Dimitris Hatzopoulos (Greece): My estimate of the UFO situation 2009

Dear friends,

James Harder (1926-2006) was a scientist (Professor of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley) with a decades-long interest in the UFO issue, consultant to UFO groups, who testified along with Drs McDonald, Hynek, Menzel, Sagan etc on the UFO subject before the Committee on Science and Astronautics of US Congress in the hearings of July-1968. He wrote in 1973:

"Who among UFO investigators has not wished for a clear, closeup, detailed photograph of a UFO? And what would it prove? Surely, it would help settle the question, still on some agendas, of whether UFOs actually exist ... however, is it not time to go beyond that issue to a host of scientific problems and questions that are raised, once one has accepted the fact of UFO existence? It seems to me that we should be well into a second phase of UFO investigations in which the object is not so much to prove the existence of UFOs as to try and understand more about them." -- APRO Bulletin Mar/Apr 1973

I don't wish to discount the significance of the work of the many conscientious UFO researchers working on shoe-string budgets in their spare time, however it seems that decades after Dr Harder's statement quoted above, much of today's public UFO research is still stuck at the level of collecting puzzling testimony or validating photos (which with today's computerized image manipulation software have become even less relevant as evidence than in the past). A noble effort, which provides material for TV documentaries which hopefully heighten public interest. But we don't see e.g. a project of instrumental monitoring of alleged hotspots like "Marley Woods" USA by teams of scientists, similar to the Hessdalen Norway project (or the results don't get published). And despite the frequent airing of UFO-related TV and radio shows, the public's level of understanding is poor, as is evident in most on-line discussion forums.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, that the only way to tackle the UFO would be via a grass-roots effort to affect public policy. To release all information, as John Podesta urged from the podium of NPC and then to let Science as an institution get involved. The idea proposed by Prof. Peter Sturrock (Professor of Physics at Stanford University, who like Harder has a decades-long interest in the subject and who headed the 1997 scientific panel on UFOs funded by billionaire L.Rockefeller) was to allow a very small percentage of public funding of scientific research into areas which the public is showing a strong interest in, like UFOs. This is relevant of course only if one believes that the UFO subject has somehow been ignored due to incompetence (as the tragic Prof McDonald believed) and not suppressed by a conspiracy, i..e. that  TPTB haven't been researching UFOs behind the scenes for the past 60+ years, via black projects and to suit their agenda. Regardless, the deep economic crisis is a good excuse for putting UFOs off the policymakers' table, at least for the moment.

So, while postponing hopes for an immediate shift in public policy, I asked myself what can I, as a person interested in the UFO problem, contribute in the near future? My approach of the UFO phenomenon has been from the perspective of physical sciences, as a technology of unknown origin. But to make the UFO subject more acceptable to people with technical training, some degree of technological sense has to be made of UFOs, even to make "seeing believing" or one gets the dreaded "defy the laws of physics" argument. As NASA aeronautical engineer Paul Hill and author of "Unconventional Flying Objects" (one of the better books on the UFO subject) wrote "if much of the UFO pattern can be explained in terms of today's scientific principles ... it will make UFOs more acceptable."

I'm going to echo the thoughts of british UFO researcher Isaac Koi (pseudonym): During the last few years, I've often seen people voice their justifiable concern about the amount of time and effort which is completely wasted within the field of UFO research. So many people (incl consultants of popular TV shows) seem to be content to start from scratch, ignoring or simply unaware of the vast amount which has already been written. The rate of progress within Ufology seems slow. This will never change unless the amount of "reinvention of the wheel" within Ufology is reduced.

There is also a quality gap between material about UFOs available off-line (in books and newsletters) and the material available on-line (hopefully the gap will narrow by efforts like MUFON's Pandora project and TBV). Finding useful and interesting material about UFOs on the Internet involves a considerable amount of sorting the wheat from the chaff, which is hard unless one already has a good understanding of the subject (catch-22). In addition, some of the better UFO books are hard to obtain (e.g. for most of last year, Amazon.com had no copies of Paul Hill's for sale)

So, what can be done?

Rather than simply moan about it, a couple of years ago I decided to draw together some references to UFO material, seeking answers in previous work of people with training physical sciences. The web-pages

1. Quick Technical Overview: What we think we know about UFOs
2. Executive Summary and essential reading on UFOs
3. Resources about possible UFO physics / propulsion / technology

contain some of the results of my own attempt to do this sorting over the past couple of years. I hope they will be helpful to you too and I welcome any feedback.

Best regards,
Dimitris Hatzopoulos
Thessaloniki, Greece

Comments

[Steele Braden]

Dear Dimitris, I am a retired electronics engineer. I would like to send you a short "essay" I have put together on a probable method of flying saucer lift/propulsion for your comments.
Your email address would be appreciated for this.

[vivek]

Thanks for your great information, the contents are quiet interesting.I will be waiting for your next post.
jobs in life Sciences

[Spacelew]

11th september 2004 mod burghfield reading berks England, 7 o,clock morning, This sighting by my wife and i has never been investigated, Is there a UFO investigator on this planet that has any contacts? How many ways are there to find this evidence? and no im not having a dig at anyone, im just so frustrated that theres all kinds of ways to find this video evidence yet it still eludes the UFO experts,How is this? PLEASE HELP,
MICHAEL

[Annamay]

So if one has to make a leap of faith into the outer space UFO universe , as a pararadigm shift kind of logic , rather than endorsing a "seeing is believing" one , then, strong incentives must be presented for general consciousness to want to follow.
Incentives such as hope in better technology for our planet etc ... a better future , another realm that is more beneficial...
UFO believers and philosophers should be the ones initiating this discourse and the benefits of it , rather than relying on people to make the shift by themselves . Make people want to believe and they will believe .