UFOs

risk. As evidence mounts and it can no longer be discarded, attempts are made to incorporate it and define it within the parameters of the existing paradigm. The threat to current understanding is heightened and the establishment clings ever tighter to its self-defining, and self-defined, reality, as if confronted with death. At the same time, as Kuhn describes it, the old paradigm boundaries begin to soften, and a few highly placed scientists start exploring the study of the anomaly, gradually attracting additional researchers into the fold. Finally, the new reality breaks through, often suddenly and quickly, sometimes precipitated by the efforts of a single scientist acting at a crucial time. The anomaly then becomes part of the expected and we’re able to see nature in a new way, and soon the once-radical discovery becomes part of the known.

Kuhn writes: “A scientific revolution is a noncumulative developmental episode in which an older paradigm is replaced in whole or in part by an incompatible new one… the normal-scientific tradition that emerges from a scientific revolution is not only incompatible but often actually incommensurable with that which has gone before.”

With regard to the anomaly of the UFO, it’s easy to recognize its potential to create a “paradigm shift,” depending on what is discovered once science decides to recognize it. Because of the extraterrestrial possibility—a challenge to our understanding of the physical universe and our place in it—there is, indeed, a risk of a very large scientific revolution. If the UFO is determined to be a secret technological creation of mankind or something more complex such as a manifestation of nature from perhaps another dimension, the discovery would be potentially transformative. And Kuhn says it can all happen due to one defining, “noncumulative” event—perhaps one pivotal, lengthy UFO display, a new type of explosive physical evidence, or even communication via radio waves or other more advanced means—an event that will leave scientists certain as to the nature and origin of the phenomenon.

Unfortunately, history shows that such change usually progresses slowly in the buildup to that defining moment. Based on scientific observations in the early sixteenth century, Copernicus proposed the heliocentric model, according to which the Earth was not stationary at the center of the universe, as orthodox science claimed, but in fact was spinning on its axis, and the planets were moving around the sun rather than the Earth. The movements of the planets were anomalies at the time, and couldn’t be explained within the accepted model. Copernicus acquired data that supported this new theory and explained the observed anomalies. But, despite his rationality, his findings were considered impossible—it can’t be, therefore it isn’t—given what was then understood to be true. Worse, as we human beings gazed out to space in a state of ignorance, secure on our fixed planet Earth, his theory also defied our self-imposed religious dogma. A hundred and fifty years passed before the fact that the Earth revolves around the sun was accepted, and only after Galileo, Kepler, and Newton contributed in turn. Finally, humanity witnessed the emergence of the new scientific paradigm. It had been a long and painful road. Galileo had been forced by the church to retract his ideas, and was placed under house arrest for maintaining what was actually the correct view.

Smaller discoveries, even though they, too, are initially considered impossible, can shift the norm more expediently. In the early nineteenth century, scientists rejected the idea that rocks could fall from the sky, despite reports to the contrary by multiple eyewitnesses. The consensus was that this couldn’t possibly be, so anyone who said otherwise must be lying, crazy, or a hoaxer. Finally, a scientist collected meteorite fragments reported by villagers in France, which were then studied in the lab, proving the reality of rocks from the sky, and the new phenomenon of meteorites was accepted from that moment on.

Presently, a few physicists are beginning to put forward theories that could explain faster-than-light travel through space, including concepts such as space travel through wormholes, multiple dimensions, and even time travelers.[201] According to an August 2009[202] Newsweek cover story, scientists now estimate that 100 billion suns in the Milky Way galaxy support Earth-like planets in orbit around them. Given how many stars there are and the number of extrasolar planets already discovered, the chance of life existing elsewhere in the universe is very high. NASA’s Kepler spacecraft was launched in 2009 to hunt for some of these planets among 100,000 stars in the constellations of Cygnus and Lyra, with the hopes of finding some terrestrial planets with habitable conditions. As of this writing, we’ve already found over 400 planets orbiting other stars.[203] By 2013, Kepler is likely to have located hundreds, if not thousands, of potentially habitable planets. NASA has also developed a highly sensitive infrared space telescope[204] now searching for small, dark asteroids and other near-Earth objects in our solar system, and it sent its first images back through space in January 2010.

Through its persistent recurrence, the UFO phenomenon makes its own demands on scientists, who should no longer be allowed the luxury of denial. We have always been an evolving species seeking to understand the unknown, and we will handle whatever changes come from radical new discoveries. As Kuhn said many years ago, “when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them.”

Over the years, debunking organizations have developed the slogan “Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence” as a kind of mantra, rolling all their objections into one, which is used to dismiss UFOs out of hand. They’re claiming that there is not sufficient evidence to support the “claim” that UFOs exist.

This book has accomplished, in my view, the presentation of some of the very compelling evidence—only a slice of it, we must remember—that UFOs do exist. We have seen that there are solid, three-dimensional objects of unknown origin flying in our skies, stopping in midair and zooming toward outer space, which are apparently not natural or man-made. They’ve come very close and landed as well, leaving physical traces in soil while shriveling the leaves of nearby plants. They interact with aircraft and have physical effects upon them. Photographs have captured their image on film, and radar blips have done the same on tracking monitors. Thousands of people from all walks of life in every continent have seen these objects, including many pilots and military officers. The group represented in this book, myself included, understand that what the skeptics love to call a “claim”—the existence of unknown objects in the sky—is actually an established fact. There is more than enough evidence to determine that something physical is there.

We in this group are also “militant agnostics”: we don’t know what this something is, nor do we know what it is not. We are not making an extraordinary claim, because we’re not claiming anything beyond the reality of a physical phenomenon, and the five premises that stem from this reality as outlined in the introduction to this book. Yes, that phenomenon is definitely extraordinary. The basic misunderstanding underlying the skeptics’ catchy buzz-phrase—“Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence”—is, once again, the equating of UFOs to extraterrestrial spacecraft by definition. When the debunkers rally around this battle cry and dismiss all the evidence with a wave of their hand, this is really what’s on their minds; otherwise, there would be no need for them to be so blindly defensive, and even hostile.

Their concern is understandable, even if it’s dealt with dishonestly. The COMETA group pointed out at the very beginning of this journey, and many of our contributors have stated as well, that the extraterrestrial hypothesis is the most likely one to explain what we know. That’s a very loaded proposition, but we’re stuck with it. And actually, it is not an extreme position, in comparison to the two polarized positions that are so common in the culture: either we know already what UFOs are (alien spacecraft), or they can’t possibly exist at all, and therefore don’t. These two extremes are the real extraordinary claims.

We ask those on the two sides of this outmoded contest between unwavering believers and nonbelievers to realize the fallacy of both positions, and to accept the logic, necessity, and realism of the agnostic view. Scientists must disavow the untenable claim that we have no evidence other than eyewitness reports, which are to them—of course—unreliable. That is another “extraordinary claim” that doesn’t hold up, as this book attests.

The time has come to proceed logically. Given that we know we have a physical manifestation of something highly unusual of unknown origin, isn’t it time to acquire the additional evidence needed to find out what it is? If we need extraordinary evidence, then let’s do our job and go get it. We Americans will have the cooperation of other scientists from around the world who have already invested their limited resources into such an endeavor. And so a new slogan is in order: “An extraordinary phenomenon demands an extraordinary investigation.”[205] The world’s scientists are entirely capable of devising the methodologies and manufacturing the technology needed to solve this extraordinary mystery.

As the contributors here have shown, there is too much at stake to continue stonewalling. At the same time, we can’t deny the fact that there is a risk in moving forward. The phenomenon itself has placed us in a precarious situation that we have not chosen, and that we can do nothing about. We must strive to learn what we can, for it’s in our deepest nature and best interest to do so—to simply want to find out. Perhaps this discovery will be a turning