From: Josh Goldstein <lovolution.nul>
Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2004 06:09:47 -0800
Fwd Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2004 13:04:33 -0500
Subject: Re: State Of Ufology - Goldstein


>From: Steven Kaeser <steve.nul>
>To: <ufoupdates.nul>
>Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 10:33:54 -0500
>Subject: Re: State Of Ufology

>>From: Richard Hall <hallrichard99.nul>
>>To: ufoupdates.nul
>>Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 22:25:39 +0000
>>Subject: Re: State Of Ufology

<snip>

>In a recent magazine article, a major UFO author was quoted as
>saying that one of his prime "scientific" sources of information
>was the MUFON Journal, which just about caused me to fall out of
>my chair laughing. IMO, the Journal of UFO Studies (which is
>published infrequently) is the only UFO publication that could
>be considered to be scientific. There are certainly good
>articles in the MUFON Journal, IUR and other UFO publications.
>But none of them approach the level of a truly scientific
>journal, which is a problem for ufology.

Steve,

I agree with you and may I add that the problem of a lack of a
scientific journal is an extension of the larger problems that
Richard Hall laid out.

I hate to say it but to me the state of ufology is sad and
sorry. I have posred to the same over the years. Check the
archives if you have a particularly morbid desire to see what I
have been saying in more detail. <g>

Unless some things radically change, I suppose ufology will
drift on as I have experienced since the mid 1970s, full of
promise but so loaded down with egotistical saucer swindlers,
scam artists, cons, deluded believers, etc that it smothers the
promise. So much of popular ufology peddles to a public driven
by emotion and without the analytical skills and awareness to
begin to be able to try to remain objective and to be able to
determine truth from fiction. Certainly the media has taken
advantage of this and has profited.

I find it fascinating that Jerry Black has today brought up the
Gulf Breeze case. I remember all the investigation  and all the
rancor that went on and on. At some point I started questioning
how Walt Andrus and MUFON had come to their conclusions. It
caused me to have my first serious doubts about the integrity of
MUFON.

I was not involved in it but from being a lowly field
investigator and state section director for three counties in
California far outside of MUFON HQ it really affected me. I was
out of the loop but hot news of the slugfest got to me, as it
did to most ufo researchers and MUFON members. It was the talk
of the ufo world.

There are serious aspects of that case (the money is only one)
that after all these years are not resolved and deserve to be
settled once and for all. Please don't make it the massive and
longtime slugfest it was the first time around. Let's stick to
analyzing the evidence.

The weight of the above has caused many serious people and
institutions to steer clear of ufology because they are afraid
of being tainted with "the stigma" of a "UFO wacko". On this
list we have mentioned quite a number of cases deserving of
serious, scientific study. The sad state of ufology is that
there does not seem to be the interest and money available to
even scientifically investigate them let alone come to any
scientific conclusions. Scientific ufology is almost non-
existant while bloated popular ufology rules the roost.

Further into the sad state of ufology is having to let our arms
down from years of reaching for the holy grail of "what the
government knows". After all these years I still do not have any
factual idea of what they do or do not know about ufos. I may
never know that.

How can we get ufology in a better state than sad and sorry? I
have no realistic ideas at this point. I suspect things will
just go along as they have been.

Ed Gehrman, I am sorry to say that I have disagreed with every
post of yours on this List. But such is the cost of freedom as
we are looking at these issues in very different ways.


Keep 'em flyin',

Josh