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"This object can fly. If you cannot identify it, it must be a UFO. You could identify it, if you try hard enough, but then it's (sic) ability to fascinate would diminish. What does the Government's senior UFO expert think?"
Well, what I think is this: firstly, I wish the sender had the courage to sign the note, rather than remaining anonymous. But secondly, I though that the whole approach typified that of many sceptics: if you don't agree with someone's views on UFOs, don't bother to enter into any sort of meaningful debate - just try to discredit the whole issue of ufology, without reference to any of the evidence.
Most ufologists entirely accept that perhaps as many as 95% of UFO sightings do have conventional explanations, but my anonymous correspondent might do well to consider that there has always been a hard core of sightings that defy any conventional explanation. And this isn't just what ufologists say; it was what the United States Air Force (USAF) said, when they investigated UFO sightings during studies such as Project Blue Book. And it was what I said, after three years of official research at the Ministry of Defence.
Of course, none of this proves that the sightings that defy conventional explanations are extraterrestrial, but why is it that the burden of proof always seems to be with the ufologists? Why can we not reverse the position, and place the burden of proof upon the sceptics? Let's look at the sightings from Belgium in March 1990. One night thousands of people saw a UFO, which was picked up on radar. The Belgian Air Force scrambled F-16 fighters, which attempted to intercept the UFO. The F-16s locked onto the mystery intruder with their radar's, but the object repeatedly broke the lock, moving from a virtual hover to speeds in excess of 5000 mph in seconds (and no, not even a stealth fighter can do that). The Belgian Air Force said that the object was clearly under intelligent control, but that their investigations had failed to turn up any explanation. These are facts. They are not in dispute. So perhaps we should put these facts to the sceptics, and ask them to prove that the object concerned wasn't an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
We could take the same attitude with the Rendlesham Forest sighting, when a number of USAF personnel witnessed a triangular craft in a clearing. Subsequent investigation of the area concerned revealed tree damage and abnormally high radiation readings. The case remains unexplained, so again. let's put the sceptics on the spot, and ask them to prove that the object concerned wasn't an extraterrestrial spacecraft. The sceptics, by the way, believe that the sighting was caused by dozens of highly trained USAF personnel being fooled by the beam from Orford Ness lighthouse ..... which had obviously turned radioactive! We have to be less defensive about UFOs, and we have to start demanding some answers. Because whatever escaped the Belgian Air Force's jet fighters, and whatever caused the radioactivity in Rendlesham Forest, it certainly wasn't a disposable cereal dish!
Nick
"UFOs - NO DEFENCE SIGNIFICANCE?" on Sunday 26th May. Imperial College, Princes Gardens, South Kensington, London SW7. 11am - 7pm. Ticket information: UFO Magazine, 1st Floor, 66 Boroughgate, Otley, near Leeds, LS21 1AE. Tel: 019431 850860.
You can contact me by e-mail at Hot Gossip UK
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