Your argument isn’t off to a great start when you undermine it in your title.
But that’s exactly what astronomer Phil Plait does with his Scientific American piece “Nope-It’s Never Aliens,” published Monday. That title, so declarative in its contention, is incompatible with Plait’s later assertion that he “took up science as a career and critical thinking as a passion.” There isn’t much evidence of critical thinking on display in that title. Indeed, it’s a direct repudiation of that critical scientific interest. This is a shame. Plait’s writing includes many interesting reports on Space and science.
Plait eventually admits that some UFOs remain unexplained and that they (or unidentified anomalous phenomena as the government now refers to UFOs) deserve some continued study. But his argument all but concludes that this study will largely be worthless.
This speaks to the central problem with the UFO subject: The overconfidence of those who consider it. On one side are those UFO enthusiasts who fixate on believing every spy balloon is an extradimensional, extraterrestrial, or extratemporal craft. These individuals become angry when journalists such as myself report that some strange UFOs are distinctly terrestrial in origin. Too many UFO enthusiasts also see government secrecy on UFOs as inherent evidence of a conspiracy. And while a conspiracy of small groups cannot be ruled out (a grand conspiracy would have leaked), most government UFO-related secrecy is designed to keep certain programs classified that are totally unrelated to UFOs but very much related to aerospace activity.
On the other side are the journalists and scientists who fixate on believing that a wealth of credible witnesses and historic data sets amount to little more than clouds, balloons, and obsessive delusion. Or, as Plait puts it, UFO-related reporting “is all still just the same breathless headlines and lack of substance behind them. There’s no there there.”
To support this argument, however, Plait uses only an exceptionally limited pool of UFO reports and only a very thin layer of analysis. Assessing the three videos of UFOs recorded by Navy pilots in 2004 and 2015, for example, Plait relies wholly on science writer Mick West’s skeptical assessment that the objects in those videos are anything but interesting. To be fair to West, he puts his arguments forward for scrutiny and engages with critics. He deserves reciprocal engagement and respect.
Yet it’s also disingenuous for Plait to write off the pilots involved in these incidents as having been easily confused. While pilots, including fighter pilots, do make observation errors, those involved in the 2004 case saw the object at very close range and witnessed its seemingly impossible movements. Plait neglects critical thinking when he casually writes off their testimony (and the related radar/video) as tantamount to that of the “Air Canada First Officer [who] reportedly put a plane in a nosedive because he saw Venus.” For one, Venus lacks exceptionally high-speed evasive maneuvers.
The point here is that these UFOs remain unexplained. The idea that they can be confidently written off as air clutter is not consistent with scientific due diligence. Indeed, Sean Kirkpatrick, the former head of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the Pentagon’s UFO research agency, inadvertently underlined as much when he recently made basic errors in relation to uncontested elements of those videos. This disdain for open-mindedness reflects AARO’s broader approach toward the UFO subject (and its associated decision to invite only UFO-skeptical journalists to briefings).
Plait’s centering claim is that “Occam’s razor, the well-worn rule of thumb for scientific inquiry, applies well here: The simplest explanation is usually the best.”
I agree. Except, I would flip this contention on its head. After all, it would be one thing if the current interest in UFOs was based only on reports from today’s hypersonic vehicle era. The problem is that a litany of very similar reports and sensor returns of airborne objects performing in seemingly impossible ways have been recorded since the 1940s. Shouldn’t we want to explain how something in the 1940s and 1950s somehow had better performance capabilities than our most advanced military capabilities today? If not, shouldn’t we want to rule out that whatever was recorded was nothing extraordinary?
On that point, consider a few other examples of UFO-related incidents that might deserve more than easy derision.
Consider mass sightings of UFOs reported at an Italian soccer game in 1954, in Phoenix in 1997 (some claim this was flares, but many witnesses, including former Arizona Gov. Fife Symington, say they saw a vast physical object), Belgium in 1989-1990, Illinois in 2000 (including police officer witnesses), Texas in 2008, in Australia in 1966, the United Kingdom in 1997, and Zimbabwe in 1994.
Or how about the radar, sonar, satellite, and other sensor returns (sometimes returns from multiple different sensors at the same time) apparently showing objects exhibiting maneuvers far beyond contemporary science and sometimes evading military intercepts? Records released under the Freedom of Information Act offer a litany of these reports from various military and government agencies.
Then there are those military witnesses with impeccable credentials and security clearances reporting incredible things at military bases, training areas, and other locales. The comparative experience of Russian and U.S. military personnel reporting UFOs potentially interfering with nuclear weapons facilities is surely in and of itself worthy of open-minded investigation, no?
The key here is not that these reports offer conclusive evidence that some UFOs are operated by a non-human intelligence, but rather that there is substantial evidence to suggest that such a possibility cannot be ruled out. But in ruling out that possibility, Plait’s argument seeks the outcome that many declarative UFO-skeptical arguments seek. Namely, ammunition via which to insulate egos against introspection.
By adopting such declarative tones alongside select but sparse examples, the author provides a shield to the scientist or journalist who might otherwise feel pressure to take another look at this subject. A shield via which to instead lean back, sigh, and mutter, “I’m right to ignore this s**t.” It is undeniable that the stigma that flows with this subject is significant.
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The professional incentive to engage critically with this subject is far outweighed by the professional risk. This is especially true in fields such as science, the military, academia, and journalism, in which the perception of professional credibility is often as important as the reality of it.
Still, using a sparse, select evidence base to make unsupportable conclusions doesn’t do much scientific service to a topic that plainly deserves more serious scrutiny.
