Scientific methodology is thwarted when it comes to the UFO phenomenon.
What can science study when it comes to UFOs?
There is nothing tangible for scientists to study. There is no evidence that can be tested or any behavior that can be replicated or pinned down in any way.
Photos of aircraft or even of evanescent phenomena (lightning for instance) can be examined, but UFO photos offer nothing specific for science to look at.
The photos of Adamski, Villa, and Billy Meier, to name a few, would offer elements for science or intelligence agencies to scrutinize, if they were authentic photos.
Photos, less detailed, and maybe real, of amorphous UFOs don’t offer worthy elements that can be studied either. Does no one take a telephoto picture of a UFO? Where are the professional snapshots?
As for trace elements in supposed UFO landings (Socorro) or debris elements (Roswell), those are so indefinite or imaginary that science really has nothing to examine. (Anthony Bragalia has discovered that Battelle has studied malleable metal, allegedly from the Roswell incident, but Bragalia’s findings are beclouded by Battelle’s “secrecy” in what they’re doing or have done.)
Scientists need specimens to study, or hypotheses based upon observation(s). Witness testimony, regardless of the support of such by some UFO buffs, is useless, for scientific purposes. Sure, a credible witness might provide a clue that helps a scientist see an avenue for study, but witness testimony, all by itself, is generally useless.
UFO sightings nowadays are even more transitory that flying saucer reports of the past, those that supposedly left indentations (Socorro again) or radiation traces (the Desvergers, Florida tale), so science is even less inclined to get involved with sightings.
Some UFO mavens keep indicating that the O’Hare sighting of a few years back is a prominent UFO sighting, but others (Lance Moody for one) ask for something tangible: where are the photos? After all, almost everyone has a camera-enabled cell phone, and so many persons relate that they saw something strange over the Chicago airport, one wonders (along with Mr. Moody) why none of them had the presence of mind to snap a photo of the alleged O’Hare UFO?
Scientists might have trouble with a photo, as noted, but at least they’d have something to scrutinize. (Of course, some UFO hobbyists insist upon the negatives or original photos for study but today’s photos are captured electronically, so there are no negatives to offer. That argument, from UFO tyros, even when applied to older photos, is just stupid, non-scientific.)
The point here, by me, is that science has nothing with which to grapple when it comes to UFOs. The phenomenon is primarily witness-induced today, or hoaxed, just as it was in the past. However, those past UFO or flying saucer incidents had a few ingredients (radar blips, movie-film captures, trace elements) that today’s sightings do not have.
Moreover, the topic is so tainted by the goofiness and circus-like atmosphere, even by those who once had some credibility and cachet when it came to UFOs, that science won’t touch the phenomenon at all, often acknowledging it as not a legitimate area for scientific scrutiny.
So, science is out. And ufology is a sham. That leaves us with what? A curiosity that is not going to be explained or understood as it stands right now.
To pursue the matter further takes a mind and/or personality that is in a state of denial about reality, and what is purposeful for life.
RR
