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UFO Nonsense

Seems the big headline to come out of this week’s release of United Kingdom UFO Files is: “UFO sightings may have been down to ‘X Files’“. The hypothesis inspiring these headlines is that UFO sightings rise dramatically when sci-fi movies or television shows hit the big time. With Reuters taking that line of attack, it’s ended up being the approach of most news outlets around the globe. Then, the meme jumped into the social networking, with retweets around the Twitter network of this ‘big news’:

A cluster of UFO sightings over Britain in 1996 may have had more to do with public fascination with TV shows like the “X Files” than extraterrestrial activity, according to files released by the National Archives on Monday.

Documents from Britain’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) indicated there were 609 UFO sightings in 1996, compared with 117 in 1995. This coincided with the rise in popularity of the X Files and the release of the alien blockbuster film “Independence Day.”

Except no, it wasn’t so much according to the files – rather, according to Dr David Clarke, a researcher into the UFO phenomenon who is acting as consultant to the National Archives for the file release. Dr Clarke voiced his opinion – whether an off-hand comment, or something he sincerely believes in, I’m not sure – and the papers have run with it.

Now first up – I highly respect David Clarke’s research, and efforts to gain access to historical documents regarding the UFO phenomenon. He approaches the UFO phenomenon in a hard-nosed and scientific manner, as it should be – he was a co-author on the excellent Channel Islands report. But this particular meme has got rather out of control.

Yes, I’m sure big TV and movie events contribute to some rises in sightings. But…

(a) It doesn’t explain the core phenomenon, which is a fairly common 5 to 10% of ‘unexplainables’. Serious UFO researchers have for a long time recognised that the vast majority of reports are ‘noise’ (see Mac Tonnies’ comments on this)

(b) The claim is based on a lot of sloppy post hoc thinking.

To follow up on the second point: surely if its true, the release of E.T. – perhaps the biggest alien contact movie of all time – would have resulted in a huge spike? Perhaps also Cocoon, which certainly featured the theme of UFOs coming and aliens making contact, and was a box-office hit? Big sci-fi movies are quite common – so if you want to prove this particular theory, it’s relatively easy. Find the spike, then find the sci-fi movie released that year – just ignore the dips in reports.

But it does pay to be a bit careful about it. For example, the claim that the massive spike in 1996 was supposedly due in large part to the release of Independence Day. A quick perusal of the international release dates for that movie shows that it was released in August 1996. Now, going through the Ministry of Defence files, I count around 500 pages of reports before the August 9 release of Independence Day in the UK…

So we not only now have UFOs, but we have people seeing into the future as well. Bonus!

Editor
  1. Debunkers and hotcakes
    As much as I enjoy considering the many UFO cases, I also get a great deal of pleasure studying the debunkers and official naysayers.

    Exhibit A – It suits them to be postured to shoot down those things that they cannot otherwise get a clean and clear shot at.

    To wit: By eliminating all those sightings that occurred in and around the time of major sci fi movie releases, they have eliminated a sum of targets that they would have had to otherwise work at to disavow. (Call it… a pro-active measure in the cause of negativity.)

    Now if you will excuse me, there is a box of Chinese lanterns waiting to be dipped in my morning cup of swamp gas…

  2. Look up in the sky, it’s Harry Potter!
    If popular scifi inspires people to see UFOs, then surely we’d all be seeing bespectacled nerds zipping around the skies on broomsticks? It’s a meme pushed by my favourite skeptic, Dr Susan Clancy, who insists that UFO and 4th Encounter witnesses have either watched too much Agents Mulder and Scully, or naively misinterpret episodes of sleep paralysis — ironically, Clancy’s argument is getting very tired.

    It’s also presumptuous to think that all UFO witnesses from the MoD reports were interested in or aware of The X-Files and Independence Day. As evidenced by testimonies, prior to their encounters many witnesses were skeptical of the UFO phenomenon. Most witnesses are not Star Trek nerds scanning the skies for Spock’s return. This stereotype is blatantly untrue, but unfortunately it’s pushed too often by media for cheap laughs.

    I’m also a bit iffy about Clarke’s remark that UFOs have become a symbol for anti-science. Tell that to Jacques Vallee, Stanton Friedman, Edgar Mitchell, the late James McDonald, J. Allen Hynek, and many others. In fact, I’d argue that UFOs have become a symbol for science — true science, unbiased investigation, allowing the evidence to speak for itself. It’s a phenomenon worthy of serious study. But those goofy anti-science guys, however… 😉

    Anyways, it may have been an offhand comment by Clarke. His latest blog entry:

    [quote=Dr David Clarke]”My comments on this link were picked up by most of the media, which in itself demonstrates how easy it is to plant an idea and watch it germinate.

    “As I had hoped, most of the commentators recognised that I was not suggesting UFO sightings were caused by “people watching too much sci-fi”. What I’m saying is that the link with imagery in popular culture is more subtle than that: people see UFOs (whatever they are), but usually they tell only close friends and relatives. When UFOs are in the news – TV, film, whatever – they are more inclined to report them to outsiders (i.e. police, newspapers, MoD etc).

    “This effect, I believe, is reflected in the figures showing numbers of reports received by the MoD from 1959 to present. But it must be remembered these statistics are distorted by other factors, and most importantly this is raw data as virtually none of these reports were subject to a proper investigation.[/quote]

    I underlined, “As I had hoped, most of the commentators recognised that I was not suggesting UFO sightings were caused by “people watching too much sci-fi”, because Clarke pretty much suggested what the BBC and other media have carried:

    [quote=Dr David Clarke]As I have explained in the official press release, the most likely explanation for the unusual spike in numbers during 1996 and 1997 was that public awareness of UFOs and aliens was at an all-time high. Those years were the culmination of a period in which images of UFOs and aliens had saturated popular culture.[/quote]

    To be fair, the conflicting statements are, I think, due to Clarke trying to please everyone — believers, non-believers, and everyone in between. I can understand his position — veer too much to the side of ufologists, and lose your credibility as a professional journalist (and get heckled by your peer group at the pub). Veer too much to the side of skepticism, and you get hounded by us goofy anti-science woo-woo-doctors. 😉

    ~ * ~

    @levitatingcat

    1. I agree with you. I’m not
      I agree with you. I’m not sure when scepticism in general got itself caught up with scepticism of particulars.

      It’s strange really. I can understand why people would want exceptional evidence for UFO’s, not just for alien existence, but for proof of government conspiracy etc.

      It is possible to be skeptical of individual photo’s and stories while still being open minded to the idea though. This makes me wonder whether it is possible to be skeptical of all photos and still open to the idea. When i was a kid i used to love UFO stories, then i grew out of them/lost interest in them. Now when i see any of these pictures that just look like tiny blurs in the sky, or full blown ufo’s almost good enough to come out of hollywood i tend to think hmmmm. I dont know, its strange. I am sure the odds are that there are aliens out there somewhere, i think it entirely possible that they have visited Earth so entirely possible they are here now, but i dont get excited by odd pictures. Maybe i just need to have an encounter myself. Not that i can explain the pictures without labeling them UFO’s. It reminds me a little of a quote that i cannot really remember though ‘to know only a things name is to know nothing about it at all’. It seems we are still arguing about the very first fact on the line of alien culture and intention.

      UFO’s are a special case in skepticism though. I dont think they would contradict anything if they turned up. No knowledge would need to be binned, in principle anyway; though no doubt there would be expansions required such as when newtonian physics was expanded to relativity. That the Earth is 4000 years old is an example of the opposite- something that i remain highly skeptical of in light of current information.

  3. 2 other possibilities
    There are 2 other possibilities these skeptics are not willing to consider:

    a)That the effect these popular media have in the audience might attract people not only to look up into the sky more often— and causing the predictable mis-identifications they are overexposing now— but also to be more intellectually ‘open’ to the possibility of contact with other forms of intelligence. This might allow the opening of some form of “channel” that works on an unconscious level, that could allow people to see things that are not part of our daily level of reality. I know materialistic skeptics loathe this notion, but we students of Forteana are more aware of the counter-intuitive notion that “in order to see, you have to believe first”.

    b)That the “trickster” nature of the UFO phenomenon might be exploiting these cultural manifestations. We might all be involved in a form of bizarre long-spanning non-verbal “dialog” with The Other that is just a series of weird interactive exchanges, which take a long time to solve, as all good puzzles are supposed to.

    The skeptics are not willing to consider that not only our culture influences the way we interpret this phenomenon, but that the phenomenon reacts to that interpretation in response.

    One possible piece of evidence of this is the fact that one of the most important UFO sightings of this decade happened at the O’Hare airport in Chicago in 2006. Airline pilots were involved and even the American media had no choice but to take this story with an unprecedented level of seriousness —before returning to the typical snickering about anal probes and tinfoil hats anyway.

    Is it a coincidence that in 2009 one of the biggest blogs in the web (Boing Boing) decides to post a Youtube video of a deleted scene from the seminal movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, in which the same airport (O’Hare) is linked to the sighting of a UFO by two airline pilots and the plane’s entire crew?

    Perhaps it is all a coincidence. But I prefer to be open to the possibility that the phenomenon decided to make a joke carefully designed to deliver its punch line after 32 years —and in the 33th week of 2009 nonetheless, just when people are discussing the effect of movies and the sightings of UFOs!

    I’m reminded that in the pre-production of CEIII, Spielberg got to consider the possibility of showing the UFOs as big luminous billboard signs —he was thinking of showing a UFO shaped as the “M” of McDonalds for example— as a way of expressing that the aliens wanted to communicate with us using our own cultural manifestations; perhaps he was on the right track after all…

    —–
    It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
    It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

    Red Pill Junkie

    1. Some good points RPJ.
      How

      Some good points RPJ.

      How are reports gathered and tabulated? If it is media exposure perhaps when cultural interest peaks, like at times around major films and advertising, the media are just more likely to report it.

      Can you point me in the direction of any figures are compiled nationally or globally?

      The notion of believing in something before you will see it is well established. I am not sure whether it is the placebo affect working on the senses, or whether it can even do that, but it is common enough for pshchologists to have to plan for it in experimentation. There has been alot of experiment playing with it and testing it. I guess it would fall under the blanket of the term suggestion.

      I like your spin on it though. Of course the idea behind it is exactly the reason why i often fail to see the face of Mary on some toast (looks more like my favourite musicians to me). I wish we knew more about what belief actually did in the brain.

      I’d still suspect it is something to do with correlation of data or reporting of data than actually perceiving the UFO’s in the first place, though in the sense that it would be the brain labelling things in the sky as UFO’s i agree, just like after a ghost movie we are scarred of ghosts for a short period afterwards (or i am). As i have been at pains to point out, being skeptical of things doesnt mean they dont happen to you (or that you cant believe them either, in some complex cases). I have only seen 1 strange thing in the sky though and it wasnt very good. Not as good as some claims. My Nana for example watched about 10 spots dart about the sky for 20 minutes once, with a group of people.

      1. perception and memory
        I keep pointing this out – episodic memory is much the same as imagination. For example, A normal person can form a detailed plan of doing something, like a normal morning routing: getting up and making coffee, turning on the TV to check the morning news and so on. This can happen before the person gets out of bed.

        By noon, the plan of the ordinary is indistinguishable from a memory of a memory of what actually happened.

        This similarity of memory and imagination suggests that it is the same mechanism. Forethought, planning and even creative thought are basically memories of things that have not happened. I am sure that some of the really convincing alien experiences are due to the same mechanisms in our minds.

        —-
        No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.

        1. Agreed, though it does hurt
          Agreed, though it does hurt my head.

          I remember that when i first started learning quantum mechanics. It just doesnt stay up there, like knowledge on the tip of your tongue.

          I agree that imagination and memory are probably cross linked, but i would throw imagination and perception in as well. As if we float on the surface of reality and really find it quite hard to get passed ourselves and look at it.

        2. Swamp Gas
          UFO encounters are not all hallucinations, earthling. Is Psychology 101 the new swamp-gas-reflecting-the-light-of-Venus tack? Then it’s a major worry that so many reputable people whom we rely on for their rational mindset — policemen, military, pilots, scientists — are imagining pies in the skies! 😉

          Author John Irving wrote that we imagine memories better than we remember them. True in some cases, but not all. Or else forensic artists sketching eyewitness descriptions of crime suspects would be out of work. Memoirs wouldn’t be published. History wouldn’t be taught in school. And we wouldn’t be discussing UFOs.

          Give people some credit, they’re not all dopey mooncalves who can’t remember if they turned the stove off this morning (edit: yep, I definitely turned it off). And this psychology can’t be applied to the many detailed reports from rational, awake people whose survival depends on clear, concise thinking and memory (pilots, etc).

          ~ * ~

          @levitatingcat

          1. no hallucination
            I am not talking about hallucinations, as in anything wrong with a mind. I am talking about perfectly normal memories of things that have not happened. This is quite common.

            One thing our minds do is fill in a lot of details that we actually did not observe. Again this is not when something is wrong with the mind at the time of the experience. Nor is there anything wrong at the time of recalling the experience. It is perfectly normal operating procedure.

            This has nothing to do with manufacturing a memory deliberately. And again, normal rational awake people do this, all day long. Everyone does this.

            —-
            No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.

          2. filling in
            Most of the filling in is based on experience. That’s why it works in normal life. It is also why people find their way in dark rooms that they know, while they have accidents in dark rooms they don’t know.

            —-
            No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.

        3. Episodic memory
          [quote]I keep pointing this out – episodic memory is much the same as imagination[/quote]

          Maybe for you Zylons, but I’m just a regular Caprican boy 😛

          —–
          It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
          It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

          Red Pill Junkie

  4. Been There, Observed That Phenomenon
    I’ve been tracking reports and “reports” for some time, especially with regards to SF movies and such. UFO reports do spike after (and yes, before, thanks to advertising) release. Most of this is due, as noted, to attention being brought to bear, and peoples’ resulting tendency to look up. If such things were recorded rather than merely recalled if at all, sightings of shooting starts probably do too. When it does come from the movie or ads instigating actual “sightings”, there is usually similarities between the movie and the reports.

    Check up on me: Look back at reports late October 1994 and late July 1997. Sightings of circular objects more ring like than not due to large empty centers. Very few of these reported other times, many more during these. Why? Release dates of Stargate and Stargate SG1. These were all the more memorable to me because I’d already been tracking this stuff since I’d noted ‘conspiracy’ materials started showing up with these things after the movies but not before, and predicted the 94 “flap” of previously unheard of underground facilities with wormholes. Most never even bothered to change the name from the movie’s.

    But as to generalizing this stuff in order to explain away sightings, I’ll toss a match into this little psychobabble equivalent of swamp gas, and I’ll do it with the real science behind seeing or not seeing things based on desire, fear and other such major stimulus packages of the mind.

    Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger 1957). Conflict of two beliefs, thoughts, emotions, etc. cause a psychological discomfort and we seek to restore the balance by changing one. This definitely includes seeing things. Does this happen around movie releases? If you’re going to say ‘around SF movie releases’ you’d better have a damn good reason, and I don’t see one, due to lack of other types of sightings around the times of other types of movies that are of no less salience to those who favor them than SF fans. Anyone ever heard of a spike in Freddie or Jason sightings? Reports of flying bicycles around the release, rerelease or rererelease of ET? I don’t need to go farther, I’ve illuminated the path, do your own homework.

    So speaking of homework, I’d gladly take on any empty- or overly full-headed dogmatist that usurps the name “skeptic” and body slam their self-serving pseudo-logic with no more real science than it takes, and no more real science than I covered in a single lecture in Psych 101. To be really accurate I’d also take on any erstwhile data with statistical testing, but in true Pot.Kettle.Black form, if any dogmatists pretended to have such real numbers to work with they’d almost certainly back down between the C.D. lecture and my cranking up the SPSS stat package, or they could prove themselves equal to any other True Believer and deny facts face first, in which case we could all LAUGH and LAUGH.

    To address directly comments above, I don’t know enough about Dr. Clarke to comment but I’m happy to give him the benefit of doubt that comes with professional courtesy. I’m more than confident he’s sorry he made such a sweeping statement with so little rigor that the numbers include entire years, and even then are almost certainly self-disproving since X-Files was on for a decade first run and is still running even more often in syndication (“popularity” being a very poorly recognized scientific term, I’d ask for an operationalization or alternative).

    As for any others that’d try to carry this accidental pendant in the name of “skepticism”, tell them to write down their numbers and send them to me. Wash them first, because I like my meat recently cleaned.

    [And yes, the broken hands have healed well.]

    No, I am not the brain specialist…..
    YES. Yes I AM the brain specialist.

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