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UFOs: A Scientific Debate
Sagan had interest in UFO reports from his youth, a letter querying the government as regards their reality having been uncovered thru the FOIA. In '64 he had conversations on the subject with Jacques Vallee. Tho skeptical of any extraordinary answer to the question, he thought scientists should study the phenomenon because of widespread public interest.
Stuart Appelle notes that Sagan "wrote frequently on what he perceived as the logical & empirical fallacies regarding UFOs & the abduction experience. Sagan rejected an extraterrestrial explanation for the phenomenon but felt there were both empirical & pedagogical benefits for examining UFO reports & that the subject was, therefore, a legitimate topic of study."
In '66, Sagan was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project Blue Book, the USAF's UFO investigation. The committee concluded Blue Book had been inadequate & recommended a university-based project to give the phenomenon closer scientific scrutiny. The result was the Condon Committee ('66-'68), led by physicist Edward Condon. Their controversial final report formally concluded--as if ignoring the body of the text--there was nothing anomalous about UFO reports.
Ron Westrum writes that "The high point of Sagan's treatment of the UFO question was the AAAS's symposium in 1969. A wide range of educated opinions on the subject were offered by participants, including not only proponents like James McDonald & J. Allen Hynek but also skeptics like astronomers Wm Hartmann & Donald Menzel. The roster of speakers was balanced, & it's to Sagan's credit that this event was presented in spite of pressure from Edward Condon". With physicist Thornton Page, Sagan edited the lectures & discussions given at the symposium. These were published as UFO's: A Scientific Debate. Jerome Clark writes that Sagan's perspective on UFO's irked Condon: "...tho a skeptic, [Sagan] was too soft on UFOs for Condon's taste. In '71, he considered blackballing Sagan from the prestigious Cosmos Club".
Some of Sagan's many books examine UFOs. He recognized a religious undercurrent to the phenomenon. However, Westrum writes that "Sagan spent very little time researching UFOs...he thought that little evidence existed to show that the UFO phenomenon represented alien spacecraft & that the motivation for interpreting UFO observations as spacecraft was emotional."
Sagan again revealed his views on interstellar travel in his '80 Cosmos series. He rejected the idea that UFOs are visiting Earth, maintaining the chances any alien spacecraft would visit the Earth are vanishingly small. In one of his last written works, he again argued there was no evidence aliens have actually visited Earth.
Stuart Appelle notes that Sagan "wrote frequently on what he perceived as the logical & empirical fallacies regarding UFOs & the abduction experience. Sagan rejected an extraterrestrial explanation for the phenomenon but felt there were both empirical & pedagogical benefits for examining UFO reports & that the subject was, therefore, a legitimate topic of study."
In '66, Sagan was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project Blue Book, the USAF's UFO investigation. The committee concluded Blue Book had been inadequate & recommended a university-based project to give the phenomenon closer scientific scrutiny. The result was the Condon Committee ('66-'68), led by physicist Edward Condon. Their controversial final report formally concluded--as if ignoring the body of the text--there was nothing anomalous about UFO reports.
Ron Westrum writes that "The high point of Sagan's treatment of the UFO question was the AAAS's symposium in 1969. A wide range of educated opinions on the subject were offered by participants, including not only proponents like James McDonald & J. Allen Hynek but also skeptics like astronomers Wm Hartmann & Donald Menzel. The roster of speakers was balanced, & it's to Sagan's credit that this event was presented in spite of pressure from Edward Condon". With physicist Thornton Page, Sagan edited the lectures & discussions given at the symposium. These were published as UFO's: A Scientific Debate. Jerome Clark writes that Sagan's perspective on UFO's irked Condon: "...tho a skeptic, [Sagan] was too soft on UFOs for Condon's taste. In '71, he considered blackballing Sagan from the prestigious Cosmos Club".
Some of Sagan's many books examine UFOs. He recognized a religious undercurrent to the phenomenon. However, Westrum writes that "Sagan spent very little time researching UFOs...he thought that little evidence existed to show that the UFO phenomenon represented alien spacecraft & that the motivation for interpreting UFO observations as spacecraft was emotional."
Sagan again revealed his views on interstellar travel in his '80 Cosmos series. He rejected the idea that UFOs are visiting Earth, maintaining the chances any alien spacecraft would visit the Earth are vanishingly small. In one of his last written works, he again argued there was no evidence aliens have actually visited Earth.
- GenresScienceNonfiction
342 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1972
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December 5, 2019
Scientists, being human beings, do not always approach controversial subjects dispassionately, and the reader will occasionally find in these pages the heat of passion as well as the light of scientific inquiry.
There are a lot of mixed signals in this book. The biggest is up front on the cover. This is supposed to be a reasoned symposium on unidentified flying objects in their literal sense as unidentified observations, and yet the cover is of a spiral galaxy.
The Norton imprint on a book means that in the publisher’s estimation it is a book not for a single season but for the years.
There is a sense in which this is true, and a sense in which it cannot possibly be true. The UFO debate has certainly had a staying power. Even today, when the fundamental problem with UFO sightings—that observers see space ships and their photographs see lights and blurs—has only been exacerbated by the ubiquity of portable cameras, there is still a thriving belief in UFOs as extraterrestrial visitors.
The basic debate remains relevant. But the technical debate was destined to move on quickly, though they might not have realized it in 1969 (when the symposium was held) or 1972 (when the book was published). Even by 1976-78, when I got into amateur radio, the science of what radar specialists call anomalous propagation and what hams called skip was much better understood.
This book fits in well with Michael Crichton’s Electronic Life. Both address our growing reliance on technology to augment our perceptions, and the need to understand that our technology is as flawed as we are.
Like many other areas governed by probability, there is enough happening in the skies that if you look for something out of the ordinary you will find it, whether looking with your eyes or with radar. In many senses, the fifties, sixties, and seventies fascination with UFOs was an early form of data mining, of combing collections of data for something out of the ordinary, without understanding that, statistically, you always find something out of the ordinary if you look hard enough. It doesn’t mean anything.
Reading the pro-ETH (extra-terrestrial hypothesis) James E. McDonald’s paper was very reminiscent of Lair of the White Worm, where the characters jump immediately from a mongoose attacked Lady Arabella to thinking she’s the reincarnation of an ancient white worm. McDonald goes immediately from this is kind of hard to explain in terms of modern knowledge to “it is difficult for me to see any reasonable alternative to the hypothesis that something in the nature of extraterrestrial devices engaged in something in the matter of surveillance lies at the heart of the UFO problem.”
McDonald also writes, earlier, that:
Doubtless, another important factor operates: the UFO incidents that are most striking and most puzzling probably have been discussed by the key witnesses enough times that their recollections have been thereby reinforced in a useful way.
He appears to be using this as an example of why more vivid sightings have, in his view, more consistency among individual reports. But anyone versed in human testimony will see the obvious flaw in that logic: reinforcement, besides ironing out initial differences, also acts to move testimony toward extremes.
There are basically three groups represented here: UFOlogists, scientists, and, not present in person but heavily present in such initiatives as Blue Book, the military. They all distrust each other and they all use terminology in slightly or even heavily different ways. Both skeptics and aficionados find the Air Force questionnaires extremely lacking and even counter-productive from the standpoint of assessing relationships among observations.
And Douglas R. Price-Williams got bit by that in discussing the psychology of UFO reports; he divided sightings into three populations of which “Population C covers those reports which both groups [skeptics and aficionados] agree are unidentifiable and unexplainable in terms of known phenomena. Presumably all the ‘unidentifieds’ in the Air Force files belong to this population…”
But an earlier writer complained that the Air Force used “unidentified” to mean sightings that they thought were explainable but not worth the trouble to investigate. If true, this gives the term the opposite of Price-William’s interpretation.
And it must have deflated their academic ego when the AAAS received a form letter back from the Air Force after writing a joint letter asking them to preserve the Blue Book files for future research. They reprint the form letter here, as well as further correspondence to individuals the Air Forced had worked with previously, which the Air Force took more seriously than joint letters from academic committees.
This book is a time machine into the sixties and seventies, not just a visit to the heyday of UFOs but that of Freudian psychoanalysis as well. UFOs, write Lester Grinspoon and Alan D. Persky, are saucers and cigars, that is, breasts and penises. Sagan writes parenthetically that:
Drs. Grinspoon and Persky may be interested to hear that the vehicles in the UFO literature described as “mother ships” are the ones that are cigar-shaped, and I shudder to think what that means for their interpretation.
Carl Sagan also touches on a very important point that doesn’t get developed further:
In a scientific age what is a more reasonable and acceptable disguise for the classic religious mythos than the idea that we are being visited by messengers of a powerful, wise, and benign advanced civilization?
This is extremely important, and deserves more elaboration, because a lot of the “I fucking love science” culture today has more the appearance of a religious movement than an actual love of science and the scientific method. It needs Crichton’s admonition not to trust computer printouts without knowing how the calculations were performed, or Donald H. Menzel’s caution that machine perceptions are not superior to human perceptions, just different, with their own mirages and hallucinations, or just about any of the popular science musings of Feynman.
In that sense, this book is an important one for the ages, or would be if it made the wider point beyond just UFOs. It would certainly have changed my teenage fascination with UFOs had I read this as a teenager.
Like all, or nearly all, scientific positions, it is tentative and ambiguous in nature; for that reason it will fall short of conviction, as indeed it should. —Philip Morrison
April 14, 2025
PAPERS FROM A 1969 AAAS SYMPOSIUM, WITH A VARIETY OF PARTICIPANTS
The ‘Contributors’ section of this 1972 book states, “A symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], was held in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 26 and 27, 1969. The following participants contributed their papers to this book. A number of these papers have been considerably revised."
The Editors’ Introduction explains, “The public interest in the subject, but only a little of the scientific interest, derives from the idea that unidentified flying objects are space vehicles sent to the earth from elsewhere in the universe… Primarily in response to public interest in the topic, the Air Force sponsored a two-year study directed by Professor E.U. Condon … the results were published as ‘Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects’… usually referred to as the … Condon Report. In the year preceding the … Condon Report, the editors of this book approached the [AAAS] with the idea of organizing a general symposium at an annual meeting of the Association to discuss the UFO issue… The opposition to holding this symposium.. was based upon the view that if such an unscientific subject as the UFO controversy is discussed, we might just as well organize symposia on astrology… Velikovsky, and so forth.
“We believe this conclusion… is not the reductio ad absurdum that its authors seem to believe it is. All of us who teach at colleges and universities are aware of a drift away from science… At the same time there is a range of borderline subjects that have high popularity… But while we may deplore this trend, particularly in its extreme variant as a religious cult, it seems to us unprofitable to ignore it… Science has itself become a kind of religion… We believe that organizations like the AAAS have a major obligation to arrange for confrontations on precisely those science-related subjects that catch the public eye.” (Pg. xi-xiv)
William Hartmann provides a historical perspective on photos of UFOs: “The UFOs reported by various pilots, astronomers and city dwellers may all be results of different individual circumstances… ‘The UFO Evidence,’ a comprehensive study published in 1964 by NICAP [a pro-UFO organization]… lists tabulations of pilot-witness, scientist-witness, radar, photographic, and other kinds of cases, and asserts that there must be something to such an abundance of cases. But, of course, the mere listing of unanswered puzzles is not equivalent to providing unanswerable arguments.” (Pg. 14)
Franklin Roach suggests, “The lesson to be learned from this astronomical time scale is that we must be cautious in placing technological limits on other civilizations which are older than ours by some period like a megayear (one million years).” (Pg 27)
J. Allan Hynek observes, “There is much in the UFO problem to be astonished about---and much to be confused about, too. Such confusion is understandable. Over the past 20 years I have had so many experiences with crackpots, visionaries, and religious fanatics that I hardly need be reminded of people who espouse the idea of UFOs as visitors from outer space for their own peculiar purposes… Very rarely do members of the lunatic fringe make UFO reports… they are incapable of composing an articulate, factual, and objective report.” (Pg. 39)
He continues, “For years I could not accept the idea that a genuine UFO phenomenon might exist, preferring to hold that it was all a craze based on hoaxes and misperceptions.. As my review of UFO reports continued, I became concerned that the whole subject didn’t evaporate as one would expect a craze to do.” (Pg. 41) He then explains his concept of ‘strangeness’ (pg. 41), the 4 basic types of UFO sightings (e.g., ‘nocturnal lights,’ ‘daylight disks,’ ‘close encounters,’ and ‘radar’; pg. 44), as well as his three types of close encounters: those ‘with little detail,’ those with ‘physical effects,’ and those in which ‘humanoids or occupants are reported.’” (Pg. 47)
UFOlogist James E. McDonald (1920-1971; he committed suicide) asserts, “No scientifically adequate investigation of the UFO problem has been carried out during the entire 22-year period between the first extensive wave of sightings of unidentified aerial objects in the summer of 1947 and this symposium… In charging inadequacy of past UFO investigations, I speak not only from intimate knowledge of the past investigations, but also from three years of detailed personal research…” (Pg. 52) He provides detailed summaries of four cases. (Pg. 56-121), and then concludes, “One has here a sample of the low scientific level of investigative and evaluative work that will be so apparent to any who take the trouble to study carefully and thoroughly the Condon Report on UFOs. AAAS members are urged to study it carefully for themselves and to decide whether it would be scientifically advisable to accept it as the final word on the 22-year puzzle of the UFO problem.” (Pg. 122)
Skeptic Donald H. Menzel asserts, “Myths come in a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and colors… The phenomena reported as mysterious apparitions over the centuries have much in common with the modern UFO reports.” (Pg. 123-124) He concludes, “I do predict… a continued decline of public interest in UFOs. The people seem to have taken up a new cause: Astrology… Most of the UFO societies have quietly folded. Only a few die-hards and sensation-mongering journals still urge support for the moribund ETH [extra-terrestrial hypothesis]. The government should withdraw all support for UFO studies as such, though I could advocate the support of research in certain atmospheric phenomena associated with UFO reports. I further predict the scientists of the 21st century will look back on UFOs as the greatest nonsense of the 20th century.” (Pg. 146)
Robert L. Hall suggests, “I find it more plausible to believe that there is a distinctive physical stimulus than to believe that multiple witnesses misperceive in such a way as to make them firmly believe they saw something which jars their own beliefs and subjects them to ridicule of their associates.” (Pg. 219)
Frank D. Drake suggests, “There are at least two lessons to be learned from our investigation. One is that there is a need to carry out frauds and hoaxes---a desire to pull the wool over other people’s eyes and to do it very cleverly for surprising reasons. The other is that even honest normal people make errors, because the human mind does not always have perfect sensors; it is an imperfect computer in dealing with the stimuli it receives.” (Pg. 257)
Carl Sagan observes, “An attempt has been made to specify explicitly the factors which enter into a determination of the number of … technical civilizations in the galaxy… Let’s assume that each of these million technological civilizations launches ‘Q’ interstellar space vehicles a year… Now there surely are [an enormous number] of interesting places in the galaxy to visit… So if only one UFO is to visit the earth each year, we can calculate what mean launch rate is required at each of these million worlds. The number turns out to be 10,000 launches per year per civilization.” (Pg. 267-268)
He points out, “There are serious problems in interstellar flight, principally because the space between the stars is enormous… the average distances between stars in our galaxy is a few light years; light, faster than which nothing that can slow down can travel, takes years to traverse the distance between the nearest stars. Space vehicles take that long at the very least. In order for a space vehicle to get from one star to another in a convenient period of time it has to go … close to the speed of light so that relativistic time dilation can enter into the problem, and so the shipboard clock can run more slowly compared to a clock left on the launch planet. To travel very close to the speed of light is difficult… It is easy to see that carrying sufficient fuel for an interstellar flight is really out of the question… I believe the numbers work out in such a way that UFOs as interstellar vehicles is extremely unlikely, but I think it is an equally bad mistake to say that interstellar space flight is impossible… the probability of such visitations seems very small… why is it that the extraterrestrial hypothesis of UFOs is so popular?... is it possible that … the idea of extraterrestrial visitation somehow resonates with the spirit of the times in which we live?” (Pg. 270-271)
This book will be of great interest to those seriously studying UFOs.
The ‘Contributors’ section of this 1972 book states, “A symposium on Unidentified Flying Objects, sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], was held in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 26 and 27, 1969. The following participants contributed their papers to this book. A number of these papers have been considerably revised."
The Editors’ Introduction explains, “The public interest in the subject, but only a little of the scientific interest, derives from the idea that unidentified flying objects are space vehicles sent to the earth from elsewhere in the universe… Primarily in response to public interest in the topic, the Air Force sponsored a two-year study directed by Professor E.U. Condon … the results were published as ‘Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects’… usually referred to as the … Condon Report. In the year preceding the … Condon Report, the editors of this book approached the [AAAS] with the idea of organizing a general symposium at an annual meeting of the Association to discuss the UFO issue… The opposition to holding this symposium.. was based upon the view that if such an unscientific subject as the UFO controversy is discussed, we might just as well organize symposia on astrology… Velikovsky, and so forth.
“We believe this conclusion… is not the reductio ad absurdum that its authors seem to believe it is. All of us who teach at colleges and universities are aware of a drift away from science… At the same time there is a range of borderline subjects that have high popularity… But while we may deplore this trend, particularly in its extreme variant as a religious cult, it seems to us unprofitable to ignore it… Science has itself become a kind of religion… We believe that organizations like the AAAS have a major obligation to arrange for confrontations on precisely those science-related subjects that catch the public eye.” (Pg. xi-xiv)
William Hartmann provides a historical perspective on photos of UFOs: “The UFOs reported by various pilots, astronomers and city dwellers may all be results of different individual circumstances… ‘The UFO Evidence,’ a comprehensive study published in 1964 by NICAP [a pro-UFO organization]… lists tabulations of pilot-witness, scientist-witness, radar, photographic, and other kinds of cases, and asserts that there must be something to such an abundance of cases. But, of course, the mere listing of unanswered puzzles is not equivalent to providing unanswerable arguments.” (Pg. 14)
Franklin Roach suggests, “The lesson to be learned from this astronomical time scale is that we must be cautious in placing technological limits on other civilizations which are older than ours by some period like a megayear (one million years).” (Pg 27)
J. Allan Hynek observes, “There is much in the UFO problem to be astonished about---and much to be confused about, too. Such confusion is understandable. Over the past 20 years I have had so many experiences with crackpots, visionaries, and religious fanatics that I hardly need be reminded of people who espouse the idea of UFOs as visitors from outer space for their own peculiar purposes… Very rarely do members of the lunatic fringe make UFO reports… they are incapable of composing an articulate, factual, and objective report.” (Pg. 39)
He continues, “For years I could not accept the idea that a genuine UFO phenomenon might exist, preferring to hold that it was all a craze based on hoaxes and misperceptions.. As my review of UFO reports continued, I became concerned that the whole subject didn’t evaporate as one would expect a craze to do.” (Pg. 41) He then explains his concept of ‘strangeness’ (pg. 41), the 4 basic types of UFO sightings (e.g., ‘nocturnal lights,’ ‘daylight disks,’ ‘close encounters,’ and ‘radar’; pg. 44), as well as his three types of close encounters: those ‘with little detail,’ those with ‘physical effects,’ and those in which ‘humanoids or occupants are reported.’” (Pg. 47)
UFOlogist James E. McDonald (1920-1971; he committed suicide) asserts, “No scientifically adequate investigation of the UFO problem has been carried out during the entire 22-year period between the first extensive wave of sightings of unidentified aerial objects in the summer of 1947 and this symposium… In charging inadequacy of past UFO investigations, I speak not only from intimate knowledge of the past investigations, but also from three years of detailed personal research…” (Pg. 52) He provides detailed summaries of four cases. (Pg. 56-121), and then concludes, “One has here a sample of the low scientific level of investigative and evaluative work that will be so apparent to any who take the trouble to study carefully and thoroughly the Condon Report on UFOs. AAAS members are urged to study it carefully for themselves and to decide whether it would be scientifically advisable to accept it as the final word on the 22-year puzzle of the UFO problem.” (Pg. 122)
Skeptic Donald H. Menzel asserts, “Myths come in a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and colors… The phenomena reported as mysterious apparitions over the centuries have much in common with the modern UFO reports.” (Pg. 123-124) He concludes, “I do predict… a continued decline of public interest in UFOs. The people seem to have taken up a new cause: Astrology… Most of the UFO societies have quietly folded. Only a few die-hards and sensation-mongering journals still urge support for the moribund ETH [extra-terrestrial hypothesis]. The government should withdraw all support for UFO studies as such, though I could advocate the support of research in certain atmospheric phenomena associated with UFO reports. I further predict the scientists of the 21st century will look back on UFOs as the greatest nonsense of the 20th century.” (Pg. 146)
Robert L. Hall suggests, “I find it more plausible to believe that there is a distinctive physical stimulus than to believe that multiple witnesses misperceive in such a way as to make them firmly believe they saw something which jars their own beliefs and subjects them to ridicule of their associates.” (Pg. 219)
Frank D. Drake suggests, “There are at least two lessons to be learned from our investigation. One is that there is a need to carry out frauds and hoaxes---a desire to pull the wool over other people’s eyes and to do it very cleverly for surprising reasons. The other is that even honest normal people make errors, because the human mind does not always have perfect sensors; it is an imperfect computer in dealing with the stimuli it receives.” (Pg. 257)
Carl Sagan observes, “An attempt has been made to specify explicitly the factors which enter into a determination of the number of … technical civilizations in the galaxy… Let’s assume that each of these million technological civilizations launches ‘Q’ interstellar space vehicles a year… Now there surely are [an enormous number] of interesting places in the galaxy to visit… So if only one UFO is to visit the earth each year, we can calculate what mean launch rate is required at each of these million worlds. The number turns out to be 10,000 launches per year per civilization.” (Pg. 267-268)
He points out, “There are serious problems in interstellar flight, principally because the space between the stars is enormous… the average distances between stars in our galaxy is a few light years; light, faster than which nothing that can slow down can travel, takes years to traverse the distance between the nearest stars. Space vehicles take that long at the very least. In order for a space vehicle to get from one star to another in a convenient period of time it has to go … close to the speed of light so that relativistic time dilation can enter into the problem, and so the shipboard clock can run more slowly compared to a clock left on the launch planet. To travel very close to the speed of light is difficult… It is easy to see that carrying sufficient fuel for an interstellar flight is really out of the question… I believe the numbers work out in such a way that UFOs as interstellar vehicles is extremely unlikely, but I think it is an equally bad mistake to say that interstellar space flight is impossible… the probability of such visitations seems very small… why is it that the extraterrestrial hypothesis of UFOs is so popular?... is it possible that … the idea of extraterrestrial visitation somehow resonates with the spirit of the times in which we live?” (Pg. 270-271)
This book will be of great interest to those seriously studying UFOs.
March 25, 2015
Having heard about the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences' (AAAS) 1969 symposium on UFO's for years, I was pleased to find a used, hardcover copy of it at a bookstore near the Belmont Station of Chicago's Red Line. I wasn't expecting much, having also heard that it was weighted heavily in the negative.
Actually, it wasn't that prejudiced. Hynek and McDonald were the only strong proponents of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. But Menzel was really the sole presenter to strongly object to it. The rest were neutral or dabbled in psychological explanations. Many, such as the presenters on photographic and radar evidence, did not even really address the hypothesis. They simply discussed the epistemic limitations of their media.
Although offensive, Menzel was good--an intelligent, well-educated skeptic. One would like to see a tape of him and McDonald go at it! The only really bad presentation was the ridiculous contribution of Lester Grinspoon and Alan Persky entitled "Psychiatry and UFO Reports." It is such stupid psychoanalytic drivel that it is funny until one reflects that these men are serious and that the AAAS actually invited them. If there were any crazies at the symposium, Grinspoon and Persky were them.
Actually, it wasn't that prejudiced. Hynek and McDonald were the only strong proponents of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. But Menzel was really the sole presenter to strongly object to it. The rest were neutral or dabbled in psychological explanations. Many, such as the presenters on photographic and radar evidence, did not even really address the hypothesis. They simply discussed the epistemic limitations of their media.
Although offensive, Menzel was good--an intelligent, well-educated skeptic. One would like to see a tape of him and McDonald go at it! The only really bad presentation was the ridiculous contribution of Lester Grinspoon and Alan Persky entitled "Psychiatry and UFO Reports." It is such stupid psychoanalytic drivel that it is funny until one reflects that these men are serious and that the AAAS actually invited them. If there were any crazies at the symposium, Grinspoon and Persky were them.
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May 18, 2024"The general advancement in science depends on the public education in science. " p. 10 The interest in UFO's should be used to get students interested in studying science.
"If instead of a policy of secrecy, the Air Force had released the UFO data and encouraged all scientists to come at look at its files in 1952, it is probable that UFO mystery would have been clarified after a few months of scientific and public excitement and indeed, healthy curiosity." p. 17
The essays in general do not seem to put a great deal of stock in whatever the government findings may be.
One person posits that there are probably many extraterrestial civilizations in our galaxy, but does not believe any of the UFO sightings support a visitation from any of them. p32
"If instead of a policy of secrecy, the Air Force had released the UFO data and encouraged all scientists to come at look at its files in 1952, it is probable that UFO mystery would have been clarified after a few months of scientific and public excitement and indeed, healthy curiosity." p. 17
The essays in general do not seem to put a great deal of stock in whatever the government findings may be.
One person posits that there are probably many extraterrestial civilizations in our galaxy, but does not believe any of the UFO sightings support a visitation from any of them. p32
March 25, 2023
A compilation of essays by various scientists and journalists this is very informative on both sides, skeptics and UFOlogists. It leaves the reader to make up their own mind. Since being published in 1972, it's surprising to see not much has changed over the years.
December 5, 2009
fascinating
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews