Derek Pitts. African-American astronomer.
Derrick Pitts, Astronomer, Wants UFOs Studied With Science
Nothing kills a career faster than being branded a kook, and in many circles, that's what you are when you admit you've seen a UFO.
The stakes are raised, of course, if we're talking about academic communities, and even more so among astronomers -- people who study the skies.
Many
astronomers say there's nothing of any scientific merit that could result in the study of UFOs.
With the career suicide stakes for astronomers so high, some UFO researchers believe many of them are hesitant to step forward. Certainly, the
Air Force's Project Bluebook -- the last officially announced government study of unidentified flying objects -- concluded that five percent of the cases investigated could not be immediately explained away.
Nevertheless, one nationally renowned astronomer,
Derrick Pitts, tells The Huffington Post that it might be time for a thorough study of unexplained aerial phenomena.
(Courtesy of The Franklin Institute)
"If you say, 'Let's pursue an investigation of UFOs so we can identify where these alien spacecraft are coming from,' then people go, 'What? I'm not touching that with a 10-foot pole.' But if you say, 'Let's look at what the possibilities are that, at one time, there were environments where life possibly could have developed on Mars,' then everybody says, 'Oh, yeah, I want a piece of that,'" said Pitts, senior scientist and chief astronomer at the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia.
Pitts, pictured at right, is also a
NASA Solar System Ambassador. He told HuffPost about the idea that most serious astronomers give no credence to UFO reports.
"I can speculate about what many astronomers would say if you ask them that question. Many of them would say, 'I haven't seen anything, so I can't say that they exist. I can't say that this five percent are alien spacecraft.' But if you ask them in the same breath, 'Would you be willing to engage in a research project to figure out what these things are,' I don't know what that answer would be.
"I'd say, yeah, let's find out, let's take a look at it, because here we have a phenomenon that causes a tremendous amount of interest. Why not try to understand what it is?"
A careful look at
historical records reveals how astronomers have, indeed, not only endorsed efforts to study the UFO phenomenon, but in many cases, have themselves seen unexplained objects for which they couldn't account.
In the late 1940s, astronomer -- and UFO skeptic -- J. Allen Hynek became the scientific consultant to Project Blue Book. During the nearly 20 years that Hynek was charged with explaining away UFO reports, he prepared a "
Special Report On Conferences With Astronomers On Unidentified Aerial Objects."
Included in the study of 45 astronomers was a general feeling that "if they were promised complete anonymity and if they could report their sightings to a group of serious, respected scientists who would regard the problem as a scientific one, then they would be willing to cooperate to the very fullest extent."