Tuesday, November 04, 2014
The state of ufology, such as it is
Okay, I'll stick my neck out. This is all getting much sillier than previous years.
First of all, the whole debate about Bushman's "deathbed confession" is absurd. The photos of the "alien" are clearly unfocused shots of a plastic doll, whether made my K-Mart or not. And the photo of the alien "ghost" is beyond preposterous.
This reminds me to the entire Adamski series of photos and claims, which no one today takes seriously. The parallels are obvious. If Bushman didn't simply make things up, the mere existence of this debate being entertained among serious UFO researchers is likely evidence of disinformation, or trolling by debunkers to divide ufology.
This reminds me to the entire Adamski series of photos and claims, which no one today takes seriously. The parallels are obvious. If Bushman didn't simply make things up, the mere existence of this debate being entertained among serious UFO researchers is likely evidence of disinformation, or trolling by debunkers to divide ufology.
Secondly, I have to comment about the shift in focus from abductee cases to contactee claims. Contactees flourished in the 1950s and 1960s when ufology was less than enlightened. The myriad of contactees claiming contact with ethereal aliens and entities back then was amusing at best, with everyone and his dog (literally) setting up shop at Giant Rock to hawk their pamphlets about aliens' warnings about our environment, nuclear missiles, warmongering and dietary fads.
That was in the 1950s, and it's all back with a vengeance. Telepathic contact with alien entities? Been done better by George King. "Walk-ins" by aliens to impart advanced knowledge? Howard Menger, and he even married one. Experiencers camping out in the desert to "vector" spaceships? Ruth Norman did it first, and with better outfits. And in all cases, not a shred of good evidence to support any of it.
It's all fun, but to see how many people comment in Facebook groups about how they "believe" Bushman's story nevertheless, or how they "know" aliens are here because they've been contacted every night by invisible entities, or are convinced aliens are guiding humans to achieve higher consciousness because we need to enter a Galactic federation, or that "disclosure" is happening at a slow, grassroots level instead of a public level because the government doesn't want us to panic, or that investigating UFO reports is unnecessary because everyone knows aliens are here already....
It's enough to make a seasoned ufologist sell pasta sauce.
Labels: abductees, contactees, debunking, disclosure, ufology, UFOs
# posted by rutkows @ 8:52 AM 
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Last night I commented at Silver Screen Saucers:
"For most UFO buffs, it's not about contact with aliens in nuts and bolts craft in our skies, it's about proclaiming "secret" unfalsifiable knowledge. Whether this knowledge takes the form of a conspiracy theory or mystical conjectures, the demonstrated presence of actual aliens is not required, and in fact, might be counterproductive."
"For most UFO buffs, it's not about contact with aliens in nuts and bolts craft in our skies, it's about proclaiming "secret" unfalsifiable knowledge. Whether this knowledge takes the form of a conspiracy theory or mystical conjectures, the demonstrated presence of actual aliens is not required, and in fact, might be counterproductive."
Ray: Of course, I wouldn't dispute the possibility that some reports are ET. But like you say, all the nonsense filling the bandwidth these days is simply making serious ufology tougher and giving it a bad rep.
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