[Experiment] Let's rebuild UFOlogy from scratch

reply to post by Xcalibur254


This isn't specifically a reply to you, X, but rather rumination on the rise and fall of UFOlogy. If you were to have joined the nascent Army Air Corps during WWI as an eighteen year old, you would have seen airplanes evolve from motorized box kites useful only for aerial reconnaissance to highly maneuverable fighters. By the time you were an officer in the next war, air power was the single most important element of strategic planning. The short range fighters increased their range and speed, the bombers became more deadly. By the war's end, jets were making other fighters obsolete, RADAR, which worked using mysterious rays understood only by scientists, were crucial in the Battle of Britain, Germany harassed its enemies with rockets and, of course, there was the "atom bomb," which unleashed the terrible power of matter itself. By the time you retired in the late fifties or early sixties, space travel was an established fact. There was no telling where the next military threat would come from. Naturally, the armed forces of the world took "unidentified" flying objects very seriously. They developed techniques to evaluate every shred of data to see if there was useful intelligence in it. The general mood of paranoia during the Cold War led to waves of hysteria; McCarthyism on the one hand, UFO flaps on the other. By the mid 1960's, however, things began to change. As the nations of the world began to master spacefaring and developed an understanding of it, the climate of fear began to wane. Military "eyes in the sky" replaced ground based anecdotal evidence. Meanwhile, civilians became more intrigued with the romantic stories of George Adamski, et al, and began to look for salvation from the "space brothers." By the 1970's, people's interest in UFOs had ceased to have anything to do with flying objects, unidentified or otherwise. The psychological experimentation of the mid-century opened the door to "hypnotic regression" and "repressed memories." The era of "abduction stories" had begun. UFOlogy had become about dream interpretation. It is difficult to interest a serious scientist in dream interpretation. Throw in palpable hoaxes and spirit mediums and there is nothing left.

Not writing this over. connection reset and I lost like 3 paragraphs.

[edit on 23-4-2010 by draknoir2]

OH m first reply!!! I believe you would do this, as the task at hand asks us to do... Imagine this,
1:aliens have never visited earth
2: we have absolutely no idea what they are
3:what they look like
4: where they come from
Well i hope you get my point but we would have to ignore absolutely everything anyone has ever said about them, since it could be part of hoaxes, misinformation, ect.. UFO, is as everyone know, Unidentified Flying Object, and the problem with that is, that people are trying to identify the objects, without being in one, or even near one, i think what u see is what u get for starters. So for example, (last night i saw a UFO, North of me, at night time, looked like a star at first, it got brighter in a stationary position, when it "disapeared" that's only when it moved, so when it got bright again, it was in a different position, after about 5 times it did that, always changing it's position, the final time, i stayed lit, and held it's position for about half an hour.) That's it, that is all we know about the UFO. After that, collect other sightings, and try to put together a pattern, where, how it moved, colour ect ect, and nothing else, not what are they, where they come from, because unless ur speaking to an alien right now, u we will never know this. I believe without all the bias of what they are, maybe we can finally get a clear picture of just THEIR connection to each other, like observing germs, stars, animals, ect... and when we have that, we will know when they come, why they come, and where, that ladies and gentlemen, is what i think will be the best way to RESET Ufology. most of us have seen them, and most of us have noticed patterns, and different types in terms of colour distance and such, maybe speed also, and their movement. Putting aside all the BIG corporations and all that disclosure project stuff aside, maybe we will be able to see the clear picture. just a thought

Originally posted by cripmeister
reply to post by bluestreak53

 

You can't build a hypothesis before you have collected evidence that supports the hypothesis in some way. This is fundamental to the scientific method.

As this is about starting from scratch one can't start out with any preconceived notions.

I think that some pretty decent evidence has been collected and that the ETH can be based on it without stretching too far.

I'm with Jacques Vallee who pointed out that there really is not much significant physical evidence associated with UFO sightings that is available for study. But we do have UFO reports, which can be studied statistically. Like it or not, eyewitness testimony comprises the bulk of the data. If we decide to diminish the importance of this testimony, we may as well not study this phenomenon at all, because without it there is really no reason to suspect that there IS a phenomenon in the first place.

If you are willing to concede that there is some such thing as a reliable observer, then you can try to separate the reports you feel are reliable from the reports that you consider less reliable or unreliable. I'm not sure exactly how you would determine a witness's reliability, but there are ways.

This kind of thing has been done. When you look at a bunch of not-easily-explained reports from seemingly reliable witnesses from around the world who report seeing UFOs at close range (or at least UFOs of large apparent diameter, such as that of a silver dollar held at arm's length), you start finding patterns.

Many of the objects (or phenomena, if you prefer) appear to be solid and metallic. That's not to say they are composed of metal, only that they appear to be silvery and shiney and smooth, like an metallic object would appear if you were looking at one.

They often appear to be round or discoid or some variation on that kind of shape. In other words, their shape doesn't really appear to be conducive to powered flight. No wings or tail or visible means of propulsion, but somehow staying aloft.

These objects are often estimated to be tens of meters in size...estimated, mind you. It's often difficult for people to judge size when they don't know exactly how far away the thing is. That's why it's best to use angular size or apparent diameter. If what you see in the sky has the same apparent diameter as a large grapefruit held at arm's length, you can be fairly certain that it's not Venus.

They often give the appearance of being intelligently controlled. That is not to say they ARE intelligently controlled, just that they are somehow able to behave and manuever AS IF they were intelligently controlled. They stop in mid-flight and hover or reverse direction. They pace aircraft at wingtip distance for several minutes at a time and then fly off in another direction. They fly several together in formation. They move against the wind. They retreat to a safe distance when approached by intercepting military aircraft, then stop to hover, then retreat again when the jet tries to close in once more.

Given that lots of seemingly reliable people from many parts of the world over several decades have in all seriousness reported observing things (very similar things, you might notice) that at least APPEAR to be aircraft-size, unconventionally shaped, metallic, structured flying objects behaving as though they were under intelligent control and maneuvering in ways that appear to be well beyond any technology we could hope to achieve in the immediate future (much less post-WWII), it seems to me that the ETH would be at least in the running for a not-too-far-out hypothesis.

However, if we demand physical chunks of UFO, then we're simply out of luck, and we should just move on to more concrete matters. In such a case, I would also recommend relegating the bulk of history, psychology and sociology to the trash heap, as well as letting a whole lot of people out of prison.

First of all Ufology is too much non-scientific it needs to prove things using natural empiric methods.

When people see unindentified flying object they jump to conclusions and no-one tries to verify a thing.
Most UFO cases are common aerial objects seen from unknown angle.
While these observations are intresting they are useless without physical evidence such as radar input, video feedback and reliable witnesses such as officials which are able to give objective report. One should also note that credibility should be taken to account and if more evidence of physical kind exist then the case is more solid. Cases based only on one form of evidence should be disregarded automatically.
Even then these case should be considered proving only existence of previously unknown object. Jumping to conclusions such as "This was Alien spacecraft" make the whole observation unreliable, if there is report these things should be mentioned as possible explanation BUT not considered as an answer.
The most promising are physical encounters such as UFO landing traces, where solid physical evidence is found. Evidence should be taken and be verified to have been taken from the soil by witnesses, whom offer objective and reliable verification that these samples were taken in certain area and were not changed before entering laboratory. Laboratory work should be carried by at least three different laboratories to verify samples and all results should be positive. Of course investigator should provide comparison samples from area also verified by witnesses.
The more pieces of evidence then the case is more solid. Cases based on only one piece of evidence should be dismissed (only soil residue without radar sightings or witnesses). On sightings minimum amount of witnesses should be considered to be 10.

All abduction cases without any physical evidence should be disregarded automatically, because they are based on human perception. Hypnosis and other psychological tests should be considered unreliable and only used to support case if at least 3 different pieces of evidence are found.

We should rank UFO cases by amount of versatile evidence.

Extraterrestial origin might be in question if extraterrestial physical evidence is found on the area such as Alien microbes or previously unknown piece of metal.
This kind of case with many witnesses, many forms of physical evidence, radar info and more would be considered bulletproof case. Should be noted that all evidence should be examined to extreme to verify.

Originally posted by bluestreak53
One of the problems with UFOlogy, is that it might not be a scientific field by definition. I am saying that all other scientific fields are the study of "something".

Geology is the study of rocks.
Meteorology is the study of weather.
Botany is the study of plants.
Archaeology is the study of human artifacts.

UFOs is the study of what? Planets and Stars? Thats covered by astronomy. Birds and insects? Thats covered by biology.
Gas plasmas such as lightning? Isn't that covered by physics?

So really I would say that perhaps UFOlogy should be killed and replaced by studies which are more fitted to scientific inquiry by definition.

After all, the study of plasmas is already covered by physics.
The search for evidence of ET life is already ongoing as a sub-field within astronomy. How about search for evidence of ET artifacts in our solar system? I'm sure that most people on this forum agree that there is a possibility of intelligent life beyound our solar system and this does imply the possibiltyy that past civilizations have visited our solar system and left artifacts. I think that such a study is arguably a science, even though it is based on the "unproven conjecture" that life may exist elsewhere in the universe.

It is rather simple. Ufology combines all scientific fields. You could think following way:

Biology---- Exobiology---(Concentrates on studying extraterrestial biology)
Politics-----Exopolitics---(Studies Extraterrestial Politics)
History---Exohistory---(Studies Extraterrestial cultures and their history)
Physics---Exophysics---(Studies Physical phenomenoms not being able to be explained by current Physical knoledge)
Mathematics---Exomathematics---(Studies Mathematical problems related to extraterrestial)
Chemistry---Exochemistry---(Studies Chemistry related to Extraterrestial)
and etc.

Exoscientist should not be considered to be working in only one field. While being biochemist one could also consider oneself Exobiologist. People studying for exaple life on Mars could be considered Exobiologists.

Please remember that for example Aristotheles was biologist, physisist, astrologist, teologist, historian, economist, geographer and meteorologist. You always have to start somewhere....

[edit on 27-4-2010 by SpeDeZo]

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