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SOURCE
If the social phenomenon of UFOs tells us anything, it is that the future of the movement turned out differently than its proponents expected. For at least twenty years after Kenneth Arnold’s sighting, believers expected that sometime soon, any day now really, a UFO would land openly—or would crash and be recovered—or otherwise be indisputably revealed. At the very least, believers hoped, the Air Force would end its alleged cover-up of the data it held about UFOs and disclose that information to the public. By the late 1960s, this expectation changed. With mass sightings having gone on for twenty years with no tangible result, UFOlogists’ hopes transferred to UFO abductions providing the desperately sought Holy Grail of proof. When abductions had gone on for thirty years without producing anything tangible, excitement shifted to claims of crashed saucers. The idea of a major “disclosure” coming soon has long been a major hope and expectation in UFOlogy, paralleling the Christian fundamentalists’ expectation of the Second Coming. The respected U.S. News and World Report published in its Washington Whispers column on April 18, 1977, “Before the year is out, the Government—perhaps the President—is expected to make what are described as ‘unsettling disclosures’ about UFOs.” Perhaps the editors had forgotten that same magazine’s cover story of April 7, 1950, “revealing” that flying saucers were in fact a secret Navy project. Every few years, UFO disclosure mania rises to a fever pitch but always subsides.
Originally posted by Fastwalker81
They also claim "a few" astronauts believe in UFOs, again a lie as the list is alot longer.
Originally posted by Fastwalker81
They leave out the really credible cases (Belgium UFO wave for example) because they cannot debunk them.
Originally posted by yeti101
really nice article lots of stuff i didnt know about especially the 60-70s.
so whats the next fad to hit ufology. Personally i think every aspect has been exhausted. Where do you go after an abduction and anal probe?
abductions are really marginalised now but i bet give it 10 or 20 years they will be back ..with even bigger probes.
Originally posted by SaviorComplex
I do not know if I would so far to qualify the changing prospective and focus of the field as a "fad." It is more of an evolution of the beliefs, born in no small part of a failure to see expectations met. When the desired expectations are not met, something must be done to account for the failure and fed on the popular-culture of the day. I think there is a relation between the ascent of the "disclosure" movement and cover-up beliefs with the growing distrust of the government.
Originally posted by SaviorComplex
You are arguing semantics and prespective, here.
The point of the article was not a case-by-case study of every UFO report in history. It is an overview of the field itself as a sociological phenomenon, and how it is changed since Roswell, the "...evolving system of paranoia."