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I’m a social scientist with a high estimate of the power of social science (especially economics and sociobiology) to trace the outlines of a wide variety of social behavior. I even use social science to estimate our distant descendants’ future, and the astronomical signatures that aliens might leave.
Some complain that such efforts reflect an overconfidence in social science, that academic insights today have little power to generalize to such distant situations. Some even say social science does not exist, i.e., that it fails to offer much insight even into human society today. But most of these social science skeptics also want to say we are pretty sure UFOs are not aliens – that aliens are not regularly visiting Earth today. And during a long drive from DC to Indianapolis and back with Bill and Chris Dickens (to attend GenCon), I realized this is contradictory: social science is our main theoretical basis for thinking no UFOs are aliens!
Humans have long reported various rare and odd phenomena, from angels to faeries to bigfoot to sea monsters to ghosts. We are pretty sure most such "weird" reports are errors, i.e., mistakes, frauds, or misunderstandings. We also reasonably believe most weird report categories are entirely errors — for example, we reasonably believe all faery reports are errors.
Nevertheless, we can’t be especially confident that a category of weird reports is all error, merely because it is weird. After all, some weird categories have been vindicated, i.e., we now think many reports really were as weird as claimed. Meteorite reports, for example, were once thought to be crazy – why the heck would rocks fall from the sky? I’d love for someone to survey categories of weird reports made a few centuries ago, identifying the categories most clearly settled by now, and seeing what fraction of settled categories have been vindicated. My guess would be roughly 5%.
Coming back to UFOs as aliens, if all we knew about this report category was that it is weird, we would have to assign roughly a 5% chance that some UFOs really are aliens. And given such a dramatic conclusion, a lot of UFO research would then be justified. So do we know something more about UFO reports, to let us adjust this 5% estimate?
Some are impressed by the wide range and sometimes high prestige of folks who make UFO reports. And perhaps an analysis of historically vindicated weird reports would show these to be positive indicators. But it seems to me that the main correction we apply is theoretical: we think it quite theoretically implausible that any UFOs are aliens.
But why exactly is that implausible? Since the universe is thirteen billion years old while human civilization is only a few thousand years old, alien civilizations out there would most likely be millions and perhaps billions of years more advanced than us. Given such a lead, it is quite plausible they could make devices able to display all of the phenomena reported for UFOs. There is nothing in physics that suggests UFOs are not aliens.
No, the main argument against UFOs as aliens is that this is an implausible social scenario. People ask: why would aliens travel for light-years merely to squash some corn fields? Why wouldn’t they introduce themselves to those in power? Why haven’t they made more of a visible mark on our planet or solar system?
These are fine questions, and I do agree that they tend to support a more skeptical conclusion. (Though even I can’t see how the chance goes much below 1%, still justifying substantial UFO research.) But my main point is that such skepticism is only reasonable if we actually know enough social science (broadly conceived) to be able to say something about alien behavior. And if we know this much social science, we should also be able to make some progress using social science to estimate our distant descendants’ future, and the astronomical signatures of distant aliens.
You can’t have it both ways: you can’t say we know too little social science to project our distant future and distant alien astronomical signatures, but we do know enough social science to be confident UFOs are not aliens.
Are UFOs Aliens?
I just wonder if any of you have done any research on the so called "UFO" phenomenon? To decide whether or not Aliens have visited earth should not be based on "WHY" they would be here, but more "if they were here, what would they look like?" I think most can agree that they should hold to the following:1: A) A craft looking object. (Objects that appear to be holding something or someone) B) An "organic-type" of Alien with anatomy unkown to Humans that may be able to survive the vacumn of space.2: Moving at speeds or accelerating at speeds that are beyond the technology of current day humans. Or "appearing and disappearing" (which could be cause by high speeds)3: Making aerial "tricks" at speeds that would flatten Humans if using conventional aircraft following our conception of modern day physics.
Using these broad but important guidelines while viewing some of the best "UFO" footage ( I would recommend "A history of UFO sightings") You will see alot of footage in which, yes very reasonable explanations can be used to dismiss many sightings but you will get a "golden" few caught on film that really fits the desciption for an intelligently controlled Alien areial craft. Further, besides the cases in which film or photos were involved, there are hundreds of cases in which these objects are viewed both visually and by radar near military installments. There are also quite a few uncontested military personell who have had top secret clearance in the military and claim to have been involved in projects that had relations to crashed "UFOs". ( see "The Disclosure Project") The grand question still remains: Are "UFOs" ALiens? I can confidently say that most of the cases of reported "UFOs" are indeed balloons or unidentified Human aircraft or other unknown natural occurance. Though should be considered that it only takes ONE case that fits the description of intelligently controlled craft to be Alien because the description LEAVES NO OTHER EXPLAINATION. So,I feel the true social problem is actually not the "crazies" seeing spacecrafts but why people reject the idea of "UFOs" being Aliens so much and ridicule (*ahem* Jason) those who take the subject not only seriously but also see it as the most important question of our time. It may be possible that ALL 100% of "UFO" cases are misunderstandings or hoaxes but I personally think that the topic is definetely worth the study as contact could take us further technologically than we ever imagined and perhaps assist us to develop our consciousness and understanding of the universe.
Thank you for your thoughtful article. Your are correct the UFO issue is one that should be examined more. Way to many people are biased and will not look at the facts. Astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell has recently come forward with information. Other remarkable people have come forward as well. Please see:
http://www.disclosureprojec... (Stream the whole “Smoking Gun” news conference)http://www.freedomofinfo.org
Solid testimony from over 500 corporate and military witnesses has been accumulated by two disclosure initiatives. These disclosure witnesses have openly stated they are willing to testify, under oath and before Congress about their direct encounters with UFO crash site investigations, secret UFO documents, UFO photographic evidence, UFO radar reports and recovered crashed ET vehicles.
As an Attorney, I can attest that the jurisprudential evidence of this quality does not get any better, especially when witnesses possess the ranks of Brigadier Generals, Commander of ICBM Launch facilities, Senior FAA Crash Site Investigators, astronauts, pilots and officers with above top secret clearance.
Men have been executed in the U.S. with far less evidence. The evidence is really remarkable and the two sites I have listed are only the tip of the iceberg. I am not asking people to believe just examine the information before making a judgement.