Page 17 - june_july_2009.qxd

17 UFOs - A Challenge to Science 17 UFOs - A Challenge to Science UFOs - A Challenge to Where are the scientists who will lead us accounts was first dealt with by the U.S. Air UFOs - A Challenge to Mainstream Science in our search for the knowledge of tomorrow? Force (USAF), beginning in the late forties. The Mainstream Science The tools needed are at hand; the information USAF hired J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer, to we need is there, waiting to be discovered. The consult on Project Blue Book, a systematic UFO phenomenon, dismissed and derided study of UFO sightings. Hynek proposed a Continued from Page 16 today, may prove to be the key to the lock that classification system for the different types of Continued from Page 16 will open the door to our cosmic future. reports. His system divided the accounts into Conclusion categories such as Daylight Discs, Radar/Visual Bibliography Reports, or Close Encounters. The Condon Sturrock and others have observed that report, a USAF-sponsored paper published in scientists are interested in UFOs but unwilling Berliner, Don Briefing Document on 1969, reviewed Project Blue Book data and to become involved publicly. Scientists say Unidentified Flying Objects: The Best Available concluded that there was no scientific "show me the evidence" but do not study the Evidence knowledge to be gained from the study of reams of evidence available. Carl Sagan has Condon, Edward U. The Final Report of the UFOs. said that "extraordinary claims require Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects After Condon was published, the USAF extraordinary evidence." Mainstream scientists Hall, Richard M. (ed.) The UFO Evidence stopped all official investigations into UFOs. often quote Sagan to defend their reluctance to Hill, Paul R. Unconventional Flying Objects: A Other world governments, however, have look into the question of UFOs. However, Scientific Analysis shown less apathy toward the subject. In 1958, today's scientists are like the scientists of Hopkins, Budd Missing Time; Intruders the Almirante Saldanha, a Brazilian ship, Galileo's day who refused to look into the Hynek, J. Allen. The UFO Experience; The observed a strange object flying over Trindade telescope to see the moons of Jupiter with their Edge of Reality; The Hynek UFO Island, in the South Atlantic Ocean. Almiro own eyes. Report Baraúna, a submarine photographer onboard, What is needed? We do not need Mack, John E. Abduction; Passport to the took pictures of the object, which were then objective evidence. There is plenty of hard data Cosmos analysed exhaustively by the Brazilian Navy’s about all aspects of the UFO phenomenon just Reich, Wilhelm Contact with Space Aerial Reconnaissance Lab, explained Donderi. begging for scientific evaluation. What is Sagan, Carl and Page, Thornton (eds.) UFOs: A “No piece of evidence, like a photograph, is needed on the part of science today is a radical Scientific Debate worth anything at all without information about shift in its worldview, in its mindset. What can Sturrock, Peter A. The UFO Enigma: A New how it was taken,” said Donderi. At the behest bring about this profound change, which some Review of the Scientific Evidence of President Juscelino Kubitschek, the navy call a "mindshift"? released an official report on the incident that Perhaps scientists will only change after McGill Prof talks UFO included the photographic evidence. encountering the UFO phenomenon directly, McGill Prof talks UFO As Donderi explained, however, one of science through a sighting of a craft in the sky, a craft on science the major problems in the study of UFOs is that the ground with entities nearby, or even more even if one establishes the reliability of David Zuluaga Cano dramatically, through a direct, personal David Zuluaga Cano eyewitness accounts to form empirical Science and Technology Writer encounter with non-human intelligences. Such Science and Technology Writer evidence, there are limits to what can be an experience would most certainly transform The McGill Daily explained given our current understanding of The McGill Daily even the most die-hard skeptic and debunker. Or the universe. perhaps scientists need to undergo the kind of Dr. Albert Bregman, Emeritus Professor transformative event that Edgar Mitchell from McGill Psychology, for example, experienced on his return voyage from the remarked during the question period at the end moon to the Earth, when he intuitively of the lecture that UFOs defy our notions of perceived that the universe is self-aware and Newtonian physics. that everything is interconnected. “If [UFOs] are solid objects, they violate It may take more than objective, some fundamental physical laws such as physical evidence alone to convince scientists momentum,” Bregman said. that UFOs are real and worthy of scientific Donderi argued that the inability to investigation. But a start has to be made explain UFO phenomena using current somewhere. It can be made with the evidence scientific understanding does not necessarily now at hand, evidence that grows daily as UFO preclude the problem from having a solution. reports continue to come in from around the “Everyone talks about the speed of light world. The data gathered by dedicated “All science, regardless of what science being a limiting factor [in interstellar travel], researchers over the past 50 years await a new you’re in, begins with observable phenomena,” but how long is it [travel to Earth] for them? It’s Galileo or Newton to synthesize into a asserted Professor Don Donderi of the not about how long we live, but how long they worldview that is broader and deeper than Department of Psychology last Wednesday, live,” Donderi said. today's reigning paradigm. Too many scientists during the second lecture of his four-piece After the lecture, Tom Gibbs, U0 today are demanding proof, instead of doing the series on unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Political Science, said that he was surprised hard work needed to demonstrate the reality of Entitled “Evidence, Scientific Reaction, and there were so many scientific considerations in UFOs and to uncover the incontrovertible proof Popular Culture,” the talk, attended by eight the exploration of UFO sightings. of the existence of intelligent life beyond Earth. students, discussed the growing body of “What struck me the most was that I had In 1956, in his last published work, testimonials from people claiming to have seen never considered the physics involved in a Contact with Space, the pioneering scientist UFOs, as well as scientific evidence supporting possible Earth landing. It makes me ponder the Wilhelm Reich wrote, "What do they want for their existence. foreignness of extraterrestrial biological make- proof? There is no proof. There are no According to Donderi, the first widely up, and our possible comparatively quaint authorities whatever. No President, Academy, publicized UFO sighting occured in 1947. scientific advancement,” Gibbs said. [] Court of Law, Congress or Senate on this earth Kenneth Arnold, a private pilot from Idaho, saw has the knowledge or power to decide what will what he later described as “bright, saucer-like be the knowledge of tomorrow...Only the good objects” flying in the air. Arnold tried to THE ‘X’ ZONE RADIO SHOW old rules of learning will eventually bring about approach the government about the incident, but with Rob McConnell understanding of what has invaded our earthly after failing to find a receptive federal agency, Monday - Friday existence. Let those who are ignorant of the he turned his attention to the local press. After 10 pm - 2 am Eastern ways of learning stand aside, while those who news of this incident was published, reports of on the TalkStar Radio Network or know what learning is, blaze the trail into the UFO sightings became more common. unknown." The task of classifying eyewitness www.xzonetv.com