From the article it seems that MUFON has recorded a spike in UFO reports. Ben Radford seems up to his old tricks in “explaining away” that spike.
First he includes a ridiculous graphic from the 1950s (“Streaking out of the unknown comes a strange new terror! The flying Saucer”) which is of course included by
design to mock people’s beliefs, to play on their emotive funny bone, to get people thinking that this is all just a ridiculous “terror” from a bygone era (and we all know people believed many ridiculous things in the past!) and that perhaps we should all have moved on by now…
…but of course the “spike” is
current and not phenomenon from a bygone era at all!
Then Radford continues to play on peoples emotions by carrying that theme through to ask (rhetorically of course…) “Are we on the cusp of an alien invasion?”.
But then he gets down to his debunking.
There are several reasons
UFOs might appear in flaps, or clusters. One is that objects in the sky are usually seen by many people, especially when they
appear over urban areas. UFOs typically don't hover close to Earth or in someone's back yard; instead, they are often sighted high in the sky — just far enough away so that we can't see details or get sharp photos.
In this he first sets us up to expect some reasons for a “spike” in UFO reports – but never delivers those reasons! Instead he provides us with positively misleading and vaguely false information that has absolutely nothing to do with why there might be a spike in reports. Yet, such a “clever
little man” he is, the information he provides, while having nothing to do with the topic at all, is just vague enough so that if called out on it, he can defend it by pointing to some selective (cherry picked) evidence.
Radford goes on…
Yet there is no “thus” about it. He has made a few misleading statements, yet now
pretends he has made some valid point about the topic at hand. This intellectual pygmy is
thus actually quite clever in his use of language - designed to get people to
believe he has said something to explain away the spike in the reports when actually he has said nothing about it whatsoever.
… whatever a particular UFO really is — a plane, a comet, an extraterrestrial spacecraft, or something else — that one object or strange light in the sky could trigger hundreds, or even thousands, of reports. And even reports of the same object will probably differ depending on the reporter's perspective.
Here Radford’s explanation for the spike is purportedly that the one object could trigger a plethora of reports … but that is no explanation at all. If one object could trigger many reports, it would do so in the preceding months as well as the months the spike is recorded in …the rationale applies to
all reports, not merely to reports of the time period in question! What we want to know is what is different now, what has changed, to cause a spike in reports. Radford does not even approach that key question here.
Ughhh,
there is NO THUS about it! Radford merely goes on to
reiterate the point…
… if there were hundreds of UFO reports in a state during a given period, it's important to know how those reports were categorized because it might mean hundreds of different UFOs were sighted by single individuals, or that one UFO was sighted by hundreds of people.
While it may indeed be “important” to know if one UFO caused many reports or many UFOs caused many reports – or indeed (and this is the one he leaves out) if many UFOs caused few reports - this applies across all time periods, not just the one in question and so it
still has nothing to do with explaining a spike in the reports… what has
changed to cause a spike in reports Ben?
There are also psychological and social explanations.
Can this man actually speak to the topic? Of course not. He cannot explain the spike in reports at all. He is merely attempting to debunk UFOs generally. The psychological or social explanation applied yesterday as well as today. It does not explain the spike in reports…
It is actually MUFON’s Clift who notes a potential explanation:
” It's likely that the media and [alien-themed] movies that are coming out, like '
Apollo 18' and 'Paul,' are piquing people's interest in UFOs."
But of course Radford has to “explain” that comment to us…
People hear about UFOs, and for a while they tend to look at the sky more often, wondering if they might have their own sighting. And precisely because people are spending more time looking at the sky, they will for the first time notice (normal) lights and objects that have always been there.
This is of course the old debunker line that people are merely misidentifying mundane objects because they are not used to seeing mundane objects (bunkum Ben, bunkum!).
However, on the substantive point, for Radford’s (as well as Clift’s) explanation for the spike in reports to be shown to be true, one would have to look back over the historical data to see if similar spikes have occurred on the release of other popular “alien” or space themed movies. I suspect that if one actually looks at the data, this will not be the case. It is a mere speculation by Clift, that has, based on no actual evidence, been turned into a positive explanation by Radford.
Radford then goes on to cite the incidence of disease, where reported increases in cases might be caused by public awareness, rather then an actual increase in incidence. While this is of course may be true, Radford has provided absolutely no evidence that the situation actually applies to the spike in UFO reports (purportedly) under discussion.
Radford then creates another generalisation:
Why might UFOs be seen more often in the summer months? One possibility is that people spend more time outdoors:…
But of course
again this reasoning applies to ALL summer periods – so why is THIS particular summer different to other summers in the number of reports? What has
changed Ben?
Finally the man has a reasonable thought (at last!) and quotes Clift on that point (“That said, Clift pointed out that his organization doesn't normally see such dramatic seasonal increases in reports.”). Indeed Mr Radford…
Radford then concludes:
Whether the increase in sightings is rooted in reality, a computer glitch, or psychological and social influences remains to be seen. One thing is certain: This is not the first time that UFO reports have increased, and it won't be the last.
So what in reality has Radford said about the spike in reports? It occurred and he does not know why! But he took the opportunity to mislead and misrepresent anyway. Radford is merely a faith-based ideologue, who says nothing while pretending to know something. Spouting opinion as fact. Providing half truths with a positive intent to mislead. Playing on emotions rather than using evidence. Playing with language to obfuscate rather than to enlighten. A typical debunker in other words. In my opinion (for what its worth) Radford is an intellectual pygmy.
