Oops, NASA's 16-Person UFO Panel Has No Scholars of the Paranormal

At www.inverse.com we have a news story entitled "NASA ANNOUNCES ITS UNIDENTIFIED AERIAL PHENOMENA RESEARCH TEAM TO EXAMINE MYSTERIOUS SIGHTINGS." We read a list of 16 people who will be on some NASA-funded committee that will investigate UFO's.  Unfortunately, there are some shortfalls regarding the list of people on the investigation committee.

The committee will be led by an astronomer, and consists largely of astronomers. The panel will have five astronomers (counting two so-called "astrobiologists" as astronomers), and one person identified as a "telescope scientist." Why should there be so many astronomers on such a panel? Astronomers nowadays spend most of their time analyzing data from space observatories and space probes.  Astronomers spend most of their time studying things outside of our planet. People almost never report seeing UFOs looking through telescopes. So it is not clear that expertise in astronomy would be a good qualification for analyzing mysterious things seen in the atmosphere. 

About the only obvious case you can think of in which astronomical expertise would be helpful in analyzing UFO reports would be a case of someone reporting a dim point-like light acting like a "shooting star" (crossing the sky in only a few seconds) or a case of someone reporting a bright large object acting like a meteor (also crossing the sky rapidly).  An astronomer could point out that such reported cases were probably only "shooting stars" (mere pebble-sized objects incinerating as they entered the earthly atmosphere) or meteors (larger objects  incinerating as they entered the earthly atmosphere). But probably 97% of UFO reports do not sound like someone observing a shooting star or a meteor.  So it's not very clear why you need to load up a UFO investigative panel with astronomers.  The facts about the observations of so-called "shooting stars" and meteors are so simple that anyone can learn them in ten minutes. So it's not clear that you need some astronomy PhD to tell us of facts so simple. 

What there does not seem to be anywhere on NASA's 16-person panel is anyone who is a scholar of the paranormal or human reports of anomalous phenomena. I used Google Scholar to look up the papers of the panel members, and I could find no sign of any scholarship on the topics of UFOs or the paranormal. So we have a 16-person panel that will attempt to investigate observations of the paranormal, but none of its members is a student of human observations of the paranormal. That makes about as much sense as having a 16-member panel investigating the origin of COVID-19, consisting of 16 people who don't know anything about viruses or biology. 

Reports of UFOs have always been entangled with other types of anomalous and paranormal phenomena. The following is a quote on the wikipedia.org article on UFO investigator J. Allen Hynek:

"Regarding hypotheses of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) and extradimensional intelligence (EDI), Hynek continued, 'There is sufficient evidence to defend both'. As evidence for the ETI hypothesis, he mentioned the cases involving radar as good evidence of something solid, as well as the cases of physical evidence. Then he turned to defending the EDI hypothesis: in addition to the observations of materialization and dematerialization, he cited the 'poltergeist' phenomenon experienced by some people after a close encounter; the photographs of UFOs, sometimes in only one frame, and not seen by witnesses; the changing of form in front of witnesses; the puzzling question of telepathic communication; that in close encounters of the third kind, the creatures seem to be at home in Earth's gravity and atmosphere; the sudden stillness in the presence of the craft; levitation of cars or people; and the development by some of psychic abilities after an encounter. "

According to the 2018 book "Beyond UFOs: The Science of Consciousness & Contact with Non Human Intelligence," UFO close encounters may often be more spiritual or psychic than typically  reported in the press. FREE is the Foundation for Research into Extraterrestrial and Extraordinary Experiences. Early in the book we read this about a survey of people claiming such close encounters:

"FREE's research suggests that the physical aspects are but a small fraction of the attributes associated with these complex manifestations. Indeed, it is the persuasive non-physicality, the parapsychological and other paranormal aspects, that comprise the majority of survey respondents' experiences. We firmly believe that the field of parapsychology needs to take note and,  instead of remaining distant from the UAP phenomenon, the field needs to embrace it." 

Next in the book we read an interesting hypothesis. Using the term NIH for "non-human intelligence," the book states this:

"FREE hypothesizes that types of contact with NIH (contact via NDEs, OBEs, UAP Contact, Remote Viewing, Channeling, communication with ghosts/spirits, Hallucinogenic Shamanic Journeys, Telepathic Contact, sightings of Orbs, PSI, and other types of 'paranormal' Contact with NIH) might actually be one phenomenon that should not be studied separately. We call all of the ways that humans have pierced the veil and have had contact with NIH the 'Contact Modalities'...We firmly believe that cross comparative academic research on 'Experiencers' of the Contact Modalities may provide insight into the validity of various models of consciousness. Once the necessary cross comparative research has been undertaken among the various Contact Modalities, numerous commonalities will be derived that are shared by many of the experiencers of the Contact Modalities."

That's quite a mouthful, and to aid anyone confused by this "alphabet soup," let me explain some of the terms used:

• "NDE" means "near-death experience."
• "OBE" means "out-of-body experience," a type of experience which most commonly occurs near death, but which can also occur in those not near death. 
• "UAP Contact" means contact (visual or otherwise) with Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (another term for UFOs). 
• "Remote Viewing" is a reported ability to observe in a paranormal fashion distant locations.
• "Channeling" is when someone speaks (often in an unusual voice) in an anomalous way, and later claims that the words came not from his own mind but from some other person's mind (living or dead).  A very similar term is "voice mediumship." 
• "Hallucinogenic Shamanic Journeys" can occur after someone takes a drug or uses a natural substance (such as certain mushrooms), and may then report seeing otherwordly beings. 
• "Sightings of Orbs" sometimes occurs visually (as in the 32 cases described here), but the most common related experience is photography of hard-to-explain orbs (as shown here, here and here). 
• "Psi" is a general term for human "sixth sense" abilities such as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and mind-over-matter. 

The strange occurrences at Skinwalker Ranch may be further evidence of the entanglement of UFO sightings with other kinds of paranormal phenomena. For years a TV series has documented seemingly paranormal events at the location, where UFO sightings have only been part of the spooky things reported. A PhD in optical physics (Travis Taylor) has attested to the diversity of very hard-to-explain events at the location, and has said that he has seen many UFOs there. A scholar of UFOs (Jacques Valee) has produced works such as Passport to Magonia suggesting that UFO sightings are part of a wider human experience involving the paranormal, one that stretches back centuries in time.  

A UFO investigation committee such as the one created by NASA should have included at least one serious scholar of the paranormal, including a scholar of UFO sightings. But there seems to be no such scholar on the NASA panel. Could it be that this knowledge gap could be made up for with a little quick study? I doubt that very much.  For about two hundred years humans have been writing long documents describing observations of the paranormal, and the topic of anomalous human observations is a topic of oceanic depth. A deep study of the topic requires reading hundreds of long volumes. I doubt whether anyone on the NASA panel has read any of those volumes. 

Let's hope that the NASA panel does not produce the kind of error-speckled hack job that appeared when one well-known astronomer took up the task of writing about the paranormal. The astronomer was the well-known scientist Carl Sagan, and the result of his work was a book called "The Demon Haunted World." The long book shows quite a bit of erudition and has quite a few scholarly flourishes, but the erudition is mainly concerning extraneous or tangential topics. Sagan showed zero signs of having seriously researched any of the better evidence for paranormal phenomena.  He shows no sign of having read any of the 50 most important books he should have read before writing on such a topic. Writing from his ivory tower, he always seemed like someone very reluctant to talk to people who said they saw things paranormal.  The bibliography of the book suggests that Sagan made no serious effort to investigate human reports of the paranormal. We see an almost total failure to cite original source material and first-hand accounts. 

Such a thing is just what we should expect to come when the conformist yes-men of materialist academia approach an investigation of the paranormal. Science professors are often members of a regimented belief community in which there are hallowed belief dogmas and very strong taboos.  We fail to realize how often science professors are members of tradition-driven church-like belief communities, because so many of the dubious belief tenets of such professor communities are successfully sold as "science," even when such tenets are speculative or conflict with observations. 

Fairly discussing reports of the paranormal is a taboo for science professors, who are typically men whose speech and behavior is dominated by moldy old customs and creaky old taboos.  There are many other socially constructed taboos such as the taboo that forbids saying something in nature might be a product of design, no matter how immensely improbable its accidental occurrence might be. The main reason why science professors shun reports of the paranormal is that such reports tend to conflict with cherished assumptions or explanatory boasts of such professors. Also, reports of the paranormal clash with the attempts of vainglorious science professors to portray themselves as kind of Grand Lords of Explanation with keen insight into the fundamental nature of reality. 

In an article in the journal Science this year we got a taste of how the materialist mainstream views UFO witnesses:

• The article uses the term "ardent believers" for people suspecting UFOs exists, thereby suggesting some element of fanaticism. 
• It quotes one person referring to UFO believers or UFO scholars as "fringy people."
• It refers to "UFO zealots."
• It quotes another person referring to UFO believers or UFO scholars as "these fringe people" who you "lose far more" by contacting. 
• It uses the term "notorious" for UFO believers or UFO scholars, thereby trying to insinuate they are scoundrels.
• It approvingly quotes a scientist saying that those who are looking for UFO's are like "those who are hoping to find mermaids or unicorns." 

The same journal later tried to get an investigator fired from some Pentagon UFO inquiry, largely it seems because he reported some unsettling observations. Will the NASA panel engage in this kind of "shame and smear the witnesses" approach? We might worry that it will, given its lack of any scholars of the paranormal. 

The NASA panel should have included one or two people with experience grilling people and tracking down leads, people such as former police detectives. A person like that would be good at doing the kind of human contact work needed to sort out the reliability of witness accounts. Astronomers, conversely, are telescope guys not well known for their human contact skills. 

Very recently a poll by YouGovAmerica surveyed 1000 Americans about any paranormal experiences they may have had. More than two-thirds reported having some type of paranormal experience. Some of the most common experiences were:

"Feeling a presence or unknown energy": 37%

"Hearing a voice of someone who wasn't there": 29% 

"Feeling an unexplained change in temperature": 28%

"Seeing lights or other devices turn on or off without explanation": 25%

"Seeing an object move without explanation": 22%

"Seeing unexplained orbs of light": 22%

"Seeing a door open or close without explanation":  20%

"Seeing a ghost or spirit": 20%

"Seeing an angel": 13%

You would think that with such large numbers of Americans reporting observations of paranormal phenomena that mainstream scientists would take such reports seriously and investigate such phenomena fairly and fully. But very, very few of them do that. Rather than following a rule of "investigate in proportion to how  often people have claimed to see something," today's astronomers seem to waste a large fraction of their time trying to verify never-seen things such as dark matter, dark energy, primordial cosmic inflation, a planet beyond Pluto, and life on other planets. I'm not sure why NASA thinks that astronomers are "just the ticket" for distinguishing observational reality from cherished hypotheses. 

According to the poll above, a full 22% of Americans report "seeing unexplained orbs of light." There is extremely abundant photographic evidence of unexplained orbs, which appear in many different colors, and often seem to be moving very fast. In many hundreds of photos, such orbs appear with stripes, unlike what we would expect from any natural causes. A very strong effect of repeating patterns in mysterious striped orbs has been very well-documented photographically. Such mysterious orbs seem to show up equally in photos taken outdoors and also indoors in clean dry air. The phenomenon of the repeating patterns is particularly interesting, as it seems to suggest the involvement of some intelligent agency. Will the NASA panel take any interest in such a thing? Probably not. Probably the experts will follow a rule of "we have no interest in it unless it was in the sky," and also a rule of "we have no interest in unexplained things photographed when ordinary people used ordinary cameras." 

Here's an example of why you need some scholars of the paranormal on a panel such as the NASA UFO panel. Imagine there's some case in which a witness reports some ESP going on in connection with a UFO sighting (apparently not uncommon, based on some things quoted above). If no one on a panel has studied the evidence for ESP, the whole case may be discarded as a fantasy. But if there are some scholars of the paranormal on the panel, they can start familiarizing other panel members with the evidence for ESP, and urge that the case not be discarded on such grounds. 

Astronomers sometimes display a kind of technological snobbery, rather like some Apple user who disdains Android tablet users. You'll sometimes hear astronomers speaking as if it hardly counts if you just photographed something with a cheap point-and-click camera. Such an attitude makes no sense, since nowadays simple smartphones and point-and-click cameras produce megapixel photos that can be perfectly good as evidence. It also makes no sense to have an attitude of witness snobbery, and ignore observations abundantly made by people who are not professors or pilots. 

When an expert has been trained in an academia culture of anomaly aversion, in which those making observations of the inexplicable are shamed and stigmatized and gaslighted, we cannot expect that such an expert will follow a "leave no stone unturned" approach  when investigating something spooky. More likely such an expert will be following a rule of "do not open doors that lead to things I don't want to find out about." Alas, such an investigative approach will be unlikely to yield much in the way of some new understanding of the anomalous. Nature gives up its secrets very, very slowly, and does not tend to reward timid investigators of its strangest phenomena, or investigators who insist on nature behaving in some way they expect, ignoring observations of the shockingly unexpected.   

Mysterious striped orbs photographed May 25, 2019

Let's hope that the NASA UFO investigation does not take an approach like the one in the fanciful document below.

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UFO INCIDENT REPORT FORM

Central State University, Dept. of Astronomy

Instructions: Please report your UFO incident below. Do not report strange orbs flying around in your home or in the sky. Do not report any incidents with psychic or ESP elements. Do not report "alien abductions," levitations or mysterious materializations. Do not report dream contact or telepathic contact with mysterious beings. Do not report any activity resembling poltergeist activity or mind-over-matter. Do not report mysterious non-metallic manifestations such as energy beings or anything that might be interpreted as a ghost, spirit or angel.  Do not report sightings of beings appearing non-human, particularly large hairy "Bigfoot" type creatures. Do not report weird patches of color or light in the sky, or any non-metallic sky manifestation. We are only interested in hearing about shiny metallic "nuts and bolts" saucer-like UFOs like those depicted in 1950's and 1960's science fiction movies. 

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