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New York Magazine Writer Declares End of UFOs

8/13/2014

45 Comments

 
For those of you interested in my discussion of Christopher Loring Knowles’s claims about H. P. Lovecraft and Theosophy, Reddit has a very interesting point-by-point rebuttal of Knowles. Despite the author’s less than kind words about me (disparaging my Cult of Alien Gods and denying a connection between Lovecraft and von Däniken because von Däniken never read Lovecraft--pace Jacques Bergier), the rebuttal is an excellent explanation of every point where Knowles went terribly wrong. Knowles will now have a new place to direct his wrath.

Let’s move on to another topic… the end of UFOs. At least that’s what New York Magazine writer Mark Jacobson suggested after attending MUFON’s conference on media coverage of UFOs. According to Jacobson, only 400 people attended the New Jersey conference, a marked decline from the thousands who attended MUFON events in the 1970s. Most attendees, he said, were over the age of 50. As a result, Jacobson believes that the UFO phenomenon is toast.
Ufology, he says, “has apparently lost its grip on the public imagination, and has been demoted to a neo-cult status.” He cites the rise of the alien abduction movement as evidence that traditional ufology is over—something that’s been true for thirty years, but really does not say anything about how many people believe in alien visitation.

Jacobson therefore is both right and wrong. The problem with abstracting from attendees at a conference is that, well, it’s only one data point. The “Contact in the Desert” UFO and ancient astronaut conference, held this past week, attracted 4,000 attendees, roughly equivalent to the MUFON conferences of the past. But more to the point: 400 or 4,000 is too small a sample to say anything about the imagination and beliefs of a country of 300 million people. One more important measure is what the media thinks the American people believe. The History Channel, H2 channel, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Science Channel, Destination America, American Heroes Channel, and Syfy all program UFO-related content. And they all attract anywhere from 500,000 to 4 million viewers per program. The ratings for any one show are still low relative to the population, but collectively their audience is in the tens of millions, even after accounting for audience overlap. And this does not even count the fictional aliens that appear in movies or on TV, from Falling Skies on TNT to the upcoming HBO ancient astronaut drama.

If UFOs aren’t as mainstream as they were in the 1970s, when the occasional TV special on one of the three networks or PBS would attract tens of millions of viewers, they are more integrated into the daily media diet than at any time in the past. If UFOs are no longer a phenomenon for elite journalists, they are now simply a given for much of the audience. The percentage of Americans professing a belief in ET visitation and/or ancient aliens has remained steady for at least the past four decades, ranging from around 24% to 48% depending on how the question is asked. The only thing that has changed is where Americans go to get their UFO fix; it isn’t broadcast networks or elite media (which care only when a Hollywood studio partner has a new alien-themed product to sell) but cable TV and, especially, the internet. In the 1970s, believers would go to conferences because that was how you networked with other believers. That isn’t necessary today thanks to the internet. It is hard to argue that something about one-third of all Americans profess to believe in is “over” unless your definition of culture is limited only to elite publications and the uppermost income quintile. Aliens are not “over” as much as déclassé.

But Jacobson, who claims to have seen a flying saucer in 1989, is right that the 1950s-style flying saucer is in decline. That’s certainly true; but no truer now than it was in the 1980s. He comes close to identifying the key issue at play but just misses: “With voracious proliferation of vampires, New World Order conspiracies, and the unprecedented rise of evangelical Christianity, the simple flying disc from far, far away has become a quaint, almost nostalgic specter.” But he then decides that Neuromancer destroyed the UFO by relocating the province of the unknown in cyberspace rather than outer space—that is, that technological changes refocused human anxieties.

Here, I think, he misses the opportunity to see that the old UFO movement has been subsumed within the broader conspiracy culture, particularly in the “ancient astronaut” form, which has almost entirely absorbed what used to be called ufology. The conspiracy of UFOs is the element of importance, not necessarily whether the flying saucers are alien spacecraft. Hence today white separatists like John de Nugent can speak of exo-Nordics as though their Neo-Nazi audiences will already know and believe in them, while others can propose that UFOs come from an ancient race of velociraptors that live under the earth, or time-traveling future humans warning us about the environment. The specifics are less important than the existence of the conspiracy, which has overtaken the “nuts and bolts” approach to ufology.

UFOs haven’t declined; their stories have transformed.

Oddly enough, that ends up leaving Giorgio Tsoukalos the odd man out on Ancient Aliens, the current nexus for the paranoid version of ancient astronaut conspiracies. He favors a “nuts and bolts” version of ancient astronautics—his famous “misunderstood technology”—but his views are overwhelmed by the quasi-spiritual and conspiratorial versions offered by David Wilcock, William Henry, and others.

The fact of the matter is that Jacobson misses the connections between ufology, ancient astronauts, and conspiracy culture. Similarly, Greg Akers of the Memphis Flyer gushed over the “genius” of Ancient Aliens last week because he also did not look beyond the surface “fun” of the program to the darker undercurrents. Akers responded particularly to Giorgio Tsoukalos:
Ancient Aliens is joyously assembled like a mystery in reverse being solved by an attention-deficit detective: There are clues to the enigma everywhere, and the relevant ones can be seized upon and arranged at will, because there's only one whodunit: Aliens. The detective-in-chief on Ancient Aliens is Giorgio Tsoukalos, a Swiss-born, spray-tanned, wild-haired talking head who in real life is the director of von Daniken's Ancient Alien Society, editor of Legendary Times Books, and — this can't be made up — a former professional bodybuilding promoter. Tsoukalos is the perfect messenger for Ancient Aliens' theories: He's a charming, intelligent, glint-eyed rogue who slyly tries to convince you to believe he's right while also letting you know it's okay if you don't. Tsoukalos serves as an excellent counterbalance to the fully committed von Daniken, the serious and maybe borderline angry ancient astronaut theorist David Childress, or even the declarative narrator, Robert Clotworthy.
Here we have a perfect example of the way presentation affects audience reception. Erich von Däniken has expressed wildly racist views about black people. Giorgio Tsoukalos has promoted the work of an anti-Semite. Even Ancient Aliens guest Nick Pope declared the ideas behind the show “borderline racist.” But if you don’t look beneath the surface, you will see only the “joy” and “fun” and get sucked into a world of conspiracies.

When I wrote The Cult of Alien Gods (2005), I thought that it was an epitaph for ancient astronauts. They seemed deader than a doornail a decade ago. I never expected that they would become the new face of ufology, or the nexus of a conspiracy culture that stretches from anti-Semitic neo-Nazis to anti-government activists to religious discontents.

45 Comments
Curt Collins link
8/13/2014 03:57:33 am

You are right about the widespread interest in UFOs, and it would seem that the article had it wrong. It's not UFOs or interest in them that's dying, it's Ufology.

The desert conference had more people in attendance than belong to the largest UFO club. Interesting numbers!

Reply
EP
8/13/2014 05:58:40 am

I'd go even further and say that UFOlogy has been dead for a while now (at least since the 1980s). It's just that now the UFOlogists are dying out as well. I mean people who engaged in the study of this topic with some semblance of intellectual responsibility, as opposed to the crazies and the scam artists.

Reply
Gregor
8/13/2014 06:08:06 am

There were "crazies and scam artists" from the very beginning... just as there are still people who try to address the matter scientifically (or, at least, with some semblance of scientific thought).

I must admit, I do not understand the fascination with declaring things "dead". People do so in every human endeavor, and it almost always turns out to be incredibly premature (read: wrong).

EP
8/13/2014 06:20:29 am

I'm not sure what your point is, to be honest. Were you trying to say something that's incompatible with what someone's been saying?

Gregor
8/13/2014 06:53:40 am

My point was that the mix of "serious to shyster" in what is broadly termed "UFOlogy" remains at roughly the same levels as it always has. I do not see the same "golden era" that people talk about... as if somehow in the 1950s-1970s there was naught but serious, academic research by wholly trained & unbiased individuals on the idea of whether or not aliens were doing high-speed fly-bys of our distant world.

I do not see UFOlogy as "dead" or "dying" because it's the same historical level of bullshit mixed with honest miscalculation and misidentification. What's more, I don't understand why people (you, Jason, the fellow who wrote the original article) are fascinated with declaring it (or anything else) "dead" when it so rarely actually is.

To me, it's like declaring Racism dead because the KKK has low membership draws these days, or declaring Communism dead because only a handful of nations even pretend to follow its doctrines. I don't condemn people for such proclamations (though I usually don't agree)... I just don't understand the value in making them to begin with.

If I had to put a point on it, I think that I see positing genuine research & academic rigor to "UFOlogy" as a fallacy, because (to me, at least) the "study" was never one of honest intellectual engagement. Even those whose marble statues now adorn the hallowed halls of "the good old days" (Hynek, et. al.) have been shown to have questionable belief structures and less-than-optimum levels of skepticism and investigation. Saying that UFOlogy is over has all the weight (again, to me) of declaring that *real* Unicornology is over, or that all the *serious* Leprechaunites are underground, fighting the good fight.

What's more, as Jason has noted previously (and as I read on another blog whose name embarrassingly escapes me), much of this suffers from the artificial "bump" of media bias.

Three guys from Idaho you've never heard of who spend their weekends trying to do genuine "research" into unidentified objects will never be the headliner at MUFON (or CitD, or anything else). You won't see them on UFO Hunters, or Ancient Aliens, or any of the other high-profile examples of "UFOlogy".

That doesn't invalidate their work (anymore than it was already invalid), nor does it mean that they are somehow the 'last of a dying breed'. If one watched only FOX news programming, I imagine they'd become dead set on believing that the white man is under siege, China's buying up all the gold & silver in the world, and those damn minorities keep "rioting". All it would take is one step outside that box to see how horribly biased that view is.

Personally, the only things I feel could be stated in good faith are that UFOlogy continues to reflect society (and its myriad neuroses), and that it now suffers / enjoys an increasingly large corporate buy-in (like everything else these days).

expat link
8/13/2014 04:00:25 am

::In the 1970s, believers would go to conferences because that was how you networked with other believers. That isn’t necessary today thanks to the internet.::

Well, y'know, there's no substitute for the casual-sex opportunities of a weekend conference.

Reply
EP
8/13/2014 05:45:00 am

The internet has many resources for people looking for casual sex. I don't know what you're talking about :)

Reply
Gregor
8/13/2014 06:13:54 am

I think the implication was that conferences in the 1970s (rather than today) were so popular not because they were about gatherings of genuine "true believers", but because they were a cheap 'n easy way to find "willing companions".

"You think aliens are real... *I* think aliens are real... whaddaya say we go back to my room and swap STDs?"

However, for whatever it's worth, I'm sure even ARPANET led to a few choice "encounters of the sexy kind".

EP
8/13/2014 06:21:24 am

The implication of the smiley emoticon is that the comment to which it is appended isn't meant to be taken seriously :)

Clint Knapp
8/13/2014 06:21:26 am

"Who wants to go back to my room and talk about anal probes and genetic manipulation?"

Yep. This theory seems plausible.

EP
8/13/2014 06:27:01 am

H. Taylor Buckner's "Flying Saucers Are for People" is a good contemporary article on the 1970s UFO demographics.

EP
8/13/2014 06:37:21 am

I meant 1960s demographics. Derp.

666
8/13/2014 04:02:55 am

>>>only 400 people attended the New Jersey conference<<<

There's always the next generation to learn about UFOs for the first time to keep the subject matter going

Reply
Gregor
8/13/2014 06:15:34 am

If only human populations actually moved in "generations".

Reply
666
8/13/2014 06:18:07 am

Figure of speech
There's always someone, somewhere, wandering into EvD for the first time every day

Clint Knapp
8/13/2014 05:55:29 am

So, what you're saying, and what the data certainly supports, is that UFOs are indeed "over", but in the sense of the word favored by professional wrestling: widely accepted as either beloved heroes or reviled villains, but generally approved of as valuable performers and big money draws.

Reply
Shane Sullivan
8/13/2014 06:26:44 am

Heh. A quick Google search reveals that, last year, Robert Clotworthy appeared on an episode of Cartoon Network's China, IL in which he played a professor advocating the Ancient Astronaut Theory.

I saw the episode when it aired, but somehow I didn't recognize the voice as the narrator of Ancient Aliens. The overall sentiment of the show was not kind to AAT.

Reply
EP
8/13/2014 06:29:08 am

...Aaaand I just discovered that Robert Clotworthy voiced Jim Raynor.

Ancient Aliens just ruined my childhood. Now it's personal!

Reply
Clint Knapp
8/13/2014 06:41:36 am

I don't know... I'm suddenly more receptive to the idea the ancient aliens were Xel'Naga. It inspires a sort of morbid glee at the chance to shoot me some zerglin' lizards.

EP
8/13/2014 06:44:16 am

"It inspires a sort of morbid glee at the chance to feed the AA crew to some zerglin' lizards."

Fixed :)

Gregor
8/13/2014 07:02:50 am

Jim Raynor... how cute

<throws down WH40k gauntlet>

<the old & tired debate rises anew>

Besides, is this the "battle-scarred, late 50s, bald-headed backwoods sheriff" Jim Raynor... or the "miraculously late 30s, ebon-mulletted, space biker from beyond the stars" Jim Raynor?

EP
8/13/2014 07:31:13 am

@ Gregor

"I do not see the same "golden era" that people talk about... as if somehow in the 1950s-1970s there was naught but serious, academic research.."

I don't think anyone here was suggesting that. I certainly wasn't. It's obviously always been a fringe endavor, with everything that entails. However, in the 50s and 60s there were scientific investigations of physical and psychological aspects of UFO sightings, which ran their course. There were also serious questions being asked about the government's role (as opposed to wild conspiratorial fantasies). Of course there were crazies and conmen all along, but they weren't setting the tone of the discussion.

"I don't understand why people (you, Jason, the fellow who wrote the original article) are fascinated with declaring it (or anything else) "dead" when it so rarely actually is."

I don't understand why you speak of fascination. All of us (I take it) are commenting on a pattern that's there. The article is employing journalistic hyperbole. I'm making a stronger claim that Jason may be willing to endorse, but I can at least defend it. (Perhaps I cannot do it to your satisfaction in comments on a blog; if so, then I'm sorry.)

"I don't condemn people for such proclamations (though I usually don't agree)... I just don't understand the value in making them to begin with."

It's called using non-literal language for rhetorical effect. I think everyone understands that there are no sharp cutoffs here, like between living and dead organisms :)

"If I had to put a point on it, I think that I see positing genuine research & academic rigor to "UFOlogy" as a fallacy, because (to me, at least) the "study" was never one of honest intellectual engagement."

I don't know... The Air Force and the CIA may have had extra-scientific agendas, but they certainly were interested in what the UFOs *really* are. Also, many scientists studied the phenomenon and proposed terrestrial explanations - what they did was as close as UFOlogy could ever get to scientific respectability. I can provide references if you're interested.

"Even those whose marble statues now adorn the hallowed halls of "the good old days" (Hynek, et. al.) have been shown to have questionable belief structures and less-than-optimum levels of skepticism and investigation."

The same can be said of many great scientists. No one is perfect. As far as looking at individual cases, you must realize that people who never took extraterrestrial hypotheses seriously are often not remembered for their work on the UFOs. In the 50s and 60s, it made sense to say that "in Ufology the rule is to think of everything and to believe nothing". Of course the rule was often violated. But nowadays it's not even the ideal for the dominant names in the field.

"Saying that UFOlogy is over has all the weight (again, to me) of declaring that *real* Unicornology is over, or that all the *serious* Leprechaunites are underground, fighting the good fight."

Here is a better analogy. "Psychical Research" attracted some of the leading minds of the late 19th and early 20th century. It actually gave rise to important breakthroughs in empirical statistics. Once the sober people concluded that there is nothing there, they disengaged from this research program. The ones who remained were the wackos and the frauds. UFOlogy was never as mainstream as psychical research, but it's the closest example I can think of. (Arguably, alchemy is another example.)

"Three guys from Idaho you've never heard of who spend their weekends trying to do genuine "research" into unidentified objects will never be the headliner at MUFON (or CitD, or anything else). You won't see them on UFO Hunters, or Ancient Aliens, or any of the other high-profile examples of "UFOlogy"."

This is, indeed, one of the symptoms of what I'm still comfortable calling (metaphorically!) "the death of UFOlogy"!

"All it would take is one step outside that box to see how horribly biased that view is."

Back in the day, there were people who didn't confine themselves to such boxes. They are the ones who developed explanations the fringe is unwilling to accept.

"Personally, the only things I feel could be stated in good faith are that UFOlogy continues to reflect society (and its myriad neuroses)"

Ironically, this is a claim made by serious studies in UFOlogy, including C. G. Jung's famous book on flying saucers.

Reply
Not the Comte de Saint-Germain
8/13/2014 09:03:43 am

Good points, though I don't know enough about UFOlogy to agree with the details. I do agree with Gregor, though, that declaring an idea "dead", even when being hyperbolic, is usually rather foolish. As long as there are still a few people out there and advocating it, an idea can undergo a revival at any time.

A belief system that no one has adhered to for a few centuries is another matter, though even then there's the possibility of a resurrection. There are some people nowadays who consider themselves "Gnostic", for instance, largely thanks to the discoveries of Gnostic texts in the 20th century, whereas for 1500 years, "Gnostic" was mostly just a label that Christian authorities slapped on people whose beliefs they didn't like.

Ancient astronaut theory, on the other hand, was merely undergoing a lull in the 2000s. Given fringe theorists' habit of regurgitating old ideas, the alien astronaut revival should not be a surprise. Following trends in the popularity of an idea seems reasonable to me, though of course popularity is hard to measure. And the visibility of such ideas may be dependent on what the media feel like covering at a particular time, but that factor is probably less important now than it used to be. The online web of conspiracy theories has allowed fringe ideas to circulate and cross-pollinate a lot faster than they used to do.

Reply
EP
8/13/2014 10:15:50 am

@ NTCStG

I never claimed that any "idea" is dead. Don't know if you read the TL;DR below, but I exain what I mean.

Not the Comte de Saint Germain
8/13/2014 12:52:20 pm

I wasn't saying you actually said that. I just think it strikes me as excessively hyperbolic to use the metaphor when the idea you're talking about has had negligible popularity for only a few years.

EP
8/13/2014 01:09:18 pm

Oh, I agree completely! UFOlogy, however, is not an idea - just like history and astrology are not ideas. And the phenomenon of the "death" or "dying" of rational UFOlogy is decades-old, not years.

.
8/13/2014 08:02:30 am

i'll be the Devil's Advocate. Jason did link vintage Outer Limits
and Twi-Lite Zone clips to loose descriptions of E.T Aliens in
a UFO as he was unaware of the mass of information classified
as Top Secret and above that a FOIA request could ferret out
despite the fact that the original account dates from the era that
is before the Watergate Scandal. I might agree with the idea
that as special effects and CGI revolutionized the film industry,
the Science that was normally inside UFOLOGY "went south"
in a very pathetic manner. Everything after 1975 became clever
constructs or heavily contaminated by the intense visual images.
Folks were more into a metaphoric truth rather than hard science
and our focus went more onto the Entertainment Industry. We do
see an abandonment of the idea of sending humans off into
space as we explore with NASA the idea that robots can suffice.
Were all UFO reports predicated on the idea space exploration looked simple? I'm doing PBS links because this is our new
standard text "golden standard" for the 90% of the public who
hates doing or reading footnotes. in our mass culture science
is in a decline even as our technology eclipses that of all earlier
generations. This counter-intuitive observation is the force that
drives this blog*site as it brings people into it in a search for a
truth that is older than the one Diogenes and his lantern looked
for. O Tempore, O Mores... we are in decline, we be a backwater!

Reply
.
8/13/2014 08:05:48 am

classic ufology once had standards.
our science once had standards.
my grammar once had standards.
everything is now inside a decline.

Reply
Gregor
8/13/2014 08:21:06 am

First, thanks for replying - just so it's clear, I wasn't making demands of you (re: "satisfaction"). I do, however, appreciate learning new things.

"However, in the 50s and 60s there were scientific investigations of physical and psychological aspects of UFO sightings, which ran their course. There were also serious questions being asked about the government's role (as opposed to wild conspiratorial fantasies). Of course there were crazies and conmen all along, but they weren't setting the tone of the discussion."

How much of that is honestly "UFOlogy's" doing, though? That is, was this concept truly self-regulating ("top... men..."), or was it just as much (or more) a matter of cultural and technological constraints? I am uncertain of the grounds in arguing that the two periods (1950s era and Present era) are sufficiently similar to positively identify a decline without exterior influences or alternate explanations.

"It's called using non-literal language for rhetorical effect. I think everyone understands that there are no sharp cutoffs here, like between living and dead organisms :)"

I know, and I enjoy skilled orators... it just bugs me when rhetorical devices are used to then introduce (or prop up) otherwise unsupported claims. If the goal is to demonstrate the steep decline (or ruination) of a movement... do so clearly. Little is gained (in terms of the argument) by spicing it up with rhetoric... and even then, the strength of the words used (in terms of impact) should match what you can actually back up. Dead? Inaccurate. "On the ropes"? Possibly - show me what you've gathered.

"Here is a better analogy. "Psychical Research" attracted some of the leading minds of the late 19th and early 20th century. It actually gave rise to important breakthroughs in empirical statistics."

(honest questioning): Is this truly a side effect of "Psychical Research", though? Say - just for the sake of argument - an engineer watches a streak in the sky and ends up modeling it in the next iteration of aircraft design. Does this breakthrough belong to the streak in the sky, or to the engineer? As I said before, you dig up all kinds of things so I'm honestly curious... because to me, "Psychical Research" is no more involved in such innovations than "Flying Saucers" would be in aeronautical advancements (at least, no more than kites, or frisbees, or birds). Put another way, I differentiate (perhaps wrongly?) between something being sparked by an idea, and something being the direct-line result of an idea.

"This is, indeed, one of the symptoms of what I'm still comfortable calling (metaphorically!) "the death of UFOlogy"!"

That was my point, though... the death (metaphorical or otherwise) simply isn't happening. Even in the 1950s there was more than just Hynek & BlueBook interested / investigating the matter, and simply because popular media has shifted does not mean the field itself has changed. You'd be hard pressed to find a soccer match on TV in the United States (at least not without paying stupid premiums)... that doesn't mean Soccer is dying (or dead). I'm probably not being very clear, but my attempted claim was that I define "UFOlogy" as a concept, not a movement or even a firmament of designated "media starlets". As such, even with douchebags like Bara, Greer and the rest becoming the "face of UFOlogy" (as far as the media is concerned), that does not fundamentally change the nature of the concept-in-practice.

Put a different way... we're dealing with a community that is effectively *entirely* self-identified. The statistics and arguments base their claims on attendance at conferences, or "club memberships", or things of that nature. I guarantee the number of golfers (just an example) exceeds the number of professionals and the number of country club attendees combined. In that same way, I'm certain the number of UFO "researchers" (including those "scientifically minded") exceeds the census data of such media-driven events.

The exodus of "serious researchers" from MUFON has been the subject of many stories (and blog posts)... Simply because such individuals abandon MUFON does not mean they cease to exist as researchers or interested parties, nor does it somehow exclude them from constituency in "UFOlogy".

The decline or cessation of a particular entity (MUFON, et. al) is something that can be defended... even the skeptical groups have "reorganized" over time... but I cannot agree that there's been sufficient evidence presented to demonstrate the systemic collapse of the entire concept.

Reply
.
8/13/2014 08:27:41 am

case in point --- the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West
does not indicate all the people there were living out a rougher
life than their ancestors, indeed half the people inside feudalism
when it was stable lived out a life that was better than the one
their ancestors lived. perhaps the power elite of the Dark Ages
did not have the civilized comforts the Roman Optimates had.

Reply
BillUSA
8/13/2014 12:42:31 pm

Gregor - I for one always believed that the U.S. military seriously investigated UFO reports to some degree if only to cover their asses. My assumption has always been that on some subjects or interests, the military was a study in precision. Since UFO's gained popularity in 1947 just at the generally-accepted start of the Cold War, I doubt they wanted to be caught with their pants down. But after a while, I think they realized that they were spending valuable time chasing ghosts and shut down Project Blue Book (I believe) in 1966.

Reply
EP
8/13/2014 02:17:30 pm

You should check out the CIA's own account of the history of the US government's investigations of the UFOs:

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/97unclass/ufo.html

Say what you will about the CIA, they are definitely thorough.

.
8/14/2014 10:17:51 am

Quite clearly--- like KGB, CIA often lies to the public.
KGB + CIA lie more often than Titus Oates ever did in
his 1600s lifetime. Titus Oates lied lied lied. (duckies!)

EP
8/13/2014 09:17:03 am

@ Gregor:

"I am uncertain of the grounds in arguing that the two periods (1950s era and Present era) are sufficiently similar to positively identify a decline without exterior influences or alternate explanations."

I don't understand this worry. Contemporary UFO institutions have evolved out of the earlier ones in a manner that's well-documented. And I wasn't aiming at providing any explanations, only at making a historical claim (one that is debatable, of course). If you're expressing general skepticism about historical explanations, then you're certainly not alone. If you have specific worries about specific claims made by me or anyone else, please state your specific reasons. If you don't feel you know enough about the issues, then you're not really in position to express anything other than general skepticism.

"If the goal is to demonstrate the steep decline (or ruination) of a movement... do so clearly."

I doubt most people would find unclear the statements you're finding objectionable. Jason is a professional writer. So is the journalist in question. I do teaching and research in the humanities. Perhaps lack of clarity is your problem, not ours. (I only say that because this isn't the first time you complain that someone is using figurative language in contexts where it's generally acknowledged to be appropriate.)

"Little is gained (in terms of the argument) by spicing it up with rhetoric..."

That's not the purpose of rhetoric for honest writers. But no one here is trying to present naked arguments.

"the strength of the words used (in terms of impact) should match what you can actually back up."

So who decides what counts as "matching"? People who work with the written word professionally, perhaps? If you find yourself a lone voice against them, then perhaps you should re-examine your standards (note that I say re-examine, not change, since I'm making a general point).

"Does this breakthrough belong to the streak in the sky, or to the engineer?"

I'm not sure what you're trying to say - it strikes me as a red herring. I mentioned statistical aspects of psychical research to illustrate that honest and able scientists were working on it. I wasn't suggesting that the alleged psychics or psychic phenomena are to be credited with that.

"to me, "Psychical Research" is no more involved in such innovations than "Flying Saucers" would be in aeronautical advancements."

Then you obviously aren't sufficiently acquainted with the topic. All I can do is recommend places to look, if you're interested. But your claim is just plain false, if you're willing to take my word for it.

"I differentiate (perhaps wrongly?) between something being sparked by an idea, and something being the direct-line result of an idea."

I don't understand the relevance of the distinction, see above.

"Even in the 1950s there was more than just Hynek & BlueBook interested / investigating the matter"

I already said as much (more than once, I believe). I don't understand why you keep bringing this up as though anyone was questioning it.

"simply because popular media has shifted does not mean the field itself has changed."

I never made any such claim. In fact, I don't recall saying anything about the role of popular media.

"my attempted claim was that I define "UFOlogy" as a concept, not a movement or even a firmament of designated "media starlets"... that does not fundamentally change the nature of the concept-in-practice."

I don't understand what you mean by concept or concept-in-practice. (And your "firmament" talk strikes me as a case of what you've been accusing us of...) By UFOlogy I mean a certain cluster of topics of inquiry, answerable to scientific standards, and institutions engaging in them. When I say UFOlogy is dead I mean that no new work (aside from examination of individual cases, perhaps) is being done that's truly answerable to scientific standards and that this change has been institutionalized.

"we're dealing with a community that is effectively *entirely* self-identified."

I think I get what you're saying, but (a) I don't see how this is relevant to your complaints and (b) it used to not be the case. When the governernment put together UFO research teams, they didn't pick researchers based on their self-identification as UFO enthusiasts (let alone believers).

"Simply because such individuals abandon MUFON does not mean they cease to exist as researchers or interested parties, nor does it somehow exclude them from constituency in "UFOlogy"."

I hope my remarks above help address your complain. Such individuals no longer having place within (or being representative of) the institutions of UFOlogy is what I mean (and you seem to be the only one who's having difficulty getting it) by "the death of UFOlogy".

"I cannot agree that there's been sufficient evidence presented to demonstrate the systemic collapse of the entire concept."

I'm still unsure what you mean by concept, what your standard of evidentiar

Reply
EP
8/13/2014 09:17:59 am

(Continued)
I'm still unsure what you mean by concept, what your standard of evidentiary sufficiency is, or what you're expecting from discussion on a blog. I can only ask: Do you think that people who know a thing or two about this stuff could be interpreted as meaning something other than what you're uncharitably attributing to them? If so, then perhaps you should concentrate on that instead of arguing with straw men.

Now I must go do other stuff. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them as soon as I can get back to this.

Reply
Gregor
8/13/2014 09:52:35 am

@EP

"Do you think that people who know a thing or two about this stuff could be interpreted as meaning something other than what you're uncharitably attributing to them?"

I anticipate that people here (at least, the host & notable commenters) know "a thing or two about this stuff" - it's why I come here, to enjoy what's written and (hopefully) learn new things.

As for "uncharitable attribution", I suspect you "know a thing or two" about that as well. My objections were (and are) in good faith, as are my questions (including those posted to you).

Suffice it to say that I speak my mind not out of a desire to impose my own worldview, or to be inflammatory, but because I have grounds (which ultimately can be unfounded, I admit) to object. As for questions, I have none (as I feel the offer is entirely disingenuous) but as always I do believe you find many interesting things and your comments, when they lead me to exterior information, are always informative.

Reply
EP
8/13/2014 10:24:04 am

@ Gregor

I can only take you at your word and I didn't mean anything personally accusatory. Whether something is charitable isn't just a matter of ones intentions. (For the record, I did think that a part of you was playing te devil's advocate. If I was wrong about that, then I stand corrected.)

I don't want to sound paternalistic, so I'll just say that if you have any further questions I'll try to answer them.

Kal
8/13/2014 09:18:32 am

History channel and H2 are no longer about history, but is about conspiracies including aliens. Animal Planet is now more about conspiracies and bigfoot and monsters than about animals.

They had to do something after 2012 turned out to be a hoax, or a publicity stunt for a movie.

Also to think that von Daaniken could not have read Lovecraft, or any other sources like his, is silly. Sure he did. Was he under a rock the whole time? No. He can deny he read Lovecraft, but he did, either directly or indirectly from other sources. Even if he saw some John Carpenter movies based on Lovecraft, he knew.

The other 'theorists' are all heavily versed in the cultural lore and mythos of popular stories, TV and movies. Anyone among the Ancient Aliens crowd who denies that is ridiculous.

They wouldn't have an audience if it wasn't for those works, and later ones like Strieber and the like, even Spielberg (ET and whatnot).

If there are aliens, they probably find our media insane and frantic and can't make sense of all these shows. Either that or they are amused.

And they've read Lovecraft.

Reply
BillUSA
8/13/2014 12:27:16 pm

An end to UFO's?

Awww, say it ain't so.....

Reply
EP
8/13/2014 01:57:18 pm

The really sad thing about Akers's article is that he emphatically acknowledges that Ancient Aliens is "pseudoscientific and pseudohistorical", yet that doesn't stop him from presenting the show in positive light, as quality and maybe even thought-provoking entertainment. This, more than him sharing in the apparently near-universal failure to perform even the most cursory examination of the nature of its sources, is what struck me. If the show being "pseudoscientific and pseudohistorical" is an afterthought for people who can actually see that it is such, then it's unclear what anyone can say to make a difference... (Oh God, am I becoming Walt?!)

Reply
Only Me
8/13/2014 02:17:20 pm

"Oh God, am I becoming Walt?!"

Okay that's a little much, please tone it down now :)

Reply
EP
8/13/2014 02:18:44 pm

Hey, everyone else gets to make fun of him :)

Prone
8/13/2014 04:17:54 pm

I know that modern UFOlogy isn't really Jason's cup of tea, much less his area of expertise, but I have noticed a startling oversight in both his (and the commenters' thus far) assessments of what made flying saucers and aliens in the more classical, "nuts-and-bolts" sense, such an apparently credible phenomena during the Cold War.

Huge swathes of what is now accepted UFO canon has its roots in US Air Force intelligence disinformation campaigns created and disseminated to either scare the Soviets into believing that America had captured super advanced alien technology (somewhat doubtful), or to fire a bunch of chaff into the air around genuinely secret aircraft and projects (such as the SR-71, which flew so high and so fast that one at the time couldn't be faulted for not thinking it was of this world; in fact a lot of UFO sightings from around that era are indeed misidentified A-12s / SR-71s which the Air Force was happy to have the general public believe were alien craft rather than reveal their new technology).

The MJ-12 papers were written and spread by the Air Force themselves, and by Rick C. Doty in particular. That's a name that will leave a bitter taste in the mouths of many old school UFOlogists after Bill Moore's 1987 (I believe) MUFON conference speech, and what happened to Paul Bennewitz. The secret base under the Dulce Mesa in New Mexico? That was Doty and "The Aviary" too. Linda Moulton Howe going from investigative journalist to crackpot? That was because she started investigating "cattle mutilations" and was, again, lead astray by Doty. You can trace a lot of this stuff back to that one disinfo agent, doing his best to muddy the waters for his country in case any of those kooks staring up into the skies ever actually saw something they weren't supposed to, and who knows how many others worked in similar ways. Is it a coincidence that the flying triangle type UFOs became a big thing around when we now know the Air Force were testing the stealth bomber? Come on.

UFOlogy has become much more New Age-y and spiritual now because the intelligence community doesn't have much interest in perpetuating the "nuts-and-bolts" alien craft line, and they have left the researchers and conferences to eat their own tails. The real conspiracy all along was that the conspiracy was contrived.

Reply
EP
8/13/2014 04:40:17 pm

"Huge swathes of what is now accepted UFO canon has its roots in US Air Force intelligence disinformation campaigns"

This is itself part of "accepted UFO canon", with everything that implies (confusion, distortion, exaggeration, etc.). There is zero evidence that the US government had anything to do with the Majestic 12 hoax.

I find it ironic that people who claim that Richard Doty is a master disinformation agent also take seriously his specific claims about the nature of disinformation. Not to mention that he's been going back and forth, depending on what's more financially and legally convenient at a given moment.

Also, remember that if he was indeed doing what he claims to have been doing, then he is likely committing treason by revealing it. If it's the other way round, then he's risking much lesser charges.

Reply
Name
8/14/2014 06:45:18 am

http://www.project1947.com/shg/osu_p_s.htm

http://www.karenlyster.com/pop.html

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7gmbp_aero-tv-ready-for-action-the-av-8b_news


THE HARRIER JUMP JET ARRIVED PUBLICALLY in 1985!!!!

http://www.ebay.com/sch/sis.html?_nkw=POPULAR%20MECHANICS%20UFO%20MAGAZINE%20UFOS%203%20ISSUES&_itemId=261457488254


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      • Chariots of the Gods at 50
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        • Lost Cities >
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        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
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        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
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        • The Skyfort Document
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        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
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        • Noah's Ark Cables
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      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
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        • The Moon Hoax
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        • Aerolites and Religion
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        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
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    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
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      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
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      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Scrapbook
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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