Washington Post Skeptic Op-Ed on UAPs

NASA UAP Study Committee

Recently, the Washington Post ran an editorial speculating about the origin and beliefs surrounding UAPs. If you’ve looked at my categorical breakdown of how to classify any information regarding UFOs or UAPs, you’ll see this clearly falls under my lowest Level 4, or, non-verifiable conjecture or opinion (see the definitions of levels here). Now, you might disagree with me and the author based on all of the testimonial evidence provided by government hearings. But, Mr. Shermer is espousing his own opinion on the matter as a contributor to Skeptic Magazine.

As usual, even the small additions of wording like “tinfoil-hat-wearing kooks” (even when written in the negative as “not kooks”) and “Bart Simpson balloon” still pushes the public stigma against positive and constructive conversations regarding the phenomena. Those types of small stereotypes printed in the negative do not help with modifying the conversation towards positive, scientific and cultural discussions.

The real meat of my disagreement comes in the punch line “could UAPs really be space aliens?” And, as usual, the extraterrestrial hypothesis is thrown under the bus with the tired old skeptic standard - distances between stars is too far, grainy photographs, etc. What’s interesting is why I consider this a Level 4 analysis in my rating system. The answer is that it is just as easy to post a similar op-ed with a different viewpoint using the identical argument. In fact, the entire article could be exactly the same except for the last 2 paragraphs that focus on religious-like beliefs due to declining religiosity. These could be rewritten to emphasize stronger evidential analysis while compiling scientific evidence (moving the conversation to Level 3).

If you’ve read this far you probably think I’m in complete disagreement with his opinion. I’m not. It’s more about the tone of the discussion and where we need to focus on both rational and scientific investigation without throwing the old stones (that I’ve been seeing since the 1960s).