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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.
And I would take your money. Next year we can come back and see who learned more.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
http://xkcd.com/718/
Some schools teach creationism. Some teach actual theology. Why should alien abduction be treated any differently? Teach the controversy!
Flake Equation! ;)
Why should UFO believers excluded. Why people believe weird and irrational things should be studied.
Reasonable-quality audio/video recording equipment is becoming nearly ubiquitous, being embedded in cell phones.
Yet the only "footage" that is available is grainy and poor quality.
As the quality and availability of audio/video recording equipment grows, one would expect the quality of "sighting" recordings to increase, but they aren't.
I think that's very telling.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I took a class in religion studies in college. UFO or other paranormal theories would fit right in there.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Looking at tuition costs can make one feel like they've been probed in the ass so why not learn about others who have felt the same way?
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
A rigorous scientific and professional approach would be far better than an amateur approach any day. Otherwise we deny the phenomenon entirely, or rely on amateur people who keep finding traces of them anywhere they look. You know they saying: "To a person holding a hammer, every problem is a nail."
...would be widely embraced on campus. And much of the "truth is out there" stuff is little more than a religion.
The cultural phenomenon of the UFO is worthy of study, as is the SETI type stuff from the science end.
UFO doesn't mean aliens, space visitors, or conspiracies.
It means: Unidentified Flying Object.
If you see a condensation trail high in the sky, you know that there is something creating it, but if it is too high for you to see, it is unidentified. It is flying. It is an object. You have just witnessed a UFO. There is nothing ridiculous about it at all.
If this class focuses on the spotting of things you don't understand, and the process in which you go through to try to discover it's identity, then I'm all for it. A class that pushes students to come up with multiple possible theories and find ways to research them, to prove or exclude them, and to report on their findings.
Seems like an awesome class idea to me.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Podunk professor from community college in remote town close to Canada has crazy ideas and other news at 11.
Seriously this made the front page of /.? This could be on the Onion!
I’d think they could get an actual picture of a UFO for TFS.
(The picture came from here – translated from Dutch to English.)
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
I would too if he actually got us a UFO to study. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable.
There is a war going on for your mind.
I would take that class
And I would take your money. Next year we can come back and see who learned more.
Well, right off the bat, you'd learn that people taking UFO classes don't have much money.
Nope, despite a masters degree in UFO studies, they're still unidentified flying objects.
"We know people who think this is a nonsense subject. And we'll refer you to voluminous literature and facts about UFOs."
Seriously? These guys do understand that "voluminous" literature doesn't equate to "quality literature", right? There are tomes and tomes on dragons at your local library, but I don't think many of us would consider "Draconic Studies" a worth academic pursuit.
I had this class. In my university, the history department had some classes in secret societies and conspiracies. We discussed the history and psychology of these events and how they've migrated from supernatural to scientifically based as our culture changed from dependence on one to dependence on the other. It was very interesting, though the mythology on Masonry and the Illuminati and such were far cooler than the UFO stuff IMO.
It was a good class and I agree that it should be a history elective.
I think a class that studies those who believe in UFOs would definitely be worth of an anthropology class.
Who are the believers? Why do they so strongly believe they saw a UFO? What is the cultural basis behind this belief? What are the equivalents in other societies? Ghosts? Evil spirits? Angels? A study of the people would be very interesting.
I think this anthropology professor might even be qualified (if biased) to teach such a class.
I think this guy is right. There should be a class on this. I even have a name suggestion:
Anthropology 150: The UFO Phenomenon as a Study in Mass Delusion
Rules of Conduct:
#1 - The DM is always right.
#2 - If the DM is wrong, see rule #1
Get a copy of Jane's aircraft guide and some of those silhouette flashcard that fighter pilots use to train. If it's not in the book or on the card, it's not a bird/bug/bat, and it flies, it's a UFO by definition.
Which is it? One place the article says one, another it says the other. They are not the same thing.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
We seriously need to be able to calculate the impact on Global Warming that is caused by these UFO's. We need to force them to buy Carbon Offsets to make up for the damage they are causing the enviornment! They probably don't even use florescent lights! They had better be getting at least 35 miles to the gallon too!
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
but perhaps not for the reasons he's suggesting or the outcome he wants.
I think that the study of UFO's *societal* genesis and spread could be quite interesting, as part of some sociology thing. But as a serious study into their existence? I think not. Weren't there no UFO sightings before space movies? And if so, did they just happen to co-arrive?
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
UFOs have been put under plenty of scientific scrutiny, and absolutely nothing has ever stood up to the test. The very best results these fools can come up with is the occasional statistical outlier that they fixate on as proof that "it couldn't have happened by accident." The simple fact is, if there were any basis to this nonsense at all, it would have been proven true a long time ago. By the way, the same applies to ghosts, bigfoot, telekinesis, and prayer.
There are broader social implications to UFO sightings. How common are UFO sightings? What impacts do UFO enthusiasts have on broader society? How have UFO sightings changed over time, and what can that tell us about the phenomenon. It is possible to debunk almost anything by explaining it away, but it's important to know that explications are merely hypotheses and do not represent a scientific endeavor in themselves.
Like most (all?) college courses, this class would be a bunch of meaningless bullshit. But it seems unfair to exclude this particular field of study simply because many academics thumb their noses at it. I say bring on the "UFO Studies" graduates!
Crazy Professor Says UFO Studies Should Be Taught At Universities.
Please stop pluralizing words with an apostrophe. That is not what it is there for.
France, britain, russia already opened their secret ufo files to public. in some countries like mexico, ufo matters have never been a matter of 'national security' and were hush hushed. It is only united states that still hush hushes serious incidents, confiscates serious footages, and regularly invokes 'experts' to ridicule and demean any person that comes forth with anything ufo related. (including former usaf notables).
it is evident that something is happening. especially in mexico. tens of thousands of people film various objects in the sky while commuting on crowded roads. entire neighborhoods watch objects in the sky for hours.
first of all, it is BEYOND stupid to ridicule, hush-hush, write off these incidents as this or that, without ever getting one's ass off the chair. It is a scientific rule to go out and research, and try to find the real cause. Not retorting 'swamp gas', 'weather baloon', 'mass hallucination by 5000 people', 'my fart' and so on without lifting a finger. It is contradictory to the process of knowing, and learning.
These branches have to be established in universities and colleges, and their research should be conducted just like how we research any other thing.
Read radical news here
I'm shocked at how closed minded so many of you are. A lot of things sound ridiculous until you start learning about them. Here on slashdot we have tons of comments from people who have absolutely no knowledge of an area that are just dismissing it because it doesn't fit into their limited view of reality. I am not a "believer," but I sure as hell am not a pseudo-skeptic debunker either.
I have dedicated many hours to studying these things, so let me say a few things. I'm going to stick with abduction phenomenon, because I find that to be the most fascinating and the most controversial. First off, it happens to people from all walks of life. It even happens in cities. It happens to police officers, soldiers, teachers, and software engineers. It tends to "run in the family," meaning if a parent of yours had had the abduction phenomenon you are likely to as well. The stories that the vast majority of people report tend to greatly overlap in descriptions of things they saw, equipment used on them, etc. Most people that do report it are embarrassed and many are very disturbed and emotional about what has happened to them. They don't usually want any publicity. People who this happens to repeatedly often just want it to stop happening. In other words, the great majority of cases aren't people seeking attention.
You may think that maybe this can all be mental phenomenon that perhaps people are genetically predisposed towards, but you'll have to look at the physical scarring that often occurs, the implant studies, the many cases that have had lots of witnesses, the cases where many people were abducted, etc.
A funny thing about this phenomenon is that it doesn't fit into any category very well. The more you study it the less sense any theory makes. People start proposing ideas like maybe these aren't physical beings but inter-dimensionals (whatever that means.) Some have noticed similarities between historical accounts of demon abduction and fairy abduction. Some people speculate on the motives of the beings. All we can really tell from studying this is that there is definitely some phenomenon occurring, it is extremely disturbing and embarrassing to the people that it happens to, it often has physical effects, and it we don't yet have any model that can explain it.
I know I'm not going to sway anyone's opinion with the little things I have time to write here. If you are willing to at least consider that something really is happening to people I suggest you find some books. Since the study of these things is not allowed to be discussed openly by scientists or at universities there are a lot of nuts that end up writing and lecturing about these topics. Many of them are the attention and money seeking people exploiting the phenomenon for their gains. Luckily there are some good people as well and some scientists that have risked their careers by exploring these things. It is hard to make suggestions as many authors have good and bad areas, but as an introduction I'd recommend Budd Hopkin's book "Missing Time."
The video quality has been improved ever since video cameras became commonplace.
YET, now there are people who reject ufo footages because 'they look too clean'.
make up your mind first.
if you cant trust anything, just go check Soviet ufo files. they are open, and history channel even ran a documentary with footage from within them. some of the footages are very very out of the ordinary. you can find them on youtube too.
Read radical news here
"It's about time we looked into this as a worthy area of study." They did. And after millions of dollars and decades of research they concluded that it was a waste of time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book
http://wwww.zerospeaks.com
If you go to a Catholic college, the faculty will be happy to assist with the anal probing demonstration.
Did you read the good old "Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe"?
They were certainly an important phenomenon especially in the 70s, so it can be expected that some people are not too familiar with them nowadays. Yet, they are responsible for some very important, memorable, and fascinating things from that period, and can still be observed around the world even today. I suggest that anyone with a slightest interest in such things does some further research into this topic.
Others have suggested this would go well with a religion class, but I really wish everyone had a class at some point on why people are biased to believe dumb things because of our biological tendency to recognize patterns even if they're not there and how you can combat that tendency in yourself. Commercial advertising tactics would play a big part of this, as would religion/cult tactics, new age anything, 'audiophiles,' fan death, etc. UFOs fit right in.
Not saying that Unidentified Flying Objects don't exist (obviously they do), but rather what conclusions you choose to draw from that.
Why do UFOs always show up in front of some hick in south dakota or kentucky? why don't the aliens ever land on the mall in DC or on top of the Effiel tower? Hell, I'd be convinced if they just landed on a pyramid like in stargate.
I think the closest thing to the above I've ever seen actual footage of was some weird lights above mexico city or something of the sort. Weird lights? I'm sure it was probably just the US and Soviets playing games or something of the sort. I'm not convinced.
i am moved by the religiosity of that thought: "a ufo is free forever"
this emotional moment has changed my life. i need to spread the word, start a movement
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The issue is poorly framed because she real sources of controversy are not whether "UFO studies" is taught but whether it is taught be skeptics or believers and whether it is publicly or privately funded.
For instance, your position might be to both endorse publicly-funded skepticism of alien encounters and to permit privately-funded teachings alien encounters. Then it is misleading to frame the issue as being for-or-against UFO education.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
[citation needed]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator_technology
I think this topic demands some rigorous scientific study. You look at the number of govt / intelligence / military industrial people / astronauts coming out with these "I want to say this before I die" stories, and it makes one wonder. Either they are lying, crazy, or telling the truth. I find it hard to believe they are all lying or crazy.
Parachute? Kite? Weather Balloon? Lightning? Auroa... auraoa... pretty lights in the sky?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
He's part of the problem. But here's the "Official UFO Quiz" to test yourself on what you do know. http://www.scribd.com/doc/13586254/The-Official-UFO-Quiz
Michael Horn is a tireless, fast-talking promoter of Billy Meier who will argue with you endlessly trying to make you believe that the Billy Meier photographs are real. Actually, the pics have been proven fake many times. They've used garbage can lids, models, and props. They've lifted pictures from books--one of a dinosaur to 'prove' Billy traveled back in time. Besides being fake, it's about the silliest story you could ever read. If you want to make UFOs a laughingstock subject, this is the way to do it.
Horn can talk all he wants, but the fact is, he's flat out busted.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
My main concern would be that the religious community would not be taking lightly the teaching about UFO in school. You know, anything that could get you a little more open minded and open to the idea that we don't know everything could be a risk for a religious society.
If OP actually gains a better understanding of the UFO phenomena, then he has learned more.
If it turns out to be a complete waste of time, then he has learned to be more careful with his wallet, and you have learned that it is still easy to take people's money through an intriguing premise.
If you haven't learned that from FREE ICONS SAVERS PRON WAREZ GETRICHNOW schemes, then perhaps I see the humor.
Otherwise, your question is surely rhetorical. Or perhaps I just got 'WHOOSHED'.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
...in psychology and sociology courses. If they want to see crazyness and mass hysteria in action, is a perfect real world example. Probably would be useful in advertising related careers too. Why manipulate people when they can perfectly manipulate themselves?
Anyway, i would put it in the same course as religion, probably those kind of "wonders" are the kind of things that started most current religions, attribute what you cant recognize or understand as an act of gods, ghosts or aliens is cultural, next ones could be mutants, murphy fields, time machines or quantum entanglement.
If governments have not come to any solid conclusions over this long period of time, it is very unlikely a university course will have anything significant to contribute. Except a raging debate between the skeptics and the true believers.
It was at Temple, and actually given under the History department. The prof was David Jacobs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Michael_Jacobs
He seemed pretty reasonable back then. His position was that there was enough unexplainable stuff going on that something weird was happening that warranted further investigation.
From the Wikipedia page on him, it seems he's gone a little more extreme on the subject these days.
Not trying to get too suspicious or too paranoid, but there's a small part of me that thinks the Govt. is slowly and purposefully getting people "used" to the idea and concept of alien lifeforms.
Is it just me or have we seen a gradual increase in the amount of movies and T.V. shows about alien lifeforms and interaction with humans.
District 9, Star Trek, Independence Day, Stargate, Voyager, etc, etc and countless other shows and movies that have come out in the last 30 yrs seem to suggest humans and aliens can somehow learn to communicate and co-habitate together.
Could it all be a grand, elaborate scheme to indoctrinate earthlings to accept the idea and concept of other-world beings? Imagine how society would have freaked out 50yrs ago if we were presented with an actual alien life form? Now imagine how that same event, while as shocking as it would still be, would affect people today? I dare think mush less mass-hysteria and more wider acceptance among today's youth who have grown up with all these Sci-Fi films and TV shows bombarding them with the concept of alien life being a distinct possibility, albeit even normal...
Most people don't learn how to *think* until their late 20s, if then.
I was hoping universities might start teaching classes in skepticism and rational inquiry so every third person I meet isn't a blithering idiot about science.
But UFOs sounds much better. Why not angels or astrology or atlantis?
I've joked about if I ever got a position where I made friends with the folks flying an AWACS, I'd want to set it up with blinky lights all the way around the dish. It would be hilarious to have them fly around with the rest of their marker lights off, and just this circle of flashing lights in the sky. How many people would be calling in UFO sightings? :)
But, if they are landing in Kansas or wherever, I'd think it may be so they don't accidentally squish people in a populated area, or knock structures over. :) It's hard to say "we came here on a peaceful mission of exploration and to exchange of information", when you knock over something like the Effiel tower and squish a few hundred tourists.
Really, if they've observed for a while, they'd spot the "good" places to land and meet with gov't official types. (make peace with the ones that can shoot back, -n- stuff.) This is a great place to land Lots of room. Access to the gov't hierarchy without pesky civilians getting in the way. If you came in quiet with no lights, you'd probably have a nice private audience with exactly the people you'd want to talk to.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
from article
The main criticism of alleged non-human creation of crop circles is that while evidence of these origins, besides eyewitness testimonies, is essentially absent, many are definitely known to be the work of human pranksters and others can be adequately explained as such
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_circle
Exception Duck - may or may not contain chicken.
...where it belongs, alongside other phobias, irrational behavior, groupthink, etc.
I do like programming things that work super quickly, especially when they work super quickly, super quickly.
that a fool and his/her money are soon parted.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Give this man a cigar! Or mayhaps more coffee.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I actually took a UFO class in college (Temple University). It was a history elective, one that was exceptionally popular and difficult to get into. The class was positioned as one that mainly dealt with UFOs and their impact (or lack thereof) on society, mainly from a governmental point of view.
Except, that was only the first half of the class. After the midterm there was a heavy focus on abductions, and we had to read a number of "non-fictional" books on the subject. It was a bit freaky if you started to believe it.
Beats me if they still offer this class, I took it in 1995.
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.
The "UFO = Alien ships" crowd has exactly as much evidence as the religious crowd. It's all anecdotal. Nobody's every brought back an Alien brain, or even a sample of their DNA, or whatever they would have instead of brains/DNA.
Learn something new.
UFO in it's literal term is acceptable to have a course in. It may help people to understand cause and effect in a much larger scale.
Many UFO sightings are misinterpretations and/or reflections in windows. A few more are pranks and yet a few are model aircrafts.
Then there are a few left that can't be easily explained and among those most of them are the result of military or otherwise covert ops (cops, smugglers, test runs by your favorite agency) that you never can get an answer about.
But I'm not saying that there aren't outer space aliens that really are causing a fraction of the observations. If there are aliens out there I would say that they may want to keep an eye on us in case we are getting dangerous. The most dangerous enemy to human is another human.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
#1. MY tinfoil hat is NOT crazy.
#2. Considering "religion's" track record/past performance/response to current issues, the crazies are running the insane asylum.
I cannot wait for a legitimate encounter because I would ask for religious/political/economic asylum from this loony bin called Earth.
If people wish to wallow in the arrogant belief that they are the most intelligent beings in the verse, may the All that is, protect them. It would take a very intelligent race that is patient with the overt/covert leadership of this planet to keep from trashing this planet and starting over from scratch.
I would offer my services to be caretaker of all that is worthy of rescue, ie. the dolphins, whales, elephants, gorillas and any other endangered species other than MAN.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
You know, your test flight mention is actually very legitimate.
When I was a kid, I lived on one of the military practice routes. I loved watching the jets fly over, so if I heard them coming, I'd run outside to watch them fly over.
One day, around 1985, I saw a very odd plane fly over. I hadn't ever seen anything like it. It looked kind of like a fighter jet, but it had very angular features, including a tall angled cockpit , a weird body, and weird tail. I told my parents, friends at school about it, and even some teachers. They all thought I was nuts. I had even sketched generally what it looked like, and I was told "there's no such thing."
About 3 years later the gov't announced their "new" F-117, and that was the plane.
Of course, since I had been watching and trying to identify the planes flying over for quite a while, I knew this was definitely a military jet of some sort, so there was no good reason to scream alien conspiracy.
I fell for another one that I was convinced was a UFO, because I had no better way to explain it. Years later, I was talking to a retired USAF pilot, and he told me exactly what it was. It would have been a rather uncommon sight, so I just dumb lucked into seeing it. It helped that I could tell him my precise location, time of day, and even the direction I was facing. Given the choice of the very likely answer I was given by someone with no advantage to lie to me, or believe that an alien spaceship buzzed me, while I'd like to believe it was an alien, it simply wasn't.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Millions have seen "UFOs"? Then it's obviously not about identifying things that weren't seen clearly. Every person who has ever lived and who has the sense of sight has observed things, moving or still, in the air, on the ground, in the water, that the observer couldn't identify.
No, Philip Hasely is arguing that a delusion should be taken seriously, just because it's popular.
See Michael Shermer's "Why People Believe Weird Things."
UFO Class prerequisites...
Tinfoil Cranial Protection Technology & It's Application 101
Introduction to Conspiracy Theory
Intermediate Conspiracy Theory
Extraterrestrial Fiction in Modern Media Pre-Star Wars
Extraterrestrial Fiction in Modern Media Post-Star Wars
Klingonese 101
Take the Red Pill.
I would too if he actually got us a UFO to study.
If that happened it would no longer be a UFO (Unidentified Flying Object).
Personally, I am a strong believer in UFOs. Do you want to know what they are?
I don't know. If I did, they would be IFOs.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Actually, a skeptical class that did an honest, thorough investigation would be good.
Something like this, but for UFOs.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
...as soon as someone actually manages to take an in-focus photograph.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
They can also be classified as
So, the Un-explained Flying phenOmena are the UFO, and once some specimen are identified, they need to be studied, explained and reclassified as EFO. Who said aliens need to be involved?
PS: Ahh, this does not prove they exist, but Nothern Lights were a UFO once, and now they are explained, sort of.
Well, then the obvious solution is to recruit more Zombies for UFO research. If anyone can bring back Alien brains, it would be them...
Similar to the upcoming US election results
A professor I had last quarter, Joseph Phillips, at DePaul University in Chicago teaches a course called "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence" as a Liberal Studies credit. Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Loop, apparently. Despite being ostensibly a Catholic university, DePaul's actually pretty liberal like that.
I used to read extensively about UFO's. I was determined to "get to the bottom of it" and figure out once and for all whether the phenomenon was hardware or wetware (psychology). I never did come to a conclusion. The debunking was usually disappointingly sloppy; they make almost as many logic flaws as the "believers". My analysis left me with a Big Null.
But the one thing I did learn by reading many witness accounts and the after-math is that if YOU see a flying saucer or UFO, shut the hell up. Reporting it is a recipe for headaches and ridicule.
Call MUFON or a similar organization to report it to get it off your chest and into their database. Other than that, it didn't happen. Move on.
Table-ized A.I.
What exactly makes you think that such an alien species would somehow be able to bypass the need to send physical ships to a world to explore, and somehow be able to see it all from their home? Basically, you're talking about some type of wormhole-based technology where one can view the events at a remote location in real-time. What makes you think that someone who develops a way to travel FTL will also develop said wormhole technology? We don't even know how to actually accomplish FTL travel, or if it can even be done. We also don't know much about wormholes, and certainly haven't observed any. Just like FTL travel, they're purely theoretical. On top of all this, we still don't have a clue as to how gravity works; we only know that it exists and that we can predict its effects. Mark my words, when we figure out how gravity really works, then we'll be on the path to figuring out either FTL travel or wormholes. Until then, making any claims about a hypothetical alien race's level of technology is quite absurd. It's like a couple of cavemen arguing about whether people in the future will prefer texting or talking on their cellphones.
From the classified UFO documents that UFO conspiracy theorists like to use to justify their paranoia have shown once they have been declassified have been quite disappointing. What we have always ended up finding is that they weren't classified because there was some massive UFO cover-up, but rather that governments were paranoid regarding sharing how data was distributed and communication protocols. The actual data was pretty boring and has done nothing to vindicate conspiracy nuts.
I see URO's in Windows Task Manager all the time. Who do I call?
Table-ized A.I.
It's the study of anything that you want to believe could be out there, without any real proof that they exist.
Sounds like dead ringer for theology.
Then again, if I remember right there isn't a legitimate school in the world that teaches cryptozoology, other than maybe in a passing reference in a real class.
While I personally doubt their legitimacy, a lot of theological schools are accredited.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I consider myself an educated person, I'm a member of Mensa so I supposedly have brains. My job requires logic and reasoning, and things making sense is important. I have no mental conditions, wasn't on any drugs, and I'm agnostic. With that said, I have experienced "ghostly" events firsthand, multiple times. Examples: Watching tv + doing homework and a picture flew across the room from it's place on a brick wall as if struck with a backhand, 10+ feet. (no strange air movement, no earthquake, no person standing nearby, no animals, no reason at all I could discover why). I've seen doorhandles wiggle, doors open fully all the way against the opposite wall, then shut by themselves. Other things that are just... weird. If these things had not happened to me personally I wouldn't have believed it. Do I believe in ghosts? I am not sure, but I believe there are unexplained things that defy my understanding at the moment.
This wasn't a ghosthunters "I got a cold flash, Ooh EM field spiked, it must be a ghost!" sort of event, but real physical events witnessed with others at the time. I wish I could explain it, I wish these sort of events happened more than a handful of times over a decade+ of living in that house. I wish there was repeatability. I wish there was proof. Wishing all of the things needed for any scientific analysis of anything. If for no other reason than I don't like mysteries that I can't figure out.
So with all that said, I'd welcome a class on UFOs or other phenomena if it involved the full skeptical approach on discovery, data analysis, and testing hypothesis. I don't know how you handle the 'one in a million' sort of events that qualify as a UFO. From a sociology or anthropology perspective that would be interesting too - just learning what leads a person to believe something and more insight into how humans work could be fascinating.
I considered posting this anonymously but oh well, I've done far worse than accept that I don't know all of the laws of physics. Besides, someday I'd like to figure out a logical reason to what the heck happened. Or at least figure out how to make it repeatable, it'd make the house value skyrocket!
There was talk of one here at the local state university but it was shot down when the professors ulterior motive was exposed to actually build a UFO and barnstorm the local Scientology Church and Kirstie Alleys house.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Carl Sagan is spinning in his grave.
How about iStudies classes? You know... like bible studies, but where you learn how to praise Steve Jobs the right way. ;))
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I love you. This cracked me up.
K.
I would encourage anyone and everyone to read the 1968 Condon Report:
http://files.ncas.org/condon/
Please don't be distracted by criticisms of the report. It's all too easy to shift into a mode of supporting your side in a perceived debate. As such, many may immediately be biased that this Internet version of the report is hosted by a Skeptics organization.
If you really want to see criticisms of the report, you can start with Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condon_Committee
But I strongly encourage all interested parties to read this report. Even if you believe there must be something there, you need to know how to weed out false positives. And the Condon Report should amply describe how prevalent those are.
From an anthropological point of view, however, it would seem there are tons of things worthy of study here.
Any conclusion that does not assume there is other life in the universe is hopelessly Creation-ist and/or human-centric.
Any conclusion that accepts that beings capable of making ~87 light year voyages are going to crash into a freaking planet or come anal probe a red-neck in Kentucky is hopelessly absurd.
They've mastered FTL, they've mastered force fields or whatever it took to survive impacts with micro-meteors at Light+, they've managed to find one little marble, in an infinite velvet blanket, they're going to crash in the last .001 of the last 1% of the most difficult voyage humanity has ever conceived of? Then they come all this way, doodle some shit in a cornfield in Kansas, ass-probe some dude in Delaware, eviscerate some cows in Vermont, and go home. Wtf? Really? That's stupid.
That's like driving to your Aunt's house in California, and pulling into the drive way and breaking the flag off her mailbox and going back home.
Plus, we have nukes. Sure, there's a chance they have a star trek force field and nukes are so low tech they don't matter any more. But it's more likely their ship is made of metal or plastic and being caught in an airburst will rip it apart like any other physical structure we know of. Doesn't really sound like a risk worth taking, even to find out what happens when you sodomize the herdlings with a metal probe.
Maybe the whole thing is drunk teenagers, from Alpha Centauri? Like a frat hazing. They dodge the ICBM radar, swoop down, seize a redneck and drag him up into their saucer amidst homoerotic/in-group social status building shoulder punching and man-hugging and then fire up the alien beer-bong and do keg (?saucer?) stands and dissect the terran.
K.
I think Bill Hicks had a pretty good explanation for this.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Of course I didn't read the article, but I think this would be a great class, if it focused on the writings and speculations of all the well known scientists who have commented on the possibility of alien life.
For instance, the class could learn about the Fermi Paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox. In a nutshell, why the universe appears so silent given that billions of years should be plenty of time to have had thousands of alien civilizations completely colonize the galaxy, and most likely the universe.
If I were teaching it, I would also include books by authors such as James Gardner http://www.biocosm.org/about.htm, specifically "The Intelligent Universe". Great read for anyone interested in AI, ET, etc..
I imagine you could teach about UFO's, as long as it was in the context of historical impact, cultural psychology, astrophysics theories, etc.. I would personally love to take a class that objectively analyzed things like ttp://www.disclosureproject.org/, which has hundreds of former military folks, scientists, radar operators, and pilots who swear that they've seen alien craft.
...how to identify Venus would be a great help. Some people even need help identifying the moon
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
And in particular it is worth reading the section about Project Blue Book Special Report No 14 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Blue_Book#Project_Blue_Book_Special_Report_No._14 ) which contained the most interesting statistics and some conclusions which were in direct conflict with their own data.
Quoting from wikipedia:
When the meanings of words change for most of the population there is a danger because people ASSUME you mean alien craft, not a possible plastic packet, when using'UFO'. As with the 'organic vegetable' craze. ALL vegetables are organic, and any farmer can sell them as such. Whether they are organically GROWN is another matter entirely!
irrationality.
We've become far too tolerant of this sort of thing. Deliberate pollution of the info-sphere.
Aliens did not fly millions of miles to Earth, just so they could probe Cletus the slack-jawed yokels' anal cavity.
There is no invisible man in the sky who knows when you've been naughty and when you've been nice, and who you can ask for things.
A larger percentage of the human population than you might think possible, are genuinely mentally disturbed.
to believe that after 13.75 ±0.17 billion years of the Universes existence, we are the only culmination of advanced civilization is questionable at best. A million years is enough time to create an civilization more advanced than ours. Another million years to completely erase that very same civilization with absolutely no evidence left. The (current) Universe might not have been hospitable for life for the first 6 billion years. That leaves 7 billion years unaccounted for.
The universe is rather large There will almost certainly be alien life forms. But WHEN?
I think that in our own limited time-frame we'll find remnants and/or embryo's, if any proof at all.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
and with that word, 'idiot' you have proved that i was wrong, you were right, HOW.
i cant understand the stupor that states we HAVE to reject stubbornly any kind of possibility of unidentified object observation or label them as shitty atmospheric events or swamp gas or ballons. this is not a fucking religion, there are VISIBLE objects there, moving with their own accord. its not a dogma or a poltergeist or anythign.
ffs. there is no science in 'stubbornly reject without researching' its morondom.
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