Pseudoscience and the Paranormal

If flying saucers had crashed at Roswell, or anywhere else for that matter, and bodies had been recovered, the bodies would serve as incontrovertible proof of the extraterrestrial origin of UFOs. Moore and Berlitz (1980) actually claimed that bodies were discovered and that autopsies were performed on the bodies. While no actual alien bodies have ever turned up, it appeared in 1995 that the next best thing had—a film showing an autopsy on an alien body recovered from a crashed saucer.

Before discussing the film Alien Autopsy (and the reader is urged to rent and watch this film, available at most video stores) it is worthwhile to consider what a real autopsy on the first discovered alien body would be like. Remember that the discovery of such a body would rank among the greatest scientific discoveries in the history of humanity. The autopsy would be done with great care. The procedure would be performed by the best scientists available and every aspect would be very carefully recorded and each step documented on film. Unlike normal autopsies, the dissecting portion of which can be finished in a few hours, the dissection alone would probably take days, if not weeks.

This is hardly what is shown in Alien Autopsy. What is shown in that film is a careless, sloppily performed autopsy shot in so amateurish a way that it is impossible to see much of what is going on during the procedure. The two “pathologists” are constantly getting in the way of the camera and obscuring the body, and when the opened body is in full view, the film is often out of focus so details are hard to see. One almost gets the impression that the film was intentionally shot so that it would be difficult to see details. This is just how a hoax film would be shot.

In addition, there are numerous other features of the film that show it to be a hoax (Emery 1995; Nickel 1995). For one thing, one of the “pathologists” holds his scissors in the wrong position for cutting flesh. In addition, when the body and skull are opened, the organs (which are never clearly shown) are simply lifted out, with no additional cutting. In reality, the organs in any body have to be connected to the inside of the relevant cavity. If this was not the case, they would simply slosh around and be very easily damaged. Thus, the often very tough connective tissue must be cut before the organs can be removed. That there is no sign of such tissue in the film reveals the hoaxers ignorance of basic anatomy. In addition, the two “pathologists” are shown wearing white suits, presumably for protection. But for protection against what? As Nickel has noted, it can’t be for protection against germs, bad smells, or radiation because the suits are not sturdy enough to guard against radiation and there is no obvious breathing device to protect against odors and/or germs. Finally, when the film first appeared, it bore a supposed military security classification of “Restricted access, AO 1 classification.” But after it was shown that no such classification ever existed, it disappeared from later copies of the film (Nickel 1995). All in all, it is easy to conclude that the Alien Autopsy film is a fairly crudely done hoax.

Crop Circles

One of the more bizarre offshoots of the UFO movement in the 1980s was the advent of crop circles. Although largely confined to southern England, the phenomena spread to other countries such as France, Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, the United States. Although crop circles had been noticed in the late 1970s, it wasn’t until the early 1980s that they began to occur in southern England in large enough numbers to attract real attention. Crop circles were patterns of varying size and shape that were found in farmers’ fields and were made from bent over stalks of various grains. They were inevitably found in the morning, having somehow been produced overnight. Their creators were not to be found.

As is often the case with allegedly paranormal phenomenon, the more outlandish possible explanations generate much more attention and publicity than the more mundane explanations, at least at first. Such was the case with crop circles. There were several hypotheses as to their cause. One was that they were due to some type of small tornado or “whirlwind.” Another camp held that they were created by UFOs, either directly when a UFO landed or hovered over the field, or indirectly by UFOs using some sort of energy from far above the atmosphere. A more amorphous theory looked to some new type of mysterious energy as the cause. As the fame of crop circles grew, dowsers flocked to the circles and swore that they could detect the presence of this mysterious energy inside the circles, but not outside the design. Finally, there was the boring old skeptical view that the circles were, in fact, created by an intelligence, but by a totally human intelligence. In other words, hoaxers.

As the 1980s progressed, the designs of the crop circles became more and more elaborate. Many were quite beautiful. One might think that as this complexity increased, and as messages like “WEARENOTALONE” (with the “N” reversed) began to appear, it would become clearer and clearer that the designs were of strictly human origin. Such was not the case. The continuing complexity was simply seen as further support for each of the various extraordinary explanations by the proponents of each (Schnabel 1993). As the circles grew more complex and as the 1980s passed, UFO believers, New Agers of various types, and mystics in general flocked to the circles.

The beginning of the end for crop circles came in September 1991 when to men from southern England, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, admitted to the press that they had been making crop circles throughout the area around Southampton for years. They had used the simplest of tools—wooden boards attached to ropes—to knock down the grain. They left no footprints because they were careful and, when possible, walked in the tractor lines between the rows of grain. In many of their creations they left a sort of signature, two small half circles of bent- over grain stalks that looked like two filled in letter Ds. Of course, Doug and Dave were not the only hoaxers working, but they were the most prolific. Time and again their designs were certified as absolutely genuine by the dowsers as well as by the exponents of the various extraordinary theories of crop circle formation.

Following the revelations of Doug and Dave, interest in crop circles faded, and the number of circles seen each summer dropped (Nickell 1995). Schnabel (1993), himself a creator of crop circles, has written the best account of the history of crop circles. As an insider for much of the time, he provides valuable insights into the movement. Nickell’s (1996) entry in the Encyclopedia of the Paranormal provides a good short history and relevant references. Interest in crop circles was briefly rekindled in 2002 by the Mel Gibson movie Signs, which not-so-mysteriously vanished from theaters shortly after its release.

Face on Mars

When discussing UFOs and related phenomena, I’m frequently asked, “What about the face on Mars?” The face first turned up in 1976 in a couple of photos of the surface of Mars taken by Viking 1. These rather low-resolution images seemed to show a gigantic face and attracted the attention of the UFO community. Proponents, chief among them a Richard C. Hoagland who touted the face in his book The Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever (2001), argue that the face is evidence of an advanced Martian civilization. Much like George Leonard, who sees complicated structures in pictures of the Moon’s surface, Hoagland also sees manufactured structures in photos of the Martian surface. He also sees all sorts of obscure pseudomathematical meanings in the arrangement of features on the surface of Mars. This is all really little more than a high-tech version of Lowell’s canals—with a bit more nonsense thrown in the pot.

Even if the initial images of the Mars face had turned out to be what the formation really looked like (and they didn’t, as will be seen below), so what? There are lots of geological formations around the solar system that look meaningful in some way to the human brain. One of my favorites is the Old Man of the Mountains from my home state of New Hampshire (Fig. 17). If the Mars face is a creation of one extraterrestrial civilization, then why is not the Old Man evidence of ancient civilizations visiting New Hampshire (perhaps to get a good view of the autumn foliage before all those annoying New Yorkers arrived)? And if the Old Man isn’t enough, there’s also a Kermit the Frog and a smiley face on Mars (MacRobert 1986). Posner (2000) has published a review of the face on Mars claims. He notes that more detailed images from a 1998 survey of the Red Planet by the Mars Global Surveyor showed a much less dramatic picture. Of course, Hoagland (2001) can explain the lack or support for the reality of the face in the latest images. It’s all a conspiracy, a cover-up. You see, the government really knows all about the Martian civilization and they (the big they) are doing everything they can to hide the truth.

There is one final odd aspect to the face on Mars: It has been turned into a philatelic hoax as well. As shown in figure 18, Sierra Leone issued a stamp showing the face. This was but one stamp in a series of thirty-