Tuesday, May 09, 2006

A Letter to the Editor re: the MOD Report

Our main local paper, the Chronicle-Herald / Mail Star, ran The Sunday Times article by Jack Grimston regarding the MOD UAP report on the front page Monday, under the headline "Relax, it's just gas, not a UFO".

My response, in a letter to the editor follows (who knows if they'll run it?).

Paul Kimball

"To the Editor:

With regard to the front page article "Relax, it's just gas, not a UFO" (Monday, May 8), a couple of critical points need to be made.

The first is that the MOD report states unequivocally “that UAP exist is indisputable...[they] clearly can exhibit aerodynamic characteristics well beyond those of any known aircraft or missile – either manned or unmanned.” (note that UAP mean Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, a more scientific way of saying UFO).

The second is that while their explanations undoubtedly explain some UFO cases, which comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the phenomenon and the evidence, they do not explain all UFO cases. I am working on a documentary for Space right now, titled Best Evidence: The Top 10 UFO Cases, and I can guarantee you that "plasma" does not explain the top 10 cases (which does not mean, of course, that they are alien spacecraft).

Most important, however, is the fact that the report indicates that there is something "up there" which is worthy of serious scientific study "down here". Some people think UFOs are alien spacecraft, others think they are extra-dimensional travelers, and others think that they are unknown or not completely understood atmospheric phenomena.

Regardless, the message to science should be to take the subject seriously, and to begin legitimate, sustained study of the phenomenon.

As a scientific review panel chaired by renowned Stanford physicist Dr. Peter Sturrock stated in 1997, "The UFO problem is not a simple one, and it is unlikely that there is any simple universal answer. Whenever there are unexplained observations, there is the possibility that scientists will learn something new by studying those observations."

The UK MOD report merely confirms the panel's conclusion.

Best regards,

Paul Kimball
Redstar Films Limited
http://www.redstarfilms.blogspot.com/

3 comments:

Kyle said...

Nice letter Paul -

Hopefully the devil is in the details. The 400+ pages on which this report are based may yet reveal a tidbit or two.

But I'm not holding my breath...

robxill is right too, in that there is an awful lot "out there" about which we know very little. Perhaps the same is true "down here". The plasma explanation seems a bit like "flailing" to me.

Kyle
UFOreflections.blogspot.com

Paul Kimball said...

Kyle:

I agree that there's an awful lot down here that we don't know about what's up there... and a whole bunch of other stuff - which is why intelligent design interests me more than it does most people in ufology, who run screaming in the other direction when religion is mentioned (mind you, I wouldn't teach ID in a biology class).

I got a call from the paper today confirming my identity, which is usually a sign that they're going to run the letter. I'm bracing for the inevitable chuckles...

Paul

Anonymous said...

Humanity observed UAPs for millenia. Despite no little bit
of hard tangible proof is publicly
available, that alien visitation
ever took place on earth.
I think, this is good so, because
we have the chance to evolve ourselves. Imagine what happend, if
an ET civilisation brought us infinite life and health: Our population exploded, people fought
for resources and humanity extincted itself within decades.
Hence you can relax, it's nothing
more than gas here. ;-)