Welcome to the website of the Yorkshire UFO Society
There's more than one way to get to a meeting!
NEXT MEETING
8 pm
Thursday 7th June 2012
at
Tap & Spile
(94 Falsgrave Road)
SCARBOROUGH
What are we into?
Investigating UFO sightings with a doggedness not seen since the good ol' days of ufology, tracking down those 'high‐strangeness' cases that challenge our everyday notion of reality, roaming areas of the wolds where unexplained LITS (lights‐in‐the‐sky) have been reported, collating the evidence and looking for patterns, skywatching in wild, out‐of‐the‐way places, engaging in animated discussions around camp fires about how incredibly far it is to the nearest star, liaising with other groups and independent researchers, discussing the latest cases, attending UFO conferences and other weird events, marvelling at the creative lunacy of fellow ufologists, trying to keep our feet on the ground with our eyes are on the skies, wondering what it all means and enjoying the fun and enchantment of it all.
Area of interest
What exactly is it we're investigating? A phenomenon, of course - but what kind of phenomenon? Meteorologists, atmospheric scientists, exo-biologists, astro-physicists, radio astronomers, SETI scientists, parapsychologists, mythologists...all know what they're looking for, but ufologists don't. We are in pursuit of the ephemeral, the intangible, the unidentified. All we have to go on, all the primary source data we have to work with, are the reports. Well,
not quite. There's some physical evidence - photographs, video footage, physical / physiological effects and some weird stuff - but mainly it's the reports. What makes the study of UFOs especially difficult is that there is a peculiar subjective element to these reports. I don't mean simply that they are theory-laden. They are that too, of course, but that is true of all observation statements: we don't see a bright light in the dawn sky, we see the planet Venus; particle physicists don't see lines on a computer print-out, they see the tracks of muons and electrons. Good UFO reports are actually often less theory-laden than other types of observation, precisely because the observer doesn't know what s/he is observing. However there is a subjective element of quite a different order evident in many UFO reports, specifically in close encounter sightings and 'high strangeness' cases, that is, arguably, part of the phenomenon itself. This merging of the objective with the subjective, in a way
that challenges our everyday notions of reality, is just one source of perplexity to UFO researchers.
Hynek never tired of reminding us that it was the UFO reports themselves that constituted the phenomenon. He was right, of course. If there were no reports, we'd have no data to work with. The question is, though: what lies behind the reports? Are we being visited by
advanced life forms from another star system or is the apparent intelligence behind the phenomenon of a different kind altogether? Should we be searching the skies for an answer or looking inside ourselves? Are there parallels between the alien experience and encounters with mythological creatures down the ages: angels, demons, faerie folk, all the gods and goddesses of old...? Could it be that we are having close encounters with our own psyche? If yes,
then how can the denizens of the dark unconscious impinge on the physical world? If no, then what on earth (so to speak) are they? And what are we to make of the well-documented 'interactions with human consciousness' and the tantalising physical effects? Can the phenomenon really be dual-natured, partaking of both the physical and the psyche-cal? Perhaps the truth lies several steps beyond anything we've yet been able to imagine - and perhaps it will have profound implications for our understanding of the nature of reality.
Those who have looked into the UFO phenomenon any way beyond a superficial level - and this includes scientists of the highest order - have invariably acknowledged that they have become more not less puzzled with increasing acquaintance with the data. This is the opposite of what you would expect if UFO reports could be easily explained by orthodox science. UFOs and the alien experience represent an unsolved mystery and a challenge to science.
As researchers into this extrordinary phenomenon, we have to sharpen our critical faculties even more than we would working in conventional fields. This means being dissatisfied with information from secondary sources, being ruthless in exposing hoaxes and relentless in pursuit of the facts, never failing to draw a distinction between the objective data and the interpretation of that data. But we also have to be bold, unafraid to challenge the framework of
reality which our age is locked into. And let us be ever wary, and mindful of the fact that, to take a slight liberty with Einstein's famous dictum: 'Those who set themselves up as a judge of truth in the field of ufology is liable to be shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods'.
not quite. There's some physical evidence - photographs, video footage, physical / physiological effects and some weird stuff - but mainly it's the reports. What makes the study of UFOs especially difficult is that there is a peculiar subjective element to these reports. I don't mean simply that they are theory-laden. They are that too, of course, but that is true of all observation statements: we don't see a bright light in the dawn sky, we see the planet Venus; particle physicists don't see lines on a computer print-out, they see the tracks of muons and electrons. Good UFO reports are actually often less theory-laden than other types of observation, precisely because the observer doesn't know what s/he is observing. However there is a subjective element of quite a different order evident in many UFO reports, specifically in close encounter sightings and 'high strangeness' cases, that is, arguably, part of the phenomenon itself. This merging of the objective with the subjective, in a way
that challenges our everyday notions of reality, is just one source of perplexity to UFO researchers.
Hynek never tired of reminding us that it was the UFO reports themselves that constituted the phenomenon. He was right, of course. If there were no reports, we'd have no data to work with. The question is, though: what lies behind the reports? Are we being visited by
advanced life forms from another star system or is the apparent intelligence behind the phenomenon of a different kind altogether? Should we be searching the skies for an answer or looking inside ourselves? Are there parallels between the alien experience and encounters with mythological creatures down the ages: angels, demons, faerie folk, all the gods and goddesses of old...? Could it be that we are having close encounters with our own psyche? If yes,
then how can the denizens of the dark unconscious impinge on the physical world? If no, then what on earth (so to speak) are they? And what are we to make of the well-documented 'interactions with human consciousness' and the tantalising physical effects? Can the phenomenon really be dual-natured, partaking of both the physical and the psyche-cal? Perhaps the truth lies several steps beyond anything we've yet been able to imagine - and perhaps it will have profound implications for our understanding of the nature of reality.
Those who have looked into the UFO phenomenon any way beyond a superficial level - and this includes scientists of the highest order - have invariably acknowledged that they have become more not less puzzled with increasing acquaintance with the data. This is the opposite of what you would expect if UFO reports could be easily explained by orthodox science. UFOs and the alien experience represent an unsolved mystery and a challenge to science.
As researchers into this extrordinary phenomenon, we have to sharpen our critical faculties even more than we would working in conventional fields. This means being dissatisfied with information from secondary sources, being ruthless in exposing hoaxes and relentless in pursuit of the facts, never failing to draw a distinction between the objective data and the interpretation of that data. But we also have to be bold, unafraid to challenge the framework of
reality which our age is locked into. And let us be ever wary, and mindful of the fact that, to take a slight liberty with Einstein's famous dictum: 'Those who set themselves up as a judge of truth in the field of ufology is liable to be shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods'.
