Normalizing the Fantastic and Resisting the Rational

"Why have we normalized speculating about alien bases on the moon yet vilify a person trying to explain strange occurrences with grounded explanations?" Twitter user Inquiring Josh recently tweeted. 

Why, indeed. The UFO genre has a long and troubled history of treating extreme claims as the norm. Casual talk of alien bases is often bandied about without so much as a raised eyebrow. It's common. As Inquiring Josh suggests, the situation is confounded by the typical knee jerk...