A paragraph and misunderstandings, The Condon Report.
Let me preface this by saying, I wasn’t always interested in UFOs and such things. Once I liked cartoons, and teddy-bears!
But, when the 1960s were waning and I was in the 5th grade, I came upon a very disappointing book. You see, sometime over that long summer I had a very good UFO sighting, a silent, glowing crescent-shaped object which slid past my point of view as I looked at the night sky. I became obsessed with the idea that aliens were here on Earth with us and began reading everything I could get my hands on. One early book was The Condon Report. I was disappointed you see because I expected lurid tales of strange alien beings and fantastic flying saucers. What I got instead was a dry analysis that concluded UFOs were a batch of bloated swap gas and imagination.
Well come-on! I was about nine or something! And I read far too much, (I still do!)
Here’s what I found…
“As indicated by its title, the emphasis of this study has been on attempting to learn from UFO reports anything that could be considered as adding to scientific knowledge. Our general conclusion is that nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge. Careful consideration of the record as it is available to us leads us to conclude that further extensive study of UFOs probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.”
Condon Report
Section I
Conclusions and Recommendations
This is thought to be one of the most damming statements against the existence of UFOs. Hailed by skeptics and believers alike, this one paragraph, often quoted is also one of the most misunderstood passages of the Condon report and by extension, UFOlofgy itself.
Believers roundly condemn it, using it to disregard scientific principals.“We know UFOs are alien spacecraft “they scream, “Condon was a scientist, HE says UFOs are bunk so ALL SCIENCE IS STUPID!!!!.”
Skeptics use it to prove that scientific principles are sound. “We know UFOs are just misidentified things, see! Condon proved it!”
Is it possible that both ideas are incorrect? Could it be that both the skeptic and the believer have it wrong? You see, in my ravings I feel that any extreme viewpoint has a high probability of being incorrect however, it’s helpful to understand the extreme views because somewhere in the middle resides-
– the truth.
The paragraph really does not validate or invalidate any theory or idea of UFOs. It neither proves nor disproves the existence of unidentified flying objects. It does not prove that little gray aliens from Epsilon behooties (Beta Reticule or wherever) rudely used an anal probe without even a how-are-ya sailor! It also does not say that such things didn’t happen. It actually can’t because (now get this.)
Proving the existence of aliens was right outside the scope of the Condon report. Hell proving UFOs were anything was right outside the scope of the Condon Report.
Let me step out on a real limb here.
The Condon report is not about UFOs.
It never was.
Let me say that again;
The Condon report is not about UFOs.
The Condon Report is about UFO reports. It’s a report on reports. It’s never been about UFOs, space brothers, aliens, mothmen or chupa-whatevers. It was from the very beginning a scientific examination of reports on UFOs period. Not UFOs themselves.
It’s like someone wanting to figure out how an automobile works by collecting testimony of car wreck witnesses! Sure you could figure out that automobiles are physical objects, they tend to slam into other automobiles and people get hurt as a result. But you could never really understand where they come from, what they are made of or even what they are for just from crash witness testimony. And guess what?
We have far FAR less to go on from UFO reports.
Dr. Condon was simply telling the truth.
The Condon report was a scientific study to determine whether or not further scientific inquiry should be conducted on Unidentified Flying Objects. I.E. the emphasis of this study has been on attempting to learn from UFO reports anything that could be considered as adding to scientific knowledge (Condon Report section I) Its here in black and white. When you create a program its always a good idea to create a set of goals. A mission statement and here we have one, we want to learn if UFO reports can add anything to scientific knowledge. In so many words the Condon committee was not looking at the validity of UFOs, they wanted to see if there was any good information that could be gleaned from UFO reports!
And what did they find?
Nada. Not a damn thing. Most reports could be explained as mundane stuff. Sundogs, misidentified aircraft, reflections, even the planet Venus. Some, around 30% (a very high percentage BTW) were true unknowns.
So, what sort of scientific benefits can we get from misidentifying Venus? Nothing! Perhaps someone can write a learned paper on optical illusions, not that there aren’t lots of those already.
What kind of benefits can we get from the unknown reports? While interesting as reports of genuine unknowns, there is little scientific benefit we can get from those either. They all describe different objects, different events from different points of view. Frankly they are just data points and poor ones for the most part. The best you can do is shrug your shoulders and say “I don’t know what that was!”
Kind of like our car-crash witnesses. What if 30% saw what they think were large gorillas smashing into each other? Could that possibly further the study of automobiles? Remember that 70% were sure they saw automobiles, and 30% thought they saw something else. this is exactly opposite of the situation in the Condon Report.
The bottom line here is, the Condon report did a very good job of analyzing UFO reports to determine if there is any scientific methodology to study UFOs. The concluded (quite correctly) that there is no scientific bases to study UFOs according to the data they had been given. In other words“This data sucks! What do you want us to do with it? Prove Santa exists?
But, that’s about all they can do with it. Not that the data itself is bad, its s very good data of a bunch of unknown events. It just doesn’t go anywhere. There is no way to verify or falsify any hypotheses based on that data. Ergo, it’s not scientific!
And that’s why Dr. Condon and his report gets such a bad rap from the UFO community. I can’t blame most of them really. Some people in the UFO community are not scientists and do not think objectively about them (or much else for that matter.) Too intent on proving this crackpot idea or another they seldom sit back and take in the broad concepts, let alone details like the Condon Report.
So what can we learn from all this? Well the first thing I recommend is read the report again and try to understand where they were coming from. Just because someone did not come up with a conclusion you like doesn’t necessarily invalidate the work. There are other factors here and get this.
The objectives of the Condon Report were flawed from the very beginning! I might add that the objectivity of many key players in the Condon report may also be ..questionable.
More on that in another edition of,
ALIEN HISTORY!!!!! (or whatever I end up calling this if it becomes a series.)
Share and enjoy!
I think the real reason why Condon is often vilified by UFO(or should I call them ETH) proponents is because Condon recommended that no further government investigations be done. At some point during the study, Hynek and others foresaw some form of government entity that would study UFO reports independent of the USAF. Roy Craig described the following exchange,
“Dr. Hynek expressed the view that it was most important that the Condon project result in the recommendation that scientific investigations of UFO reports be continued in the future. He was aware the Condon study’s final report was to include recommendations as to the scope and magnitude of future eforts regarding UFO investigations, without specifying where such efforts would be located in the federal structure. I inferrd from Dr. Hynek’s remarks that he envisioned an on-going scientific study like the Condon project, expanded somewhat, with himself as the director.” (UFOs: An insider’s view of the official quest for evidence by Roy Craig – p. 190)
I think that says a lot about what was really expected by scientists interested in studying UFOs at the time. I don’t think anybody expected to hear that UFOs are some new phenomena or that they are “real” (actually it is, as you have stated, UFO REPORTS ARE REAL). They were more interested in getting a nod from science and the government to legitimize their research. For years, UFO groups had been pushing for congressional hearings on the matter (and they continue to do so today) to “set the record straight” about UFOs. After the Condon study, all that was gone. There would be no congressional investigation and there would be (most importantly) no federal funding for studying UFOs.
Looking back on Condon’s statement about what had been learned and could be learned from studying UFO reports, one can point out that he was correct. Nothing has been learned in over three decades since the completion of the study despite millions of dollars being spent on studying the subject by various UFO groups/organizations. The US government would probably have wasted billions on the subject over that time period with the same result.
I have no doubt that you are correct although I have enough faith in the scientific process to believe that it will be the way to understanding this splendid mystery. And yet the absurdity suggests another way of looking at it, a more illogical way if you will. UFOs don’t give up their secrets easily. There does not seem to be one single theory that fits all the facts (or lack thereof.) This might be by design or by just some aspect of the phenomena, one that we do not and possibly cannot understand.
I have some hope however that, if the phenomena is under intelligent control that we will be able to figure out exactly what’s going on. I think Condon was a turning away from things difficult to understand by people with far more on their plates than chasing phantoms.
Hey dude, BTW;
I like your stuff!
I was never much interested in UFOs (not until this year). However some of the
images (IOD) of the NEAR Eros flight showed objects that could not be easily
explained as being formed by natural causes. Subsequently an analysis of the
image of Phobos, and the so called “UFO crash site” on mars confirmed to me
that artificial objecs do exist. This opinion was reinforced when at least one Image
of the Day of Eros was withdrawn. My main objection to the SERPO story is the
apparent speed of travel (50 times the speed of light) and the shortness
of elapsed time which is contrary to what we understand about the theory of
relativity.
Hey wow! Nothing like being all over the map!
1) What NEAR images?
2) What UFO crash site on Mars? This? http://www.unexplainable.net/artman/publish/article_521.shtml
3) Withdrawn images of Eros? Don’t know that they did, don’t know that they didn’t
And of course SERPO, my main objection is, why are so many people getting taken in by this third-rate science fiction story? It’s not even very original! Take the final reel of CE3K, do a half-assed sequel
Et voila! SERPO!
UFO crash site on mars? My god. It’s this kind of delusional, sensationalist bullshit that keeps the UFO phenomenon from being taken seriously and makes it all too easy to dismiss the serious researches and commentators. Personally I can’t see anything in those rocks but rocks.
Neither do I but I also tend to reserve judgment on that kind of stuff. We don’t know as much about Mars as we probably should. Pointing at a photo and saying “that is a spaceship” is unbelievably silly. (On one hand it might be the image of a spacecraft, if one could reasonably ascertain that the image reflected in the photo was of a spacecraft than OK.) But a photo of a rocky plain on Mars? We know that rocks come in all kinds of shapes. It’s much more probable that a rock will look like a spacecraft than a real spacecraft will look like a rock!