PROSAIC EXPLANATIONS: THE FAILURE OF UFO SKEPTICISM
[CNI News thanks optical physicist and UFO researcher Dr. Bruce
Maccabee for permission to publish the following excerpts from a
longer paper of the same title that will be delivered at the annual
Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) International Symposium in St. Louis,
Missouri in July. An abridged version of the same paper has also been
published in Infinite Energy Magazine.]
by Bruce Maccabee, Ph.D.
brumac@compuserve.com
copyright B. Maccabee, 2000
INTRODUCTION
Could some UFO sightings actually be manifestations of Other
Intelligences (OIs) or Non-Human Intelligences (NHIs) such as
extraterrestrials (ETs), visiting the earth and interacting with human
beings? Or are all reports of such sightings simply mistakes, hoaxes,
or dreams of the hopeful believers? It all comes down to explanation.
If there were no sightings which are richly detailed, credible and yet
unexplainable, the UFO subject would be based totally on “will o’ the
wisp”-like, indistinct observations, or on theoretical expectations,
as is the so-called Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI,
based on the theory that we could detect electromagnetic waves
radiated toward us, intentionally or unintentionally, by
extraterrestrial civilizations).
If all the richly detailed sighting reports had reasonable
explanations, then theoretical speculations about ET intelligences
visiting the earth might be interesting but of little practical
consequence. Ufology, if there were such a thing in the absence of
unexplainable sightings, would consist of studying witnesses who,
evidently, failed to identify explainable (identifiable) phenomena or
who simply made up “tall stories” about ET visitation. “Ufological
science,” if it existed under these circumstances, would consist of
psychology, psychiatry and perhaps sociology.
There are skeptics who believe that this is exactly what should
constitute ufology.
Noted UFO skeptic Philip J. Klass has provided perhaps the most
straightforward statement of the skeptic’s position on UFO sightings
in his book “UFOs: the Public Deceived” (Prometheus Books, Buffalo,
NY, 1983, pg. 297), wherein he writes that the “Occam’s Razor”
alternative to unexplained UFO sightings, is this: “...roughly 98% of
sightings are simply misidentifications of prosaic, if sometimes
unfamiliar, objects by honest persons... (and) ... the balance,
roughly 2%, are self-delusions or hoaxes by persons who like to spin
tall tales and become instant celebrities.”
In other words, UFO reports are the results of misidentifications,
delusions, and hoaxes, period! More recently he has indicated that in
his thirty or so years of investigation he has found not one case for
which he could find no “prosaic explanation”. As evidence of this, Mr.
Klass has offered prosaic explanations for a number of famous
sightings. Of course, Mr. Klass has not attempted to explain each of
the hundreds of thousands of sighting reports which have been made
over the last half century. However, he has proposed explanations for
a representative sample of reports which are classified as “good” by
most ufologists and, on this basis, he has generalized his statement
to apply to the bulk of the UFO sighting reports.
Klass would have the reader believe that he has correctly explained
all the sightings he has investigated. If he were correct then his
argument about misidentifications, hoaxes, and delusions making up
100% of UFO sightings would be unassailable, at least for the
sightings which he has investigated. However, in some cases he has
offered prosaic explanations which are demonstrably wrong. In other
cases he has proposed explanations which may not be provably wrong but
which are are, at the very least, weak and unconvincing.
To say that at least some of Klass’ prosaic explanations are wrong is
a strong statement. However, an even stronger statement can be made:
Klass’ analysis has demonstrated that at least some of the cases he
has investigated have no prosaic explanations. Why is this? Because
Klass, having analyzed these cases carefully, has proposed the only
potential explanations that remain after all other explanations have
been rejected. That is, there are no other potential prosaic
explanations that make any sense. Hence, when his proposed
explanations are proven wrong, there are no remaining candidate
explanations and the sighting becomes that of a TRue UFO (TRUFO),
which might be evidence of OI/NHI/ET.
THE CASE OF THE DAMAGED POLICE CAR
[An] example of a case for which Klass’ proposed prosaic explanation
is wrong, or, at best, unconvincing, is the rather traumatic
experience of police officer Val Johnson of Warren, Minnesota. (See
“UFOs: the Public Deceived”, page 223).
Shortly after 1:30 a.m., August 27, 1980, as he was cruising the
countryside in his police car in an area of low population, Johnson
noticed a bright light that he could see through the trees of a small
wooded area. Thinking it might be a landed airplane carrying illegal
drugs from Canada, he accelerated along a road toward the area of the
light. Suddenly this light moved rapidly toward his car. He heard a
noise of breaking glass and lost consciousness. When he regained
consciousness, he was leaning forward with his head against the top of
the steering wheel. There was a red mark on his forehead which
suggests that he might have bumped his head on the wheel hard enough
to render him unconscious (he said he was not wearing his seatbelt at
the time). After regaining consciousness, he called the police
station. It was 2:19 a.m.; he had been unconscious for about 40
minutes. He reported that something had “attacked” his car.
When another officer arrived on the scene a few minutes after
Johnson’s report, he found Johnson’s car nearly 90 degrees to the road
(blocking the road) and skid marks nearly 100 ft long. Johnson was
found in a distraught condition, in a state of shock. He said he
recalled seeing the bright light rushing toward his police car and he
recalled hearing breaking glass. The next thing he recalled was
realizing he was sitting with his head on the steering wheel. He did
not recall skidding to a stop. He complained about pain in his eyes
and was taken to a doctor who could find no eye damage. He did not
complain of a headache.
Of particular importance is damage to the police car. One of the two
glass headlight covers on the driver’s side had been broken; there was
a large crack in the windshield on the driver’s side; a plastic cover
on the light bar on top of the car had a hole in it; there was a dent
in the top of the hood, and two of the three spring-mounted antennas
were bent 60 or more degrees. Also, the electric clock in the car and
Johnson’s mechanical wristwatch both read fourteen minutes slow,
although Johnson was certain he had set both before he had begun his
nightly patrol.
The damage to the car was physical evidence that something strange had
taken place. Careful studies of the damage were made by the police
department and by scientists working with the Center for UFO Studies.
They could find no evidence or reason to believe that Johnson had
damaged his own car. They could find no prosaic explanation for the
sighting.
Klass also investigated the sighting. He spoke to several people who
knew Johnson and asked about his interest in UFOs. According to his
friends, he seemed no more interested in UFOs than in numerous other
subjects. They could provide no reason to believe he would
intentionally damage his car to create a UFO incident. He might “hide
your coffee cup,” one gentleman told Klass, but “as far as we know,
he’s never told any untruths.”
Klass concluded his discussion of the Officer Johnson UFO sighting by
offering two alternatives. He wrote:
“The hard physical evidence leaves only two possible explanations for
this case. One is that Johnson’s car was attacked by malicious
UFOnauts, who reached out and hit one headlight with a hammerlike
device, then hit the hood and windshield, then very gently bent the
two radio antennas, being careful not to break them, then reached
inside the patrol car to set back the hands of the watch on Johnson’s
arm and the clock on the car’s dashboard. These UFOnauts would then
have taken off Johnsons’ glasses, aimed an intense ultraviolet light
into his eyes, and replaced his glasses, while being careful not to
shine ultraviolet on his face.
“Or the incident is a hoax. There are simply no other possible
explanations.”
Klass’ amusing version of the “UFO/ET hypothesis” should not detract
from the importance of his statement that, “There are simply no other
possible explanations.” In other words, if it was not a hoax, then
there is no prosaic explanation for this sighting. Perhaps Klass
realized that the hoax hypothesis was unconvincing at best and
intentionally tried to make the UFO alternative seem silly.
The police department did not accuse officer Johnson of damaging the
police car. Yet, Klass’ book, published about 3 years after the
incident, clearly implies that this event had to be a hoax. Several
years after the publication of the book, I challenged Klass to send a
letter to the police chief of Warren, Minnesota, along with a copy of
his book chapter, so that the police chief would realize that he
should charge Johnson with damaging the car. So far as I know, Johnson
has never been charged with damaging the police car.
UFO IN THE SNAKE RIVER CANYON
Klass is not the first to offer prosaic explanations. Dr. J. Allen
Hynek, who in his later years became a strong proponent of UFO
investigation, began his “UFO career” in 1948 as a strong skeptic/
debunker. His explanations of a number of UFO sightings helped to set
the tone of governmental UFO investigation in the early years.
One of his most unconvincing explanations was that offered for the
sighting by Mr. A. C. Urie and his two sons on August 13, 1947. They
lived in the Snake River Canyon at Twin Falls, Idaho. According to the
FBI investigative report of this case, at about 1:00 p.m. Mr. Urie
“sent his boys to the (Salmon) river to get some rope from his boat.
When he thought they were overdue he went outside to his tool shed to
look for them. He noticed them about 300 feet away looking in the sky
and he glanced up to see what he called the flying disc.”
This strange object was flying at high speed along the canyon, which
is about 400 feet deep and 1,200 feet across at that point. It was
about seventy-five feet above the floor of the canyon (and so more
than 300 feet below the edge of the canyon) and moving up and down as
it flew. It seemed to be following the contours of the hilly ground
beneath it. Urie, who said he was at about the same level as the UFO,
so that he had a side view, estimated it was about twenty feet long,
ten feet wide and ten feet high, with what appeared to be exhaust
ports on the sides. It was almost hat shaped with a flat bottom and a
dome on top. Its pale blue color made Urie think that it would be very
difficult to see against the sky, although he had no trouble seeing it
silhouetted against the opposite wall of the canyon. On each side
there was a tubular shaped fiery glow, like some sort of exhaust. He
said that when it went over trees, they didn’t sway back and forth,
but rather the treetops twisted around, which suggests that the air
under the object was being swirled into a vortex. He and his sons had
an excellent view of the object for a few seconds before it
disappeared over the trees about a mile away. He thought it was going
1,000 miles an hour.
Hynek offered the following “prosaic explanation,” which became part
of the official Air Force record on the sighting: an atmospheric eddy.
Why this explanation? The object appeared pale bluish in color, like
the sky, and the trees were moving around as if a swirling wind went
over them. Hynek explained the blue color as a “reflection” of the
blue sky in the hypothetical atmospheric eddy. He offered no
explanation of how this eddy could appear to have the strange “hat”
shape, be traveling at about 1,000 miles per hour, how there could be
a fiery glow at one location on the side of the “eddy” or why the eddy
would appear as a solid rather than transparent object.
An eddy is a density inhomogeneity in the atmosphere which, in
principle, might bend light by a very small fraction of a degree.
However, for Hynek’s explanation to work, the light would have to be
bent five degrees or more, far beyond anything the atmosphere could
do. Even Hynek realized this and repudiated his explanation years
later (see The Hynek UFO Report, Dell Pub. co, NY, 1977).
KENNETH ARNOLD’S SIGHTING
The June 24, 1947 sighting by private pilot Kenneth Arnold attracted
worldwide interest. It also attracted many more than its share of
explanations. One of the scientists with an excessive urge to explain
was Dr. Howard Menzel. In his first book, “Flying Saucers” (Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1953), Menzel offered a blanket
explanation for sightings that occurred within the first five years of
modern UFO sightings (1947-1952): misidentified atmospheric phenomena
including the effects of the atmosphere on sunlight, unusual clouds
caused by particular wind patterns, and mirage effects (light ray
bending in the atmosphere). He suggested several different atmospheric
and cloud effects to account for Kenneth Arnold’s sighting. In later
books (“The World of Flying Saucers”, Menzel and Boyd, Doubleday and
Co., 1963; “The UFO Enigma, The Definitive Explanation of the UFO
Phenomenon”, Menzel and Taves, Doubleday and Co., 1977) he offered
other explanations.
Mr. Arnold, a businessman and private pilot with over 4,000 hours of
flying experience, reported seeing nine semicircular, thin (compared
to the length), shiny objects in a line flying southward past the
western flank of Mt. Rainier [and that] “swerved in and out” of a
chain of mountain peaks south of Rainier. The objects were therefore
about 20 miles east of him (he was about 20 miles west and 10 miles
south of Mt. Rainier and flying almost due east at the time). He timed
their flight from Rainier southward to Mt. Adams, a distance of about
50 miles. They crossed this distance in 102 seconds. Hence, the direct
interpretation of Arnold’s sighting is that these objects were
traveling at about 1,700 mph. (This was about four months before
Yaeger exceeded the speed of sound in a test aircraft in October,
1947). In reporting the speed calculation, Arnold arbitrarily reduced
the speed considerably to account for possible errors in his
measurements. He publicly stated that the objects were traveling at
about 1,200 mph. Arnold reported that he first noticed the objects as
they repeatedly flashed or reflected the bright afternoon sunlight
like a mirror when they were north of Mt. Rainier and last saw them
(by their flashes) as they passed Mt. Adams. The total sighting
duration was two and a half to three minutes.
Dr. Hynek was the first scientist to try to explain Arnold’s sighting.
Hynek used some details of the observation and an assumption about
Arnold’s visual acuity to calculate an approximate size of the
objects. He obtained a large size (two thousand feet long, one hundred
feet thick). He could not accept this size as reasonable, so he
decided to ignore Arnold’s claim that the objects went in and out of
the mountain peaks south of Mt. Rainier. By ignoring this statement
(essentially implying Arnold had made a mistake in the observation)
Hynek was able to assume that the objects were much closer. Hynek
decided that Arnold saw large airplanes and he then estimated that the
distance was only about six miles. This shorter distance reduced the
calculated speed to about 400 mph. Since this speed was within the
capability of military aircraft, Hynek identified the objects as
“aircraft,” thereby also ignoring Arnold’s description of the objects.
Recent analysis of the Arnold sighting shows that Hynek made an
incorrect assumption about Arnold’s visual acuity. Had he made the
correct assumption, he would have obtained a much smaller size (under
100 feet long and 10 or so feet thick) and then, perhaps, would not
have rejected Arnold’s distance estimate, in which case he would have
had to accept the speed estimate. Had he accepted the speed estimate,
the history of the UFO subject might have been different.
Hynek’s work was done secretly for the Air Force in 1948 under
“Project Sign”(1948). About four years later, Dr. Menzel tackled
Arnold’s sighting. In his first book “Flying Saucers” Menzel
summarized the sighting, then criticized the Air Force for accepting
Hynek’s explanation and went on to propose a much more “obvious”
solution. Menzel wrote, “(Arnold) clocked the speed at about 1,200
miles an hour, although this figure seems inconsistent with the length
of time that he estimated them to be in view. From his previous
statement, they could scarcely have traveled more than 25 miles during
the three minutes that he watched. This gives about 500 miles an hour,
which is still a figure large enough to be startling.” Note that
Menzel did not tell the reader that Arnold had timed the flight of the
objects between two points. Instead, Menzel invented a travel distance
of twenty-five miles, and implied that this distance was covered in
three minutes (180 seconds). Hence he was able to assign a much
lower, although “startling,” speed of 500 mph.
Menzel went on to “solve” the mystery of Arnold’s sighting: “Although
what Arnold saw has remained a mystery until this day (1953), I simply
cannot understand why the simplest and most obvious explanation of all
has been overlooked... the association of the saucers with the hogback
(of the mountain range south of Mt. Rainier)... serves to fix their
distance and approximate size and roughly confirms Arnold’s estimate
of the speed.” (Note that Menzel, unlike Hynek, accepted Arnold’s
distance estimate). Menzel then went on to suggest that Arnold saw
“billowing blasts of snow, ballooning up from the tops of the ridges”
caused by highly turbulent air along the mountain range. According to
Menzel, “These rapidly shifting, tilting clouds of snow would reflect
the sun like a mirror... and the rocking surfaces would make the chain
sweep along something like a wave, with only a momentary reflection
from crest to crest.”
This first explanation by a scientist with the reputation of Dr.
Menzel may seem slightly convincing, but only until one realizes that
(a) blowing clouds of snow cannot reflect light rays from the sun (60
deg elevation angle) into a horizontal direction toward Arnold’s
airplane and thereby create the very bright flashes that Arnold
reported; (b) there are no 1,200 mph or even 500 mph winds on the
surface of the earth to transport clouds of snow—fortunately!; © there
are no winds that would carry clouds of snow all the way from Mt.
Rainier to Mt. Adams (Arnold saw the objects pass Mt. Adams before
they were lost to his view); (d) about 10 minutes before the sighting,
Arnold flew rather close to the south flank of Mt. Rainer while
heading westward in order to search for a downed marine transport
plane. Then, only a few minutes after the sighting, he flew eastward
along a path that took him a dozen miles south of Mt. Rainier; during
each of these flights (west, then east) his plane would have been
strongly buffeted by such high winds, but he reported, instead, very
calm conditions.
In case the first explanation wasn’t sufficiently convincing, Menzel
offered “another possibility”: he suggested that perhaps there was a
thin layer of fog, haze or dust just above or just below Arnold’s
altitude which was caused to move violently by air circulation and
which reflected the sunlight. Menzel claimed that such layers can
“reflect the sun in almost mirror fashion” [but] offered no
substantiation for this claim.
Ten years after his first book, Dr. Menzel offered his third, fourth
and fifth explanations in his second book, “The World of Flying
Saucers”: mountain top mirages, “orographic clouds” and “wave clouds
in motion.” In his third and last UFO book, “The UFO Enigma, The
Definitive Explanation of the UFO Phenomenon”, written in the early
1970’s just before Menzel died, he again discussed Arnold’s sighting
and offered his sixth (and last) explanation: Arnold saw water drops
on the window of his aircraft.
The “bottom line” is that neither Hynek nor Menzel proposed reasonable
explanations for Arnold’s sighting.
CONCLUSION
The problem faced by the skeptics is that there are sightings for
which the generally accepted (by skeptics!) prosaic explanations are
wrong or at least unconvincing. If UFOs were “ordinary science,” the
proposed explanations would have been rigorously analyzed, and
probably rejected, rather than simply accepted. Scientific ufology
needs skeptics, but skeptics who are capable of recognizing when a
sighting simply cannot be explained by any prosaic explanation.