Ufology needs open minded skepticism. Duh.

Let's get one thing straight that never gets straight. Being skeptical is GOOD if you really want to find some answers. Especially in the UFO world. I commonly hear "the skeptics" in a negative way and in the Stanton Friedman way it is termed" noisy negativists". And in many ways he seems suspect to his own "rules". Not that Stan hasn't done good work and opened the eyes of many to the UFO possibilities, but that those possibilities are those of his own conclusions and not exactly balance by other negativists if you want to call them that.

Now there is a difference between a non-thinking debunker and a skeptic. Non-thinking debunkers are those that just go through a laundry list of why ANY UFO is bunk. These debunkers and true believers are basically in the same boat. They have beliefs of how things are and they are bullet-proof to anything else. There are many of these in the UFO world. And none of them can impart any useful information in this study.

But then there is a narrower band of thinkers and researchers that merges towards centrism. The true open minded skeptic. The person that weighs heavily on skepticism but maintains an open mind to all possibilites. There is no such person. You either lean towards UFO's being real or not, even if the lean is a precarious little tilt. But the thing is, that most official groups are not very diversified. The opinions tend to fall squareley on one side or the other. Like minds tend to gather together and they seem to have no sense of checking themselves or their conclusions.


This is a problem for truth. Or at least those that want productive progress in the ufological field. No matter the difference of opinion these people (skeptics and co-called believers) need to somehow unite. Maybe they don't need to hold hands daily and they don't necessarily have to like each other, but it might serve as a great library of information and opinion. This type of forum, where skeptics, pro or con on the existance of UFO's, would intelligently and courteously present data. They would come to conclusions together to try and solve this thing. This would give the best opinion and data supporting the reality of UFO's.

We need the skeptics as our checks and balances. Then we may begin to understand how data can produce drastictly different results. We never seem to have the forums that present both sides of a topic. This is exactly what we need. Both sides. Because when you have both sides, even if they may be opposed, you have a better chance of reaching a centered and reasonable conclusion than having heard only one version. Period.

Here is a list of things that may help solve this impossible mystery. It is just food for thought, but if I could present some guidelines or rules that allow for understanding the people involved and an avenue for exporing such topics.

1. All members must pass lie detector tests or battery of tests. This may inhibit people making wild claims and those that do will need to pass this test validating, if only in their minds, their claims.

2. All members background and financial status must be disclosed, verified, and openly distributed on request. This stuff may be invasive but can be an important consideration when judging the nature and integrity of a person. Certainly this isn't everything, but people should know.

3. I think that even their beliefs on many topics should be disclosed as well. This is just an intensive and scutinizing way of organizing a productive group and I think, at this point, it may be needed. Not that there beliefs are even wrong, but from this information we can know where they are shooting from. Again, just something we should know.

4. Open and non-threatening way of meeting, discussing, presenting and compiling of data, and starting to form a "group" opinion using tools of science and deductive reason.

5. Peer review is only possible when such a group has operated cooperatively and congruently in a way that forms a more unified consensus on cases and presented evidence. This would take a number of years at least to consistenly come up with enough "heads in the mix" so to speak for a longer tenure to establish the validity and respectability of having competent peers review their work.

I know that I will have a lot more to say about this topic, but at this point I will at least get some of these ideas out onto the blog. Yeah the blog that no one reads, but nonetheless, it is there if only for me to think and rethink. To form logical opinions on how we may be able to undress the mysteriously cloaked enigma that is ufology.

Real UFO's, but no one cares

I listen to podcasts. I read any "news" on ufology. I follow some sightings. I read some blogs. I look to the so-called informed and sensible to educate me. Ufology is a strange underworld of many subsets and many different conclusions. But one thing that I NEVER hear or read about is Hessdalen. Hessdalen, Norway is where the UFO's are, for real. But it seems no one cares.

This is a place where strange unidentified lights have appeared and studied for at least 25 years. The lights are so strange that there are different categories of lights because the phenomenon seems to change it's "manifestation" from time to time. The lights appear in an assortment of different colors. Some lights morph into different shapes. The lights are mostly seen at night, but have been seen in the daylight as well. Sometimes the objects will hover only to speed up and move. Sometimes they move erratically and sometimes they drift down into the valleys.

This stuff isn't imagination. It is REAL. It has been documented. It continues to be documented by several groups of students in search of the meaning and implications of the phenomena. What is it? How could we benefit from it? How and why does the energy manifest itself? What could this tell us about the nature and interplay of environment and man? Most of all, how can we begin to understand something so enigmatic??

So why aren't we paying attention? These are true phenomena. There seems to be adequate sightings involving lights that pulse and move and hover and so on. Sounds similar to Hessdalen, a place we can actually go to and arduously and laboriously study. Yet we never hear an inkling about this phenomena. If what we are after is the truth, then why can't we begin to do just that?

I guess it isn't spectacular enough. Maybe it is too hard to sensationalize itand, well, sell it. I mean we don't have people with this universal feeling of wholeness. We don't have anyone being probed or at least communicated with. B-o-r-i-n-g, b-o-r-i-n-g. We don't have metallic craft hovering over the magnificent Swiss mountainside. Perhaps it is even mundane. But perhaps it is mundane and sublime altogether. Perhaps we are turning our investigative backs on this phenomena because it doesn't support our idea of what Ufology is all about. But what is it about?

Doesn't seem to matter. Instead we continue to have countless researchers still investigate to most mythical piece of ufology available. Roswell. At this point we can't even agree who is doing the research. And we are supposed to get at the truth of it? Are we really truthseekers? Unless there is some governmental revelation involving disclosure (um, sure) we will never know. and we will continue to grow stories out of the personality mill.

Meanwhile Hessdalen sits. Shrouded in snowy blankets. Watched by a few kids, a scientist (Erling Strand), and some photoactivated cameras. True UFO activity. It's just that maybe this is a little too close to the truth. And we certainly wouldn't want that would we?