How 'healthy' are your local UFO societies?

I don't want to seem like a wet sponge but I just returned from the quarterly meeting of the Victorian UFO Research Society (VUFORS) and I was really underwhelmed...

They've been presenting quarterly meeting nights for nearly 30 years in the same Royal Society Building. Tonight was the last meeting there, as the rent is going up next year and they can't afford to pay for the lecture hall. Furthermore, they might drop back to two meeting nights a year, instead of four.

I don't mean to be critical to the society in any way - they are all volunteers running the place. However, I do pay a membership fee so I am entitled to comment!

Most meeting nights barely have any news worth attending to hear and the quality/quantity of sighting reports isn't great. We had about ten sighting reports read to us, gathered over the last quarter. I would have thought that the State of Victoria would have more than ten reports over a three month span???

There were about 20 people in the theatre. The most I have ever seen in the past five years has been about 40.

I am sitting here wondering if I just saw one of the final nails being hammered into the VUFORS coffin tonight?

How strong/active are your local UFO groups in your area? Do they seem to be in decline or growing? Is the internet taking over from where traditional groups used to fill the void for people to meet and discuss UFOs?

There is nothing on this planet that would get me in a room with 20 locals sharing UFO stories.

I mean...the non-UFO-seeing locals are CRAZY enough.

No need to raise the bar.

I DO like your avatar...what game is it from?

to be honest and objective - you really need to examine the state of a variety of ` local interest groups `

from your avatar , i make the assumption that you have some interest in tabletop wargaming - hows your local society doing ?

hows your town chess club faring ?

the ametuer dramatics society in your town

the photography club ?

etc etc - you get my drift

reply to post by ignorant_ape


Our mini-war-gaming group is great and "not dorky"!

And more then half of us are not even overweight!

Just thought I'd share.



[edit on 7-12-2009 by Mr Mask]

I suspect a lot of UFO groups have been hit hard by the Internet, because, a lot of the stuff they used to offer is done more efficiently online, without barriers of subscription fees. I'm not going to mention which group, because it'd be unfair to them, the last UFO group meeting I attended was about ten years ago. The problems they were having then were very difficult to resolve:

How could they satisfy the critical thinkers among their membership without alienating believers?

It doesn't surprise me now, but it surprised me then, was that there were effective investigators involved (at the top of the organisation), who, because of their thoroughness, were basically (potential oxymoron) "sceptical believers". That meant that the usual 'Hey wow - genuine UFO real prove me wrong' and other crap stuff wasn't passed on. Which tended to alienate believers because that's what they signed up for.

I can remember one believer saying something akin to "I came here for UFOs, not astronomy" (IIRC there was a lecture about commonly misidentified UFOs).

I'm really hoping that eventually there are 'post internet' UFO groups that can solve such problems. I think MUFON's CMS (despite being old in Internet terms) is something that should be aped & updated by all current UFO groups, because it goes some way to providing new cases to sceptics and believers alike.

I suspect that audiences are going to be more sceptical in the future, because going on the Internet is often like swimming through BS, and scepticism is a natural reaction to that (and an Internet audience that is growing, still). Any successful UFO group is going to have to cater to sceptics as well as believers and make far better use of the Internet. I hope some UFO groups get involved with forums like ATS's UFO forum. It's win-win.

My local chess, wargaming and other societies are doing just fine.

[edit on 7-12-2009 by jackphotohobby]

Originally posted by tezzajw
How strong/active are your local UFO groups in your area? Do they seem to be in decline or growing? Is the internet taking over from where traditional groups used to fill the void for people to meet and discuss UFOs?

The Internet certainly has affected traditional UFO groups.

After all, one of the main (if not sole) benefits of paying membership dues to a UFO group was receipt of that group's publication. Now that you can get much of the information on the Internet that was published by such groups, those publications are now less important (and, in fact, are often pretty out-of-date by the time they are received).

Over here in England, the biggest national UFO group (BUFORA) has had a tough few years and undergone dramatic changes. Various other long-standing groups have also died, e.g. the Southampton UFO Group.

Various UFO magazines have also come and gone in recent years.

On the other hand, new groups continue to start up - not to mention the huge numbers of UFO websites and blogs.

There always was a high turnover in UFO groups. Many, after all, were basically one or two active individuals so when they lost interest or died, the "group" would also die...

Kind Regards,

Isaac


[edit on 7-12-2009 by IsaacKoi]

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
to be honest and objective - you really need to examine the state of a variety of ` local interest groups `

I don't know where you pulled that from, as other clubs and interest groups have nothing to do with UFOs. They have different reasons for meeting and different agendas. You can't play tabletop wargames with your tabletop wargame figures across the internet.

UFO societies do not need people to turn up for discussion sessions any more. The stronger societies will prevail, probably... while some will dissolve into obscurity.

Hem...Well last I saw the Tennessee MUFON seemed like it was probably not the flagship MUFON chapter, but as already stated, with the internet today there is not much you really need to pay for anymore. Personally I think ATS is the easiest and best place to get any new information, because you have so many people from all over trying to get to the bottom of something. IMHO the whole ufology field is changing, with sites like ATS with members from all over, many paying members of some UFO group themselves it is kind of making pay UFO entities obsolete, other than the field work, but as far as information propagation you can get almost anything for free online now much quicker than before. Personally I think groups like MUFON are okay with that, it takes a lot of stress off of them so they can focus on the all important field work. I just feel that it is quickly becoming more of a global UFO network, rather than the various individual networks of old.

Originally posted by jkrog08
with sites like ATS with members from all over, many paying members of some UFO group themselves it is kind of making pay UFO entities obsolete, other than the field work,

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

It seems to me that VUFORS are little more than a contact number hotline for UFO sightings, with some occasional investigations done to follow up on the better leads.

Someone has to 'man the phones', so to speak.

Originally posted by tezzajw
You can't play tabletop wargames with your tabletop wargame figures across the internet.

NOT YET you can't! Give it time...with leaps in technology, science, and Universal "geekyness"...It is my personal belief that ALL humans will have the ability to Mini-war game each other...even from bases on the surface of Mars.

Still wish I knew what game you play...do I really gotta google pictures of "skull headed" minis online to find out what game you play?

PS-On-topic...yes, the internet surly took the wind out of public-UFO-groups and the sail they used to harness it.

Originally posted by Mr Mask
Still wish I knew what game you play...do I really gotta google pictures of "skull headed" minis online to find out what game you play?

Completely off topic to the thread. My avatar is an Eversor Assassin from Warhammer 40K.

He's a genetically modified, completely psychotic, one man killing machine. When not in 'use', he is cryo-frozen to preserve him from death. There's a lethal mix of toxins and drugs inside him that soup him up for extra combat effectiveness. He's only 'thawed' out for his missions. Most of his missions are usually high profile terror strikes, where he can potentially take down large numbers of the enemy command structure while making a good public display of it to demoralise opposing troops.

If he's our first contact with an Alien race, then we're doomed!!!

There's no way that these games can be played across the internet, where they can still be enjoyed the same way. Sometimes, you need to look your opponent in their eye... There's still a lot to be said for human contact and interaction.

If you're not sure about the Warhammer 40K Universe, you can read lots of it on the internet. It's an extremely xenophobic place. Constant war and maybe a version of a future that we are headed towards?

reply to post by tezzajw


Ah! Thank you!

I also play WH40K...couldn't place the figure.

Thanks, sorry to derail your topic!

FOR THE EMPEROR!

Adaptus Astartes for life...kill for the living...kill for the dead.

well here if you talk about aliens then your "not normal" soooo...

reply to post by tezzajw


When it comes to UFO enthusiasts you have 2 kinds of people: experiencers and non-experiencers. Not all experiencers have seen a real UFO, just something they could not understand and we all know that many things seen in the sky can be misidentified.

People that get together are there to either share their experiences and possibly ask for others' opinions or they're there to hear others' accounts and also ask for opinions.

Whatever, they are all going to hear about things that happened with no one being able to present anything more than film/video/photographs. If no film/video/photographs are presented then they're going to have to be satisfied with hearsay. Than can get boring real fast!

Starting in the 1960s I used to go to UFO lectures in NYC almost every week and even though they didn't reveal anything new, they were exciting and in one lecture when the speaker explained how a UFO operates and he ended the lecture with "And the UFO takes off" everybody burst into a hearty applause! Those were the exciting days of UFOs, before the outbreak of major bs.

Now, a UFO lecture is mostly bs, especially when Roswell, Area 51, alien abductions, secret bases and tunnels, reverse engineering, disclosure, etc., is the topic or one of the topics.

The only lecture I would attend would have to present Vallee as a speaker as there is no one more honest than he is. He may be far out at times but he is not a bs'er. There's no one else I would go hear. And I'm sure that he would command a decent turnout. Perhaps you ought to ask him to speak at your venue.