by Leslie Kean
And then there is liberalism, the essential core of modern governance. Even as it produces rational subjects who know that “belief” in UFOs is absurd, liberalism justifies itself as a discourse that produces free-thinking subjects who might doubt it.
The kind of resistance that can best exploit these weaknesses might be called “militant agnosticism.” By “agnostic” here we mean that no position on whether UFOs are extraterrestrial should be taken until they have been systematically studied. Resistance must be agnostic because, given our current knowledge, neither denial nor belief in the extraterrestrial hypothesis is justified; we simply do not know. Concretely, agnosticism means “seeing” the UFO for what it is rather than ignoring it, taking it seriously as a real and truly unidentified object, broadly defined to include any natural phenomenon. Since it is precisely such acknowledgment of UFOs’ reality that the taboo forbids, “seeing” alone is a kind of personal resistance.
To be politically effective, however, resistance must also be militant, by which we mean public and strategic. Indeed, purely private agnosticism about UFOs, of the kind that people in the modern world might have about God, does nothing to break the spiral of silence that surrounds the issue and so in effect contributes to it. To break the cycle resistance needs to be directed at the central problem posed by UFO phenomena, namely reducing our collective ignorance about what they are, rather than at the side issue of official secrecy, which strategically is a diversion. (If we’re correct that governments are hiding not the truth but their own ignorance, then even if they released all their files we would be no closer to knowing what UFOs are.) That is to say, what is needed above all else is a systematic science of UFOs, on the basis of which we might eventually be able to make informed judgments about them, as opposed to simply reiterating dogmas one way or the other.
To go beyond the minimal scientific research that has already been done and make new breakthroughs, such a science will have to do three things. First, it will need to focus on aggregate patterns rather than individual cases. Given our inability to manipulate or predict UFO phenomena, there are inherent limits to what case studies can show. Already, official analyses of selected cases have sometimes been able to rule out conventional explanations—what they are not—but this does not tell us what those UFOs are. UFOs are like meteorological phenomena, which can be properly studied only in the aggregate.
Second, a science of UFOs12 will need to focus on finding new reports rather than analyzing old ones. This is because existing high-quality reports are relatively few in number and were collected by accident and through a variety of means, making it almost impossible to find patterns. Moreover, there is only so much information that can be extracted from a historical report, particularly one disconnected from knowledge of the environmental context. Trying to generate new reports systematically might greatly increase our data points, and put them automatically into context, as well.
Finally, a science will need to focus on collecting objective, physical evidence rather than subjective, eyewitness accounts, for only the former will convince the authorities that UFOs “exist,” much less that the extraterrestrial hypothesis is worthy of consideration. Of course, getting such evidence is no easy task, but as shown by existing radar and video images, as well as chemical analyses of a few UFO “landing sites,” it can be done.
Any serious attempt to satisfy these requirements will require considerable technological infrastructure (radar installations or other monitoring equipment) and large amounts of money. Normally one would expect the state to provide such capital. Although every effort should be made to bring this about, our particular theory of the UFO taboo—that it is a functional imperative of modern, anthropocentric rule—necessarily makes us pessimistic that world governments will act anytime soon. As such, it seems important strategically to consider, alongside efforts to enlist the state, alternative ways of establishing a science of UFOs.
Whether tackled by the state or by civil society, or both, the problem of UFO ignorance is fundamentally political before it is scientific, and as such a truly militant agnosticism will be necessary to overcome it. Even then, there is no guarantee that systematic study would actually end human ignorance about UFOs; that must await the science. But after sixty years of official denials about this potentially extraordinary phenomenon, it is time to try.
CHAPTER 28
Facing an Extreme Challenge
A deeper understanding of the unconscious aspects of the UFO taboo—the ones otherwise beyond our reach—is essential if we are to finally close the door on old ways of thinking and move this issue forward. The provocative ideas presented in the previous chapter may not answer all the questions, but the two political scientists make an intriguing and persuasive argument. They state that the fundamental problem afflicting true understanding of UFOs is ignorance, not secrecy, and that this ignorance is accepted because it serves a political purpose. Hidden forces and fears lurking under the surface of this political ignorance sustain it, while also transforming it into something far more potent: an active denial and zealous prohibition against even considering UFOs as a serious subject. The problem is more energized, more confrontational than simple ignorance, as we have seen. It manifests as the familiar taboo, something so accepted and taken for granted that most of us have never thought twice about it.
That political purpose is a powerful one: to maintain the imperative that we must avoid facing the possibility that any UFOs could be extraterrestrial. For if they were, that would mean that these miraculous craft, vehicles, objects of unknown origin—whatever they are—are generated by a more powerful “other” from somewhere else. Such a concept is simply unacceptable, and can generate a primordial terror in human beings. We take care of this through the political strategy of denying that UFOs exist at all, a stance that protects us, however temporarily, from having to confront this unthinkable threat to our core stability.
Scientists have their own reasons to be fearful. UFOs demonstrate characteristics appearing to contradict the fundamental laws of physics on which our understanding of the universe is based; if scientists did make a concerted effort to identify them, is it possible they might find the phenomenon somehow “unknowable” through our current methodologies? So far, the UFOs have made any study difficult—they come ever so close, but not quite close enough. Does this mean we might never be able to learn what they are, even if we tried? Maybe, all of a sudden, the phenomenon will reveal itself to us before we know much of anything about it, and we’ll be powerless to react.
Each of us can explore the roots of our own resistance to accepting the reality of UFOs, a process that hopefully has already begun for most readers. We may not be fully aware of buried responses and thought patterns, especially since the resistance is universally accepted. When they ridicule UFOs, skeptics do not consciously worry about abstractions such as anthropocentric humanism, or the loss of statehood, or the threat of annihilation, but that doesn’t mean these issues do not underlie their knee-jerk reactions. Government officials don’t actively contemplate such fears either, when choosing to ignore UFOs or to keep information from the public, following the decades-old trend. Scientists conveniently claim there is no evidence, but they are not thinking about the potential challenge UFOs bring to the foundation of science as they know it. So much operates outside our field of conscious awareness, perpetuating a kind of blindness.
A personal exploration might reveal only a strange discomfort with the whole notion of UFOs, an automatic, instinctual avoidance of the challenge they inherently represent. As Wendt and Duvall describe it, “the UFO taboo is akin to denial in psychoanalysis.” Without pondering it, many would probably say they can’t put their finger on what this challenge really is. For those willing to examine further, perhaps the “skeptical arguments” articulated in the previous chapter will surface; or, for others, there will be religious conflicts. Most of us would prefer not to contemplate the subject at all, because we have been han
ded a convenient way out—an accepted prohibition against “believing in UFOs” that allows us to identify with the “elite” position. My hope is that, maybe now, having digested all the material presented in this book, those who have managed to come this far will not be as easily influenced by this transparent taboo as they were before.
Unconscious fears about the implications of UFOs most likely lodged in the larger mind of the American political system beginning in the late 1940s, when UFOs first burst upon the scene at a national level. Yet a certain portion of the American population was already predisposed to view reports of “flying saucers” as hoaxes or exaggerations. In 1938, Orson Welles’s famous radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds panicked numerous listeners with its all-too-realistic dramatization of an invasion by Martian spaceships, presented as if it were a live, unfolding news report. People actually fled their New Jersey homes—the site of the alleged invasion—and many others were convinced that the Earth was indeed under attack and we all would die. The broadcast tapped into an entirely different kind of fear than Americans had ever encountered before, something inexplicably terrifying. Those impacted by this would have a harder time trusting future reports of unidentified flying objects, and in this sense, a self-imposed discomfort with UFO reports was reinforced at the very outset.
But in those early years and into the 1950s, we were in our infancy when dealing with the possible meanings of the UFO phenomenon. Military and intelligence agencies were preoccupied with the task of trying to discern what these things might be in the context of the Cold War. The U.S. Air Force coped with public concerns by trying its best to explain away all UFOs, and if it couldn’t, by pretending that it could. This incipient denial, bolstered by the 1953 Robertson Panel and then strengthened by the 1968 Condon report, has become even more entrenched over time. Perhaps as we learned more about UFOs after the close of Project Blue Book, gaining a clearer picture of at least their characteristics and behavior, we progressively had more reason to be worried about their threatening aspects. When J. Allen Hynek battled the problem of the taboo in the 1980s, he noted that officials had “a powerful desire to do nothing.”1 But he also added ominously that “history has shown that in time the dam breaks, sometimes cataclysmically.”2
At this point, we have the option of encouraging the dam to break—slowly and methodically, rather than cataclysmically, if possible. We must recognize that the potential dangers of acknowledging and investigating UFOs are real. The fears are understandable, and even justified; and yes, the repercussions could be socially destabilizing.
But no matter how this enigma is eventually resolved, the American political establishment is monopolizing any decision making for the time being. Official bodies within other countries have obviously not been overcome by projected fears, nor do they think that any risks inherent in discovery justify ignoring UFOs. They are already moving forward, and I suspect most of these officials believe it is more dangerous to ignore UFOs than it is to confront them. The majority of the American public, as shown by various polls, already recognize the reality of UFOs, and they don’t appear to be traumatized about it. Rather, they seem to want to know more.
For the benefit of the political establishment, I believe that bringing any and all fears to consciousness is our only choice. When we decide, as a society, to honestly deal with UFOs, we will be entering into a large-scale “therapeutic” process that will diminish, or even ultimately extinguish, the power of the forces sustaining the taboo. By finally shedding light on these dynamics, we will disarm them. This is perhaps the only way for all of us to take the next step, because it will undermine the very foundation of the dysfunctional political system in place, the central obstacle standing in our way.
In the meantime, I hope all the writers for this book have helped assuage some of that existential anxiety. Understanding brings relief, and, as the clichés say, knowledge is power and the truth will set you free. As true “militant agnostics,” we can recognize that political change must incorporate these more philosophical considerations. As in Hynek’s metaphor, the waters are rising to a level that will eventually compel the dam to break. We can find a healthy resolution to the challenge of UFOs and all they represent, and we must do so.
With the launching of a new U.S. government agency and the liberation of new resources, science could take its rightful place in the study of UFOs by claiming the subject as its own and beginning a new inquiry. Such a scenario would represent a dramatic turnaround from a past in which a few noble scientists made an effort to bring this controversial issue to the table, while others, although interested, were inhibited by the risk of professional ridicule. The rest succumbed to the notion that there was nothing there worth studying, as put forth in the summary of the Condon report.
A few scientists have actively studied and investigated UFOs despite the professional obstacles, and we have much to learn from them despite the passage of time. In 1968, the House Science and Astronautics Committee heard the testimony of Dr. James E. McDonald, senior atmospheric physicist3 of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, who had spent two years investigating UFO cases. As a result of his focused study—a rarity within his profession—McDonald told the congressional committee that “no other problem within your jurisdiction is of comparable scientific and national importance,” and this extraordinary matter should not be ignored. If other scientists had bothered to undertake such studies, many would have reached the same conclusion, and we’d be in a very different situation today. Instead, shortly thereafter, the University of Colorado’s biased and misleading report quashed the efforts of pioneer scientists such as McDonald to interest the scientific community in studying UFOs.
Since then, Dr. Peter A. Sturrock, emeritus professor of applied physics at Stanford University and emeritus director of Stanford’s Center for Space Science and Astrophysics, has taken the lead in combating the effects of the Condon report. In 1975, he conducted a survey of the American Astronomical Society and found that 75 percent of the respondents wished to see more information on the UFO subject published in scientific journals. Due to the fact that these journals rejected papers on UFOs and other anomalies out of hand, Sturrock founded the Society for Scientific Exploration and its Journal of Scientific Exploration, which began publication in 1987.
Sturrock is perhaps one of the most eminent scientists ever to apply the conventional scientific method to the UFO phenomenon. He has received awards from the American Astronomical Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Cambridge University, the Gravity Foundation, and the National Academy of Sciences. The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics noted his “major contribution to the fields of geophysics, solar physics and astrophysics, leadership in the space science community, and dedication to the pursuit of knowledge.” He has published five edited volumes, three monographs, three hundred articles and reports, and a 2009 memoir.4
In 1997, Sturrock initiated and directed the first major scientific inquiry into the UFO phenomenon since the Condon study, in order to see what a new group of scientists would conclude about UFOs. A four-day conference was convened in upstate New York to rigorously review physical evidence associated with UFO reports. Seven investigators—including Jean-Jacques Velasco and Dr. Richard Haines—presented well-researched cases with photographic evidence, ground traces and injuries to vegetation, analysis of debris from UFOs, radar evidence, interference with automobile functioning and aircraft equipment, apparent gravitational or inertial effects, and physiological effects on witnesses. The review panel of nine scientists from diverse fields—most were “decidedly skeptical agnostics” who did not have prior involvement with UFOs, according to Sturrock—reviewed the presentations and provided a sober, carefully worded summary. Although they were unable to conclude anything specific in such a short time, the panel recommended continued careful evaluation of UFO reports. It recognized that the
Condon study was out of date, and that whenever there are unexplained phenomena, of course they should be investigated. And yes, the further investigation and study of UFO data could contribute to the resolution of the UFO problem. Those remarks were a significant advance on the position of the scientific establishment.5
Still, this review didn’t change much. Scientists continue to face obstacles, Sturrock notes, such as: a lack of funding for research, a false assumption that there is no data or evidence, the perception that the topic is “not respectable,” and the a priori rejection of research papers by journals. One impediment is that instead of looking at the data and taking steps to acquire more, many scientists have tended to interpret the issue theoretically and then give a theoretical reason for dismissing it. For example, Astronomer Frank Drake stated in 1998 that if UFO reports are real, they must be due to extraterrestrial spacecraft. However, interstellar travel is impossible, therefore the reports must be discounted. This argument boils down to the familiar skeptical assertion that it cannot happen, therefore it does not happen. “In normal scientific research, observational evidence takes precedence over theory,” Sturrock points out. “If it does happen, it can happen.”6
In January 2010, the prestigious Royal Society of London convened a two-day conference on “the detection of extraterrestrial life and the consequences for science and society.” Physicists, chemists, biologists, astronomers, anthropologists, and theologians came together—along with representatives from NASA, the European Space Agency, and the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs—to discuss the scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligence. But one issue was not part of the mix: the still unexplained UFO phenomenon. Once again, it was as if the whole mass of evidence simply doesn’t exist. And I am quite sure that if any presenters were open or curious, perhaps even informed, about the subject, they would never risk saying so among such esteemed colleagues at a high-profile forum. But the fact that this meeting took place at all, and received international media coverage, illustrates the increasing fascination and greater acceptance being afforded the search for life beyond planet Earth. I believe that after the United States establishes its own government agency to spur UFO research, and thereby changes attitudes within the scientific community, the next such conference will include a credentialed speaker on the mystery of UFOs.