Empire of the Odd

The Search for ET

By: Willow Lawson, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/

Summary: Jill Tarter scans the skies for radio signals, hoping to detect signs of intelligent life

As a little girl, Jill Tarter took nighttime walks on the beach with her father, who taught her the map of the sky. She remembers looking up at the stars, thinking that somewhere out in the universe, the tiny points of starlight she saw were burning bright as someone else’s sun.
More than five decades later, Tarter is the director of research at SETI, or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence in Mountain View, California. SETI scientists use a complex network of telescopes and computers to scan the skies for radio signals elsewhere in the universe, hoping to detect signs of intelligent life-forms.

more here

This piece brought some amusing reactions over at UFO Updates.

Craig Beasley said.

“Ufology may not have enough proof to “convince” anyone. SETI is
even more barren. In either case, it doesn’t invalidate the need
to look at either field of study. The SETI hard-cores refuse to
see that simple truth. They are so eaten whole by the
competitive nature of establishment science that Ufology is seen
as a threat, when it is nothing of the sort.

I have a great respect for Dr. Tartar, as she has never rested
on her laurels. It’s just so damned frustrating to see such a
smart person willingly nurse such a massive blind spot.”

Massive blindspot? Ms Tarter has chosen to concentrate on the hard sciences, not the woo-woo UFO stuff. What’s wrong with that? She mentions that no evidence –I.E.
“I don’t have any proof. There’s no evidence that would convince me as a scientist.”
I don’t see that as unfair, only to the people standing around with their hands in their pockets, anxiously waiting for SETI to validate their pet beliefs. There is no evidence *thus far* that would convince her, I suspect some evidence would ultimately convince her, why else would she be a director at SETI? Just because none in the UFO field can produce evidence that will convince her is not a reason to discount her out of hand.

In the interview, Tarter repeats her story about flying in a light aircraft, thinking she’s seeing a UFO and suddenly realizing that it’s just the moon. The object of this tale is to say “look! I too see things that I can’t explain but, I also look for more prosaic explanations over and above the fantastic.” This puts her at loggerheads with the believer community, some of them never met an ordinary explanation they liked.

>My question then… Shouldn’t Jill – as a pilot and an
>astronomer – be embarrassed by her elemental lack of knowledge
>as to where the Moon would be?

Ah, but you see, not every person is attuned to the SETI spin-
machine as we are, so Dr. Tartar took a gamble.

1. She knows what you know, but expects others to miss the
inconsistencies. (and they call us “inconsistent”?)

2. She convinces herself that she means what she says, as an
unconscious aid to her mission to discredit Ufology.

Either way, she, and SETI by extension, continues to howl at the
moon and bark up the wrong tree.

J. Craig Beasley

My beef is with these two pilots who appear to be rattling
around in the sky with no apparent knowledge of compass
direction [disastrous in itself], the Moon’s position and of the
cloud cover or meteorological information. This is exacerbated
by Jill Tarter’s being a astronomer with no knowledge of the
Moon’s mechanics.

Don Ledger

Stan Friedman describes this concept much better, when he
illustrates this by saying, “It can’t be so there for it
isn’t…”

Some worship at the alter of so-called main stream science, but
the truth is that ‘main stream science’ is filled with
closed-minded folks who are unwilling to look beyond their own
pre-conceived notions of reality and life.

Robert Gates

Anyone who can say this either doesn’t know how science works,
or is confusing it with religion.

– Larry Hatch

Here here! At least SOMONE got a couple of brain cells to rub together! As I recall, Tarter was not actually piloting that night and in any case, its’ real easy for these self described experts of everything to know exactly what the Moon is going to look like at precisely this or that instant at whatever altitude with any random cloud cover. Not being an expert (but having flown in light aircraft many times) I can say with some confidence that things don’t always look like we think they should look up in the sky. But it remains according to these people that Ms Tarter MUST be lying.

She doesn’t believe in aliens…See? That proves it!

And last but certanly not least! , My special fan-pal Al Lehmberg

>Anyone who can say this either doesn’t know how science works,
>or is confusing it with religion.

I know how science works. It won’t remotely consider that which
can’t be measured, repeated, or predicted, and it eliminates,
altogether, the observation that falls outside the narrow limits
of its perceivable probability.

Funny Al! You just described how science doesn’t work! But that is how religion works. Bzzzzz! Thanks for participating! Try again!

It might be that anyone who gives their science such a carte-
blanche _is_ confusing it with religion.

That which falls outside science’s 2% of purview might be
considered, still, forgetting some handy presto-digitations with
regard to gadgetry that has brought the planet to the brink of
mass extinction and encouraged some of the most egregious
behaviors man can remotely visit on his fellow man.

Science be not proud.

And…

Translated to those who can’t read Lehmburgees;

“She’s smart but she’s not very spiritual, she don’t mean squat to a fat-assed old fart like me!”

Ok, Al; be good now and take your meds…. That’s a boy!

I was reminded by Paul Kimball that the latest Saucer Smear is hot off the photocopier. For those of you who have never experienced the ‘Smear.’ It’s a long running underground newspaper about UFOlogy and the people who make up UFOlogy, such as they are. Published by James W. Moseley of Key West Florida, a self avowed luddite The Saucer Smear has been in intermittent publication since the mid 1950s. Ribald, witty and occasionally cruel, the smear ever lives up to it’s moniker, “shockingly close to the truth.”

Otherwise, not much seems to be happening in the UFO biz.

Not from India Daily this time but from New Scientist.

Interesting stuff from th American Society for Clinical Investigation

My favorite part of this interview was when Cruise equated psychiatrists to drug dealers. “You know what? I’m sure drug dealers on the street, in some way, they are making money. That’s what I equate it to. Here is the thing: you have to understand, with psychiatry, there is no science behind it. And to pretend that there is a science behind it is criminal” (2). In Cruise’s eyes, there are a lot of us criminals, including the 38,000 members of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), who have issued several statements disagreeing with many of Cruise’s exhortations about the mental health field. I suppose now would also be an appropriate time to mention my particular conflict of interest — I am the daughter of a psychiatrist/neurologist. That said, my father, and most responsible physicians, are well-trained scientists who do not run around willy-nilly dispensing controlled substances nor filling irresponsible prescriptions to, in Cruise’s words, “drug the piss” (2) out of their patients.

It’s so strange to me when a non-scientist starts bashing the scientific community. Specifically, UFO abduction guru Bud Hopkins on this recent teapot tempest regarding Susan Clancy. He wrote a 3000+ word essay which can be found here.

Hopkins is not happy with the direction the study took, its participants, the methodology or the people conducting the study. Bud’s unhappy because (presumably) he’s the head cheese in the alien abduction business and no snot nosed collage edgumacated -psycho-hologest type person has any right to horn into HIS henhouse. That’¢s what I get from reading him anyway. I mean, what’s not to understand? Hopkins’s been doing the UFO abduction ‘thang for years now. He has a popular following and we all know that it’s numbers not truth that’s important. If we all scunch up our eyes and believe real hard!

This is some of what Hopkins had to say about the Clancy/McNally study.

Richard McNally and Susan Clancy, the two psychologists involved with the study never consulted with him or other UFO “researchers” before conducting it. Since they did not consult the so-called experts in the UFO field (Hopkins himself or some other famous UFO researcher, the study suffered “egregious errors” which “seriously damaged”the work.

Her subjects were self-selected, that is they answered an advertisement in the paper. This method is flawed because some of the respondents will not have good reason to believe they had been abducted by aliens. According to Hopkins, researched and verified abductees should have been used. Heck! Any reader of one of Hopkins’s books would have done MUCH better in the survey, everyone knows that!

McNallly, who was researching post traumatic stress disorder among abductees commented that he didn’t feel aliens were being abducted at all. That the PTSD was due to false memories built up over a matter of time to explain some strange occurrence.

Hopkins;

He announced that, since we “know” that UFO abductions don’t exist, all of his subjects’ accounts have to be false memories. And since they registered just as powerfully as “true” memories, what the test shows, he explained, is that “false” memories can be just as traumatic as “real” memories!

–
In effect, McNally seemed to be saying that even if his own test results support the traumatic reality of the abduction phenomenon, that fact changes nothing since UFO ABDUCTIONS JUST DO NOT EXIST, and that somehow, someway, he will make his test results fit his hypothesis!

That’s pretty strong language from someone who’s not really a psychologist. Clancy and McNally were not studying UFOs, aliens, crazy theories, antigravity or much of anything that would interest Hopkins. They were doing a survey of people who believed that they had been abducted by aliens. And not just the people that Hopkins hypnotized and (allegedly) worked them to a point where they believed it. They wanted people who just believed they had been abducted, untainted by the prevailing UFO biz (or one of it’s head honchos.) Hopkins’s verified abductees would not respond the same, not after years of his so-called therapy and half-assed regression.

Hopkins;

“Though as a faith-based scientist, Susan Clancy has no problem asserting her absolute belief that all UFO abduction accounts are nothing more than false memories, she is left with the problem of explaining how these memories are generated. By what process can many thousands of extremely similar accounts from around the world come into the heads of this multitude.”

Yes and she explains this problem, in some detail too. But I’¢m struck with Hopkins epistle that Clancy is a faith based scientist. True she does not believe in UFO abductions or aliens. So what?

In Hopkins’s world, one had to believe that aliens routinely take people from their beds (their cars or wherever) to conduct crude and hideous experiments before one can do good research. In reality (and in science,) belief is not a pre-requisite. In fact, it can be a detriment. A real researcher would never proclaim something like “we know aliens are here” unless there was a preponderance of evidence so that no other conclusion was possible. It’s amusing that he berates a real psychologist who announced ahead of time what the study was about (research into memory) and lambastes them for not believing in aliens on scientific grounds! Since they were not studying UFOs to begin with, what’s the problem with that?

Hopkins also makes the following points.

 1. She (Clancy) included no study of the patterns of well-known and clearly defined physical sequelae – scoop marks and straight-line cuts – that frequently appear on individuals after their abductions.

Well, not speaking as a medical doctor (nether is Mr. Hopkins but that’s another issue.) I can say with some certainly that strange scars and so-called scoop marks appear on many people who don’t claim to have been abducted by aliens. Has Mr. Hopkins ever surveyed groups of individuals that don’t believe in aliens for strange scars? He’s making a conclusion here without evidence.

” 2. She included no reference to the patterns of ground traces – altered soil, tree branches snapped off from the top down, affects on the surrounding foliage, etc. that are often discovered at UFO landing sites after abductions.”

Of course not! She also did not include descriptions of their automobiles, the architecture of their homes or their driveways. These things are irrelevant. She was surveying the people, not their environment. More impotently, she was not trying to prove some forgone conclusion like most UFO researchers. As a matter of fact, Clancy is a psychologist and not a UFO researcher at all. She wanted to study a small group of people who tell similar stories.

” 3. She made no mention of the eye-witness testimony of neighbors observing a UFO hovering over a house where an abduction is taking place; of witnesses who search in vain for an abducted child who is later found outside a fully locked house; of the incidents in which the police are summoned because of the temporary disappearance of a baby from his crib or a child from her bedroom, but who turn up, unobserved, an hour or so later; or hundreds of similar cases in which abductees are known to be inexplicably missing.”

Pretty much the same comment as number three. I find it odd that Hopkins can’t seem to wrap his mind around the fact that some people don’t live in the same world that he does. Most people don’t believe in flying saucers and, some people don’t need to prove pet theories about aliens like he does.

” 4. She made no mention of the bizarre errors the UFO occupants often make, such as returning individuals from group abductions wearing someone else’s clothes; replacing abductees in the wrong room or building after an abduction; or returning an individual to her bedroom in a locked and bolted house with her feet soiled and the back of her nightgown covered with damp leaves; or any of the scores of other such significant errors.”

Seems to me that one must first presuppose that aliens abducted these people to do that. Why even bother with the research in that case? You’re bashing her because she’s approaching the problem in an unscientific way, then you suggest she approach the issue in a completely prejudicial way. What kind of a scientist are you?
Answer; you ‘r not and you don’t approach the issue scientifically (QED)

“. She made no mention of the hundreds of cases in which two or more individuals are abducted at once, and whose traumatic memories match in every detail.”

She does mention such things. She didn’t go into great length because it was not relevant to her research into memory.

‘ 6. She made no mention of a few accounts – such as the Travis Walton case or the Linda Cortile abduction – in which numerous witnesses see all or part of the abduction as it is being carried out.

Once again. She’s not trying to validate abduction cases, she was studying people who claim they were abducted. The Walton and the Cortile (Linda Napolitano) case are not verifiable and both contain huge discrepancies–as Hopkins is no doubt aware.

” 7. She made no effort to interview the friends and family members of the people in her sample, or in fact anyone who might have insight into their general trustworthiness and emotional soundness. Instead, Susan Clancy alone, because of her faith in the non-existence of UFO abductions, decided that all of her subjects’ abduction accounts were false, and that all of their traumatic recollections were nothing more than false memories. She is therefore implying – indirectly but absolutely – that none of her subjects can tell the difference between dream and reality. To the public at large, this means, in effect, that an experimental psychologist with a Harvard degree believes everyone claiming UFO abduction experiences is suffering from a form of mental illness.”

She didn’t say that in fact, she says quite the opposite. What she says is in effect, the false memory hypothesis is the most likely explanation. I don’t recall her making any kind of judgment call on the abductees she interviewed and remarked several times (outside of their secret beliefs) how stable many of their lives were.

Basically; Hopkins is simply mirroring his constituent base. Belief in UFOs is little more than a religious-superstitious exercise. It’s not scientific, it’s full of people who fervently want to have some explanation to some very odd memories. Clancy and McNally have done (to my knowledge) one the few scientific studies of people who make such claims and they’ve found some striking patterns.

Naturally this does not sit well with the believer community because it tends to strip away some of the mystery surrounding UFOs and people who claim they were abducted. It also tends to devaluate people like Bud Hopkins who literally wrote the book on the abduction phenomena. It’s unreasonable to expect him to re look at his conclusions, like most people howling over this pair of psychologist he can only invoke disdain and illogic to try and batter down real science.

What those of us who are more skeptically inclined see in all of this are people, lead by Mr. Hopkins doing an age old dance of ignoring data that they dislike. This is so typical of any non-rational belief-based ideology that I find it hysterical people like Hopkins foist that same moniker on real research.

It’s suggestive that UFO believers don’t want any real research. They don’t want any snooty scientific type raining on their circus. UFO believers like their circus! They like having control of their field, they like hawking UFO bric-a-brac to each other at UFO conferences. They like their mystery, their X-Files fantasy. It’s suggestive of just how little they care about solving the abduction mystery and how fervently they would like to shut up any contrary thought. They are not scientific, open minded or flexible enough to consider any explanation, other than the one they already believe in.

Aliens!

I just picked this off of Negativesmart. One Bart Sibrel is one of those mindless shit-for-brains conspiracy nutcases that runs around trying to prove NASA’s just a big phony organization. That humans never landed on the moon and that 2 plus 2 equals 7 depending on how he feels that day.

That part’s OK, I mean; it’s alright for people to have crazy ideas. They can even publish their ideas on a web page for all I care. (I like it but, let’s not talk about that now.) This fellow? Is he content to just write a book with his crazy sounding theories like everyone else?

Oh no!

He’s selling a video called “Astronauts Gone Wild” which depicts Sibrel following the Apollo astronauts around and badgering them until they get pissed off. Buzz Aldren actually popped this guy. I don’t blame him either! These fellows, now all in their 60s or so risked their lives in flimsy spacecraft to go to the moon and this moron follows them around with a camera accusing them of being world-class liars?

Anyway, Sibrel was recently on the Dave Glover Show on 97.1 FM St. Louis with Bad Astronomy’s bad-boy and Skeptic magazine’s Michael Shermer

Those two pretty much tore Sibrel a new bung-hole.
Not that he noticed. (He seems to be a rather large one to begin with.)

— Sibrel’s finest moment

I have to laugh. UFO bits, the web log of R. Lee (aka The Red Queen, aka, Natasha, aka–aka etcetera and so fourth.) She has yet another rant on Susan Clancy. This is I believe her third or fourth one.

Clancy’s certainly rubbed UFO believers the wrong way. Not surprisingly. Ms Clancy’s gotten a fair amount of hate mail and some rather extreme reaction because of her stance on this subject. R. Lee is one of the more sober, thoughtful voices in the UFO biz – which gives one an idea of what some of the lunatics might be saying.
For example;

(Lee;)
If one is talking about false memories purposelly induced for the experiment; telling someone they were hurt in a car accident that never happened, for example, then this makes sense.

But we don’t know the alien abductions “really” happened, or what happened, or how, where, it happened. Or, who (if anyone, or, thing) is behind it.

To use this false memory theory as the solution to the Alien Abduction Thang is, hmmm, well, snarky. (Hey, I’m not an academic, I can use goofy terms like that.)

Well Ms lee; Clancy doesn’t use false memory as a solution to the Alien Abduction Hypothesis. (Which doesn’t make much sense anyway.) She uses false memory as one *possible* explanation and states quite clearly that this is the most probable explanation, at least for the people she interviewed.

BTW, I thought Ms Lee as an academic herself would understand that,  my mistake!

Anyway, R. Lee’s weblog article is all about ranting about Susan Clancy. Why? I ask.

Clancy wrote a book that’s why. She wrote a book about alien abduction but more specifically, it’s about people who believe they have been abducted by aliens. In her many interviews with alien abductees she’s concluded that they are probably making most of their stories up. That these people probably did not get abducted by aliens, no matter what they believe.

I mean, how dare someone even mutter such nonsensical unscientific crap?

Well, it actually is scientific to ask questions like. “How come we can find no evidence that alien beings have repeatedly gone into someone’s home when a local police department can prove conclusively that Uncle Harvey napped in your easy chair last Thursday and took a swig from your carton of eggnog? How come a forensic guy can detect a contusion from over ten years previously but can’t detect major invasive surgery by alien beings?

Is because there were no aliens?

That’s all Susan Clancy asked.

But, if I’ve learned one thing from the Red Queen, it’s that no one should ever ask such questions. Asking questions is like grinding up Indian sacred cows and serving them at the Calcutta MacDonald’s. You just don’t do it. In fact if you’re a skeptic you SHOULD just keep your damn mouth shut! Off with their heads! Do as I say and not as I do (swish –CRACKA!)

Even if asking questions is one of the cornerstones of scientific and engineering endeavors for real researchers and people who actually like to get to the bottom of things.

Am I right Red Queen?

Of course I am, you know it and I know it! And I’m a bad person because you believe it.

(BTW, I was going to just make a polite comment on your web log but you, um just erase them. So my longer, less polite comment is here. That’s what you get for covering your ears hon. )

(Lee)
“Hmm, well, I don’t “believe” in alien abductions. I don’t know what the hell is going on. But I do know that I’ve experienced some very weird things, that no one has answered for me: missing time, cover memories, and more.

So if I went to a hypnotist, which I’ve considered, it would be to find out what happened back then, whatever it was. What is wrong with wanting to find out what the HELL happened?

The debunkers and “skeptoids” of the world would prefer it if we all just went away. Kept quiet about all of this wiggly high weirdness.”

Actually no, I’m for one am delighted that believers keep the world in wiggly high weirdness. This would be such a dull place without you all!

I’m fascinated with weird junk too. I think UFOs are the coolest thing since the SR71. I think the idea that aliens might be visiting the Earth is extremely provocative and that big hairy-stinky hominids trot around our forests undetected is a fascinating idea.

(Clancy)
“In one New York Times article my research was labeled as biased and political, even though it was peer reviewed and published in reputable journals. I was attacked.”

(Lee)
“Ahem. Simply because it is peer reviewed by minds of similar thought – – there ain’t no such thing as alien abductions, damnit!” — doesn’t mean one can’t be critized, or, er, “attacked.””

This is true. It’s really OK to criticize but, let’s say I mention that someone has crazy colors on their page which distract from the content (such as it is.) That’s far different from saying the author is a jerk, a psycho or whatever. The first one is criticism, the second is an attack. The words biased and political are kind of prejudicial when reviewing a scientific piece, especially in the New York Times. Actually they are kind of rude, even in an op-ed piece. Remember we are not talking about Bob Lazar or Stanton Freedmen here (both of those guys are firmly in the UFO believer camp.) Clancy has a PhD and she is doing real work in her field, unlike well – those other two I mentioned.

She probably felt insulted, I certainly would! In any case, I saw nowhere in her book any statement that there is no such thing as aliens, simply that it’s very likely the abductees she interviewed had never encountered any. She doesn’t believe that aliens have ever visited the Earth because? There is no evidence that they have ever done so.

Yes, Clancy is skeptical about aliens but I ask, what’s wrong with that. It’s more open minded than believing, is it not?

Let me repeat that so the full extent of the indignation can sink in. People who believe that aliens abduct people tend to be closed minded of other possibilities while skeptics tend to be more open minded. Open minded to the possibilities that aliens could be here simply; they don’t see any good evidence.

See, when you believe in something no matter how good intentioned you are. You can no longer be open minded about it. A believer must go around and find evidence to support and validate their belief. A believer who claims that he or she is open minded is simply lying to themselves. You can’ believe and have an opened mind at the same time, the two are mutually exclusive.

In other words, were I to discover that there was good evidence to support the alien abduction idea I would immediately acknowledge that aliens are here abducting people. I am open to the possibility either way.

So, to make a long rant even longer.. I don’t have a problem with any woo-ish believer saying whatever they like. I might mock them, I might tell them they are full of crap and exactly why. But I will never tell them to shut up.. I will never tell them to go away.

That the Odd Emperor and you’re just,

.whoever the hell you are!

Every now and again the Odd Empire gets “blasted.” Blasted by spam. I don’t always know the reason, perhaps the Odd Emperor’s blog was scanned and got flagged by a spammer algorithm or two. Perhaps one of the Odd Emperor’s fans are wanting a bit of revenge.

Whatever the cause, the Imperial technoflunkies take care of it for me but sometimes I get some strange and interesting stuff. It’s all random of course, the mutterings of hacked servers in some forgotten sub basement, endlessly running Sendmail code and zombie processes. Machines asking to be liked, to be listened to asking for some response.

I feel sad for them, just for a moment. This is what the spammers had to say just last night.

**

you have some really cool stuff at your site. i’m sure gonna come back here.

bad tv is always greedy mistery

I had a great time reading your comments.

Greedy Gnome becomes Black Game

Wishing you a great day!

It was fun visiting here.

just letting you know – your site is fantastic!

greedy chair anticipate or not:

Standard, Coolblooded, Red nothing comparative to Astonishing

Interesting site, and very organized too. Good work.

Nicely done! Faithful is feature of Big Chair

Profound, Central, Collective nothing comparative to Lazy

when cosmos do opponents hedge:

standard pair becomes universal soldier in final

i’m sure gonna come back here.

**

They sound lonely!

At last! My very own copy of Abducted, how people came to believe they were kidnapped by aliens by Susan A. Clancy arrived in the Imperial mail. Now I can see for myself what all the shooting is about. Now I can see why the alien believer community is so up in arms. Why Clancy must be saying some pretty horrendous things about alien-heads to get people so riled up.

Or is she? The truth might surprise you. Stay tuned.