Ignoring for the moment that all ufologists - a diverse group if ever there was one - are lumped into one pile by Rich and Chris (many ufologists, I suspect, could care less about Roswell, or the history of the phenomenon), their contention is flat out wrong. Ufologists have not, as Rich and Chris suggest, restricted their attention to the efforts of the Air Force with respect to UFOs, including as a possible explanation for sightings. Neither has the media.
For example, this article from the New York Times, 4 April 1950, puts forward the notion (first reported in US News and World Report) that UFOs (or "flying saucers" as they were called then) were the result of top secret Navy research and development programs, some stemming back as far as 1942.
So, was it the United States Navy?
Who knows?
If it was, however, someone seems to have forgotten to tell Secretary of the Navy Dan Kimball, and Admiral Arthur Radford, who had their own, still unexplained, sighting in 1952 while flying - in separate planes - over the Pacific Ocean (on their way to Hawaii). They were both at a loss to explain what they saw, and certainly didn't write it off as "just another one of our experimental craft."
Still, my point isn't that the Navy shouldn't be looked at as a source of possible explanations for UFO sightings / reports of crashed saucers, but rather that ufology has been well aware of the Navy's potential role for decades now, even as they have been unable to pin it down. If Rich and Chris have something to offer with respect to the latter, then good for them, and I look forward to reading it when they make it available.
Who knows - it may actually be something that no-one has ever seen before (in which case I'll be the first to applaud)?
But I think they would be better served making their case, and not using the Navy angle as a cover to take another gratuitous shot at ufologists, and, by extension, ufology. There's plenty of legitimate reasons to question ufology, without accusing it of a dereliction that is simply not the case.
Paul Kimball
2 comments:
Paul..
Our point was that the Navy (and Army) connections to UFOs have been sidelined by ufologists. We noted that nothing of consequence appears in the popular UFO materials.
But a review of the NASA archives shows the Navy all over the place, which we say may acccount for some UFO sightings and events.
The phenomenon is far-reaching, ubiquitous, and fraught with all kinds of possibilities, even making Jerry Clark reconsider calling the category UFO phenomena,
Mac Tonnies addresses this aspect also, and in a highly intellectual and creative way.
My point, our point (the RRRGroup), is that some of the major cases can be scuttled because they offer prosaic explanations -- maybe.
Lets move on to really obtuse sightings, events, episodes, and incidents in the UFO panoply, and see what we can uncover.
Let's really separate the wheat from the chaff, instead of dogpaddling around MJ-12, Socorro, Aztec, Roswell, et cetera.
I know you agree...
Rich
MEC:
Thanks for stopping by. I don't completely disagree with you. However, I would note that, as the saying goes, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. The study of the history of the phenomenon may help us understand what it is (there are some great, old cases that have not garnered much attention or investigation, for example). There's room for both the study of what's going on today as well as what happened before. Indeed, I would suggest that you can't succeed with the former unless you truly understand the latter.
Paul Kimball
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