RAND report admits that it was Gov't policy to ridicule UFO witnesses!

Well, I've got to think this has been highlighted before, although I've never heard about it -- except as accusations among CTists.

But according to a 1969 RAND report on the UFO phenomenon, it became de facto policy among the U.S. government to ridicule all people reporting UFOs. This was the recommendation by the CIA a decade earlier after it raised concerns that the sheer number of UFO reports flooding the government would mask a legitimate foreign invasion of the country.

In order to unplug the military intelligence channels, however,
the CIA recommended that, since the UFOs apparently posed no
threat, the Air Force should debunk UFO reports and try generally to
discourage public interest in them, in the hope that they would go
away. (11)
It was the CIA's recommendation, apparently, that was made policy,
for the investigative procedures used since 1953 have been vestigal and
the handling of the subject by the authorities tended to make witnesses
look ridiculus.

I'm guessing this is still the policy.

No suprise there. This is also bled down profusely into the corporate mouthpiece major media outlets as well, save a couple of the braver channels, like History and Sci-fi. Ridicule, belittle, question the sanity, integrity, and intelligence of the witnesses. A great way to intimidate further people from coming forward. Status quo government behavior.

Unfortunately, this policy has become so ingrained into society that the government/CIA no longer have to bother with it in such an 'overt' manner.

I believe Philip Corso said something to the effect that the public will cover it up for themselves. They certainly do

Agreed uv-It created a ripple effect. Enough negativity and belittling of people that came forward in the public outlets made others scared to endure the same fate. I know quite a few people who have seen amazing things that they said they would never talk about openly with strangers, due to fear of people 'thinking they were a kook' (which sounds exactly like the seed the CIA planted that grew into a massive oak tree of intimidation, lol).

Good find OP,
You gotta love this sort of thing,its documents like this that lend more credibility to the existence of the visitors than most UFO sightings.

Funny this thread shows-up today.

On television last night, "America At The Crossroads" featured some French automotive cultural committee that was all up-in-arms because French people are using the term "airbag" instead of the French term.

Their strategy to combat this horrendous afront to the French culture?

Well, ridicule, of course!

So whether it's disinterested Feds in the U.S. or xenophobic French snobs, the attempts at social engineering by shaming the populous into behaving the way they want are a long-standing tradition.

[edit on 29-8-2007 by IAttackPeople]

Originally posted by behindthescenes

But according to a 1969 RAND report on the UFO phenomenon, it became de facto policy among the U.S. government to ridicule all people reporting UFOs. This was the recommendation by the CIA a decade earlier after it raised concerns that the sheer number of UFO reports flooding the government would mask a legitimate foreign invasion of the country.

I just read the entire document. It's 46 pages long, a fairly simple report which outlines the UFO issue about as well as many books on the issue. It has been mis-characterized. It is not a primary source. It is a report of a report of a report. The external quote says, in other words, the intelligence channels were being flooded with reports. The CIA recommended the reports be debunked. They wanted the reports to go away. That's what it says.

And that's as far as you can go. The next paragraph is speculation by the unnamed writer. The CIA did NOT say to ridicule people; this is a conclusion of the writer of the Rand report. He even admits it is speculation by using the word "apparently." He also says the reporting is "vestigal" (He means "vestigial") which means "small" or "unformed." The writer says this and the handling of the matter "tended to make witnesses look ridiculus." (He means "ridiculous") The point is that this is a conclusion of the writer and it also a secondary source citing UFO's: Greatest Scientific Problem of Our Times? by J. E. McDonald as the source of the information on the CIA.

If you read the entire document, you see the writer making many positive references and ends with this conclusion:

Certainly the conclusions drawn by NICAP from reports in their file[s] are startling and, if valid worthy of considerable scientific effort. It would be much more convincing if data could be collected worldwide and if the most interesting reports could be intensively and completely investigated. I believe current reports justify the expanded data collection and analysis effort.

In other words, the data collection efforts thus far have not been very good and should be expanded. The author also offers a form for this data collection. He's advocating an expansion of efforts to identify UFOs. The form and the nature of this report read like a term paper. It has many misspellings and apparently was not peer reviewed. It is very likely this was done by a low-level employee of Rand, such as an intern. It lacks the polish a more refined document would have.

Now, what about this McDonald reference? It turns out it is a paper record of a speech given by McDonald, a private UFO researcher much in the vein of Stanton Fredman. He was very famous in his time. UFOs -- An International Scientific Problem Paper Presented at the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute Astronautics Symposium, Montreal, Canada, March 12, 1968, James E. McDonald, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona.

In THAT paper you see that it is McDonald's OPINION that the Blue Book Project was ineffectual. His conclusion after looking into the matter was that the CIA wanted to debunk UFOs, but at no point does he document the case, nor is the word 'ridicule' used. He references the Robertson Panel Report as the source of his information on CIA debunking.

Now go to the Robertson Panel Report. Here you find the original statement:

The Panel agreed generally that this mass of poor-quality reports containing little, if any, scientific data was of no value. Quite the opposite, it was possibly dangerous in having a military service foster public concern in "nocturnal meandering lights." The implication being, since the interested agency was military, that these objects were or might be potential direct threats to national security. Accordingly, the need for deemphasization made itself apparent. Comments on a possible educational program are enumerated below.

So here we begin to see where this idea came from. What is "deemphasization"? Right here:

The Panel's concept of a broad educational program integrating efforts of all concerned agencies was that it should have two major aims: training and "debunking." The training aim would result in proper recognition of unusually illuminated objects (e.g., balloons, aircraft reflections) as well as natural phenomena (meteors, fireballs, mirages, noctilucent clouds). Both visual and radar recognition are concerned. There would be many levels in such education from enlisted personnel to command and research personnel. Relative emphasis and degree of explanation of different programs would correspond to the categories of duty (e.g., radar operators; pilots; control tower operators; Ground Observer Corps personnel; and officers and enlisted men in other categories). This training should result in a marked reduction in reports caused by misidentification and resultant confusion.

The "debunking" aim would result in reduction in public interest in "flying saucers" which today evokes a strong psychological reaction. This education could be accomplished by mass media such as television, motion pictures, and popular articles. Basis of such education would be actual case histories which had been puzzling at first but later explained. As in the case of conjuring tricks, there is much less stimulation if the "secret" is known. Such a program should tend to reduce the current gullibility of the public and consequently their susceptibility to clever hostile propaganda. The Panel noted that thegeneral absence of Russian propaganda based on a subject with so many obvious possibilities for exploitation might indicate a possible Russian official policy.

Clearly, the emphasis of this committee was to, in their view, lessen the gullibility of the public in believing in UFOs. Is there any sense of "ridicule" in the passage above? The guys on this panel did not believe UFOs were real. They thought it was all a crock. They wanted to train observers into giving good reports and calm the public down.

So now you see how this story got twisted in the retelling. We've got a citation of a term paper Rand report of dubious quality which offers a speculation and cites a private UFO researcher's speech which is also opinionated citing a government report that suggests UFO reports out to be debunked to reduce the traffic load.

My conclusion here is that yes, the Robertson Panel, which is the source of all this, did recommend that the UFO reports be debunked, but they in no way suggested people be ridiculed. Indeed, their interest was to make the public less gullible. The Rand Report doesn't admit anything, cannot support its conclusions, and is reporting CIA involvement third hand. Shame on Rand for such a shoddy report and shame on everyone else for repeating it (this isn't the first time) without going to the source.


[edit on 8/29/2007 by schuyler]

So now you see how this story got twisted in the retelling. We've got a citation of a term paper Rand report of dubious quality which offers a speculation and cites a private UFO researcher's speech which is also opinionated citing a government report that suggests UFO reports out to be debunked to reduce the traffic load.

My conclusion here is that yes, the Robertson Panel, which is the source of all this, did recommend that the UFO reports be debunked, but they in no way suggested people be ridiculed. Indeed, their interest was to make the public less gullible. The Rand Report doesn't admit anything, cannot support its conclusions, and is reporting CIA involvement third hand. Shame on Rand for such a shoddy report and shame on everyone else for repeating it (this isn't the first time) without going to the source.

Schuyler:

I am very impressed with your fact checking and research. On the surface of your findings I will agree with you. And yes, for a RAND report, the writer comes across as very amateurish.

But I'm not sure the author is drawing empty conclusions based on the one report. I think it is standard practice to ridicule "witnesses" outright. But to what end? UFO buffs will say because they want to better cover up the existence of aliens. Perhaps the easier explanation is the truth: They want to styme the flow of unsubstantiated reports coming into different divisions and groups, which can clog the flow of legitimate info.

Originally posted by behindthescenes
But I'm not sure the author is drawing empty conclusions based on the one report. I think it is standard practice to ridicule "witnesses" outright. But to what end? UFO buffs will say because they want to better cover up the existence of aliens. Perhaps the easier explanation is the truth: They want to styme the flow of unsubstantiated reports coming into different divisions and groups, which can clog the flow of legitimate info.

I think that's a reasonable statement, mostly. From the evidence we have it looks like they were being overwhelmed with UFO reports, wanted them to stop, BELIEVED they were mostly bogus, and suggested a more aggressive stance on the part of the Air Force to prove these reports false (i.e.:debunk) was in their best interests. They also stated most reports were valueless from a scientific standpoint, hence the two-pronged approach: educate observers to report more facts that were useful, and debunk reports to allay suspicions we were under attack by a foreign power, i.e.: The Soviet Union.

But the thread says: "RAND report admits that it was Gov't policy to ridicule UFO witnesses!" I think most people know Rand does lots of classified work for the government. Maybe we don't approve of Rand, but you have to admit it has developed a prestigious ring as a high-level think tank. The title suggests the Rand report is an official admission of a specific policy to ridicule. It sounds like we've got this shocking smoking gun admitting UFO deceptions.

But it's no such thing. In fact, it uses a civilian UFO researcher as its only reference, then speculates on to the 'ridicule' statement. It is not evidence of a sinister CIA plot to ridicule civilians at all. It is not evidence of 'standard practice.' But most people responding to the thread took up that note.

The original researcher, McDonald, was mis-leading when he took the Robertson Panel recommendations out of context to form his opinions about Blue Book. The Rand report author was mis-leading to jump to the conclusion that there was an official policy to make people look 'ridiculus.' The Rand report itself is mis-leading not by its own fault, but because of the associations most people attribute to Rand as being quasi-official, and the thread is mis-leading in that the Rand report is not so much an admission, but a sentence or two of abject speculation in a paper that otherwise supports better research.

Which is not to disprove that the secret shadow government really is suppressing information. It's just that this is not a path which proves it.

Originally posted by schuyler
Shame on Rand for such a shoddy report

Hi Schuyler,

It's a bit unfair to blame "Rand" for this document. It was produced by a single individual within RAND and was not an official RAND report. RAND only decided to make this paper available to the public if they asked for it - RAND didn't produce it for a client or publish the report as a RAND document.

I can post some references to discussion of "the RAND document" in various books if anyone is interest. It's probably more useful for me to point to a useful resource in relation to this document (and many other matters) - the NICAP website

That webpage concludes with comments by a couple of leading ufologist. One of those comments was by Jan Aldrich of Project 1947, one of the more sensible voices within ufology:

Comment by Jan Aldrich
It should be made clear that this was an individual effort within an organization which took no action, and had no discussion on the matter as the result of his effort other than to file it.

By the way, I happen to have posted a short story today which deals with the Robertson report and related matters, which some of you may find interesting:
The Truth Revealed At Last

Kind Regards,

Isaac Koi

reply to post by schuyler

Maybe part of the problem is that debunking is often confused with ridicule and ridicule us often used in debunking!? And when a governmental agency is given the green light to debunk it's open season!

Originally posted by plumranch
reply to post by schuyler

 

Maybe part of the problem is that debunking is often confused with ridicule and ridicule us often used in debunking!? And when a governmental agency is given the green light to debunk it's open season!

I've often maintained that there is a GREAT difference between debunking and skeptical enquiry.

A debunker will often use ridicule as part of their debunking. So much so that sometimes ridicule is their last bastion, when the rest of the story is ''undebunkable'. In short, shoot the story down at any cost. If the story is unassailable, attack the messenger instead.

Skeptical enquiry is another animal all together... It's about looking at the facts, without personal colouring, agendas, or prejudices, and coming to a conclusion (or not) based on your understanding of the facts. No need for insults, ridicule, or personal agendas.

The fact that the CIA suggested that sightings be debunked implies strongly that ridiculing witnesses was to be the order of the day (IMO), even if the word 'ridicule' was never used.

AS an aside, I sometimes despair at how many around here seem to be proud to be labelled debunkers


EDITED for spelling

[edit on 30-8-2007 by Dagar]

[edit on 30-8-2007 by Dagar]

reply to post by Silcone Synapse


On the contrary, images bring more credibility than words. I don't get why people believe in anything they read, just because the guy is an UFO researcher or scientist. The question you guys must ask is where and how did he get his info, has he reached a cosmic top secret position (like Dean, I believe he's the only real UFO researcher.) Don't believe in everything you read, for god's sake. It's the Bible all over again, get what i mean?

Originally posted by IAttackPeople
Funny this thread shows-up today.

On television last night, "America At The Crossroads" featured some French automotive cultural committee that was all up-in-arms because French people are using the term "airbag" instead of the French term.
[edit on 29-8-2007 by IAttackPeople]

Oh yeah some good a to watch i liked it

reply to post by themaster1

I'm a French speaker (2nd language) and have seen several American English words adopted by them, always reluctantly, sometimes painfully. In this case their word would probably be "sac a l'air" or "sac pneumatique" but even the French have found that "airbag" is much easier. This is ongoing proof of the superiority of English vs. French but don't mention this to a Frenchman! For example we can say almost anything with many fewer words. Other French words borrowed by the French include "le parking" and "le weekend" for example. And yes we have borrowed "beau coup" words from the French!