March 5, 2005 This is a rather strange document from someone who claims to be a researcher in Oregon. Actually this person claims to be a number of things. I wanted to make a couple of comments. The original can be found at Oregon Fortena.
RUBY’S U.F.O. MANIFESTO
1.The question, \“Do you believe in UFOs” will never again be asked. For the question is moot. The question is the wrong question. Indeed, the question is, \“What are they” not “Do you believe”
Perhaps; This is assuming that everyone believes the same thing. As a personal testimony and individual creed it’s laudable but creating creeds for something like UFOS is a little strange and probably useless. UFOs seem to be a very subjective phenomena in that no two people perceive them in exactly the same way.
1a. Furthermore, the question of “belief” in a UFO shall cease to exist. One cannot, or does not, “believe” in airplanes, clouds, cars, toasters, or hamster cages. One does not “believe” in UFOs, one witnesses a UFO. Interpretation is another matter, The idea of an inherent belief in UFOs is no longer valid and shall forever be vanquished.
Well, one can submit that people see unknown objects in the sky, defining what those objects are is quite another thing.
2. The unstated assumption that UFOs equals extra terrestrials shall forever hence be vanquished from the lexicon. UFO does not mean aliens from outer space, inner space, or your basement (It could be, but that’s a different issue.) This assumption is made frequently by UFO debunkers and often by so-called believers. Both groups shall cease to make this assumption.
Both groups? This ‘“Ruby” person is making a declaration of responsibility and an order into “the lexicon” (whatever that might be.) I suspect that this person cannot speak for either believers or debunkers.
3. U.F.O. will replace UFO. UFO is not a word. U.F.O. is an acronym, with stands for Unidentified Flying Object. UFO is murky, a would be word that only causes confusion, such as the case above: UFO being , in the minds of many with alien piloted spacecraft. Such assumptions set the stage for the debate, which is an unfair advantage or disadvantage, depending on one’s mind set. (debunker, pseudo skeptic, or Fortean.) Therefore, to prepare for a clean area of debate and discussion, the acronym U.F.O. will replace UFO.
Probably be a good time to start doing this? I notice that there is a huge double standard in many of these statements. Red Queen uses the term UFO freely, I’ve found the best way to lead is by example. In other words, *you*( the writer of this manifesto) start using the acronym U.F.O. in all your various correspondence. If you do and you get even a modicum of respect you’ll see others emulating you. I call this the “trim-tab effect.” Tiny changes rippling out into the world and causing profound and far reaching changes.
4. Dismissing documentaries out of hand because they: A) are about UFOs, er, U.F.O.s and B) because they appeared on TLC, Discovery, Sci Fi channel shall no longer be allowed. Judge the program on its content, not the station.
Accreditation is extremely important in any pursuit. A documentary on the Sci Fi channel is no less a documentary but documentaries on UFOs as a whole are not very credible by their very nature. What most people forget is that documentaries on television are less for information than entertainment, UFO documentaries are almost pure entertainment from the get-go. In other words, I’e never seen a UFO documentary that had any information I had not already seen before, sometimes many years previously. News in this day and age is “not-news.” It’s all a circus and that goes double for UFOs.
5. Forteans, U.F.O. researchers, experiences, etc. will give debunkers, skeptoids and pseudo skeptics only an hour’s worth of discussion time. After that, you will move on. It is a worthless energy drain, time waster, and supreme distraction to engage the enemy to any greater degree. Henceforth, U.F.O. debunkers will be allowed what will amount to 1 hour of debate time per so-called “believer.” After that, another believer will replace the previous believer.
Uh, yes sir-sir! I’m assuming all researchers will fall into lockstep? Basically “If you don’t like what they are saying, shut them the f*** up.”
Interesting way to get people to listen to you. Usually it’s a good idea to listen to both sides of an issue instead of just one. Not looking at both sides of an issue is extremely prejudicial.
6. Groups, organizations, individuals who call for “legalizing” the U.F.O. field, and other such authoritarian measures, will immediately cease.
One wonder’s at the incredible arrogance of this statement. The ‘manifesto’ is itself an attempt to regulate UFO research.
How ironic is it that?
7. All anomalous data within U.F.O. narratives will be included in retelling.
I agree!. All information should be included. Good call!
8. When citing the research done by those with degrees, those degrees and titles will be stated and included. Stan Friedman is Dr. Stan Friedman, nuclear physicist. Jacques Vallee is Dr. Jacques Vallee, astrophysicist. John Mack is Dr. John Mack, psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize winner. The consistent use of titles and degrees imbeds itself into the consciousness of U.F.O. debunkers. U.F.O. debunkers and skeptoids will attempt to dismiss any UFO researcher that does not fit within their agenda including those with degrees and aligned with academia or the scientific community. Nonetheless, the message must be hammered into them: “serious” people research U.F.O.s.
The same can be done with people who tend to debunk UFO material. Accrediting someone based on whether or not their opinion agrees with yours invites prejudice.
BTW, it’s probably a good idea to actually state their real degrees and qualifications, not what you think they are. For example; Dr. Vallee has his PhD in Computer Science, he has some training in astrophysics but he is not an Astrophysicist.
In conclusion? This manifesto is almost all useless. Writing elaborate wish-lists for a field of research is just fine but no one is going to take you seriously with this! The way to be taken seriously is to actually get out and do the scrub work, not just interview someone for a UFO web page but really do the research. Your local university or community college can help you out there.
The only way to get to the bottom of the UFOs conundrum is to systematically apply scientific principles. Wishful thinking, and writing elaborate manifestos doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. Real research takes a detailed oriented, painstaking approach. It means giving up preconceived notions and beliefs. It means allowing the evidence to propel the research, not starting with a strong belief system and attempting to find proofs.
The writer of this manifesto doesn’t seem to understand this.
Greetings and Felicitations, Emperor,
From the Red Queen’s Manifesto:
The consistent use of titles and degrees imbeds itself into the consciousness of U.F.O. debunkers. U.F.O. debunkers and skeptoids will attempt to dismiss any UFO researcher that does not fit within their agenda including those with degrees and aligned with academia or the scientific community. Nonetheless, the message must be hammered into them: “serious†people research U.F.O.s.
IMHO “consistent use of titles” in a field characterized by pseudo-scientific methods and thinking, without degrees or accreditation, could be interpreted as a false appeal to authority as easily as it could be interpreted as a mark of “sobriety” in those that research UFOs. This is the sort of thing that the “Intelligent Design” folk like to indulge in – credential waving, and credential inflation, even when the credentials have no particular bearing on the subject at hand. Nevertheless, the Discovery Institute’s “Dissent from Darwinism” roster has had the effect of convincing the credulous and the uncritical that Neo-Darwinism is a concept in crisis, when in fact, it is NOT.
I think back to what my Prof. in “Research and Writing” said to me, one day, while I sat in his office eating his pistachios: “Just because someone has a PhD doesn’t mean they know anything that you need to know. Credentials are nothing. Ideas are everything.”
In science, when someone publishes in the journal Nature, credentials are certainly a factor, but it’s the ideas that make or break the paper. “PhD” means squat if your ideas are drivel. And, unfortunately, ufology is a broad river of drivel, slowly rolling along, these days.
In all fairness, I should note that the “manifesto” doesn’t mention using credentials as a means to demonstrate that some smart people investigate UFOs – but rather, that “serious” people investigate UFOs, as if that’s an attribute. It sounds good, but it doesn’t really mean anything. David Jacobs has a PhD, and he’s deadly serious about “The Threat.” Sure it sounds like the ravings of a paranoid pyschotic, but don’t forget, he’s a PhD, and he’s serious…
It is also a fact that for every PhD involved in ufology who has proclaimed himself an “expert” or an “investigator,” there are probably hundreds of clueless “ufo nerds.” “Ufology” was nurtured and cultivated by this sort, because they were and are the ones wholly invested in buying the bullshit sold them in books, at cons, etc. A certain number of these “ripen,” and break into the con-circuit themselves, and the cycle repeats itself…
I also took note of this:
It is a worthless energy drain, time waster, and supreme distraction to engage the enemy [debunkers, skeptics, pseudo skeptics] to any greater degree.
The language here is brilliant. Can you imagine reading something like that in the front matter of a professional, peer-reviewed scientific journal? “Enage the Enemy?”
I could go on, but that would be as pointless as the “manifesto” itself.
Best,
RDB
Well this is of course true. Credentials are not anything in themselves but they do serve as a starting point, a demonstrative of someone who’s been trained in the art of making and defending ideas. Or dumping an idea if it’s found to be wanting.
….Exactly. In the believer world, one’s passion is of prime importance. Far more than having a degree and having a degree sure does not excuse one from behaving irrationally.
Yet that’s exactly how some of these people look upon it. It’s a fight for ideology, on the one side the open minded—passionate believers, struggling too get the truth out to an ignorant world. On the other side? The cloistered, Dr. Big Science in their lab coats and bifocals. Rubbing their hands together in glee at the prospect of repressing yet another free energy device or a cure for cancer. It’s a very juvenile way of looking at the world and yet, many of the top luminaries in the UFO biz do just that.