Crying Wolf: The Manhattan UFO
The flurry of UFO sighting reports caused by a flock of party balloons gliding over Manhattan on Wednesday would seem to justify the pop culture stereotype of ufologist as tinfoil beanie-wearing nut.
While some will suggest that coverage of these obviously baseless reports is an example of mainstream media's campaign to discredit legitimate research, others might counter that the fault lies mainly with ufology itself.
ICAR (International Community for Alien Research) International Director Joe Montaldo, in a recent radio broadcast, complained bitterly about the absence of any system of credentialing or regulating the people who represent themselves as experts in the field. We might add to Montaldo's list of complaints a lack of editorial oversight, and offer as an example his broadcast's title: UFO Undercover Guest1st hour joe Montaldo shakes the ufo guys to there eyes rattle sec hour taking about alien adduction criteria.
Ufology is overflowing with such gaffes and, as Montaldo correctly points out, there is no central authority empowered to correct them. There's no way for anyone unfamiliar with the field to know who, if anyone, to take seriously.
It's a hard sell - a very hard sell, indeed - to convince anybody predisposed to poo-poo the phenomenon that, beneath the cheesy graphics, the bad grammar, the "experiencers" crying for attention (and medication), the "experts" hawking T-shirts and the web sites gobbling up and spewing out every half-baked rumor and theory that comes their way ... there's a core of evidence that deserves scientific study and careful media attention.
No, I mean it. Really. What's so funny?
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