May 3, 2024 05:18 PM
(This post was last modified: May 3, 2024 05:19 PM by C C.)
https://aeon.co/essays/how-ufos-almost-k...e-universe
EXCERPTS: . . . That loose relationship between extraordinary claims and the evidence for such claims also had a profound effect on me as a teenager interested in astronomy and the possibilities of extraterrestrial life.
[...] At the time, I was reading both hard-science books (Sagan) and speculative works about UFO-related topics. ... The experience of that stark difference ended my own interest in UFOs and visiting aliens of any historical epoch.
If it hadn’t made me so angry, it might have made me laugh – and it’s that giggle factor that has been so harmful to the establishment of the true scientific study of astrobiology that I work in now. When it comes to SETI, at least, UFOs made the nascent field an easy target for scorn...
[...] Though the field was nascent, astrobiology researchers made slow but steady progress in mapping out how to rigorously gather and evaluate data that would be relevant to the very open question of how life beyond our world might make its appearance...
[...] Then the politics and the UFOs showed up. William Proxmire was a senator from Wisconsin who liked to think of himself as a fiscal hawk. He took it upon himself to bestow his Golden Fleece Award on anything he considered a waste of US tax dollars...
[...] NASA’s SETI funding remained minuscule in the post-Proxmire period, but it was still a target. In 1990, NASA tried to ramp up its SETI funding, from $4 million to $12 million, for a new search in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. While this is less than chump change in the federal budget, some politicians once again smelled blood. Making the link to UFOs explicit, the congressman Silvio Conte of Massachusetts tried to kill the funding, claiming ‘we don’t need to spend $6 million this year to find evidence of these rascally creatures. We only need 75 cents to buy a tabloid at the local supermarket.’
The same game played out again a few years later...
[...] In the wake of these very public whippings, NASA learned the lesson that SETI was political poison...
[...] Choking off SETI funding had important consequences for the search for life in the Universe because, basically, it meant there was no search for life in the Universe. Using big telescopes costs big money. If there was no funding for SETI, then no telescope time would be granted for SETI. The political temperament that held sway for so long means our sky has effectively remained unexplored. We simply have not looked.
It’s impossible to deny the role UFOs had in the development of this history...
[...] Then, in the mid-1990s, everything changed. ... All these new discoveries and new methods are transforming what we think of as SETI too...
[...] With the giggle factor receding for the scientific search for life, where does that leave UFOs and UAPs? There, the waters remain muddied. It is a good thing that pilots feel they can report sightings without fear of reprisal as a matter of air safety and national defence. And an open, transparent and agnostic investigation of UAPs could offer a masterclass in how science goes about its business of knowing rather than just believing...
[...] We’re going all in on the search for life in the Universe because we finally have the capabilities to search for life in the Universe. The giggle factor is finally history... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: . . . That loose relationship between extraordinary claims and the evidence for such claims also had a profound effect on me as a teenager interested in astronomy and the possibilities of extraterrestrial life.
[...] At the time, I was reading both hard-science books (Sagan) and speculative works about UFO-related topics. ... The experience of that stark difference ended my own interest in UFOs and visiting aliens of any historical epoch.
If it hadn’t made me so angry, it might have made me laugh – and it’s that giggle factor that has been so harmful to the establishment of the true scientific study of astrobiology that I work in now. When it comes to SETI, at least, UFOs made the nascent field an easy target for scorn...
[...] Though the field was nascent, astrobiology researchers made slow but steady progress in mapping out how to rigorously gather and evaluate data that would be relevant to the very open question of how life beyond our world might make its appearance...
[...] Then the politics and the UFOs showed up. William Proxmire was a senator from Wisconsin who liked to think of himself as a fiscal hawk. He took it upon himself to bestow his Golden Fleece Award on anything he considered a waste of US tax dollars...
[...] NASA’s SETI funding remained minuscule in the post-Proxmire period, but it was still a target. In 1990, NASA tried to ramp up its SETI funding, from $4 million to $12 million, for a new search in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. While this is less than chump change in the federal budget, some politicians once again smelled blood. Making the link to UFOs explicit, the congressman Silvio Conte of Massachusetts tried to kill the funding, claiming ‘we don’t need to spend $6 million this year to find evidence of these rascally creatures. We only need 75 cents to buy a tabloid at the local supermarket.’
The same game played out again a few years later...
[...] In the wake of these very public whippings, NASA learned the lesson that SETI was political poison...
[...] Choking off SETI funding had important consequences for the search for life in the Universe because, basically, it meant there was no search for life in the Universe. Using big telescopes costs big money. If there was no funding for SETI, then no telescope time would be granted for SETI. The political temperament that held sway for so long means our sky has effectively remained unexplored. We simply have not looked.
It’s impossible to deny the role UFOs had in the development of this history...
[...] Then, in the mid-1990s, everything changed. ... All these new discoveries and new methods are transforming what we think of as SETI too...
[...] With the giggle factor receding for the scientific search for life, where does that leave UFOs and UAPs? There, the waters remain muddied. It is a good thing that pilots feel they can report sightings without fear of reprisal as a matter of air safety and national defence. And an open, transparent and agnostic investigation of UAPs could offer a masterclass in how science goes about its business of knowing rather than just believing...
[...] We’re going all in on the search for life in the Universe because we finally have the capabilities to search for life in the Universe. The giggle factor is finally history... (MORE - missing details)
