The skeptics movement, with notable exceptions, have all the humour of a wet lettuce and, at times, not much evidence of a sense of fair play. I am beginning to have doubts about the entire debunking ethos after their record over crop circles. Grave charges? Certainly. Accurate ones? Let's see.
Take The Skeptic magazine. Editor Dr Steve Donnelly is a man I respect and who indeed, I have, in the past, recommended that researchers should work with. He is a skeptic, certainly, but I felt one of the few with objectivity and open-mindedness.
The Group NARO (1) invited him and others from his illustrious team to participate in an investigation of the infamous Birchwood Mall security video case a year or two ago. The sceptics did not fully resolve it (nor did we) but - guess what? - they never wrote a word about the case or the fact that ufologists had invited them to join forces.
When I came to appear on the TV show The Time and the Place and we aired the film for viewers
comments, the Skeptics media spokesperson, Wendy Grossman, heard about the video in the Green Room beforehand and insisted on knowing what it was all about. Pointed out that her Skeptic colleagues surely had informed her of their work on this case - but she seems to have been told nothing about it. Yet, informed criticism must have data.
Now I am not suggesting that the Birchwood film shows a spaceship. Nobody in their right mind would do so and NARO certainly never has. It was a UFO simply because it appeared to be flying and the object was unidentified. Our task was to identify what it showed. We have contemplated many possibilities - as the long series on the case highlighted in Northern UFO News (2) made clear. For instance, a luminous insect reflecting infra-red light from the camera's spot beam was a strong contender.
However, what the does (or does not) show is secondary in importance to how the skeptics were associated with this case. They could try to argue that it was not their place to comment on the matter, but no restrictions were ever placed upon them, they never even asked to discuss the case in their journal and the fact that one of their supposed enemies - a UFO group - had brought them in form day one to try and resolve it in partnership might have merited a mention. They could have discussed what was published in NUN - as they usually have no reservations over that.
Am I a cynic in thinking that had the skeptics helped find answers we would not have heard the end of it? So why was their involvement characterised here by silence?
Now, the Skeptic magazine (Vol. 8 No 6) strikes again. Dr Donnelly refers to my comments in NUN 168 about the recent Horizon documentary on alien abductions. Or rather, if you had read NUN you will know this was the context of what I said. If you just read The Skeptic, this vital fact is denied you.
My remark, fairly obviously tongue in cheek, was about ufologists adopting bogus degrees because this seems to be the key to being taken seriously by the media and (to any extent) the skeptics. I justified this quip by noting the way certain cults who profess doctrines get taken seriously and how a science programme seemed unable to express any interest in serious ufology and only heeded what was said (however credible or not) if it came from other scientists.
Of course, al the reasoning behind my gripe and the objective criticism of the Horizon programme itself went out of the window in Donnelly's comment. His 'Hits and Misses' column lives up to its name by never even mentioning Horizon - which any reader (with or without a degree) had to see was the whole point of my article and the motivation for this frustrated dig about inventing a UFO doctorate. Indeed, the fact that the piece was titled Over the Horizon might possibly have given a clue to most readers.
No, the subscribers to this leading skeptics magazine - influential scientists no doubt included - are seriously mislead into believing that I had proposed that a UFO doctorate be conjured up not only less than flippantly but seemingly for no apparent reason other than to make us all look self important.
In my view this kind of shabby treatment of ufology is not on.
But it is sadly all too typical of what the skeptics afford us as a matter of course. It is time we spoke out. Of course, the decent thing would now be for Dr Donnelly to read the article from which his extract comes, see the proper context in which my off the cuff jest was placed and so inform his readers of the truth behind those words. Hands up those who expect this to occur? But if it happens, I will be the first to issue the deserved plaudits.
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Jenny Randles