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Professor Says UFO Studies Should Be Taught At Universities
New York anthropology professor Philip Haseley wants young people to get the best education possible, and part of that education, he says, should be about UFOs. Haseley thinks universities should offer classes on UFOs and other unexplained phenomena from space. "[A sighting] happens to millions of people [around the world]. It's about time we looked into this as a worthy area of study. It's important that the whole subject be brought out in the open and investigated," he said. I want to believe the truth is out there in 500 words or less.
They would fit. But I would expect a lot of controversy with that approach.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Project Blue Book
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book
The US did research it and did publish what they found. Of course they covered stuff up because the UFOs are classified aviation programs by USAF, CIA, USN and who knows what other TLA.
It's also worth noting that there are interesting mass psychology phenomena here. For example, belief in UFOs has declined in popularity since Y2K (IMHO though my opinion was backed in 2001 by anecdotal observation of ufology vendors at a conference in San Jose). There's been no change in knowledge of UFOs. What has changed?
IMHO, unexplained aerial phenomena (I hate the term 'UFOs') are quite an open question. There is a lot of data out there to establish the reality of the phenomenon and that a significant number of events are unexplained. Probably the best are a number of radar/visual cases occurring in the 1950s and 1960s, in which multiple radars and multiple aircraft all tracked an anomaly for a lengthy period of time. For a good summary of unexplained cases, I recommend looking up the report of the Sturrock Panel (http://www.ufoevidence.org/topics/SturrockPanel.htm). This panel examined some of the best evidential aerial anomaly cases and concluded that there was a significant unexplained component to the UFO phenomenon. There are several other good reports, but I recommend this one as a good place to start.
Some were proven to be mistaken identity. The "bottom" of the disks always lined up with the pixel orientation of the vid camera, strongly suggesting they were an imaging artifact, perhaps of seagulls in the sun.
Table-ized A.I.
Oh please. That thing is clearly a triangular weather balloon viewed from below, like this one.
If you haven't already, Try reading "why people believe weird things" by michael shermer. Since reading this i'm convinced that there are no such things as ghosts, and that aliens aren't visiting the earth, whereas before i think i just adopted the attitude that the huge body of anecdotal evidence for both of them must indicate something, no smoke without fire, etc.
If you are interested in skepticism in general I can recommend the podcasts skeptoid, skepticality and the skeptics guide to the universe
The betty and barney hill episode of skeptoid is quite enlightening. There are quite a few UFO episodes.
The shermer book is essential reading.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons