Ufology
11/10/19
The study of UFO reports and the events surrounding them is known collectively as Ufology and the people who do the studying as Ufologists. Modern day Ufology started really when flying became commonplace. During WW2, the USAAF referred to strange objects as a ‘Foo Fighters’ but it was after the war that legitimate and systematic investigations were made. At this time reports came flooding in from pilots and aircraft passengers during what became known as the UFO-craze. Many of these investigations were done by government agents across the Western world, mostly because of a fear that the Soviet Bloc may be using unknown weapons or advanced forms of aircraft or missiles and they had rule out any potential dangers.
Several reports were produced by US government agencies, and The Condon Committee reported in 1969 that over 20 years of previous study into UFO’s had produced nothing of any value. Within a few short years, all countries curtailed and eventually closed down their investigation units. The MOD no longer accepted reports of UFO’s after 2010. The methods used to categorise and study reports in a ‘scientific’ way form the basis of Ufology. However, despite using the trappings and echoing the methodology of science it has not produced anything of value nor any information that can be reproduced with any consistency. Therefore, it should be considered a pseudoscience.
Because Ufology has been dismissed as a pseudoscience it has a reputation of being done by cranks and people on the fringes of science. Like ghost hunters using EVP as somehow being ‘proof’ that ghosts exist or paranormal investigators thinking that the Ganzfeld experiments confirm psychic ability, many ufologist pounce on unexplained or otherwise ‘strange’ events as evidence of aliens. Unfortunately, because they are putting the conclusion (aliens) before the investigation (UNIDENTIFIED Flying Objects) they are making the same mistake that so many non-skeptical people make.