection objectives
become increasingly prominent in space sciences, it is essential to open a
community dialogue about how to convey information in a subject matter that is
diverse, complicated and has a high potential to be sensationalized.
Establishing best practices for communicating about life detection can serve to
set reasonable expectations on the early stages of a hugely challenging
endeavour, attach value to incremental steps along the path, and build public
trust by making clear that false starts and dead ends are an expected and
potentially productive part of the scientific process.
This summer, an intelligence report and a new Harvard research project have renewed the public’s interest in UFOs. But neither is likely to change many minds.
On June 25 of this year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a brief report entitled “Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.” It fulfilled a 2020 directive from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,
By Greg Eghigian bostonreview.net 8-4-21
chaired at the time by Marco Rubio, which ordered the national intelligence director to publish an unclassified, public appraisal of the “potential aerospace or other threats posed by the unidentified aerial phenomena to national security, and an assessment of whether this unidentified aerial phenomena [UAP] activity may be attributed to one or more foreign adversaries.” The request came partly as a response to news reports that Navy personnel had, in recent years, filed a number of incident reports involving UFOs.
During the past 25 years hundreds of thousands of
Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) sightings have been reported to private
and governmental agencies. The unexplained nature of an increasing
number of reports from highly credible
By YoungsTown Vindicator 3-10-1974
observers throughout the world presents a modern scientific enigma.
“Any phenomenon which has occupied the thought of so many people for so many
years is surely worthy of serious scientific study,” says Dr. J. Allen Hynek,
the world’s foremost scientific authority of the subject.
Dr. Hynek feels that the “UFO phenomenon has not been given serious attention
in the past, yet it is an interconvertible fact that a great many unsolved UFO
reports exist.”
Will the report, and increased transparency by the
military, change anything? Will it help draw scientists like me into a
serious study of the phenomenon?
By Chris Impey The Military Times
7-15-21
Scientists will have to get over their reticence to engage with the sightings.
We are in an awkward position. Rapid progress in finding planets orbiting
other stars has led to a projection of 300 million habitable planets in our
galaxy. There has been plenty of time for life on some of those planets to
evolve intelligence and technology. We don’t deny the possibility of aliens
traveling from their star system to ours. We are just unconvinced by the data
presented so far. Most sightings can be attributed to weather balloons or
astronomical phenomena such as meteors, fireballs, and Venus. There are many
resources giving mundane explanations for UFO sightings.
[...]
... the military and intelligence communities will have to more actively
engage with scientists, and ask for their help and expertise in understanding
the sightings in the report, and many others that have not been made public.
There are signs that this might happen. Under Avril Haynes, the Office of the
DNI has been drawing on its expert group of 500 scientists who consult with
the intelligence agencies on scientific problems. A model for this type of
collaboration is the two panels of scientists and medical experts that were
recently set up to understand the “Havana syndrome” that has afflicted
American diplomats since 2016.
A modest ufological exhibit caused a big
controversy. From August 30, 2008, to January 9, 2009, Mary Brogan
Museum of Art and Science in Tallahassee, Florida, (permanently closed
in 2013) presented historical insights into the Roswell Incident –
controversial July 1947 crash allegedly related to ET craft and bodies
recovered by the US Army Air Forces. US government released 2
conclusions to resolve the matter. One in 1994 emphasized that the
object was just a surveillance balloon from the secret Project Mogul.
Another one in 1997, noted that test dummies dropped from high altitude
where the most likely cause for stories of "crashed bodies in the
desert".
Museum grabbed controversial tiger by the tail. Old newspaper
By Giuliano Marinković OmniTalk Radio Network
7-11-21
clippings and audio recordings were part of the Roswell exhibit. However, on
November 7, 2008, the event culminated. Nuclear physicist and original civilian
researcher of the incident, Stanton Friedman, presented two lectures. Frist one
was titled "The Real Roswell Story". It was followed the next day with another
lecture titled "Star Travel? Yes!".
Friedman’s lectures sparked local interest towards Roswell controversies.
However, this public scrutiny also brought loud objections against the event.
On November 4, 2008, local newspapers „The Tallahassee Democrat“, published a
letter from Dr. Paul Cottle of University Florida to the editor. He was upset.
Misinformation needs no introduction. You've seen it around, and a lot of it piggybacks on fringe subject matter. Sensationalism is a staple of the UFO genre. It can be argued that has to be accepted as the case before meaningful discussion becomes possible.
I asked a few writers and podcasters familiar with UFOs and similar subject matter if they would share some thoughts on how we explore such topics without getting overwhelmed in false information. How do we know what's true and what's not? How do we keep an open mind without making ourselves vulnerable to lies, opportunists, and cult-like thinking?
You don't have to be an alien truther to be curious about recent UAP
events
[...]
The recently observed UAPs purportedly have
accelerations that range from almost 100 Gs to thousands of Gs — far
higher than a human pilot could survive. There's no air disturbance
visible. They don't produce sonic booms. These and other
By Leonard David www.space.com 10-12-20
oddities have captured the attention of "I told you so, they're here" UFO
believers.
But there's also a rising call for this phenomenon to be studied
scientifically — even using satellites to be on the lookout for possible
future UAP events.
As noted in Part 1, the late Dr. James E. McDonald—who held the title “Senior Physicist, Institute of Atmospheric Physics” at the University of Arizona—also holds the distinction of being one of the very few scientists to actually study the UFO phenomenon. In a prepared statement before the U.S. Congress’ House Committee on Science and Astronautics, delivered on July 29, 1968, McDonald said this:
By Robert Hastings
www.ufohastings.com
3-23-12 / 2020
“From time to time in the history of science, situations have arisen in which a problem of ultimately enormous importance went begging for adequate attention simply because that problem appeared to involve phenomena so far outside the current bounds of scientific knowledge that it was not even regarded as a legitimate subject of serious scientific concern. That is precisely the situation in which the UFO problem now lies. One of the principal results of my own recent intensive study of the UFO enigma is this: I have become convinced that the scientific community, not only in this country but throughout the world, has been casually ignoring as nonsense a matter of extraordinary scientific importance.”1
McDonald arrived at that opinion after several authorized visits to the U.S. Air Force’s UFO Project Blue Book to review its files. Indignant at what he discovered, he wrote, “There are hundreds of good cases in the Air Force files that should have led to top-level scientific scrutiny of [UFOs] years ago, yet these cases have been swept under the rug in a most disturbing way by Project Blue Book investigators and their consultants.”2
McDonald’s full statement before Congress may be found in the U.S. Congressional Record, as well as on the Internet. While acknowledging that the overwhelming majority of UFO sightings undoubtedly had prosaic explanations, and that a great many questions about the phenomenon remained unanswered, McDonald succinctly summarized his conclusions regarding the most credible of the unexplained cases: “My own present opinion, based on two years of careful study, is that UFOs are probably extraterrestrial devices engaged in something that might very tentatively be termed ‘surveillance.’”3
Frequently, UFO skeptics—scientists and laypersons alike—invoke Occam’s Razor to support their position that there are far more likely, prosaic explanations for the UFO phenomenon than the extraterrestrial spaceship theory. Unlike McDonald, these persons have never studied UFOs and are, therefore, offering uninformed opinions—whether they choose to recognize this fact or not.
In essence, the principle of Occam’s Razor states that, all things being equal, the simplest explanation for an unexplained phenomenon is probably the correct one. In other words, conventional explanations—natural or man-made phenomena—undoubtedly account for all UFO sightings.
But is the basic premise of simplicity-as-truth always valid, or is it flawed? Consider, for example, gravity. The explanation for it offered by Isaac Newton—whereby physical objects possess an attractive property, proportional to their mass, that draws them toward one another—appears simple, straightforward, and fits the observable facts. Indeed, the English scientist’s revolutionary theory, experimentally validated, provided an explanation of gravity which endured unchallenged for over two hundred years. Then along came Albert Einstein.
In the early 20th Century, Einstein created his own, one-man scientific revolution by introducing the twin theories of Special and General Relativity. Among other things, General Relativity postulates that space and time are an inextricably interconnected entity which is distorted, or curved, by the presence of physical objects. In fact, said Einstein, gravity is actually a function of curved space-time. Hence, Newton’s apple did not fall to the ground because of the attractive property of the Earth. Rather, the Earth created a curved depression in space-time and the apple merely took the path of least resistance by sliding down into it. Oh, by the way, Einstein also found that gravity bends light.
One un-simple aspect of Special Relativity is the dilation of time, whereby it moves faster or slower, depending on whether it is being measured on a stationary or moving timepiece. Moreover, says Einstein, moving objects actually shorten in length in the direction they are traveling. And, last but not least, matter and energy are variations of the same thing and, sometimes, a handful of matter can release enough energy to destroy a city.
All of this is simple stuff, right? Old Occam would get it, wouldn’t he? Well, maybe not.
After an extensive evaluation of experimental data, science now considers Einstein’s explanation of gravity to be the correct one. But is it the simplest one, as Occam’s Razor dictates it should be? Is it less complicated, more reasonable and straightforward than Newton’s?
No, it is not. In fact, the bizarre, mind-bending, often paradoxical principles advanced by the two relativistic theories still elude the intellectual grasp of most of humanity one hundred years after they were published. Nevertheless, physicists have long considered Einstein’s ideas to be perceptive and accurate assessments of cosmological order and function. That said, those ideas certainly can not—by any stretch of the imagination—be described as simple, common sense answers to important questions.
If the concepts advanced by Einstein’s theories do not effectively challenge the simplicity-as-truth premise of Occam’s Razor, or sufficiently affront common sense, then consider what the other pillar of 20th Century science, the Theory of Quantum Mechanics, proposes.
One tenet, called the Uncertainty Principle, asserts that the more we know about a particle’s location in space, the less we can know about its velocity. Conversely, the more we know about any given particle’s velocity—by measuring it—the less we can know about its location. Another Quantum principle states that certain attributes of particles, including position, velocity, direction of movement, and spin, can not even be defined until they are observed. Before that moment, any given particle exists in what is termed a “superposition of states.” In other words, its very nature can not be said to exist until it has first been examined. Finally, Quantum Theory maintains that light—composed of waves of photons—exists as a “wave-particle duality”, in which it is neither one nor the other but nevertheless exhibits certain properties of both.
Physicists Gary and Kenny Felder write:
Quantum mechanics says that…the photon really, genuinely, and importantly, does not have a specific location until we measure one. [This] doesn’t seem to make sense. But another school of thought says, why should it make sense? After all, humans evolved in a world of ‘normal’ objects, and we developed a facility called ‘intuition’ that helped us survive in that world, by helping us predict the effects of our actions. That physical intuition was, and is, a great asset. But perhaps it shouldn’t be too surprising that it becomes a liability when we try to apply it to areas that we didn’t evolve for. Quantum mechanical laws generally only have measurable effects when applied to things that are too small to see, so we never evolved an understanding of them, so they seem bizarre. In fact, at roughly the same time that quantum mechanics first began to suggest that very small things defy our intuition, Einstein was proposing his special theory of relativity which shows that very fast things defy our intuition; and then his general theory of relativity, which concerns the odd behavior of very big things.4
In other words, taking into account both Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, much of what early 21st Century scientists consider to be factual, that is, “real”, is not simple or straightforward at all. In fact, it’s downright counter-intuitive. Despite this state of affairs, the vast majority of UFO skeptics have yet to consider the possibility that alien visitation might also occur in a counter-intuitive manner, for example, by the utilization of higher-dimensional space—hyperspace—to effectively by-pass Einstein’s light-speed limitation. If ever there was a counter-intuitive theory, hyperspace is it. Nevertheless this concept is rapidly gaining support among theorists whose work involves deciphering cosmic architecture and operation.
So, instead of acknowledging the general lack of simplicity and, in fact, the predominance of counter-intuitive high-strangeness inherent in our current paradigm, UFO skeptics and debunkers ironically resort to quoting Occam’s Law as if it were an unassailable pillar of wisdom, applicable to all questions involving UFOs.
As noted above, with rare exceptions, these persons have undertaken no research on the UFO phenomenon and, therefore, their reaction to the UFO topic is almost always a smoke screen—recognized or not—to hide the fact that they have not done their homework, and have no idea what they are talking about. Ostensibly, this type of evasive and disingenuous behavior would be abhorrent someone who strives to be scientific—meaning basing one’s opinions on the evidence—nevertheless, it is continuously and pervasively exhibited by UFO skeptics, laypersons and professional scientists alike.
Granted, simplistic sloganeering—Long Live Occam!—does require far less effort than actually doing research, but does it bring one any closer to the facts? One is tempted to conclude that by not investigating the UFO phenomenon—prior to making unequivocal pronouncements about it—many skeptics are attempting to avoid the potential threat to their own worldview, which might arise should they actually research the subject and unexpectedly discover that things are not as previously assumed.
Yup, whether one is intellectually timid, or just plain pompous, it’s simply much easier and safer to presuppose that some things, like aliens visiting Earth, can not possibly be true. Clearly, practicing science by slogan has the added benefit of not having to step outside one’s comfort zone.
Observations Trump Assumptions
Furthermore, there exists another fundamental flaw with Occam’s Razor: The integrity of the assumptions underlying the premise of what is “simple” or “likely”. As regards UFO sightings, a skeptic will assert that an atmospheric mirage or exotic military aircraft is the simpler, more likely explanation for what appeared to the observer to be an alien spaceship. But these “explanations” almost always have less to do with the specific aspects of the sighting itself—the observed phenomenon—than they do with what the skeptic presumes to be the remote prospect of interplanetary travel. Since the probability of such a thing is near zero, the reasoning goes, so is the likelihood that an alien spaceship was actually sighted by a human observer.
In other words, this approach to “analyzing” UFO sightings has far less to do with observation than it does with preconceived notions, dressed-up as rational skepticism. Consequently, the simplest-explanation strategy as applied to UFO sightings is almost always fallacious because, although the debunkers would have you believe otherwise, an unacknowledged, subjective point-of-view usually taints the basic premise of their argument.
The important point here is that this presumption, flawed or not, is the basis for the skeptic’s assessment of the event, rather than the facts of the case themselves.
Moreover, as researcher Joe Nyman astutely notes, “Scientists, when confronted with the unexplainable, will often appeal to Occam’s Razor, or the Principle of Parsimony, to reduce the level of exotic explanation, but often overlook the next step, that the simpler explanation is really a hypothesis that must be tested. If the simpler hypothesis does not fit the facts, it too must be discarded.”5
Although this necessary testing is almost never undertaken, most UFO skeptics are nevertheless inclined to believe that their merely having offered an alternate explanation for a given sighting is sufficient. Although that “simpler” proposal is completely unproved, their confident demeanor suggests that they truly believe that they have all but solved the case.
Dr. Robert Kirshner of Harvard’s Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory has also questioned the presumed wisdom underlying the simple-is-correct premise when investigating or, at least, making pronouncements about reality. Commenting upon the approach of those astronomers and cosmologists who are tempted to summarize the nature of universe in one straightforward, elegant theory, Kirshner cautions, “...the aesthetic approach, the simplest thing that you can think of, is not always a guide to the truth. Sometimes, you just have to go look—and you discover that the universe is actually much richer and more complicated than your imagination. In fact, it’s always more complicated than you imagined.”6
Clearly, Occam’s Razor—as a definitive, irrefutable guide for gauging the nature of unexplained phenomena, including UFOs—leaves a lot to be desired.
I sent my book’s “Occam’s Rusty Razor” excerpt to Dr. Henry H. Bauer, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Science Studies and Dean Emeritus of Arts and Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, for his critique. Bauer had previously submitted an abstract to the 24th Annual Meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE) titled “The Two-Edged Sword of Skepticism: Occam’s Razor and Occam’s Lobotomy”. He offered these comments:
I find nothing major to quarrel with. I agree thoroughly with these strong points: That the data should be determinative; that the Razor should be a hypothesis, maybe a first guess, but no more than that; that judging what is “simple” depends on prior knowledge, on “common sense”, which changes over time; that our common sense is formed by experience of events at the human scale. One might emphasize that with the much-maligned saying that ‘There’s the known unknown and also the unknown unknown, [which is] totally unforeseeable.’7
My own, 39-year UFO research career is summarized in my 600-page book UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites, which is available here. (Unless you want to pay scalper-rates for it on Amazon.) On September 27, 2010, I co-hosted the UFOs and Nukes press conference at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. which CNN streamed live:
As I readily acknowledged in my book, my research material does not qualify as scientific data. The testimony offered by my ex-military sources is simply anecdotal evidence, often reluctantly revealed, by dozens of highly-reliable individuals whose professional responsibilities had inadvertently and unexpectedly placed them in a position to experience the UFO phenomenon within an environment inaccessible to most persons. Those who have not worked with nuclear weapons—which is to say the vast majority of us—have obviously had no opportunity to witness UFO activity in such a highly-restricted setting.
Therefore, it seems to me, whether one is a scientist or a layperson, we should all at least listen to what these persons have to say. To automatically dismiss their now-numerous, detailed accounts of UFO encounters at nuclear weapons sites as mere fantasies, or fabrications, is to suggest that those who held the fate of the entire planet in their hands during the Cold War were dangerously demented or otherwise untrustworthy. Surely, this was not the case.
References:
1. McDonald, Dr. James E. “Prepared Statement before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics”, July 29, 1968 2. [Tucson] Daily Citizen, March 1, 1967 3. McDonald, Dr. James E. “Prepared Statement before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics”, July 29, 1968 4. Felder, Gary and Kenny. “Quantum Mechanics: The Young Double-Slit Experiment”, self-published, 1998 5. Nyman, Joseph, MUFON UFO Journal, issue information temporarily unavailable 6. Dr. Robert Kirshner to Robert Hastings, confirmation of quotation in personal communication, June 2, 2008 7. Dr. Henry Bauer to Robert Hastings, R., personal communication, March 10, 2012
Interdisciplinary teams of scientists should study them
UFOs have been back in the news because of videos initially leaked, and later confirmed, by the U.S. Navy and officially released by Pentagon that purportedly show "unidentified aerial phenomena" (UAP) in our skies. Speculations about their nature have run the gamut from mundane objects like birds or balloons to visitors from outer space.
By Ravi Kopparapu, Jacob Haqq-Misra
www.scientificamerican.com
7-27-20
[...]
Judging the nature of these objects (and these seem to be “objects,” as confirmed by the Navy) needs a coherent explanation that should accommodate and connect all the facts of the events. And this is where interdisciplinary scientific investigation is needed.
Journalist Leslie Kean investigates topics that many consider to be beyond the pale
Like many long-time readers of The New York Times, I was shocked when the staid old paper published, in 2017, a front-page article on Pentagon investigations of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. This article, plus a shorter sidebar and a 2019 follow-up, heartened those who believe that extraterrestrials
By John Horgan
blogs.scientificamerican.com
5-18-20
have visited us and annoyed skeptics like my friend journalist Keith Kloor. Last December, I met journalist Leslie Kean, a co-author of the Times articles and sole author of the 2010 bestseller UFOs: Generals, Pilots, And Government Officials Go On The Record, at a week-long symposium on challenges to conventional scientific materialism ....
... last week, after the Times published yet another UFO story by Kean and her collaborator Ralph Blumenthal—which triggered more pushback from Kloor--I emailed Kean a few questions:
By Marcia Wendorf
interestingengineering.com
5-19-19
[...]
In the book, Sagan described what he called his "baloney detection kit," which consisted of constructing a reasoned argument and recognizing a fallacious one. To identify a fallacious argument, Sagan suggested utilizing these six steps:
1. Independent confirmation of facts
2. Debate
3. Development of different hypotheses
4. Quantification
5. The possibility of falsehood
6. Occam's razor.
The search for extraterrestrial activity is getting some credibility.
Notable scientists are getting behind a push to make contact with whatever might be out there.
By newyork.cbslocal.com
5-17-19
[...]
... today, this search for answers has gone mainstream. Prestigious universities including Harvard and Penn State are dedicating some of their brightest minds to this as a new field of study.
