ALIEN RADIX: The Shape of Things That Come

ALIEN RADIX: The Shape of Things That Come
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Monday, November 30, 2009

ANALYSIS PARALYSIS AND INVESTIGATION CONSTIPATION

ANALYSIS PARALYSIS and INVESTIGATION CONSTIPATION
by Ufonalyzer November, 2009

A reader of Edward Ruppelt’s fine book on UFOs, “The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects”, will find it apparent that this man had been converted to the belief that UFOs were real even though the book is written from the perspective of a neutral investigator. One can tell that authors like Frank Scully and Frank Edwards were quick converts to believers. It did not take any of these guys that long to realize that here, right before our eyes, is a technological phenomenon that is almost certainly extraterrestrial AND that a coverup is in effect. It appears that historian Richard Dolan was converted after a few years of studying the matter.

But there is another breed of ufologist out there that just can’t seem to cross the threshold of making a statement on what their true opinions and theories are on the UFO subject (that is, if they have any). A few months ago the Steve Binnall radio show interviewed an excellent Swedish ufologist. This person has been investigating UFOs for over 40 years, and is very, very thorough. It was extremely surprising to hear him say things in the interview that indicated he is holding back in making a judgment on what UFOs may be. On the other hand there are people like Dr Paul R Hill, author of the excellent book, “Unconventional Flying Objects”, who knew instantly with his first sighting that these were technological machines not of this world. He then set about studying them from a scientific perspective.

But to study a phenomenon for 40 years and still not be willing to express your opinion on one side or the other is actually kind of strange. Talk about Analysis Paralysis and Investigation Constipation! Time to s--t or get off the pot.

This is not quite the same as those ufologists who might be interviewed by the national media on, say, the Larry King show. Surely most of them believe in the extraterrestrial and high tech nature of the phenomenon, yet when challenged in front of the mainstream TV audience, they usually defer to caution and won’t say that they are staunch believers. Instead what they say is, “All I’m saying is that this phenomenon deserves serious scientific study and should NOT be casually dismissed by the media and suppressed by the government” or something equivalent. One of the few ufologists who is brave enough to openly express his belief is Stanton Friedman. He unabashedly states the UFOs are extraterrestrial space machines. It is understandable why these other ufologists would pull back on making that statement about UFOs with such absolute conviction—it is to avoid the risk of alienating the audience with the appearance of dogmatic fanaticism. They obviously feel that taking a reserved, more scientific high road on the matter will alienate fewer folks and may even convert some disbelievers into becoming objective thinkers about the matter.

One ufologist who always took the high road was Allen Hynek. Dr. Hynek held any opinion in reserve, perhaps due to being worried about the dignity of his scientific profession or maybe due to his past obfuscation of the issue as an employee of the Air Force. He fits into the same category as the Swedish ufologist mentioned in the second paragraph. He, too, had Analysis Paralysis and Investigation Constipation. In Dr. Hynek’s introduction to Jacques Vallee’s book, “The UFO Enigma”, 1966, he states that he had been involved with the Air Force on UFOs for 18 years as of 1966. In his 1972 book, “The UFO Experience-A Scientific Inquiry”, he claims it was 20 years as of 1972. The math does not add up, so this writeup is going to say that he was deeply involved with studying UFOs for 24 years as of 1972. He was aware of criticism of his noncommittal stand on the subject as is proven in his 1966 intro to Vallee’s book: “Perhaps I should have spoken earlier; eighteen years is a long time. But it takes more evidence to get an idea accepted in a revolutionary field…” and “Nonetheless, I have of late been rebuked, in my correspondence with people whose integrity I respect, with the charge that I failed to call the importance of the air force data on UFO’s to the attention of my peers.” As far as the Ufonalyzer can tell, what he wished he had spoken about earlier was his belief that UFOs are deserving of serious scientific study! Yikes! One hundred per cent of people who are interested in UFOs believe this after maybe two weeks of involvement! Is that all he is willing to say after 24 years? He keeps talking about the scientific method in his writings. The Ufonalzyer thought that scientists, when confronted with a new, unknown phenomenon, would (1) study the information at hand about the phenomenon, and then (2) form a hypothesis, and then (3) devise ways to objectively prove or disprove that hypothesis. What was Dr. Hynek’s hypothesis? Did he ever get past (1)? In his 1972 book, “The UFO Experience-A Scientific Inquiry” he wrote that he actually recommended against the ETH hypothesis to the Condon committee because it could not be proven with the type of data that had been collected. What could be proven, he believed, was that the phenomenon still remained unexplainable. Not being a Hynek scholar, the Ufonalyzer had to search for something in his UFO opinions that was actually significant, but up to at least 1972, nothing was found. Finally, according to Wikipedia, in 1977 after 29 years in ufology’s mainstream, Dr. Hynek actually talked about 3 hypotheses that he considered for the phenomenon, but it was something like “maybe it’s this, it could be that, and have you considered this other one too?” Kind of useless. By the way, the 3 hypotheses were the Extraterrestrial Intelligence Hypothesis, the Extradimensional Intelligence Hypothesis, and the Material and the Mental Hypothesis. By then, this was kind of unoriginal and weakened by multiple choices, plus it was way too late to be helpful to ufology. One can tell from everything about him that he was a nice guy and a smart one at that. He just must have wanted bolder ufologists to lead the way.

With regard to upholding the scientific method when pursuing a UFO case, it is obvious that UFO investigators must be as scientific as possible.This helps get rid of the bad cases and it helps ward off the skeptics and the giggle factor people. However, constant lecturing about the scientific method and the dignity of science when discussing a phenomenon that does not easily conform to scientific investigation (no samples; rare, random events; science that is beyond our own; psychic content; secrecy and suppression) does not help advance the cause of ufology one bit.

UFO history has taught us the following important lesson: Saying that more scientific investigation is needed on UFOs is NOT going to convince any scientist or university to accept the challenge to start a truly open scientific investigation. It is time for the TV ufologists to strap on a pair like Stanton Friedman has done and give some opinions about what they truly believe based on their own objective study.

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