From: Jerome Clark <jkclark.nul>
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 08:32:21 -0500
Archived: Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:55:54 -0500
Subject: Re: Ray Stanford's Open Letter To Tony Bragalia


>From: Martin Shough <parcellular.nul>
>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <post.nul>
>Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 22:44:35 -0000
>Subject: Re: Ray Stanford's Open Letter To Tony Bragalia

>>From: Ray Stanford <opus22.nul>
>>To: UFO UpDates - Toronto <post.nul>
>>Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:23:36 -0500
>>Subject: Ray Stanford's Open Letter To Tony Bragalia

>I'm frankly sickened by this sort of crap, which does nothing
>but poison the well of conscientious scepticism. There may be an
>explanation of the Socorro case but, if there is, when it
>emerges it won't smell anything like this.

"Conscientious skepticism"? Come on, Martin. Put those violins
away.

The current silliness re the Socorro case only typifies how
"skepticism" is applied to puzzling UFO reports. (Pardon the
scare quotes, please; I'm afraid they're going to be necessary.)
It's how "conscientious skepticism" - an animal much more
imagined than observed - works, even if in the present instance
the principal theorist happens not to be a debunker in other
contexts. But when it suits their purposes, UFO proponents are
quite able, as history amply demonstrates, to take lessons from
pelicanist birders, who long ago winged away with "skepticism"
and all adjectives, including the just-cited c-one, preceding
it. Mogul balloon, anyone?

As a general principle in a perfect world, skepticism - as in
proper caution and doubt - is a very good and necessary thing.
In rhetorical practice, when applied to the UFO phenomenon and
other heresies, however, it's simply a set-in-stone
predisposition against anomalous reports.

In the real world, "conscientious skepticism," at least as
Martin means it (in the spirit, one might say, of the triumph of
hope over experience), amounts to an oxymoron. Far better, in
fact and practice, to investigate, analyze, and let the facts
fall where they may without ritual mouthing of worn-out
rhetorical tropes. Whether it pretends to be conscientious or
not, "skepticism" long ago lost any actual meaning in
ufological/anomalistic discourse, except as a more respectable-
sounding expression of the hard-right ideology otherwise known
as the disbelief tradition.

The larger point, which everybody appears to have missed, is
that Zamora's sighting did not take place in a vacuum. It was
followed in the next few days by other alleged close encounters
in New Mexico (e.g., the intriguing incident at La Madera on
April 26, two days after the Socorro incident). Allen Hynek, who
was at the Socorro site for Blue Book, was ordered not to
investigate anything else. That's the reason - not their lesser
potential significance - that other reports have passed out of
historical memory and it's possible to treat Socorro as if it
stands (or, more to the point,
falls) alone.


Jerry Clark



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