Paranormal Time (8/14/08)

There is a new academic paper published in the 'Journal of Political Theory' about UFO's which written by a couple professors. An editorial piece about the paper is linked below from the "Inside Higher Education Web" site as well as some choice quotes I pasted. http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/08/13/mclemee




Even after countless thousands of UFO reports from all over the world – often by members of the military – the nearly 200 nation-states “have been notably uninterested” in the phenomenon. “One may speak of a ‘UFO taboo,’” write Wendt and Duvall, “a prohibition in the authoritative public sphere on taking UFOs seriously, or ‘thou shalt not try very hard to find out what UFOs are.’”

“Our puzzle,” they explain, “is not the familiar question of ufology, ‘What are UFOs?’ but, ‘Why are they dismissed by the authorities?’ Why is human ignorance not only unacknowledged, but so emphatically denied? In short, why a taboo?”

The pattern of avoidance is, the answer, “akin to denial in psychoanalysis: the sovereign represses the UFO out of fear about what it would reveal about itself. There is therefore nothing for the sovereign to do but turn its gaze away from – to ignore, and hence be ignorant of – the UFO, making no decision at all.”

“Those who attempt it will have difficulty funding and publishing their work,” write Wendt and Duvall, “and their reputations will suffer.”

Wendt and Duvall mention a few cases where governments have, in fact, conducted studies of UFO sightings. But clearly they were efforts to dismiss the question.