From: Jenny Randles <nufon@currantbun.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 12:51:58 -0000
Fwd Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 10:09:51 -0500
Subject: Re: Bonnybridge To 'Twin' With Roswell? - Randles


 >From: Stig Agermose <stig.agermose@post.cybercity.dk>
 >Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 00:43:25 +0100
 >To: updates@sympatico.ca
 >Subject: Bonnybridge To 'Twin' With Roswell?

 >Source: BBC News,

 >http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/scotland/newsid_1022000/1022712.stm

 >Stig

 >_____________________________________

 >Tuesday, 14 November, 2000, 09:32 GMT

 >First contact for UFO mecca?

 >The Roswell Incident made the area infamous

 >**

 >Scotland's UFO hot-spot could be set to make contact - with a
 >city known across the world as a mecca for alien enthusiasts.

 >A local councillor wants to twin Bonnybridge with Roswell, the
 >US city which has been synonymous with other-worldly encounters
 >for more than 50 years.



Hi,

This story is interesting but a little worrying as it
demonstrates how we ufologists have lost control of our own
subject. No longer do facts, evidence and carefully recognised
truths matter quite so much as hype, publicity and money. Maybe
they never have.

I am sure councillor Billy Buchanan is a decent guy, doing his
best for this small Scottish town. I don't blame him for the
stand he is taking or begrudge any betterment he brings his
people. And, yes, there have been some sightings there (amidst
massive hype). And a few interesting ones amidst the numerous
IFOs.

But Bonnybridge is nevertheless a manufactured UFO window. It
was created by publicity - not deliberately as in a fraud - just
as a consequence of social pressure and response to
circumstance.

Prior to the early l990s nobody in even Scottish Ufology had
ever heard of this place as somewhere of note because it wasn't
generating any more UFO sightings than any other similar sized
location. It appears to do so now because the right social
conditions have allowed that to happen.

Similar pressures have no doubt applied in Roswell, where
notoriety and fame stems from a 53 year old case that has been
well exploited. But is there seriously any evidence that this
New Mexico town has more UFO sightings than any other location
as a matter of fact rather than legend?

And to what extent (as in Bonnybridge) is that a consequence
anyway of the massive attention, the local facilities to record
sightings, the easier climate whereby it is less of a stigma to
see something there (indeed probably a little odd if you go
there and do not!) and the assurance that more notice will be
taken of any light in the sky spotted here than somewhere else?

My take on ufology shows that there are two types of 'window
area'.

The real key to our understanding are those locations where UFO
activity is genuinely greater than normal. Something causes
these places to produce such phenomena - usually across the
centuries and independent of any mass publicity. There are
certainly places where this is true and they are the real
windows.  Knowing the how and why of these areas will tell us
something about ufology and the forces that combine to produce
at least part of the mystery.

The other type of window area owes its status  almost totally to
social factors. An active ufologist or UFO group can trawl in
many cases from the vicinity and artificially enhance the number
of recorded (as opposed to reported) sightings. This generates
an illusionary hot spot.

Or perhaps a highly publicised event (like at Roswell or
Bonnybridge) can lead to a spate of media attention that will
see all subsequent cases given promotion in the same area (as at
Gulf Breeze).

As a result of such factors the location appears to be more
active but probably in real terms it is not - simply on the
basis that if town 'A' has 100 sightings in any year and only 2
of these are reported (probably typical in my experience) it
seems to be a 'quiet' locale - whereas if town 'B' has 100 and
social pressures ensure that 50 of them get reported it becomes
a UFO mecca. If this massive number of sightings is well
promoted by the locals (and why wouldn't they boost their town in
this way?) then it simply ensures that the snowball keeps on
rolling.

These factors are at work much more than we realise in ufology.

Now we see how the ability to commercialise ufology by promoting
these locations as focal points of activity and today the value
to tourism and industry (via things like theme parks) can never
be underestimated.  Where will this all lead?

My question - to which I am not presupposing an answer BTW -
just posing it to see what people think - is to ask to what
extent this can be perceived as a good or bad thing for ufology?

Do we accept the attention such hype brings? Do we appreciate
its benefits in raising the status of our subject in the eyes of
the public? After all the Loch Ness monster has spawned an
entire cottage industry that has ensured that hoteliers, shops,
writers and documentary film makers are still in business almost
regardless of whether its real, a few floating logs or an entire
myth.

But what do we do about the misleading impression this UFO hype
creates? I can never honestly tell a journalist who asks me that
Bonnybridge is special - because I don't think it is. But in
saying this I appear to be attacking the heart of this location
- almost downing ufology in the process - and I have even been
accused of anti Scottish feeling (which is nonsense - I would
say exactly the same if my home village had been promoted as
some sort of UFO haunted location). So location, per se, has
nothing to do with it. The means by which it has attracted the
status does.

The danger is that by creating legends and myths around the UFO
subject and by handing over the deeds to our own phenomenon to
the money makers we lose sight of the real issues surrounding
UFO reality and replace them with rhetoric and even competitions
along the lines of 'my town is bigger than your town'.  How does
this serve our quest to figure out what is really going on?

As we all know the media are never going to promote UFOs in a
totally objective fashion. They are rarely going to make the
effort to root out the facts as they typically have five minutes
to make a programme and UFOs can seem an easy story in which the
crew can take a vacation and let the kooks do their job for them
by performing on camera. This is a mentality all too evident out
there. I have seen the media apply it. Its why there are a few
good but a lot of really awful UFO documentaries made.

As such the media are very prone to furthering legends and
hyping myths since it creates their own next story. We few might
see through the facade as working ufologists. But today's hype is
tomorrow's believed in truths by the denizens of UFO Trek: The
Next Generation - especially within a field as confusing and
story driven as this one.

And so - what obligation do we have - if any - to say 'hang on a
minute' - before you build this theme park here and put up signs
saying this is the most UFO haunted town in the world - lets
look at the facts first?

Or in doing so are we being party-poopers, taking bread from the
mouths of needy citizens and raining on our own parade?

Not easy questions but ones I think we have to face up to if
this commercialisation of ufology (of which the Bonnybridge
experience is by no means the only current example) is to
continue.

Best wishes,

Jenny Randles