Comments on: What Is the Question?

By: Greg Bishop

Greg Bishop — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 19:05:38 +0000

All,

We’re basically in agreement on these matters. What Nick and I have been driving home in this blog is that science and ufology need to expand their horizons for our understanding of UFOs to change and improve.

The main reason for the present stalemate is that people like to have answers, even if they’re wrong or unprovable. If we have a mental box to put things in, many of us move on to other things. What we’re arguing is that the “extraterrestrial” box is full of holes and not many want to admit that it has been leaking for a long time.

By: red pill junkie

red pill junkie — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 16:37:55 +0000

Personally misteranderson, I have a little troubles with terms like PARA-normal, as it implies there are some things that escaoe the realm of Nature.

For Science Nature is the physical world we can observe, but then it gets more complicated, since if we can’t observe something at the moment, does it necessarily means we will not be able to observe it in the future, with better or more potent instruments, that are nothing but extensions of our rather limmited senses?

Because right now for example, Dark Energy and Dark Matter are part of the realm of para-normal phenomena, in the sense that

a)we know next to nothing about them

b)we have no way to observe them, and

c) it may very well be they do not exist in the first place.

Maybe it’s just that para-normal is acomfy epistemological term that helps us deal with our unfathomable ignorance of the world we inhabit.

By: misteranderson

misteranderson — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:13:39 +0000

Here’s an idea:
-Read George Hansen’s “The Trickster & The Paranormal” You get the idea that UFO’s ought to be grouped into the category of paranormal. And that paranormal phenomena yields events or personas that seem to fit the “trickster” archetype. And like laboratory PSI research, it will always evade institutionalization, professionalization, & hard data. Like PSI it will always produce an intermittent & weak signal. We know something is there, but it will not provide precise defintion & it’s character will be indeterminate.

By: red pill junkie

red pill junkie — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:35:07 +0000

This is something that is linked to a simmilar discussion I had at the Daily Grail site. The ethymological definition of SCIENCE is “knowledge”, and the scientific disciplines we are so familiar with relly on a set of ordered rules wich we call Scientific Method in order to try and make educated interpretations about observed phenomena in nature.

Granted that the UFO phenomenon, by its very nature, may be found impossible to yield to the rigours demanded by orthodox science.

But that does not impede modern Ufologists to try to come up with some sort of METHODOLOGY that helps us approach the UFO mistery in such a way that can broaden our understanding and expectatons of it.

This I think should be the task of the ufologists of this century, regardless of the fact this generation most likely will not come any closer to know the real nature or purpose of UFOs, but it would honor nonetheless the efforts made in the past by serious researchers such as Hynek and Vallee, and it would help future generations to have something to build upon.

Well, at least IMHO.

By: crgintx

crgintx — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 10:09:23 +0000

With the apparent lack of real scientific investigation into the subject, the study of anomalous aerial phenomena still needs a longer gestation period before it can truly called a legitimate science. The mainstream scientific community would rather it die stillborn lest they end up with egg on their faces if and when the mystery is revealed. Much of it may stay permanently buried because if so much as one abduction case is found to be the work of gov’t sponsored scientists doing Lord knows what inhumane experiments on unwilling participants, those Dr. Mengele’s involved will face criminal charges and civil suits out the wahzoo as will the gov’t. Considering what has already been revealed about past horrific medical experiments performed on the military and minorities, a clandestine multi-generational program of genetic experiments isn’t that much of stretch for the public to believe. Any of those persons involved should be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible. That said how can we as curious beings not want to know what or who is flying in our skies above our heads? I can’t believe that humanity itself has become that jaded. Bluebook is over 40 years old and there hasn’t been another serious survey done since and that my friends is a crying shame.