SCIENTISTS CALL FOR UFO STUDIES
It’s still happening. Less than a week after the New York Times explosive new article on the subject, a new opinion piece in Scientific American marks a critical shift in the national conversation about UFOs. Ravi Kopparapu and Jacob Haqq-Misra co-author an article titled “‘Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,’ Better Known as UFOs, Deserve Scientific Investigation.”
The article is significant because for most of the last seventy years scientists have been saying the opposite. For most of the scientific community, the subject of UFOs has been considered no-more worthy of scientific investigation than witchcraft, ghosts, and leprechauns. Anyone conducting serious research into the phenomenon was likely to lose the respect of colleagues and suffer negative consequences in both career and academic circles.
The anti-UFO bias in the scientific community was further reinforced by the debunking work of the Air Force through Project Grudge and Project Bluebook. In the late 1960s, the University of Colorado accepted a government contract to study the phenomenon and decide if it merited further scientific investigation and research. The committee spent a lot of time trying to decide if the phenomena was genuine. Edward Condon, the head of the study, focused on the testimony of the so-called “contactees” who claimed to be in psychic communication with aliens. Condon shaped the final conclusion to state that further study of the subject would be unlikely to produce anything of value. As a result, the Air Force shut down Project Bluebook and UFOs escaped further scientific investigation.
More than half a century later, Kopparapu and Haqq-Misra disagree. From their perspective, it’s no longer a question of if UFOs exist but a question of how to study them. Carl Sagan, J. Allen Hynek, James McDonald, Robert hall, and Robert Baker—the scientists most familiar with the phenomena—disagreed with the Condon committee and called for further study. The pioneering UFO research of atmospheric physicist James McDonald for a model of how to proceed with scientific studies. It’s really nice to see McDonald getting some of the respect he deserved even if it comes fifty years too late.
Kopparapu and Haqq-Misra state that, unlike the late James McDonald, they do not subscribe to the extra-terrestrial hypothesis. That’s fine. No scientist should enter the research with a preconceived conclusion. Besides, if they did state that they favored the ET hypothesis, they would not have been published in Scientific American.
When it comes to UFO investigations, the significance of the new article appearing in Scientific American is hard to overstate. It sends a green light to the scientific community. It indicates that the stigma so long attached to the phenomenon should no longer be an impediment. We can expect to see a new breed of young serious-minded and sober scientists opening the field.
It’s happening. Almost faster than we can keep up with it at this point. Stay tuned to UFOdays.net for the latest developments.
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