In article <20030628134152.16033.00001353@mb-m03.aol.com>,
tprinty@aol.com (TPrinty) wrote:
SCIENTIFIC PANEL SAYS UFO EVIDENCE DESERVES STUDY
(cut)
Oh, let's read thw whole story behind the Condon report:
"The Condon Committee, often remembered by skeptics who attack ufology,
examined less than 100 cases among 701 unexplained by the "Blue Book",
but could not explain every case. Under the scientific appearences, the
"Condon report" was an excuse to close "Blue Book" through an "objective
project" (from a University in stead of a State department), and
consequently to calm down the interest of the americans for UFOs in
1969, just after the first mission on the Moon. The committee did not
conclude the non-existence of UFOs, it just stated there wasn't enough
evidence to support the extraterrestrial theory. As USAF believed, UFOs
were not a menace to national security.
So, no more Blue Book.
Actually, there's an interesting background story.
USAF agreed with University of Colorado a scientific work on UFOs, with
the famous NICAP as the only requested public source (demanded by Prof.
Condon and Prof. Low , chief and coordinator of the Committee). The
relationships between NICAP and Committee were excellent, and Doct.
Saunders and both Doct. Levine , of the Committee, were really
interested in the documents transmitted by NICAP. In '67, Maj.
Keyhoe found doct. Condon was completely skeptic and "disgusted" about
UFOs. Later, NICAP knew through Saunders and Levine that Condon had
never investigated on the cases communicated by NICAP. Short later,
NICAP received a memorandum of 9th August '66 in which Low wrote that
for such a project they must've admitted the possibility of the ET
theory. Such behaviour would've compromised their reputation, so
skeptics should have investigated to exclude the reality of sightings.
Prof. James McDonald received a copy of these papers. Later,
McDonald ( with Levine, Saunders and NICAP) wrote to Low they knew the
document.
The bomb exploded: Levine and Saunders were fired the 8th February, with
administrative secretary Mary Lou Armstrong who agreed with Saunders and
Levine. Condon wrote to McDonald he wanted the "stolen material" back.
But the archives of the project should've been open, not secret...
As journalist John Fuller wrote in "Look" the 14th May 1968, the aim of
the project was to "demonstrate" all cases were distorted perceptions of
normal situations (gestaltpsychologie) : in fact most scientists were
philosophers and psychologists.
An official investigation requested by Edward Roush of ONU and the
report "UFOs ? Yes !" written by Saunders and journalist Roger Harkins
could not stop the final report of the Condon Committee from
being published."
Therefore, the Sturrock panels conclusions seem right in line with what
Condon
had stated some thirty years before. However, you won't hear any UFOlogists
stating this because they refuse to even read all of what Condon had written!
2) The panel felt the evidence presented (the best cases possible were
given)
did not support the ETH! Again from the report:
"...the review panel was not convinced that any of the evidence involved
currently unknown physical processes or pointed to the involvement of an
extraterrestrial intelligence "
That's interesting...the limit of the ETH is that you can't access a
flying saucer to study it: it means that in ufology it's tried to verify
something you basically don't know/have.
If the best UFOlogists could not convince this panel with the best case
material possible that there might be an ET source for UFOs, what does it say
about the "mounds" of evidence that supposedly indicate alien spaceships are
visiting the earth?
Well, read more gentleman, and do not stop at English publications.
:-))))) I guess you know nothing about the nazi-fascist documents
(Lissoni, Alfredo & Pinotti, Roberto, "Mussolini E Gli UFO" , Idealibri,
2001, Rimini), for example...I suggest you to search and read Italian
books and texts. Heartly...
When UFOlogists come up with a decent plan to study UFOs and propose it to an
organization for funding, maybe there will be progress. However, UFOlogists
continue to waste their time, money and effort "collecting" UFO reports and
then write about them with little investigation in order to present one point
of view. This has been a wasted effort for over 50 years now. and will
continue
to be a wasted effort. The headlines should have read:
SCIENTISTS SEE NO ETS IN UFO DATA!
What about the Cometa report, "Les Ovnis et la d�fense: A quoi doit-on
se pr�parer?" ? :-)))
Beyond this, "UFO" does not mean ET at all!!!! There are a few projects
to study some UFO phenomena that happen in particular places...See:
http://www.sassalboproject.com/news.php?m=7
and
http://www.hessdalen.org/
while there's not space ship involved.
or
UFOLOGISTS CONTINUE TO WASTE TIME, MONEY, AND EFFORT COLLECTING USELESS UFO
REPORTS!
So why do you waste time here? :-)
This problem has been faced by sociologist Pierre Lagrange: ufology is
not yet enough organized to be credible by scientists. If a meteorite
falls, there's a network to monitor it, so to locate i quickly. If
there's sighting, no one tells you and typically it's said that since no
scientific authority was there, the sighting is not credible....let's
read more:
"Sociologist Pierre Lagrange makes the point about common anti-UFO
claims this way:
- "if UFOs were true, astronomers'd see them": firstly some astronomers
have seen UFOs, secondly the instruments are calibrated for other aims
like far away stars and thirdly astronomers have not had a project
to detect UFOs...Lagrange remarks that in Science you have to create the
good conditions to study something, firstly a network of researchers
to exchange opinions, datas, facts;
- "UFOs are not a scientific fact, but a belief one": scientists
have a methodology, believers have the need of fantastic. The offical
scientists have created the dangers of irrationalism and
parasciences when people become independent in creating new realities
without going through the official scientific wisdom;
- "UFOs are the pure subproduct of the Cold War": as if, under
the stressed war clima, people invented UFOs. No, it's the opposite
for Lagrange. People started noticing UFOs and that gave
contribution to the Cold War clima, by asking themselves questions
about UFOs. As long as UFO witnesses (Arnold in this case) are concered,
they're considered as passive subjects; while for major political
characters like Truman the treatment changes to active subjects.
Shortly, an asymmetrical treatment;
- "UFO witnesses have read too much sci-fi": there's an influence of
sci-fi over UFO witnesses, especially nowadays, when everybody' heard of
sci-fi at least once. But sci-fi existed even before 1947. The cultural
approach'd claim UFOs to be non scientific, leaving the other scientific
facts out of this influence...though science is not immune to culture;
- "under the influence of their beliefs, witnesses cannot recognize
weather ballons nor Venus": it's not really true, as most would
recognize such objects inside books. Problems come with direct
witnessing, as we haven't been taught to. People are not stupid. But our
culture is made of books, pictures and screens;
- "why do we believe as much as others do?": for skeptics, UFO
witnesses are lazy people completely influenced by their own beliefs.
Skeptics strongly believe there are such stupid believers as they
strictly don't believe in UFOs. Words to mask a feeble pont...because
such skeptics are also leaded by their own beliefs that UFOs do no
exist!;
Crying out against irrational science is the last attempt to divide
science and parascience: we are taught there're rational people opposed
to gullible ones. This opposition is reflected into ufology being
rejected and astronomy being valued.
So, always for Lagrange, the problem is to find out why certain people
see UFOs while most scientists never do. Also, believers try to convince
everybody that UFO witnesses never read sci-fi, which is wrong, but for
skeptics this fact'd suggest such witnesses cannot think as well as a
scientist, though scientists too read or watch sci-fi!"
I think you're right on some points, but mostly your vision of ufology
is still far too limited. :-)
Tim Printy
Skeptical opinions on UFOs
http://members.aol.com/TPrinty/UFO.html
P.S. The Condon report can be found here: http://www.ncas.org/condon/
---
Michele Bugliaro
Informiamo.com tram member
CUSI member
Ufopsi.com