Introduction

For over fifty years, people have reported sightings, both distant and extremely close, of what appear to be extraordinary objects with extraordinary characteristics and performance. Initially, these reports attracted significant attention from the military, but as the objects demonstrated an equally extraordinary elusiveness and failed to demonstrate any specifically hostile propensity, military programs decayed into efforts to explain every occurrence by a natural cause, no matter how contrived.

The largest effort of this sort in terms of sightings examined, was the Air Force Project Blue Book. Yet that effort only made minimal use of the services of scientists, and, in many cases, those scientists came away frustrated at the resistance of the military to doing any real science on the reports that flowed through military channels. In 1968, responding to congressional pressure, in part generated by the Blue Book consulting scientist – astrophysicist Dr. J. Allen Hynek – the military handed their effort over to a university for a scientific appraisal of the subject. The was the so-called “Condon Committee” at the University of Colorado.

As chronicled in numerous references[footnote 1], and evidenced by the Committee report, the scientific work of the Committee was tainted by the bias of the project administrators and leaders. The methodology (attempting to prove or disprove the ETH by attempting to explain all sightings as mundane occurrences) was fatally flawed and barely scientific (though the National Science Foundation (NSF) approved the report and its methodology). It was also a failure in attaining its stated aim. Unlike the USAF, which, due to a perponderance of NL (Hynek “Nocturnal Lights”) class[footnote 2] cases, could claim that 90-95% of UFO reports could be explained, the Committee failed to explain 30% of their more selected reports[footnote 3].

However, the Committee did little in the way of science on the reports. A few experiments to attempt to reproduce vehicle failures were, perhaps, the most focused of their efforts. The Committee ultimately recommended against scientific interest in the subject, and though there were some efforts by Hynek and others to bring scientists into the field, this conclusion helped to destroy nascent scientific interest in the subject.

Since that time, as Vallee predicted[footnote 4], scientific interest has been largely destroyed by the influx of cranks and charlatans. The change in focus among the members of the active UFO community from sightings and hard evidence cases to the paranormal and abduction cases has also contributed to the basically moribund state of science in the study of UFOs. At the same time, the debunkers have done everything possible to discourage scientific interest in the subject, and have continued to use pseudoscientific attacks to discredit witnesses, investigators and analysts.

Why Even Try?

If we are ever to know whether or not UFOs exist, we must do science on the subject[footnote 5]. If we accept that UFOs are objectively existent, based on the evidence to date, then establishing the nature of the phenomenon and its technology (if any), will require science to be done on the subject. If we do not accept that UFOs are objectively existent, there is still much fascinating scientific work to be done in the areas of determining the genesis of these reports and the determinants of their structure, content, and the correlations between reports widely dispersed in time and space.

None of this has been undertaken in any broad sense to date.

Doing science on UFOs can have benefits for many other areas of science – even if UFOs are not an objectively existent phenomenon. And much of the needed effort can be done at low cost, by both professionals and serious amateurs.

What Kind Of Science?

There are many kinds of science – for instance, observational science, experimental science, theoretical / mathematical science and simulation science. All of these are potentially applicable to UFOs.

The first area of interest must be the witness. From the observations of witnesses come all of the data of UFOlogy, and since these observations are generally of relatively transient phenomena seen at night, we need to know the limits and errors of witness capability, and we need to know how to assess the accuracy of a specific witness. We also need to know the degree and kind of difference between false reports and true reports, and the influence of sociology on the content of reports.

The next area of interest is the nature of the reports. This must begin with the development of catalogs, which serve as the basis of classification systems derived from patterns in the data; in essence, the search for patterns and the generation of classification systems must go hand in hand, feeding each other as patterns emerge from the data. These efforts must be pursued for IFO and hoax cases as well as UFOs, to help support or refute the concept that IFO and UFO cases are similar or different, and the degree to which such a correlation or anti-correlation is interesting.

With this material at hand, we can begin some experimental science – attempts to reproduce or simulate observed effects, attempts to determine power, frequency, and other factors required to generate those observed effects. These must be based on the CE-II classification cases – ground traces, vehicle interference / EM Effects[footnote 6], and medical effects on witnesses.

And, finally, we need to determine if there are ways to look for UFOs, or to at least place restrictions on UFOs based on their not being observed with certain methods and devices. This moves investigation from its passive and reactive phase to an active program which has the potential to being the “UFO data on demand” required by many in the scientific community.

Gatherings and Rewards

Finally, it is necessary to establish gatherings to bring together the purely scientific workers in the field, the scientifically oriented investigators and the historical researchers. Their efforts must be clearly segregated from the efforts of paranormal investigators, crop circle investigators, mystics, cranks, and contactees. Highly selective conferences, symposia and workshops are needed to establish that segregation. The quality of these must be kept even, exclusive, high, and on-topic. A schedule of cyberspace, national, and regional conferences should be established, with high and explicit standards for submissions.

Some of the following might be appropriate gatherings:

Annual Workshop on UFO Photo and Video Analysis
Annual Conference on Physical Analysis of UFO Appearance and Behavior
Annual Conference on UFO Witness Cognitive and Perceptual Psychology
Annual Workshop on Field Investigation of UFOs – Methods and Experiments
Annual Presentation of High Probability UFO Cases
Annual Workshop and Conference on the Investigation and Cataloging of Historical UFO Reports
Annual UFO Science Award Conference (see below)

It is highly desirable to establish at least one annual award for the best scientific paper published (categories such as “referreed journal publication”, “web publication”, “non-UFO journal publication or presentation”, and “related non-UFO science” would be useful), perhaps with a small cash award, and certainly with some form of in-community and media recognition for the effort. This award process, like the workshops, conferences, and symposia, must be made a highly exclusive effort, so that the high value of the award and its image in the eyes of mainstream media and science can be maintained and grow over the years. Clear criteria must be established for such awards, and a highly regarded panel must be assembled to judge the entries.

Experiments

The list that follows is not intended to be exhaustive. The active mind of the scientist is no doubt capable of generating many ideas not found here. Furthermore, complete experimental designs are not provided, leaving room for the creativity of original researchers and analysts. Some of these experiments might be appropriate for collegiate studies or graduate work in sociology and psychology.

Witness Perception and Calibration Experiments

Angular Judgements

Witnesses estimate the angle to objects at known angular relationship to the witness. Error bounds derived from this allow us to better determine the confidence we can have in witness angular judgements which are the foundation of size, distance, and energy estimates. Horizontal and vertical angles need testing, as do short and long observations with and without reference points. Surprise and prepared observations should be subjected to test. Double-blind techniques should be used where possible.