SCIENCE and the UFO CONTROVERSY

"Mainstream science has not satisfactorily engaged with the UFO mystery. The disappointing history of that engagement will be discussed here and what can be done and should be done will be covered here."

Australian UFO researcher Bill Chalker makes some interesting points at the link below about how 'politicised and militarised' science has tried to bury the UFO subject, he also raises some important points about inconsistencies and the apparent lack of objectivity of the Condon report and how authors such as David Saunders, R. Harkins and John Fuller attempted to inform the general public.

There's also information about how Stanford University astrophysicist Peter Sturrock exposed the 'huge disconnecton' between Condon’s conclusions and the actual reports of the scientists who conducted the research and how many of his final summaries were 'variously misleading, false or inaccurate'.

When politicised & militarised Science tried to bury the UFO subject – the Condon report exposed

E Book Link

43 years ago the controversy plagued Colorado University Condon committee scientific study of UFOs was released – the result of a two year US Air Force half a million dollar funded investigation. It concluded “that nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge. Careful consideration of the record as it is available to us leads us to conclude that further extensive study of the UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.”


The US Air force used the report to end its public bondage to the UFO problem. The notorious Project Blue Book was terminated and publicly at least the Air Force were out of the UFO business. This was the “fix” that was intended all along. The Condon report has since been used as the basis of continuing mainstream scientific and sceptical rejection of the reality of UFOs.


Just how credible was the Condon report and its conclusions? The National Academy of Sciences endorsed the study. Much of the media uncritically embraced the report. UFOs were dead and buried. However no one informed the UFO corpse. In 1973 UFOs were back with a vengeance in the one of the biggest UFO waves the US had ever experienced. UFOs have refused to be put down and they continue to be reported and continue to be marginalised by science..

SCIENCE and the UFO CONTROVERSY

It's not suprising, that the lack of any fruitful information, if any, came out of the Condon Report. That is to say.... that any any UFO evidence of the ETI variety, probably---- by a foregone conclusion---- from the United States Air Force, was going to managed by a state of frivolous conclusion's from the Condon Panel.

It just goes to show you Karl ---- that you will not get jack ---- when you have to depend on full disclosure.... from a defense organization, such as the U.S. Air Force, that is dominated by right wing radical Christian Evangelical's.

Cheers,

Erno86

Interesting read, thanks Karl.

We already know how biased the Condon Report was (see this thread www.abovetopsecret.com...) lol

I believe the sort of public ridicule and dismissal of UFO sightings is actually somewhat linked to the Condon study and possibly the government cover-up of UFOs. Once the results of the 'investigation' were published, it was thought that the study had proved UFOs were all mundane or otherwise explainable. Now that everyone 'knew' this, anyone who reported a sighting must be crazy or something.

It's amazing how debunkers always claim, "the government can't keep secrets!" They say the information would leak somehow and soon the world would know all about flying saucers. The problem is, when an alleged insider does speak out they are accused of lying. What an annoying and hypocritical set of double standards.

One of the problems I see time and again with 'researchers', 'investigators', and the sort involved in the UFO community is this reliance for affirmation and cooperation from 'The Government', or any government, corporation, or any political, legal, corporate, official entity that may or may not know something.

Disclosure relies on someone official from somewhere coming forward in an official capacity to affirm the existence of extraterrestrials. This, in all liklihood is not ever going to happen unless the hand forced.

Forcing the hand would involve going out, on your own, as an individual or an established group, conducting your own rigidly scientific inquiry and getting irrefutable results.

Pursuit of irrefutable results - This UFO phenomenon is unpredictable. Noone knows just where these things are going to pop up next ... or do they?

Look at the abduction phenomenon associated with the UFO phenomenon. Supposedly Aliens are abducting people, and these supposed victims, or participants, whichever of abduction seem to have the occurrances more than once, and sometimes frequently.

You thus have a WHERE. To pursue scientific inquiry you can collect data by getting abduction claimant subjects to wear GPS tracking devices 24 hours a day where the data is independently monitotred against subject falsification.
If data points show subjects travelling at 35,000mph somewhere during a claimed abduction event, then, you've some interesting data. If this continues, and especially if this continues where data points to a certain specific location the supposed abductee is supposedly taken to during the supposed abduction event, then, such a location could be investigated in addition to and aside from plotting GPS data.
Depending on resources, camera traps, and 24/7 video monitoring of subjects might be sut up.
At the top of the scale, a secure, controlled-accesslong-term live-in facility for supposed abductees to lounge around in for the specific purpose of just being watched and waited on under secure conditions is proposed.

In cases where supposed abductees are female and claim rape and forced impregnation, a controlled access facility could offer safe-room accommodations against further abduction on the chance that the abduction/impregnation can be seen to term without forced removal of fetus occurring as is supposedly reported to seemingly occur, as well as then having what could be an alien/human hybrid birth to test blood, hair, and skin samples (without harming the child), if not grossly obvious morphological differences from what's expected of a normal human child to observe/record.
If all tests on child prove normal human, then, hmmm. If tests indicate something interesting or different, then, hmmm.

In such ways, there's no reliance on Government or any official entities for affirmation, or disclosure.

In the case of video monitoring subjects, either in the field or at a controlled access facility, challenges present for the reliable and reproducible video capture of abduction events.
Working methodologies for video capture could lead up to working methodologies for the physical capture of an alien, if they exist, and if abduction by such is the cause for this abduction phenomenon.

reply to post by karl 12


The Condon Report, as justification for science's past disregard of the UFO phenomenon, is probably one of the most important topics that could be brought up in this forum. I hope your thread receives a thousand stars, and that blog one thousand hits...

It's always puzzled me why so many (but by no means all) of those calling themselves UFO 'skeptics' refuse to apply that same skepticism to the Condon Report. The Report's holes and faults are obvious to any objective reader after only a single pass through. And there are many fantastic passages by the investigating scientists which fit *extremely uncomfortably* with Condon's dismissive conclusions. Condon did no UFO field investigations, though it's been well-documented that he met secretly with the CIA on the topic on several occasions... (and I'm no conspiracy theorist, but... why?) These things should give serious pause to anyone ready to just dismiss or ridicule the UFO topic.

There is free software out there (like WinHTTrack) that is simple to use and would let anyone interested download entire sites for offline reading... such as the link to the Condon Report that karl 12 pasted into the 1st post. That ncas site also has all of the testimony and submissions from Congress' 1968 UFO Symposium, as well as a Ph.D. thesis on Dr. James McDonald and how some disturbing 'politics' of science can very much influence which subjects receive the 'acceptable' label and which become (or remain) taboo. Very interesting reading.

Nice thread!

Originally posted by thesearchfortruth

We already know how biased the Condon Report was (see this thread www.abovetopsecret.com...) lol

Thesearchfortruth, yes indeed mate and Dr James E. Mcdonald realy does make some very good points in the first post about Condon's 'specious argumentation' and how he managed to omit some of the most puzzling UFO cases on record. Paul Kimball has also authored a very relevant article below about how serious UFO research might counteract the Condon effect with something called 'The Sturrock Gambit' he also lists the Sturrock Panel conclusions with a pdf file containing Dr Sturrock's analysis.

Furthermore, even after Condon abandoned his intellectual integrity and scientific objectivity and proclaimed that there was nothing of interest to science about the UFO phenomenon, and that "studying the believers" was the way to go, strange sightings continued to be of interest to the highest levels of the US government, such as the 1976 Tehran case..

The conclusions in the Condon Report – at least so far as they are generally known to the public, and, more important, government officials, stopped the interest in the UFO phenomenon by government dead in its tracks. It changed the way that the people who matter (i.e. the ones who could fund a serious study of the UFO phenomenon) think about UFOs. It became a subject for historians to study, more from a cultural perspective than anything else. It became fodder for fringe radio and the alternative media, but not the mainstream media, which could make a difference. It became science-fiction, instead of science.

link

Analysis:

The Sturrock Panel conclusions


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/5f622bed8b2e.jpg[/atsimg]

1. The UFO problem is not a simple one, and it is unlikely that there is any simple universal answer;


2. Whenever there are unexplained observations, there is the possibility that scientists will learn something new by studying those observations;


3. Studies should concentrate on cases which include as much independent physical evidence as possible and strong witness testimony;


4. Some form of formal regular contact between the UFO community and physical scientists could be productive; and


5. It is desirable that there be institutional support for research in this area.

Condon Report Peer Reviewed Analysis - P. A. Sturrock, Center for Space Science and Astrophysics, Stanford University (pdf)

Cheers.

Originally posted by TeaAndStrumpets

It's always puzzled me why so many (but by no means all) of those calling themselves UFO 'skeptics' refuse to apply that same skepticism to the Condon Report. The Report's holes and faults are obvious to any objective reader after only a single pass through. And there are many fantastic passages by the investigating scientists which fit *extremely uncomfortably* with Condon's dismissive conclusions..

TeaAndStrumpets, that's a very good point very well put and, given that the conclusions of the Condon report were instrumental in closing down official U.S. Government investigations into the UFO subject, you'd think certain individuals would be a little more critical of Condon's suspect methodology and motivations -especialy when such very serious concerns are being raised by organsations such as the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Stanford University's Center for Space Science and Astrophysics.

It's been posted on the other thread linked by TSFT but I think the statement below made by the AIAA's Ronald D Story just about sums things up, there's also an interesting video presentation here which goes into more detail about the Low memorandum which basically stated the Condon committee's bias agenda from the start.

"The opposite conclusion could have been drawn from The Condon Report's content, namely, that a phenomenon with such a high ratio of unexplained cases (about 30 percent) should arouse sufficient scientific curiosity to continue its study.
From a scientific and engineering standpoint, it is unacceptable to simply ignore substantial numbers of unexplained observations... the only promising approach is a continuing moderate-level effort with emphasis on improved data collection by objective means... involving available remote sensing capabilities and certain software changes."

Ronald D Story - American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics UFO Subcommittee -New York: Doubleday, 1980

Cheers.

Superb thread Karl12, it certainly opens up avenues of the "what else is being made to look official but contains biased one-sided official conclusions".As has been pointed out that to ignore or side step those cases that contain levels of very high strangeness or are just to hard to "force fit" debunking explanations on is surely not a justifiable , fair or scientific method of reaching finale scientific conclusions .ALL data has to be included , that is the scientific way after all and sceptics and debunkers are first to shout from the roof tops if a UFO case has lacked any real scientific investigation but when it is shown that a good percentage of the hard cases where either ignored or had force fit explanations then its of no significance to them

in terms of 'contact'...they're looking in the wrong direction

Originally posted by K-PAX-PROT

Superb thread Karl12, it certainly opens up avenues of the "what else is being made to look official but contains biased one-sided official conclusions".As has been pointed out that to ignore or side step those cases that contain levels of very high strangeness or are just to hard to "force fit" debunking explanations on is surely not a justifiable , fair or scientific method of reaching finale scientific conclusions .ALL data has to be included , that is the scientific way after all and sceptics and debunkers are first to shout from the roof tops if a UFO case has lacked any real scientific investigation but when it is shown that a good percentage of the hard cases where either ignored or had force fit explanations then its of no significance to them..

K-PAX-PROT, certainly agree with your comments there mate.. especialy about 'force fit' debunking techniques and biased, one-sided official conclusions -only remembered this Herbert Spencer quote just recently but I think it does a good job of summing up certain attitudes, partcularly Dr Condon's mindset.

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-- that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
Herbert Spencer, British philosopher

As for Dr Peter Sturrock exposing the huge disconnecton between the actual scientific reports and Condon’s conclusions, there's a good newspaper article below in which he also states that out of 1,356 polled AAS members, four out of five feel that "the UFO mystery ‘certainly, probably or possibly deserves scientific study".

“Of 1,356 AAS members replying to a questionnaire from Prof. Peter A. Sturrock, an astrophysicist and member of Stanford’s Applied Physics Department, four-fifths feel that the UFO mystery ‘certainly, probably or possibly deserves scientific study.’ ”

“Science: Why the UFOs Won’t Go Away / Astronomers Pressing for More Study of UFO Riddle"

Cheers.

The primary purpose of any document issued by the State is to reassure the populace, or move it to action. There is nothing to be done about unidentified aerial phenomena, so all the government can do is reassure people that they are nothing to worry about. Science has tended to ignore UFO reports because of the staggering amount of "noise." For every reliable report of something that might be both real and unusual, there are a hundred simple misidentifications of ordinary things, and dozens of outright hoaxers, scam artists and fantasists.

reply to post by DJW001


DJW001, thanks for the reply and although I'd say there are fantasists on either side of the UFO debate I do agree with you about there beng a staggering amount of noise within the subject -that said, I wonder if you agree with the quote posted above by the AAIA 's Ronald Story which states that 'a phenomenon with such a high ratio of unexplained cases should arouse sufficient scientific curiosity to continue its study' -especialy when you factor in that Condon omitted some of the most puzzling cases on record and purposefully excluded many detailed reports from scientists, engineers, police officers and airline pilots.

As for your other comments about there being 'nothing to be done' about unidentified aerial phenomena, maybe, instead of stonewalling and whitewashing the American public, the U.S. Government could take a leaf out of South America's book and at least attempt to form sincere, objective investigative committees like CEFAA, OIFAA and CRIDOVNI -one things for sure, it can't be any worse than their previous efforts (which are summed up quite well by scientists here).

Cheers.

Relevant Articles:

Science and UFOs: Part 1—The Condon Committee Con Job

“Science and UFOs: Part 2 – Occam’s Rusty Razor”

“Scientists and UFOs”

Science and the Failure To Investigate Unidentified Aerial Phenomena [PDF File]

SCIENCE IN DEFAULT: 22 YEARS OF INADEQUATE UFO INVESTIGATIONS

Perhaps the "Condon Report" did what it was intended to do.....

Scapegoat, maybe thats not the right word....exonerate (?) the US Air Force, from responsibility.

But Havent we been told in other threads, the REAL Space stuff is with "The NAVAL SPACE COMMAND"

Didnt crazy old William Cooper reference the US Navy as the "Recovered Space object Agency"?.

Is it the Nvay, Not the US Air Force , that is the real "Pale Horse"

Didnt Lazar have his documents from the Dept of Naval Intelligence? In Area 51/S4 (from memory there, forgive me if wrong).

Maybe the Air Force IS correct, they dont investigate anything, when their pilots see something, The Navy steps in....Is the NAVY the MIBs. Are they way ahead of the FBI, CIA or NSA, who all seem to be at each others throats for supremacy.
Whereas the Navy is an Old school US institution with 150 years of history, and reliance to protect the US interests. Are'nt the Navy Seals the Bad a** guys?

Arent we told NASA is just a Govt front, the real cool tech is with the Industrialist and maybe the Navy??

Science is dogmatic when it wants to be. At least when it comes to subjects relegated as conspiracies. Some scientists, such as Clyde Tombaugh (the astronomer who discovered Pluto), have spoken out on what they've seen, but its fallen on deaf ears in the scientific community. The reasons of which can only be speculated upon.

I hope the scientists who continue this cover-up understand that they are retarding our civilization and destroying their own credibility and careers should it ever become a publicly understood fact that extraterrestrials are visiting this planet.

Originally posted by gort51

Maybe the Air Force IS correct, they dont investigate anything, when their pilots see something, The Navy steps in...

Gort51, you may well be onto something there mate, there's an interesting article at the thread below dealing with the role of the Office of Naval Intelligence in the UFO subject and there are also some interesting connections between Naval Intelligence and the eventual formation of the NSA.

This document is one of the rarest documents in the national archives linking the Office of Naval Intelligence to any association with the investigation of the phenomenon and offers an early clue that the study of the UFO phenomenon did not fall totally within the realm of the Air Force. Could the naval UFO experience be more involved than the air force..?

The Office of Naval Intelligence and UFOs

Considering the U.S. Navy have never released any declassified UFO documents under the Freedom of Information Act (link) it's a bit difficult to substantiate but Project 1947's Jan Aldrich does raise some very important questions below about US Naval UFO documents and O.N.I. UFO investigations - point 5 and 9 make for very interesting reading.

The sister Services, Army, USAF and CIA, DIA and NSA have released UFO files as have the British, Danes, French, Brazilians, Australians and even Uruguayans. Now the Russians.

It seems the US Navy’s turn. What specifically? For starters:

1. WWII study of ususual radar returns.

2. 4th AF documents concerning with air intrusion of Hanford, Navy radar and aircraft assets tasked to intercept same

3. About 50 AAF and Navy documents formerly TS and below refer to an equal number of other documents on the Scandinavian Ghost Rockets

4. A small amount of Navy documents in the USAF Project Blue Book files refer to other Navy documents not seen

5. AIR 203 was a Joint TS USAF/Navy study of UFOs. Yet Navy claims no records

6. BurAero analysis of AF document released not by Navy but DOD.

7. In 1951 Dr. Urner Liddel ONR claims after studying 2000 cases that UFOs are Skyhook balloons (USAF does even have 2000 cases in 1951. What does ONR have?

8. Korean War radar cases in OP322V, OP322V2 and COMNAVFE. (Some incomplete reports this era in Project BB)

9. Navy Sec Dan Kimball set UFO project in ONI in 1952

10. CIA document enumerating intel asset dedicated to UFOs refers to analyst in ONI

11. The old Hydrographic office was a published source of reports for the US Navy, merchant shipping and aircraft over waters. These were not investigated?

12. Large resevoir of “war stories” by old Navy salts, esp., aircrews and radar operators and other CIC personnel.

Further, Project Blue Book record indicate numerous contacts thru Air Attaches with foreign govt on UFOs. Naval Attaches have not such contacts even with Navies that UFO significant UFO incidents or Navy UFO project, Argentina, other incidents Chile, Brazil?

In reviews for the Clinton Executive Order declassifying records over 25 years old, Army and AF comes up with hundreds of UFO documents even though these were not specifically required for index. The Navy nada.

“We do not investigate UFOs.”

“We do not keep records filed for such a topic as UFOs.”

“If we had any records on UFOs, they were destroyed.”

“If we had any records on UFOs, we transferred them to the USAF.”

The dog eat my home work. Lost at sea!

Jan Aldrich, Project1947.com

link

Cheers.

I was recently watching an interview with Norio Hayakawa. What he said is so true - if you count on the Gov to disclose smth it will NOT happen EVER/any time soon. Firstly what I think is:

- UN is the most involved
- US Navy, USAF, other military complexes - only at their highest levels
- NASA and Gov - I still do not get how NASA would be wasting millions on space projects if they can do much more advanced and are involved in the knowledge of extraterrestrial. Like waste millions to cover it up? Those who do the projects maybe know nothing of that. Probably hidden gov, no known president from the current seems to know.

Therefore. either these beings will diclose themselves whenever they wish and it may not be this century yet alone decades.

Or a massive momvement of people which cannot happen when they hide like rabbits and don't say things due to 'ridicule'

reply to post by Imtor


Hey Imtor, thanks for the reply and I agree with you there about 'disclosure' never happening -I also think you hit the nail on the head mentioning the 'ridicule factor' as it's probably one of the most powerful tools of the lot.

On a different note here's part three of the Science and UFOs series dealing with 'deep denial' and the author does make some very good points about the University of Arizona's Dr James E Mcdonald and NASA's Bernard Haisch.


Science and UFOs: Part 3—Deep Denial Disguised as Rational Skepticism


Cheers.

Originally posted by Frith

Science is dogmatic when it wants to be. At least when it comes to subjects relegated as conspiracies. Some scientists, such as Clyde Tombaugh (the astronomer who discovered Pluto), have spoken out on what they've seen, but its fallen on deaf ears in the scientific community.

The reasons of which can only be speculated upon.

Frith, Peter A. Sturrock also gives a good reason below about why certain scientists are of the opinion there is nothing to the UFO subject:

"Most scientists have never had the occasion to confront evidence concerning the UFO phenomenon. To a scientist, the main source of hard information (other than his own experiments' observations) is provided by the scientific journals. With rare exceptions, scientific journals do not publish reports of UFO observations. The decision not to publish is made by the editor acting on the advice of reviewers. This process is self-reinforcing: the apparent lack of data confirms the view that there is nothing to the UFO phenomenon, and this view (prejudice) works against the presentation of relevant data."

Peter A. Sturrock, "An Analysis of the Condon Report on the Colorado UFO Project," Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol.1, No.1, 1987

Cheers.

I remember the disclosure petition to the Obama administraton - it was laughable, what if the president doesn't know yet some people in some administration would know? LOL ...

Ask US Air Force, they are everywhere, on all continents. They are involved, they are guily in all that is hidden, they know what is going on.