Page Content (OCR)
especially noteworthy: (1) that UFOs are known by science to have conventional explanations, for all the reasons we criticized above; (2) that rn mann 1 4 “4 UFOs are not a national security concern, [10] which allows states to wash their hands of the problem; (3) that any study of UFOs is by definition pseudoscience, since UFOs do not exist; and (4) that UFOs are science fiction, which displaces the existentially scary aspect of a potential extraterrestrial encounter into the safety of the imagination. We are not saying that modern authorities are consciously trying to protect the UFO taboo when they make such representations. Our point is that whatever the concrete intent in particular instances, these representations (and no doubt others) have the effect of reinforcing the authoritative consensus that UFOs should not be taken seriously. A second technique by which the taboo is maintained turns the point about pseudoscience on its head. Here we are thinking of officially sanctioned but problematic inquiries into UFOs like the 1968 Condon report, the purpose of which was to give the appearance of an objective, scientific assessment while reaffirming the dominant view that there is nothing to such phenomena. As has been amply documented in the literature, in the Condon case this ideological bias led to gross errors of research design and empirical inference, as well as to an Executive Summary that completely rejected the extraterrestrial hypothesis even though conventional explanations could not be found for fully 30 percent of the cases that had been studied. This is not to say there is no good science in the Condon report (on the contrary), but that ultimately it was a "show trial" for the extraterrestrial hypothesis. Nevertheless, the report's conclusion that UFOs are definitely not extraterrestrial was immediately accepted by the larger scientific community, and also enabled the U.S. Air Force to disengage publicly from the UFO problem, which it had wanted to do for some time. That such a flawed report could be embraced so readily attests to how deep-seated the "will to disbelieve" is. astm, oa aes 1 A third factor sustaining the taboo is pervasive official secrecy about UFO reports involving military personnel, the effect of which is to remove from the system knowledge that might bolster the argument for taking UFOs seriously, thereby (at least implicitly) reinforcing the skeptical case. [11] UFO secrecy takes at least tw'o forms. The most obvious is withholding information on known cases, whether by redacting text or telling citizens requesting documents through the Freedom of Information Act that no relevant documents exist at all. (In the United States, the law requires government agencies to inform the public if requested documents are classified, or else release them with sensitive sections redacted.) The other form of secrecy—not reporting military UFO encounters at all —is more difficult to assess, since it is impossible to know how many such cases there are. Still, the fact that most governments do not release UFO reports as a matter of course—although in recent years this trend has started to shift in some countries, but not in the United States—does not