"ASTRONOMERS AND UFOS: A Response TO THE Noble MARTIN REES"SEPTEMBER 26TH, 2012"Temper Stake Incongruous Gossip"Noble Martin Rees moral unfilled "The Huffington Stake" his scrutinize about UFOs: "No basic astronomer gives any importance to any of these stories... I consider most astronomers would passion these. I passion them so if aliens had ended the vigorous inconvenience to plot a course interstellar distances to work out here, they wouldn't lone join up a few frequent cranks, cloudless a few circles in corn fields and go revealed once more."Such pandemic statements from well regarded scientists are always thankless to the UFO pollster. Distinctly given that take-home pay in UFOs substantially drives individual relatives to consider astronomy! Gloomily the aroma that recently kooks see UFOs is general.But so Noble Rees is a scientist, the alter put in is to equip him amid specialist data that is bluntly relevant to his reckon. I am delicate of recently three attempts to scientifically amount what proportion of astronomers see UFOs. Two show that not recently do astronomers see UFOs in America, but patronize are troubled to report their sightings so they intuition strict and community criticize. The final leave indicates that astronomers see UFOs at a outstandingly high rate than the general commune.On Pompous 6, 1952, Astronomer J. Allen Hynek unfilled the USAF's Project Earthy Size a "Captivating Tally up on Conferences amid Astronomers on Shadowy Tentacle Pertinent."Hynek interviewed individual 45 astronomers on their experiences and opinions about UFOs happening and consequent the collect of the American Planetary Cooperative spirit that June. Hynek provides individual notes on each personality astronomer and their opinions. Here's what individual astronomers influence in 1952:Astronomer Y (no sightings) believed, "If I saw one, I wouldn't say whatever about it."Astronomer II (two sightings) "is prime to negotiation but does not rather to munch prominence," Hynek reports.Astronomer OO: (one sighting) was a new eyewitness at the Harvard Meteor Workstation in New Mexico. He saw two lights uplifting in parallel that were too swift for a plane and too careless for a meteor. He had not reported his scrutiny.Hynek concluded: "Excellent 40 astronomers were interviewed of which five had ended sightings of one tell or up-to-the-minute. This is a snooty proportion than among the citizens at boundless. Perhaps this is to be environmental, for example astronomers do, after all, watch the skies."The bordering data point comes from 1977. Dr. Peter Sturrock ended a develop about UFO attitudes and experiences. Again the principle was the members of the American Planetary Cooperative spirit. The paper was finally embossed in 1994 in the "Re-examine of Methodological Investigate", a peer-reviewed but warmly non-mainstream news report.Sturrock acknowledged 1,356 responses from 2,611 questionnaires. Sixty-two astronomers responded that they had observed no matter which they might not landscape which might be relevant to the UFO phenomenon. Eighteen of frequent witnesses believed they had beforehand reported their sightings, and Sturrock notes that a 30% reporting rate is high than what is silent for the hub commune. Socket 3.2 of the paper upper-class "Twin of Witnesses and Non-Witnesses" contains a table exposition that UFO witnessees were substantially greater inborn to be night sky observers (strict or unversed) when non-witnesses are greater inborn to not consecutive be observing the skies at all!Sturrock anyway includes critique from the astronomers, and once more a foretaste is illuminating:C1. "I object to being quizzed about this accepted rubbish. Shadowy = unobserved or factually unrecorded: open-minded tradition. Too by a long way decorum given to it."C1O. "l seize it problematic to cloudless a existence as an astronomer these life. It would be professionally suicidal to transfer prominent time to UFOs. So far, I am moderately inquiring in your scout."C16. "Menzel and Condon munch ended develop investigation exhausted unless individual perceptibly new phenomena are reported... Communicate is no point to UFO reports impede that they first and foremost work out from tremulous observers."At the 1969 AAAS UFO raison d'?tre backdrop by Carl Sagan, Dr. Franklin Roach delivered a paper on "Astronomers' Views on UFOs." He focuses on the lack of improbable UFO reports from inordinate elevated research programs that incessantly follow incalculable swaths of the sky. He unfilled a quote from the famous astronomer Gerard Kuiper: "I basic alter a command that has been ended that scientists munch shied revealed from UFO reports for intuition of criticize... A scientist chooses his separate of examination so he believes it holds real quality. If subsequent to his limited proves sin, he request likes and dislikes very carelessly and try to file his criteria before he sets out once more. Accordingly, if identity finds that most scientists munch not been paying attention to the UFO worry, the explanation indigence be that they munch not been overcome amid the UFO reports."As the interpretation from the treat surveys show, Kuiper was idealizing the larking about of younger scientists. Without his prestige and expression, they were beneath prime to standpoint deride from their peers.The final data point comes from the Soviet Correlation. "Clarification of Unusual Atmospheric Phenomena in the USSR: Statistical Observe" is a report by L.M. Gindilis, D.A. Men'Kov, and I.G. Petrovkaya. It was published by the Soviet School of Sciences in 1979 and translated during English by NASA as Exact Letter no. 75665 in 1980 and subsequent to dispersed by CUFOS. It is a geometric censure of over 200 raw UFO reports in the Soviet Correlation. Three farmhouse of the reports work out from their massive prosper of UFO reports in 1967.Socket 3, "Observers and Witnesses of Clarification," contains individual very exciting data. They criticism that "transpose to the widespread chasm, put forward is a attractively prominent proportion of astronomers among the observers." By comparing the distribution of UFO observers from a given occupation amid sample data, the authors shot at a "Appeal Coefficient." A snooty coefficient indicates a group is reporting greater UFOs than environmental by commune.At the time, articulate.002% of Soviets over the age of nine were astronomers. Yet they accounted for 10 reports in the Soviet dataset. This yields an activity coefficient of 7500 [Note: NASA's rewording reads 7000]. Undergraduates had a coefficient of 3, custody struggle.9 and Students.02. The Soviet records are clear: astronomers report UFOs at elevated tax.Astronomers see UFOs. Unless we consider they are kooks truthful so they saw a UFO, the data shows that Noble Rees is wound. In the United States, astronomers who write UFOs on their instruments intuition criticize from other scientists and the press. Apart from the nimbus of illegitimacy on all sides of UFOs, the data indicates that astronomers consecutive report UFOs at discernibly high tax than laypeople.Bigger and greater moral scout data is without fault desirable. Hynek's scout was comfortable, Sturrock's is 35 existence old, and the Soviet censure is done on unvetted reports. Song Sturrock's paper was distrust to peer-review. But as we munch seen, it takes generous resolve for a scientist to robust "talent suicide" and consider UFOs anyway proclamations that the distrust is off-limits.Communicate is a lot of rigid work that needs to be done if science hopes to tolerate the UFO phenomenon. It would be all the more method to derive the Soviet activity coefficient and assignment it to other databases. With interest Noble Rees hasn't demoralized too patronize relatives revealed from applying the specialist design to UFO reports.MARTIN REES AND THE TEMPLETON High regardEducationalist REES' Perspective
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