Credible Trickery.

Martin Richer

It is interesting how people react to authoritative sources who confirm their pet beliefs versus authoritative sources who contradict those beliefs. The former is embraced, the latter damned, usually without the slightest actual investigation or scrutiny of what either is saying. This works for both believer and skeptic, of course, and each party can exhibit it in one instance but not another, but I have no trouble declaring that it is grossly more prevalent among the blind belief folks. The scientific method, practiced casually or -ahem -religiously by the skeptical thinker takes him much much closer to a reason-based rather than emotion-based conclusion.

   Some people think it's wrong to hoax ufo reports and photo's, others see it as a neat little unofficial social experiment, hardly stringent enough to qualify as truly 'scientific'. I do these things as an experiment to test a hypothesis derived from an observation, in this case, the observation that a lot of people accept things as true based on the perceived credibility of the source, rather than on any discovered veracity within the thing stated or claimed. I can't state the hypothesis before hand because it taints the experiment obviously, and so, it might seem like a willy-nilly tossing out of a lie. 

   This observation is an enormous part of all things UFO and paranormal, such as we see in the trust simply awarded by many believers without question to perceived 'trustworthy' witnesses like police and military pilots, as if anyone working one of these two occupations is somehow immune from dishonesty, error, or hoax. No wonder so much horseshit passes right into ufological canon -anyone who claims a title or degree is lent credibility without scrutiny.

   I was not born a skeptic, to only then spend my life shoe-horning various claims, like those in ufology and the paranormal, down the naysaying black hole of blind disbelief. On the subject of UFOs, the closer I look at what is presented as supportive evidence, the more it falls apart, and after awhile doubts arise, and after a few decades, scientific scrupulosity gives way to full born skepticism. Skepticism is not a position, it is a process, and like it or not, it works damn fine. Application of the process to ufological claims has only served to grossly weaken those claims. Pointing this out angers some people. Having no cogent, sensible response which isn't itself readily destructed frustrates those people. Against will, pet beliefs are doubted, and for prompting that process in a believer, a skeptic can be demonized, hated, reviled. He becomes a blasphemer, a pagan at the altar. Assumptions are piled on -he must be unhappy, depressed. He must be a control freak. Nobody enjoys being brought to doubt cherished beliefs. Unable to dispel the message, they shoot the messenger. 

   Believers have no shyness in sharing how stupid or mindless or full of it or worthless or deceitful they feel skeptics, debunkers, and/or scientists are, in general or individually, but if that were true, why then all the spite and malice? If this were true, indifference would be the reaction, even pity. No, such deeply felt negative hateful emotions are not born of any certainty that we skeptics are wrong -it is born of the covert fear that we are right, and that the valued pet beliefs really are based on nothing. This is a very human process, and a very human reaction -and the source of much mayhem throughout history. For a researcher, ufology can be a useful microcosm of this social dynamic.