Feb 6, 2023 07:21 PM
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/...fo-reports
INTRO: If history is a guide, the publicity surrounding the recent shooting down of a Chinese ‘spy balloon’ over the United States is an ideal set-up for an impending outbreak of UFO sightings. The United States has a long history of similar scares. The pattern in these episodes is eerily similar beginning with an initial incident that receives saturated media coverage. Soon, large numbers of people begin to scrutinize the skies and begin seeing the object of their fears. These outbreaks are driven by known psychological processes and can be summed up in the old adage, "Speak of the Devil and he is bound to appear."
One of the most challenging aspects of studying social panics is that researchers are almost always investigating these cases after the fact — months or years later. They are notoriously difficult to predict. However, based on the long history of UFO scares, there is a good chance that in the coming months there will be an outbreak of mysterious aerial objects attributed to the Chinese. This episode has all of the ingredients of a social panic in the making: a foreign adversary, political tension and mistrust, intense publicity, and a jittery public. Combined with the unreliability of human perception, it may just be a matter of time before we experience a wave of sightings... (MORE - details)
RELATED (scivillage): Object Seen in the Sky over northwest US
INTRO: If history is a guide, the publicity surrounding the recent shooting down of a Chinese ‘spy balloon’ over the United States is an ideal set-up for an impending outbreak of UFO sightings. The United States has a long history of similar scares. The pattern in these episodes is eerily similar beginning with an initial incident that receives saturated media coverage. Soon, large numbers of people begin to scrutinize the skies and begin seeing the object of their fears. These outbreaks are driven by known psychological processes and can be summed up in the old adage, "Speak of the Devil and he is bound to appear."
One of the most challenging aspects of studying social panics is that researchers are almost always investigating these cases after the fact — months or years later. They are notoriously difficult to predict. However, based on the long history of UFO scares, there is a good chance that in the coming months there will be an outbreak of mysterious aerial objects attributed to the Chinese. This episode has all of the ingredients of a social panic in the making: a foreign adversary, political tension and mistrust, intense publicity, and a jittery public. Combined with the unreliability of human perception, it may just be a matter of time before we experience a wave of sightings... (MORE - details)
RELATED (scivillage): Object Seen in the Sky over northwest US