UFOs Challenge Our Scientific World View
by Robert Roy Pool
I have been fascinated by Unidentified Flying Objects for more than 20 years. To me the most important aspect of the UFO phenomenon is the way that the phenomenon challenges our scientific world view. More than any issue in modern science, the UFO data set raises profound questions. How do we know what we think we know? What is evidence? What methods can we use to decide what is true and what is false in circumstances where we cannot control the phenomenon in question?
The Western scientific world view has achieved great things by systematically combining two different but usually complementary philosophical approaches: empiricism and rationalism. Empiricists scour the data, hoping to discover patterns that can be generalized into truth. Rationalists study data, too, but believe the most important step in discovering new truth is to construct theories that explain what is happening and why. After their theories have been validated by empirical testing – data taking – rationalists may come to regard some theories as proven, or “true.” Or at least true for now, until a better theory comes along.
For example: Darwin was basically an empiricist, a collector of data about animal species the world over. Two decades after the voyage of the Beagle he published the basic theory of evolution based on the data he had collected. His theory has been much improved and refined in the 150 years since he published On the Origin of the Species, but his indispensible insight was generated by careful observation of a vast number of species in the far corners of the world, not by sitting in London and thinking.
Einstein, in contrast, was a pure rationalist. He didn't spend a great deal of time scouring data, he just thought about how space and time might work, using the known properties as a guide to his thoughts, then constructed the General Theory of Relativity, which is still the theory used to account for gravity and the large-scale structure of the universe.
Both Darwin and Einstein left towering legacies of scientific achievement.
But the existence of UFOs, like no other issue, splits the empiricists from the rationalists, forcing them to different conclusions based on their different methods of reasoning.
Paradigm Shift
Empiricists tend to accept the existence of UFOs because there is overwhelming evidence. Millions of individuals believe they have seen UFOs. Thousands have managed to take photographs and videos. But the strongest evidence for the reality of the UFO phenomenon comes from the numerous multiple witness sightings. In many famous cases, dozens, sometimes even thousands of people have witnessed the same UFO at the same time. In Mexico City on Jan 1, 1994, for example, millions of people observed disc-type UFOs hovering over the city at the same time in broad daylight. Hundreds of videos were shot of the same UFO at the same time. Many other famous UFO cases have involved dozens or hundreds of simultaneous witnesses, usually supported by video and photographs.
To an empiricist, this absolutely rules out the possibility that UFOs might be an imaginary phenomenon. One person might imagine something or be mistaken, but dozens of individuals at the same time? Impossible. And how would an imaginary phenomenon show up on video? Ridiculous.
Rational Skeptics
Rationalists have a lot more problems with the UFO data set. They correctly point out that people are often mistaken, and some people lie. The UFO data set, they believe, must be the result of misunderstandings, misperceptions, and lies. Rationalists tend to believe that UFO witnesses are somehow psychologically inclined to believe that UFOs are real, and this colors their perceptions, creating misperceptions if not outright hallucinations.
Truly rational people don’t see UFOs.
Aliens? Not on My Watch
Moreover, rationalists tend to dismiss the leading theory that purports to explain UFOs: that they are alien spacecraft. Space probes sent out since 1963 have proven beyond reasonable doubt that no intelligent life could exist elsewhere in our solar system. Mars, once believed to nurture alien beings – the Martians of our collective imagination — has been proven to be devoid of liquid water and (so far) life.
While the rational skeptics concede that intelligent life almost certainly must exist on planets other than our own, they believe that alien beings simply could not get here from there. The distances they would have to travel to reach Earth from even the closest star – Alpha Centauri, about four light years – would require these alien creatures to take centuries, perhaps thousands of Earth years to go from there to here. Rational skeptics think this impossible.
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