Unidentified Science 5 – The Virtue of Skepticism

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I spent a fair bit of time trying to think of a clever metaphor for skepticism, and failed, so for now, let me just remind you that I have been saying for some time that skepticism is a virtue and a practice that we must not only accept, but embrace. Before, we do that, though, let me remind you briefly about what skepticism isn’t.

Skepticism isn’t about arguing that one static view of the world is superior to its rivals. It isn’t cynicism, an attitude of superiority, or membership in the elite Tribe of Reason and Science. Nor is it a commitment to discredit any particular controversial claim. Skepticism doesn’t make you better than other people, but properly practiced, it can help you be better than you were, or might have been without it.

Some of you, most I expect, will have painful memories of fundamentalist debunkers calling themselves skeptics, who will take refuge in any half-baked, hand-waving explanation in a storm, so long as it does no violence to their worldview. I promise that we’re not talking about this skepticism in name only, which is actually just motivated reasoning in defense of dogma. It’s easy to claim the critical thinking high ground when no one else challenges you for it, but that is what we are going to do. I’m on the side of discarding the dishonest and the mistaken, and I make so bold as to think that’s what you want as well.

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Conversation 8 – Cheryl Costa, part 1

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Released: 24 March 2018

Duration: 62 minutes

Marsha Barnhart talks to Cheryl Costa, co-author of UFO Sightings Desk Reference. This is a one-of-a-kind reference book covering 15 years of UFO sightings within the United States. The information was gleaned from more than 120,000 raw reports made by citizens to either the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) or the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) between the years 2001 to 2015. The information is a statistical bonanza annotating the frequency, distribution and shapes of reported UFO’s, with accompanying graphs charts and charts, and broken down into states and state counties for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

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Our YouTube Channel

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We’ve decided to get our YouTube channel going in earnest.  We’re going to put a log of our visually oriented case material there, as well as training and public education material. Right now, there isn’t much, but we’ll be building it up and improving the channel over the next few months. We’ll also be improving the artwork and overall feel. The more long form content that doesn’t require anything visual will remain on the podcast.

We hope you’ll hit the subscribe button so you’ll be notified about new content as we add it.

Unidentified Science 4 – Smarter than we are?

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As I promised at the end of Unidentified Science 3, this time I’m going to take a little break this time from talking about virtuous scientific work. Such work is hard, slow and often reaches a Great Divide where no progress seems possible, but we have gone too far to quit.

So, it’s good to have a little fun once and awhile and indulge in speculation. As long as you clearly label speculation as just that, there is no harm in it, and these little imaginative expeditions can often stimulate really useful new ideas.  After all, that’s one thing science fiction is good for. Like good science fiction, we want our speculations to be informed by the best science we have, admitting that there are leaps across the gap of our ignorance that are simply made up for the amusement of thinking about it.

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Field Investigation gear – notes on cameras

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All those reviews

I’ve been researching digital cameras quite a lot lately. I need something that produces better and more repeatable results than my smartphone, but I had to give this quite a lot of thought. There are a lot of very good, thorough photography and videography reviews out there, but you have to listen between the lines – what sort of results is this reviewer interested in? Chances are, the reviewer is going for an aesthetically pleasing result, whether the subject be brides or birds. There is nothing wrong with that, but the review is most often from that point of view. What we as field investigators are looking for is something different. So, when doing your research, keep that in mind.

Too Many Choices

The venerable Canon EOS 40D

Camera technology has vaulted ahead since I bought my Canon EOS 40D years ago – the last time I really looked into this. BTW, my EOS 40D is built like a tank and is still in great condition. Almost every camera shoots video now, and there are a wide range of options. Olympus, Panasonic and Sony have broken into the higher end of things alongside Canon and Nikon with some really good gear, and the old DSLR architecture has serious competition from the more compact mirrorless cameras. Things like autofocus, video resolution, and low light sensitivity have come a long way.

This is overall a good thing, but it’s like being in a candy store and your mom says you can only have 1 handful – it can be agonizing. you can do a lot to narrow things down by not starting with the technology, but with what your requirements are. Let me make a few suggestions.

Getting to What We Actually Need

You have to consider a few Design Reference Missions – in what scenarios do you need a camera, and in what conditions? There are the common uses, and some extraordinary but important circumstances when you want to be ready for anything:

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Unidentified Science 3 – Perception and Memory

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I started off this series by talking about four virtues I think we are going to have to live by if the study of UFOs is ever going to be accepted as a science: humility, patience, integrity and skepticism. This one is a little bit about skepticism, but mostly about patience.

There is a big problem in Unidentified Aerial Phenomena research that needs to be addressed before we can make any claim of being a scientific enterprise. We are going to need a lot of patience to solve it. The problem is that much, in fact nearly all of our database is eyewitness testimony.

While our research has keep pretty much the same approach as always, science has marched on, and this includes the studies of human perception and memory.

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Change to the Sighting Report Form

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In the last few months, we have worked to improve the sighting report form to make it friendlier and easier to understand. Previously, we had a check box on the form to request anonymity. We have changed that.

We assume you want anonymity, and we will protect your anonymity and privacy. Period.

If you want your real name or other identifying information about you used in our public materials, then you will need to tell us that in writing, but we will not otherwise release this information to the public.

However, as explained in the policy,  it is possible that we will want to share your case file (which may include your contact information) with other ethical investigation groups. This is unlikely in most cases, but it could happen. We want to assure you that it will not happen without your permission. The new checkbox on the report form gives you the option of requiring us to specifically ask you if the transfer is OK with you before we do it (check “No”). if you check “Yes”, then we may (but probably won’t) share your file with other organizations if they are well vetted and have a written ethics agreement with us. We will always inform you when we do this.

Update: the checkbox has been removed. From now on the policy is to ask ALL witnesses for permission before sharing their case file with anyone.

Questions? Comments? Let us hear from you.