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The Secrets of Area 51: classified balloons and flying saucers

Michael Marshall
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The Secrets of Area 51: classified balloons and flying saucers

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 15, Issue 3, from 2002.

Deep in the Nevada Desert is a military base so secret that it does not officially exist. This is the fabled Area 51, a place where the US Air Force allegedly keeps its flying saucers, which have been built using technology from crashed alien spacecraft. It has been featured in the X-Files and the film Independence Day and is a standard fixture in UFO mythology and in conspiracy theories of the New World Order variety.

The Area 51 itself is real enough. It is a test centre for secret aircraft and hosted the U-2 and SR-71 spy planes as well as the F-117 stealth fighter, and has recently attracted attention because of a strike by civilian security guards. When we look closely at the myth we can tell that although strange things may be afoot — and in the air — they do not necessarily involve aliens or weird science.

The latest twist on the Area 51 story comes from Nick Cook’s book Zero Point. Cook is an experienced aerospace journalist with the prestigious Jane’s, which lends the story some weight. According to his version, the secret technology comes from Nazis rather than aliens, but otherwise the story is the same, including the assertion that the US government is suppressing technology which could provide unlimited free energy for the world.

One of Cook’s key pieces of evidence is a secret 1947 memorandum by Lt General Twining, listing six traits for the flying discs sighted in UFO encounters:

  1. metallic or light reflecting
  2. no trail
  3. circular or elliptical
  4. formation flying
  5. no associated sound
  6. level speed above 300 knots.

Twining states that “it is within the present US knowledge… to construct a piloted aircraft which has the general description of the object above which would be capable of an approximate range of 7,000 miles at subsonic speeds.”  At this point Cook was so astonished that he spilled his coffee, convinced that he had found proof that the military was hiding something big. And so it was.

Project Skyhook

In 1947 the US Navy started Skyhook, a secret project which involved lifting scientific instrument packages to the edge of space using giant balloons. Traditional materials were unsuitable, so the balloon envelopes were made from a new plastic called “high-density polyethylene” — as in the ubiquitous polythene bag. The balloons were over a hundred feet across and the height of a twenty-storey building. These were zero-pressure balloons which changed shape with altitude. At maximum height the balloon adopted a teardrop shape; at lower levels it could look like a saucer or a giant jellyfish.

Under some lighting conditions they were highly visible when the plastic caught the sun and shone like metal. This led to a string of UFO sightings; on occasion missing Skyhook balloons were tracked by following flying saucer reports in local media. The official cover was that they were weather balloons, but since these are usually about 20 feet in diameter it was an unconvincing lie.

On January 7th 1948, Godman Air Force Base in Kentucky received reports of a UFO. A Sgt Blackwell spotted it himself from the control tower, describing it as “an ice cream cone topped with red”. Four F-51D Mustangs en route from another base were directed to investigate. One did not have sufficient fuel and broke off. The Mustang is not pressurised, so the pilot needs bottled oxygen; two of the others also broke off when they ran low while climbing to approach the object.

The fourth pilot, Capt. Mantell, believed he had enough oxygen and continued the pursuit.

“It’s above me and I’m gaining on it. I’m going to 20,000 feet.” These were his last recorded words. Shortly afterwards contact was lost and his plane went into a dive and crashed.

“F-51 and Capt. Mantell Destroyed Chasing Flying Saucer” was the Louisville Courier headline.

An official report on the crash stated that Mantell

…lost consciousness due to oxygen starvation … the aircraft then began a turn to the left due to torque and as the wing drooped so did the nose until the aircraft was in a tight diving spiral. The uncontrolled descent resulted in excessive speed causing the aircraft to disintegrate.

It was suggested that Mantell had been chasing Venus or another astronomical object, in spite of the fact that the two other pilots thought the target looked like a balloon. Some two months after the crash the first public announcement was made of the existence of Skyhook, but it was only years afterwards that flight records were released that showed that a Skyhook balloon had indeed been in the area on January 7th. Needless to say, some still maintain that this was a cover-up of an alien craft shooting down a US fighter.

Even after Skyhook went public, other projects remained top secret. These included the balloon spying program, which was given a priority rating equivalent to that of the atomic weapons projects.

Project Genetrix

While Russian agents could roam America freely, the USSR remained an enigma to US intelligence. Before spy satellites there was no way of finding out what lurked in the Russian wastes. How many missile silos were being built, how many airfields, submarine bases, nuclear processing plants? Everything was concealed behind the impenetrable Iron Curtain.

A few reconnaissance overflights were made in stripped-down RB-47 bombers, but these could not venture too far across the border during these “accidental” incursions.

Balloons offered an alternative. In 1947, the RAND think-tank suggested that jetstreams, narrow ribbons of air moving at high speed in the upper atmosphere, could carry a balloon clear across the USSR — and it could take pictures as it went. (There was a precedent for long-distance balloons in the Fugo, incendiary balloons launched against the US by the Japanese during WWII). The idea seemed feasible and the Genetrix balloon spying programme was born. Technical problems meant it did not become operational until 1956.

The Genetrix gondola was the size of a refrigerator and weighed almost 200 kg, so it required a balloon almost the size of Skyhook. Most of the weight was taken up with a set of cameras which photographed a broad swathe of countryside on either side of the balloon. A photocell ensured that the device started taking pictures at dawn and continued until sunset.

The Genetrix balloons should have been nearly invisible to radar, and their cruising height of 55,000

feet should have kept them out of the reach of Russian fighters. Once clear of Russia and out over the Pacific, the balloon would to be met by a modified transport aircraft. This would send a radio signal to release the gondola, which would parachute down from the balloon and be caught in mid-air.

However, things did not quite go to plan. By sheer chance, the balloon rigging included a steel rod which was 91 cm long, a length which corresponded with the wavelength of a Russian early warning radar called Token. The steel rod resonated at this frequency, and, in radar terms, it lit up like a beacon. The Russians tracked the balloons easily. A zero-pressure balloon rises during the daytime as it is warmed by the sun, and sinks at night as it cools. At first light the Genetrix balloons were well below their maximum altitude, and MiG fighters were ready for them.

By observing the Russian response, US analysts located new Token radar sites, and gained some intelligence about the capabilities of the radar network. Also, some balloons did get through. Out of five hundred balloons released, forty yielded usable photographs and over 1.4 million square miles of Soviet territory was pictured. These became the baseline for future missions. Later satellite photographs could be compared with the 1956 Genetrix pictures and checked for evidence of new constructions.

However, the balloons caused a diplomatic furore. Captured gondolas were displayed to the world press in Moscow, and the story that they were weather balloons photographing cloud formations was ridiculed. President Eisenhower decided that the balloons were more trouble than they were worth. Ironically enough, he decided that the main effort should go toward perfecting the U2 spyplane. This was the aircraft which caused one of the most serious embarrassments of the Cold War when pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down over Russia.

Whatever their impact on the Cold War, the balloons had a lasting effect on the UFO community. Many prototype balloons came down in the US during testing (under projects Gopher, Grandson and Moby Dick), some within a few miles of their launch site. This was due to a safety device which automatically separated the gondola if it dropped below 15,000 feet to prevent it from becoming a hazard to air traffic. Military units would immediately seal off the area and a recovery crew would retrieve every last piece of debris, while insisting that the subject of all this attention was “just a weather balloon”.

The balloons match the description in the 1947 memo very closely. They were circular, appeared metallic, flew silently leaving no trail and flew in formation. Their level speed was not quite 300 knots, though in the jetstream they could shift at a respectable 250 mph.

However, the biggest clue is the fact that the man in charge of the balloon spying program was one General Nathan Twining — the same Twining who wrote the original memo.

Project Mogul

One notable discrepancy is that the memorandum talks about a “manned craft”, whereas the balloon programmes we know about were unmanned. There may be a reason for this.

Project Mogul was a secret 1947 programme to detect Russian atomic tests using balloons. It was known that sound could travel for vast distances under the ocean in “sound channels” caused by undersea currents. Scientists theorised that a similar effect could occur in the jetstreams of the upper atmosphere, so that a colossal explosion — an atomic bomb — might literally echo around the world. Before Skyhook, there was no single balloon large enough to carry the instruments for this, so a cluster of smaller balloons was used.

By accident a Mogul balloon cluster came down near a town called Roswell. A rancher found the wreckage and called in the military, who announced that they had found the remains of a “flying disc”. (This was 11 days before the first use of the term “flying saucer”). They later switched to the weather balloon story, but the damage was done, and Roswell has been a sacred place for alien conspiracy theorists ever since.

In later versions of the Roswell story there are accounts of alien bodies being recovered from the wreckage. If a manned balloon lost pressure at high altitude, the unfortunate crew would rapidly die from the lack of oxygen. Their bodies would be freeze-dried by the effects of extreme cold and very low pressure. How these shrunken, frozen mummies would appear is anyone’s guess. Someone who believed they had come from a flying saucer might very well identify them as space aliens.

Any fatalities would probably have led to the termination of a secret manned balloon program. The US under Eisenhower was not Nazi Germany, and the death of test pilots is a serious matter. There is also the question of security: a downed balloon may be explained away, but dead bodies demand inquests, investigations and public reports. Any bodies recovered from Roswell or elsewhere, if there ever were any, were more likely to be unlucky victims of the Cold War than beings from another world.

Conclusions

The projects described above are not the only secret balloon programmes undertaken, but they are among the ones that we know about. An examination of the numbering system used for defence projects shows that there are still numerous gaps in the record.

An article in Popular Mechanics describes a contender for one of the missing projects, the Lenticular Re-entry Vehicle. This unusual device was a nuclear-armed rocket plane which was hoisted to high altitude by a balloon before being released for its attack run.

Of course, there is far more to UFOs than just balloons. But it is easy to see how the secret balloon projects contributed to the flying saucer myth. They combined the twin elements of seemingly inexplicable sightings with obvious government cover-ups, elements which are now inseparable from UFOlogy.

It seems that practically since the start, balloons have been identified as flying saucers. Once the identification is made, people are very reluctant to give it up; since the government has proved itself unreliable with the weather balloon story, its credibility is not enough to overturn other opinions.

The truth is that people would much rather see flying saucers than balloons. And as Nick Cook has shown, it is still an idea which can sell books.

Further reading

  • Peebles, C. (1991). The Moby Dick Project: Reconnaissance Balloons Over Russia. Prentice Hall & IBD.
  • Peebles, C. (2002). Shadow Flights: America’s Secret Air War Against the Soviet Union. Presidio Press.

In Search of Monsters? A defence of cryptozoology

Charles Paxton
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In Search of Monsters? A defence of cryptozoology

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 15, Issue 3, from 2002.

Loch Ness Monster – bunkum; yeti – a Himalayan bear; Bigfoot – a man in a monkey suit. In Why People Believe Weird Things, Michael Shermer compiled a little list of “popular ideas” without scientific support and included amongst other things “Bermuda Triangles, Astrology, ghosts … UFOs, monsters… cryptozoology … Bigfoot”.

Well, Shermer may well be right about many of the things on that list but as there are people who call themselves cryptozoologists, it would seem that the empirical existence of cryptozoology (no self-styled cryptozoologist uses a hyphen) cannot be in doubt. Of course Shermer meant that some of the claims of cryptozoology can be called into question, but even that does not necessarily mean the methods of cryptozoology are unscientific or invalid.

But what actually is cryptozoology? This is a bit of problem, as different people seem to have conflicting views. Cryptozoology does have an “official” definition. Unfortunately it is not very useful. The term was first coined by the “father of cryptozoology” Bernard Heuvelmans (author of such exhaustively researched massive tomes as In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents and On the Track of Unknown Animals) and he translated it loosely from the Greek to mean “the science of hidden animals”.

However, by hidden he didn’t mean either too small to see or that the animals buried themselves; no, Heuvelmans meant the animals were unknown to science. This, as any cryptozoologist would point out, is very different from unknown per se. In 1988, Heuvelmans elaborated on the point; cryptozoology is:

the scientific study of hidden animals, i.e. of still unknown animal forms about which only testimonial and circumstantial evidence is available, or material evidence considered insufficient by some.

Obviously the latter statement of Heuvelmans implies that cryptozoologists are always going to disagree with someone, by definition! This disagreement might not only be about the physical existence of an animal. Heuvelmans also suggested that “hidden” could mean that the species might be recognised but its range both in space and time might not be fully known to science.

So cryptozoologists are interested in the indirect evidence for the existence of unknown animals. Of course, this is not an end in itself. The ultimate goal of any cryptozoologist is to obtain unequivocal evidence (mostly, but not always, a corpse), to allow formal scientific description and recognition. Once a corpse has been formally described then the animal should cease to be of cryptozoological interest, although strangely, as we shall see, this is not always the case.

The cryptozoologist’s interest and use of indirect evidence can be similar to that of those who believe in visiting alien spacecraft and non-corporeal supernatural entities. Cryptozoologists rely primarily on eyewitness testimony. Furthermore, just as general disproof of ghosts and aliens is impossible, it is difficult to disprove the existence of Nessie or Bigfoot (although in the former case you can get damn close to undermining its existence on ecological grounds).

Cryptozoology often, like many pseudosciences, appeals to myth and folklore as evidence. It also has advocates that tend to ignore evidence against the existence of a particular mystery animal or cryptid, to use the jargon.

There is however an important distinction between cryptozoology and, for example, ufology. The basic assumption underlying cryptozoology is neither irrational nor improbable; the list of the world’s fauna is not complete. Discoveries of new animals are still being made – and these new animals are not just microbes or insects; they can be ever so slightly larger things like whales (described in 1991 and 1995), giant stingrays (1990) and sharks (1981).

The probability of the imminent discovery of further large animals, especially in the marine environment, is not minuscule; given a number of (potentially dubious) caveats and extrapolations about human knowledge it may even be calculable.

Unknown species are being seen by zoologically qualified observers. For example, scientists on whale surveys in the eastern Pacific have observed a beaked whale (Mesoplodon species B) which differs from the existing known species and may represent an unknown species of whale; or it could be a living specimen of the little-known beaked whale Mesoplodon bahamondi which was only described in 1995.

So cryptozoology does have an empirical footing firmer than most other fringe topics based upon eyewitness testimony. Unlike the potential existence of homeopathic remedies, ghosts or astrological influences on mankind, the existence of unknown animals does not undermine or even tweak the fundamentals of physics, chemistry or biology.

In my experience, most cryptozoologists do not believe and never have believed that cryptids are supernatural in origin. They are open to the idea of observer error and misidentification, although they probably have a higher view of observer accuracy than the average reader of The Skeptic. There is a fringe which believes in supernatural origins of Bigfoot, Nessie and the Great Sea Serpent but these individuals are avoided by mainstream cryptozoologists and increasingly they give their own subject its own title, the delightful neologism “para-cryptozoology”.

Cryptozoology may use eyewitness testimony but this is not by any means its sole source of data. Several cryptozoologists have argued that any deductive technique that could be used to predict the existence of animals would be cryptozoological. The French cryptozoologist Michel Raynal presents the prediction and subsequent discovery of the Madagascan subspecies of the moth Xanthopan morgani as a triumph of the cryptozoological method.

In 1862, Charles Darwin predicted in On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects the existence of a long-tongued moth in Madagascar. Something had to be availing itself of the nectaries of the orchid Angraecum sesquipedale because otherwise there would have been no fertilisation and the plant would have become extinct. The nectaries were 28.6 cm long, with only the lower 3.6 cm filled with nectar. Later authors speculated that the mystery moth would have affinities with the mainland African X. morgani as this group of moths was characterised by long tongues. In 1903, forty-one years after the original prediction, the subspecies praedicta was found in Madagascar.

If such a prediction is cryptozoological, then this would cover all cases where the existence of a new zoological species may have been inferred prior to the discovery of actual physical remains.

If cryptozoology was based solely on studies such as these it would have a high claim as a scientific sub-discipline of zoology, or at the very least, if not strictly scientific in the experimental sense, to be at least scientific in the sense of the rigorous systematic collection of data. The problem with this argument is that the people who actually discovered the moth published their work as zoology and might, if anything like most present-day zoologists I know, have run a mile rather than describe themselves as cryptozoologists. This case of course occurred before Heuvelmans had coined the term “cryptozoology”. A more pertinent example would be the recent observations of another unknown species of beaked whale from the eastern Pacific. This species had been seen at least as far back as 1983 and referred to in the marine mammal scientific literature as Mesoplodon species A.

Separately there was physical evidence of a new species of whale in the form of various body parts that had appeared in the Peru region since 1976. Finally in 1991, Julio Reyes and his colleagues described a new species of toothed whale Mesoplodon peruvianus. Only recently has M. peruvianus become well enough known for Robert Pitman and his co-workers to argue convincingly that M. peruvianus actually is Mesoplodon species A. However, none of those involved in this story have, as far as I am aware, described themselves as cryptozoologists.

Furthermore, by Heuvelmans’ extended definition of cryptozoology outlined above, any extension of the geographical range of any recognised animal could be considered cryptozoological. Thus even more conventional zoologists would find themselves described as cryptozoologists. There would be no distinction between the predictive zoology of discovery and cryptozoology.

The trouble is the formal definition of cryptozoology (and its extension above) doesn’t accurately describe what most self-styled cryptozoologists actually study. The few journals and magazines of cryptozoology are not crammed full of discoveries of just any old new species of beetle or even (my own personal favourites) fish. Only news of new species of slightly odd or large animals seems to make it. Giant geckos get in, new species of small lizard do not. An out-of-place mammal might get a mention, kangaroos in Scotland for example, and any news of certain known animals (e.g. the giant squid Architeuthis sp.) will almost certainly be reported on, although not others, cattle or dogs for example.

Of course much of cryptozoology concerns evaluation of evidence prior to the discovery stage. Some cryptozoologists go out and actively hunt for Bigfoots, Nessies and the Mokele-Mbembes (allegedly, a large reptilian inhabitant of the swamps of central Africa). The more bookish sort peruse ancient tomes, artefacts, or even buildings for evidence of unknown animals known to the ancients. Some analyse travellers’ tales and the traditions of indigenous peoples. Most commonly of all, there are those who seek to collate, interpret and analyse testimonial evidence from observers who have claimed to have seen, and sometimes filmed, monstrous creatures as yet unknown to science.

So does any definition link those that claim the all-inclusive scientific basis of cryptozoology and the sometimes more unsystematic collectors of information? In my view there is one definition of cryptozoology that does take in this wide church and does reflect the interests of the cryptozoologists. It relies on looking at not only what cryptozoologists do but also what attracts their attention.

The animals have to be weird (like the coelacanth Latimeria sp.), perhaps on a once prolific but now pruned branch of the tree of life, or they have to be odd for their type (giant squid etc.). So perhaps cryptozoology is the study of weird (misshapen, ugly?) little-known but potentially exciting (and often big for their type) animals. This isn’t a great definition, but it is accurate. Of course there is a shorthand for this: cryptozoology is the study of monsters.

Just as some skeptics would take delight in my definition, some cryptozoologists would be horrified. Both groups would feel that such a subject of study is perhaps improper and intellectually dubious. I disagree; I don’t use the word “monster” pejoratively at all. The validity of cryptozoology rests on its methods, not on the subject of enquiry. How rigorous is cryptozoology? This varies.

Clearly cryptozoologists collect a lot of data from a variety of different sources, but it is often not systematic nor is it normally collected in the light of an hypothesis and hence it may not constitute “scientific study”. This is not necessarily a problem. Data unsystematically collected can still be amenable to scientific scrutiny by other workers, and the journals of cryptozoology do contain a little quantitative analysis of photographic and testimonial evidence.

For example the 1987 edition of Cryptozoology, the irregularly-appearing but peer-reviewed journal of the International Society of Cryptozoology, contained a quantitative analysis of the famous Wilson Nessie photograph (although admittedly the analysis was subsequently criticised by British skeptic Stuart Campbell and the photo itself has been subsequently revealed as a hoax).

Of course sometimes cryptozoologists collect data sloppily, or more commonly interpret their data without any critical evaluation or any consideration of Occam’s razor. What this normally means is that the unassignable, be it sightings or sounds or even I suppose smells, can be taken as evidence for unknown species rather than simply incomplete information. However, what the very best cryptozoologists do very well is dig up and evaluate very obscure information from very obscure sources. This could include newspaper reports from the far corners of the world or obscure references in ancient travel books.

In this way cryptozoology has more in common with history than zoology. The Canadian (crypto)zoologist Ben Roesch has compared it to Natural History. It also has similarity to an historical science like palaeontology. Odd specimens/accounts/artefacts turn up that have to be interpreted in context and are often subject to re-evaluation.

Cryptozoology, as actually done by the most methodically rigorous cryptozoologists, is an intellectually valid and exciting area of study. But often there is little quantification and data are not always interpreted in the most parsimonious manner. A cryptozoologist will pay lip service to the idea that alternative simpler hypotheses should be considered when evaluating eyewitness claims of encounters with unknown animals, but will not always accept them. For example, in his epic book on sea serpents Heuvelmans gave the following quotation concerning a strange animal washed up on the Norwegian coast:

Anno 1744 one Dogfind Korsbeck catched (sic), in the parish of Sundelvems on Sundmoer, a monstrous fish, which many people saw at his house. Its head was almost like that of a cat; it had four paws, and about the body was a hard shell like a lobster’s: it purred like a cat, and when they put a stick at it, it would snap at it. The peasants looked upon it as a Trold, or ominous fish, and were afraid to keep it; and consequently, a few hours later, they threw it into the sea again.

IN THE WAKE OF THE SEA-SERPENTS, HEUVELMANS, P.418

Heuvelmans seemed puzzled by this account and speculated that it may have been a (presumably juvenile) giant marine otter but it seems to me, rather obviously, to have been a turtle.

Another problem that cryptozoology has is that  many of the assumptions of its data acquisition have not been put to rigorous test. Is there any reason to believe the ancients would have known about still living species that are unknown to us today? Are secondary sources for eyewitness testimony reliable? In primary accounts, are observers accurately recollecting an anomalous (to them) animal? How good are people at recognising whether an animal is unknown to science? Are cryptids only seen under certain conditions? Is it possible to predict when and where unknown animals may be seen? It is on these sorts of questions on which the validity of cryptozoology as a method rests.

Cryptozoology isn’t a science but that doesn’t make it an invalid form of study. History is not science but it is still a rigorous form of intellectual endeavour. Nor does the fact that cryptozoology is not currently a science mean it won’t be in the future. Cryptozoology is slowly becoming self-critical. Cryptozoology was full of criticisms of published studies. Other recent articles have even criticised the conclusions of the “Father of Cryptozoology” himself. A new generation of (crypto)zoologists is suggesting that more attention be paid to pertinent psychological and palaeontological literature. People lie. Hoaxes happen. Eyewitness testimony is often flawed. Large unknown predators don’t generally exist where there is no food to support them. Sixty-five million year old fossil species really are unlikely to be alive today.

Skeptical criticism can only be a good thing for any discipline, including cryptozoology. With a few notable exceptions there has not been a sustained look at monster accounts by sceptics; easier targets seem to be preferred. The plausible (but not necessarily probable) nature of many of the claims of cryptozoology means that a dismissive, dry sceptical approach simply will not work. More than any other fringe subject, there really is the chance of some startling discoveries and some of these may well be anticipated by cryptozoologists. In the future there will be monsters…

Rhyme and Reason: a Rael expert takes a look at the Raelian movement

Steve Donnelly
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Rhyme and Reason: a Rael expert takes a look at the Raelian movement

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 15, Issue 2, from 2002.

To quote the broadcaster, Terry Wogan: “Is it me?” or is the world just going mad? I am an inveterate listener to BBC Radio 4, especially the flagship Today programme. In particular, I am always interested to hear scientific topics being addressed by John Humphrys, Sue MacGregor, and the rest of the crew (despite the occasional inanity of the questions) and it is always good to hear my fellow scientists doing a good job of explaining their interests to 6 million radio listeners. And so, as the redoubtable John Humphrys introduced an item on cloning a couple of weeks ago, I was wondering which academic expert the Today programme researchers would have selected to discuss this scientifically – and ethically – challenging topic. Professor Steve Jones perhaps? Or that standard fallback “our science correspondant, Pallab Ghosh”. No, neither of the above – instead the chosen expert was… Rael.

Rael wearing a white outfit with a metal necklace with a Rael symbol

Who? Well let me give you a bit of biographical background on the BBC’s chosen expert on human cloning. In December 1973, French motor racing journalist, Claude Vorilhon was driving through the extinct volcanoes of the Massif Central near Clermont-Ferrand when he happened upon a landed UFO and a group of friendly aliens with whom he engaged in conversation (as one does). It transpired that these friendly, scientifically and spiritually advanced folk were eager to get in contact with mankind but had been waiting for the right French freelance journalist to come along. What they needed, you see, was someone to set up a terrestrial embassy through which they could easily make contact with mankind on a regular basis without favouring any particular nation, culture or creed.

By the way, it is not clear to me what the Aetherius Society had, or have, to say about this, as their founder, taxi-driver – and later Prince and Archbishop – George King, was declared to be Earth’s voice on the Interplanetary Parliament back in May 1954.

But continuing with M. Vorilhon’s story – the aliens, known as the Elohim, wished to help mankind create “a world of leisure, creativity and fulfilment, free from the burden of money and the need to work . . .” They certainly helped our journalist friend achieve these latter two objectives by getting him to change his name to Rael and to found the Raelian religion to which members donate a goodly chunk of their income.

Raelian symbol - a star of david with swirls in the middle
Raelian symbol

A major objective of the Raelian movement is to obtain the funding and an appropriate piece of real estate near Jerusalem (on the Gaza strip maybe?) to enable the construction of Earth’s intergalactic embassy. The Elohim have kindly provided a detailed specification for the embassy building which should be constructed in the middle of a park and should include (amongst other things) a swimming pool and a dining room capable of seating 21 people. The grounds surrounding the embassy (minimum 1050 metres in radius) must have the status of an “extra-territoriality” – a bit like the Vatican – and the Elohim must, of course, have free transit rights through the airspace above it.

But what on Earth (or elsewhere) has this got to do with human cloning? Well, the connection is that rather than being the products of Darwinian evolution, we (i.e. the human race) were manufactured in a test tube by the Elohim many millennia ago. Primitive man then understandably regarded our lab-coated creators as gods and – superstitious people that they were – worshipped them and founded the many different world religions, the better to extol their glory. Now that we have entered the 21st century, however, and are capable of creating life in test tubes ourselves, the time has come to abandon our mantle of superstitious religious belief and get back in contact with our creators, through the good auspices of Rael. And given the fact that he is the recipient of the Elohim’s advanced and ever so ancient knowledge of the creation of life – the very knowledge that gave rise to the creation of mankind itself – who better could the BBC consult as an expert on human cloning?

When I met Rael on a Central TV programme many years ago, he was dressed entirely in white, was relaxed and smiling and was surrounded by a number of adoring, attractive young women half his age. I was feeling rather irate at the idea that anyone could possibly take this nonsense seriously and one of Rael’s vestal virgins shouted at me “Are you happy? You don’t look happy! But we’re happy!”.

Thinking about it, with the prospect of soon having a beautiful embassy building somewhere warm (with swimming pool and dining room for 21 people), being surrounded by adoring young twenty-somethings and never having to work again – and now being a scientific expert to the BBC on human cloning, I suspect that Claude Vorilhon made a better career decision in December 1973 than I have ever made.

Philosopher’s corner: where a false claim becomes a nonsense claim

Julian Baggini
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Philosopher’s corner: where a false claim becomes a nonsense claim

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 15, Issue 2, from 2002.

There are only two things I disbelieve as a matter of principle: things that are false and things that are nonsense. The difference between the two is important, and is giving me a headache.

One useful philosophical principle that can help us decide what to accept as true or reject as false is the principle of charity. This requires us to interpret the position under examination in the way which makes it as rational and cogent as possible. Put another way, the principle states: don’t erect a straw man. I believe this principle is absolutely central to earnest intellectual inquiry. We are often tempted to portray the opinions of our opponents in such a way as to make them look as irrational and implausible as possible. This makes it easier for us to score points against them and confirm our own views. But our victory is hollow unless we test the strongest version of their claims. For example, if you want to prove you have a better football team than Manchester United you have to play their first eleven. Beat their reserves and you can always say “we beat Man U”, but you know deep down the contest was rigged. Similarly, you have only defeated your intellectual opponent if you have taken on the strongest case supporting their belief.

So, if you consider any view while following the principle of charity, by the end you should be able to decide whether it is true, false or whether the jury’s still out. Simple.

But what about nonsense? This is much trickier. The process of assessing a point of view or argument is much more straightforward if you can make sense of it. Unless we want to play at crude relativism, it is quite clear, for example, that the statement “it is safer to use MMR than not” must be either true or false. With nonsense, we don’t say it is true or false, we say it doesn’t make sense. Thus, “the yellow anger sung exponentially” isn’t true or false – it’s gobbledegook.

You might be tempted to say this is false, but problems arise if you do. Hence Bertrand Russell’s obsession with the statement “The present King of France is bald”. If there is no present king of France, to say this is false creates a logical problem because it would imply that “The present King of France is not bald” is true. But of course that isn’t true either. Philosophers love such logical conundrums as much as non-philosophers find them ridiculous.

Black and orange 3D question marks laid on a black background

Here’s the cause of my headache: how do you decide whether something is nonsense or whether you just don’t understand it? There are clear examples of both. Some nonsense is easy to spot, such as the rubbish I wrote above about yellow anger. On other occasions it is obvious that we are in no position to judge. Such would be the case if I failed to follow a lecture in theoretical physics. I know full well that I just don’t know enough about it to decide if it’s nonsense or not.

The problem arises in the intermediate cases, what we might call the Derrida problem. Someone with a British intellectual training who tries to read Derrida often becomes utterly confused. The trouble is, Derrida is not talking theoretical physics. His subject matter is the same as that of his British contemporaries. So there is an expectation that we should be able to understand him and when we don’t, it’s easy to think that he’s just talking nonsense.

But to do this seems chauvinistic. Surely the principle of charity, in this instance, decrees that the most charitable explanation of Derrida’s difficulty is that it just is difficult and you need to spend much more time studying him if you want to make sense of him. Until and unless one makes such an effort, judgement must be suspended. And it’s no good saying that certain of his pronouncements are just incoherent. We must at least allow for the possibility that Derridian discourse, though paradoxical from our viewpoint, is intellectually rigorous and just as capable of being rationally assessed as our home-grown philosophy. The semblance of contradiction, for example, may simply be an artefact of our way of reading him.

However, this is troubling. We want to disbelieve the false and the nonsensical. Indeed, many skeptics argue against certain beliefs (perhaps particularly New Age ones) on the grounds of their incoherence rather than their falsity. If the principle of charity demands that we suspend judgement when we don’t understand something – or when we think we understand it to be nonsense but others insist we just haven’t been thinking about it appropriately – it seems we might have to suspend judgement about too much.

Therein lies the cause of my headache. How do I best assess the views of those who, to the extent to which I do understand them, seem to be talking nonsense, but of whom some might say I just don’t understand them at all? It’s not just my problem – it’s one for all skeptics.

A case of spirits: a look at the history of spirit photography

Chris Willis
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A case of spirits: a look at the history of spirit photography

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 15, Issue 2, from 2002.

The camera cannot lie – or can it? From the mid-Victorian era to the 1920s, thousands of people were hoaxed by photos which supposedly proved the existence of ghosts. A fascinating selection of such photographs has been put online by the American Museum of Photography.

Unscrupulous photographers made large sums of money by producing photographs of sitters accompanied by other-worldly “spirits”. These “spirits” were usually supposed to be the ghosts of the sitter’s recently deceased friends or relatives. Desperate for some reassurance of life after death, the bereaved sitters were unlikely to question the result.

The first spirit photographer was American William H Mumler of Boston, who produced hundreds of photos during the 1860s. Many of his victims had lost sons, fathers, brothers or husbands in the American Civil War and were desperate for consolation. One of Mumler’s most vocal opponents was circus impresario PT Barnum. He condemned Mumler as a fraud, and pointed out that the unscrupulous photographer was exploiting the vulnerability of people whose judgement was clouded by grief. Barnum gave evidence at Mumler’s trial for fraud in May 1869. Mumler was charged with having “swindled many credulous persons, leading them to believe it is possible to photograph the immaterial forms of their departed friends”. To show how easy it was to fake a spirit photo, Barnum and a photographer friend, Abraham Bogardus, produced a photo which appeared to show Barnum with the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.

Spirit photos were easy to fake. Popular knowledge of photography was limited at this time, and most people did not know that such pictures could be produced by a simple double exposure. Another method was even simpler. In this era, exposures of up to a minute were needed for photographs. So, while the subject was sitting still and gazing at the camera, the photographer’s assistant, dressed in suitably ghostly robes, would step into the picture and stand behind them, moving gently so as to create a “ghostly” blur which would render his or her features less recognisable. Alternatively, a dummy could be put into place behind them, and revealed by pulling back a curtain. Other methods involved tampering with the photographic plate during processing.

Mumler narrowly escaped conviction when the judge reluctantly decided that there was insufficient evidence against him. Others were not so fortunate. In Paris, Édouard Buguet and his associate M. Leymarie were imprisoned in 1875 after investigators discovered the dummies and cardboard cut-outs which they used to create “spirits” for their photographs.

Spirit photography enjoyed a revival in Britain after the First World War. One of the best-known spirit photographers, William Hope, took over 2,500 spirit photographs before being exposed as a fraud by Harry Price of the University of London Council for Psychical Investigation. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tried to rescue Hope’s reputation in his 1922 publication The Case for Spirit Photography. This book is lavishly illustrated with spirit photographs which Doyle felt proved his case. To the modern reader, these appear to be simple double exposures, but knowledge of the technical aspects of photography was less common in the 1920s, and many people appear to have been convinced by Hope and others of his kind.

A press photo of Harry Houdini sitting in a chair and looking down at his hands where he holds a pair of handcuffs. He is wearing a black suit with a white shirt and bow tie.
Harry Houdini

Magicians such as Harry Houdini were indefatigable in their quest to expose such frauds. In 1922, the popular press gleefully reported the exposure of two fraudulent “spirit photographers” by a body of professional magicians: the Occult Committee of the Magic Circle. This body specialised in investigating the claims of self-styled mediums and psychics, many of whom used magician’s tricks to fool people into thinking they had supernatural powers.

One of the most notorious post-war cases was that of spirit photographer Ada Emma Deane. On Armistice Day 1924 she produced a remarkable photograph which appeared to show the spirits of dead soldiers hovering over the Cenotaph in Whitehall. The photo was published in the Daily Sketch, which asked whether any of its readers recognised the faces in the photo. Unfortunately for Deane, many of them did. The “spirits” were not dead soldiers but living footballers and boxers, copied from other photographs. The furious Sketch condemned Deane’s “clear intention … to play upon the feelings of unhappy people who had lost sons in the war”. It challenged her to produce a genuine photo under test conditions, offering her a reward of £1,000 if she was successful. Deane refused the challenge, giving the Sketch ample justification to proclaim her “a Charlatan and a Fraud”.

Spirit photography continued well into the late twentieth century. One incredible photo (reproduced to accompany an article by Matthew Sweet in The Independent on Sunday last year) shows Conan Doyle’s face apparently materialising in the middle of a blob of repulsive ectoplasm which is emerging from a medium’s nose. As Sweet comments, such “supernatural elements now telegraph their paste-and-paper fraudulence”. But to many people at the time they appeared to be proof of what they desperately wished to believe – that their loved ones had some kind of life after death.

Modern writers are rightly skeptical about spirit photographs. But spirit photography still exists, albeit in a slightly different form. Not long ago I visited a New Age fair where an enterprising photographer offered to take a photo of my aura for an extortionate fee. She seemed surprised when I declined the kind offer. But maybe spirit photography will soon be superseded by more modern technology. A recent UK television documentary featured a medium who claimed to be able to contact the dead via the internet. Now there’s a terrifying thought. Imagine being bombarded with junk email from beyond the grave!

References

  • Harper’s Weekly, 8 May 1869, p 289.
  • Harry Price: Confessions of a Ghost Hunter (London: Putnam, 1936), p 169.
  • Arthur Conan Doyle et al: The Case for Spirit Photography (London: Hutchinson, 1922).
  • See, for example, News of the World, 14 May 1922, p 12.
  • Daily Sketch 13 November 1924, p 10.
  • Daily Sketch 15 November 1924, pp 1, 2 and 15.
  • Daily Sketch 17 November 1924, p 13.
  • Daily Sketch 19 November 1924, p 2.
  • Daily Sketch 21 November 1924, p 1.
  • Daily Sketch 21 November 1924, p 2. An account of the Deane fraud is also given by Harry Price in Confessions of a Ghost Hunter.
  • Matthew Sweet: “They Saw Dead People” in The Independent on Sunday magazine, 23 December 2001. pp 18-21.
  • See for example, Fred Gettings: Ghosts in Photographs, The Extraordinary Story of Spirit Photography (New York: Harmony Books, 1978).

Do astrologers have to believe in astrology?

Nick Campion
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Do astrologers have to believe in astrology?

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 15, Issue 2, from 2002.

The skeptic movement’s historic task is to counter the rise in belief in paranormal claims – a goal enshrined in the Humanist denunciation of astrology in 1975, in this case specifically to reverse the increased acceptance of astrology. The trouble is that none of the signatories of the famous statement had ever actually worked out whether acceptance of astrology was increasing. It was just assumed. No tests were done, no evidence was gathered. It was not considered necessary to do this in order to state what seemed to them to be a self-evident truth. But what if nobody takes magazine horoscopes seriously any more, as Lucy Sherriff argued? What if acceptance of astrology as a whole is actually declining? If that were to be the case scepticism would remain as an interesting intellectual activity, but the sense of cultural crisis that led to the creation of CSICOP in 1976 would disappear.

Astrology occupies a sort of public front line in the whole debate about paranormal belief largely because of the high public profile achieved by sun-sign columns. For many years, as an unofficial “expert” in the history of astrology I have fielded questions from journalists who want to know (a) whether belief in astrology is increasing?; (b) if it is, then why?; and (c) how many people currently believe in it? The answers to these questions were pretty much already formulated in their minds as follows: (a) belief in astrology is increasing and has been doing so ever since the 1960s boom in alternative ideas; (b) the cause is the collapse in traditional church-going, which has opened a spiritual vacuum – which in turn is filled by horoscopes, tarot cards and so on; and (c) a lot of people believe in it. Although skeptics would replace the journalists’ (b) (which is in fact a standard Christian explanation for declining church attendance) with a lack of scientific understanding and education, the fact is that the answers to all these questions is a resounding “don’t know”. Between them Erich Goode and Glenn Sparks have seriously cast doubt on the established notion that belief in astrology is necessarily incompatible with either traditional religious faith or knowledge of science.

So how many people actually believe in astrology?

The figures for belief in astrology are usually based on questions about readership of horoscope columns or private visits to astrologers, which are activities assumed to indicate belief in the subject. It has been pointed out time and time again that, when people are asked direct questions about matters which impinge on their private beliefs, their answers depend on who is doing the asking and how they feel at that particular moment. And that’s before we even face the ultimate problem of how the question is asked. One way or another, the figures cited for belief in astrology in a range of studies over the last thirty years are, when taken together, so variable as to be almost meaningless. Recent research by Glenn Sparks found that 89% of church-goers and 91% of non-goers agree with the statement that “Horoscopes DO NOT contain accurate information”, suggesting a level of belief in astrology of around 10% across the population as a whole. Yet the weakness of such questions is clear: they invite the subject to make an evaluation of objective truth rather than asking them how they actually feel. At the other end of the scale Sue Blackmore and Marianne Seebold elicited much higher answers from a small group of women undergraduates at the University of the West of England. They found that 13% would consult an astrologer before settling down, 22% knew their moon sign (suggesting they had taken active steps to find this out), 24% had read a teach-yourself astrology book or had taken a course in the subject, 39% valued the advice given in horoscope columns, 70% regularly read such columns, 85% agreed that their sun-sign description suited their personality and 100% knew their sun-sign. So, how would we fix a level of belief from this sample? It’s clearly anywhere between 13% and 85%.

One solution is to fall back on attempts to distinguish “strong” believers from “weak”. Yet, here again the results vary wildly. In the UK Bauer and Durant established a figure of 5% for “serious believers” while in Germany Paulik and Buse’s “strong believers” were almost eight times as numerous at 38%. The existence of such a discrepancy between two such similar countries suggests fatal methodological flaws and essentially arbitrary judgements about what behaviour might differentiate strong belief from weak. It’s more likely that at one end of the attitude spectrum there is a tiny number of people who consult astrologers obsessively and at the other there is a small group who denounce it vigorously. The bulk of the population exists in a grey mass somewhere in the middle. They may have no strong opinions either way. They might think one thing in the morning and another in the afternoon, or they might quite happily hold contradictory beliefs at one and the same time.

And what does “belief” mean?

And then there’s the whole question of the definition of belief. Strictly speaking, the word’s definition is neutral, meaning simply “trust or confidence” in the object of belief and, in the examples given in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, the objects of belief can be either religious, intuitive, a matter of opinion or an accepted fact. Thus it is possible to believe both in the Virgin birth and the existence of gravity without implying that one is more true than the other. In this sense a belief does not have to be true but neither is it necessarily false: it is the perception of the believer that counts. However, in much of the skeptical scientific literature, a “belief ” is automatically defined as false unless, in rare cases, proved otherwise. A summary of the skeptical arguments is given by Robert Park, Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland in his recent book, Voodoo Science, well reviewed by Chris French in a recent issue of The Skeptic (Vol. 14 no 2). The book’s stature is endorsed by jacket-blurbs from Richard Dawkins and Paul Gross, author of Higher Superstition. Park’s argument is not only that beliefs are necessarily false but that they result from a physiological malfunction of the brain. In other words, belief is roughly equivalent to mental illness. The very word belief has become so loaded that it’s surprising that anyone admits to belief in anything.

Do astrologers believe in astrology?

Astrology charts and books

With all this in mind I devised a questionnaire asking delegates at the 2000 British Astrological Association conference how they would respond to the question “do you believe in astrology?”, with four possible answers (a: yes, b: no, c: don’t know and d: other) to account for every eventuality, and invited them to explain their reasons. I sought a quantitative result, but one which could only be justified in the light of qualitative material, the respondents’ justification of their answers. I received forty-seven replies out of a total of 220 questionnaires distributed, a return of 21%. Although quantitative conclusions from such a small sample can be misleading, the responses were surprising. Only 27, or 57%, ticked “yes”, the other 43% opting for “no”, “don’t know” or “other”. A breakdown of these three options is also interesting. While 1 opted for “don’t know”, only 3 chose “no”, but 14 (30%) ticked “other”, disputing the basis of the question. Belief, according these astrologers, is not an appropriate word to apply to astrology.

What I found most surprising, though, is that the reasons given for each answer did not differ. The overwhelming response was that astrology is such an obvious part of the natural world that either (a) of course one believes in it, (b) of course one doesn’t need to believe in it because it works or (c) the whole question of belief is irrelevant. I’ve been backing up my questionnaires with interviews and so far I’ve spoken to about twenty astrologers in the UK and USA, all “opinion formers” in the sense that they are prominent writers or lecturers on the subject. Again, what I’ve found surprising is the almost uniform rejection of any religious dimension in astrology and the simple claim that one doesn’t believe in astrology because of the simple fact that it works. And that, of course, takes us into territory covered by the Barnum Effect, the argument, as applied to astrology, that astrologers believe that astrology works because they are inclined to agree with its statements and claims.

So what do we do with astrologers who, in research done to date, should surely be classed as “strong” or “serious” believers in astrology, yet claim that they don’t believe in it at all? Can we argue that they really are believers – they just don’t know it? This solution is somewhat patronising, a little like well-meaning missionaries travelling the Empire lecturing the natives on the inadequacies of their religions.

The fact is that the argument that says that astrologers are necessarily believers may be flawed. Basically it runs like this: all research into astrology indicates that its claims are false, therefore nobody can accept it on the basis of the evidence and, finally, its adherents are therefore “believers”. We can then supposedly quantify the number of believers and reduce the total by convincing them of the evidence against astrology.

However, putting to one side for the moment the issue of whether astrologers’ personal observations of astrology actually working can be explained away, we have a number of other issues to consider. First, for those astrologers who are swayed by empirical research, there are in existence published positive results for astrology – and that’s without getting into the complex issues surrounding the Mars Effect. These results may be flawed, but then so is a great deal of research in all areas. That’s not the point. What matters is that they exist and have been published. Second, the astrological literature regularly contains trenchant responses to the skeptics. And third, there are schools of thought within astrology which argue for a range of philosophical reasons that scientific tests (including, as it happens, the positive ones) are irrelevant. That skeptics might dismiss these arguments as irrelevant overlooks the fact that they exist and are influential. So, are astrologers who form a perfectly reasoned assumption that astrological claims are true to be considered “believers”, as if they should know that the object of their belief is false? The waters are further muddied by research which tests levels of gullibility among skeptics, blurring the distinction between them and “believers in astrology”.

What I’m saying is, that half-way through my research into belief in astrology, I’m no longer convinced that belief is a useful category for measuring astrology – or anything. And, if anyone can convince me that it is, I’ll be very happy.

References

  • “Objections to Astrology: A statement by 186 leading scientists”, Humanist, September/October 1975, pp. 4-6. See also Kurtz, Paul, “A Quarter Century of Skeptical Inquiry: My Personal Involvement”, Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 25 no 4, July/August 2001, pp. 42-47.
  • Sherriff, Lucy, “Women are NOT from Gullibull”, The Skeptic, Vol. 14 no 3, p.7.
  • Miller, Jon D., “The Public Acceptance of Astrology and other Pseudo-science in the United States”, paper presented to the 1992 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 9 February 1992; Miller, Jon D., “The Scientifically Illiterate”, American Demographics, 1987, Vol. 9, pp. 26-31.
  • Sparks, Glenn G., “The Relationship Between Paranormal Beliefs and Religious Beliefs”, Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 25 no 5, September/October 2001, pp. 50-56. Goode, Erich, “Education, Scientific Knowledge, and Belief in the Paranormal”, Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 26 no 1, January/February 2002, pp. 24-27.
  • Jahoda, Gustav, The Psychology of Superstition, London: Allen Lane 1969, pp. 25-26; Bennett, Gillian, Traditions of Belief: Women, Folklore and the Supernatural Today, London: Penguin 1987, p. 27. Edwards, Allen L. Techniques of Attitude Scale Construction, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts 1957, pp. 3-5.13; Payne, Stanley L., The Art of Asking Questions, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1st edn. 1951, 1980, pp. 3-10.
  • Sparks 2001, p. 55.
  • Blackmore, Susan and Seebold, Marianne, “The Effect of Horoscopes on Women’s Relationships”, Correlation, Vol. 19 no 2, Winter 2000-1, pp. 14-23.
  • Bauer, John, and Durant, Martin, “British Public Perceptions of Astrology: An Approach from the Sociology of Knowledge”, Culture and Cosmos Vol. 1 no 1, 1997, pp. 55-72.
  • Park, Robert, Voodoo Science: the Road from Foolishness to Fraud, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000, pp 35-6.
  • Vaughan, Valerie, “Debunking the Debunkers: Lessons to be Learned”, The Mountain Astrologer, no 80, August/September 1998, pp. 11-17.
  • See for example, Cornelius, Geoffrey, The Moment of Astrology, London: Penguin-Arkana 1994.
  • Glick, Peter; Gottesman, Deborah; Jolton, Jeffrey, “The Fault is Not In The Stars: Susceptibility of Skeptics and Believers in Astrology to the Barnum Effect” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 15 no 4, December 1989, pp 572-583.

Parsnips and plugholes . . .

Phil
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Volume 15 Number 1, Spring 2002

Rhyme and Reason

Steve Donnelly

I decided to make a New Year’s resolution this year: to stop being weird. It all began in the fruit and vegetable section of the supermarket where I was closely examining the parsnips as I always do at this time of the year, just before my final lecture to first-year Physics undergraduates on classical mechanics. As the final topic on my lecture course, I talk about Newton’s conic sections as these link the mundane with the cosmic and serve beautifully to illustrate the simplicity that often underpins the apparent complexity of the universe. What are conic sections? Well, if you take a solid cone and slice it in four different ways the edges of the different cuts form a circle, an ellipse, a parabola and a hyperbola respectively and these curves are precisely the orbits of celestial bodies — planets, comets and others — as they move through the heavens. Parsnips are the most conical vegetable in my supermarket and are easily sliced and so I have been using them for several years to illustrate conic sections in my lectures. All very logical and reasonable, you might say; however, that view didn’t appear to be shared by the young woman in a Tesco uniform who noticed me perusing the parsnips. “Can I help you”, she kindly enquired. “No it’s OK”, I replied. “I’m just trying to find the most conical parsnips”.

The look on her face as she slowly backed away and said “Yes, OK . . .” in a sort of placatory way was one with which I am very familiar. For instance, on my very first flight across the equator, the fact that I spent 30 minutes locked in the toilet trying to determine which way the water went down the plughole (i) just north of the equator, (ii) exactly on the equator and (iii) just south of the equator seemed entirely reasonable to me. Unfortunately, the reply that followed my explanation of my temporary absence (“You what?!”) was accompanied by exactly the same kind of facial expression as that of my Tesco fruit and vegetable assistant. And there is the nub of the problem; a problem, by the way, that I imagine is experienced by all scientists whose nearest and dearest do not share their profession: the walk around the reservoir interrupted by the physicist trying to work out why the light reflected off the water is making that complex pattern on the dam wall or by the entomologist trying to understand why the crane fly is behaving in such an odd manner. Or perhaps, the afternoon on the beach with the meteorologist preoccupied with the odd movement of the clouds or with the chemist trying to understand the origins of the foam that flecks the water’s edge. All of these seem like entirely legitimate concerns to me (as do water in plugholes and conical parsnips) but unfortunately to most of the rest of the world they just come over as, well . . . weird. Thus my New Year resolution.

But then I got to thinking about it. Trying to figure out how little tiny little bits of the universe work is what my training and my profession is all about. But it also the underlying reason for my interest in all things paranormal. I am confronted with an apparently strange phenomenon and want to find the real explanation for it. The fact that many people interpret it as a UFO, a ghost, an angel, a perpetual motion machine or the direct intervention of God is really of no consequence to me and doesn’t much enter into my attempts to determine the true explanation. And that attitude is weird. I mean, if millions of people all over the globe believe that the virgin Mary is manifesting herself in Medjugorje or Lourdes how could I possibly fail to agree with them? Everyone knows that, although sun-sign/newspaper astrology can’t really work very well, when you go to a REAL astrologer and get a SERIOUS reading that you will really learn things about yourself that you didn’t know before and you may even get some genuine information about your future. I may be a physicist but what right does that give me to disagree with so many people? The royal family use homeopathic medicines so how can a mere commoner possibly query the clear beneficial action of a complete absence of molecules dissolved in water (nothing acts faster than Anadin!)? Anyone who disagrees with so many people, including royalty and Nancy Regan, must be foolish, arrogant and, well . . . weird!

So I had a good think about it and decided that I am going to withdraw my New Year resolution and continue asking odd questions and engaging in strange activities with parsnips and plugholes. In fact, although it is too late for a new, New Year resolution for this year, next year I am going to resolve to continue to be weird and perhaps to launch a campaign to promote my particular kind of weirdness. I’d write more about this, but I have just noticed that a little tiny drop of water on my computer monitor is producing a strange coloured pattern and I just want to figure out what’s going on . . .

 

Steve Donnelly is a former editor of the The Skeptic magazine and Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Salford.

We Are The Skeptics My Friend

Phil
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We Are The Skeptics My Friend

An article by Malcolm Robinson on the Skeptics in the Pub meeting of 20th February 2002.

Someone once said, “I don’t believe in ghosts, but you’ll never get me in a haunted house!!” I quote these words quite often to show people what those skeptical of UFOs and the paranormal usually say to me when we are in discussion about such matters. They seem to be caught between a rock and a hard place and although they don’t believe in such things, it is difficult for me to tempt them to come on a haunting case with me!! This does not apply however to those more hardened skeptics who would gladly come with me on any Investigations. UFO and Paranormal research ‘needs’ skeptics. Skeptics keep us on our toes and make sure our feet remain firmly on the ground. So I decided to jump over the fence and enter into what some would say was ‘enemy territory’ I took in my very first skeptic meeting which was held at the Florence Nightingale pub near Waterloo Station, London on a very cold and wind-swept February night.

The bar was full and the atmosphere was pleasant and after purchasing a drink at the bar, I made my way upstairs to where the main meeting was being held. A number of people had already taken their seats and more were coming in. Scott Campbell who apparently had been the chairman in previous meetings broke into the chit chat and stated that he was now handing over the chairing of further Skeptic in the Pub meetings to a colleague of his, Nick Pullar. Scott went on to thank everyone for making his time so enjoyable in hosting these lectures and wished his successor all the best in his new position. With that the new chairman Nick Pullar took over. Nick was a bubbly and very confident chairman and I liked his humour and style immensely. He started by talking about what had been featured in all the British press that day, ie, that at 8:02pm the world would witness a time that is truly, triply palindromic, for the time will read 20:02 20/02/2002. One can read the time, day and month backwards or forwards in numeric form and the result will still be the same, this Nick told us, won’t come round for another 111 years. Now not only this, he went on to say, but the great Israeli psychic Uri Geller claims that at this precise time anyone who stares into his eyes on a photograph of him which is featured in the Sunday People newspaper, could make their dreams come true! With that, and immense laughter coming from all quarters of the by now busy room, Nick pointed to the dart board where someone had placed the said copy of the Sunday People newspaper which featured the photograph of Mr Geller. Nick went on to say that he had been in Uri’s web site and began to read statements from it that he found amusing, this raised many laughs from the 45 or so individuals in the smoke filled room. With his jovial statements over and moving away from the dart board with Uri’s face, he then introduced the speaker for the evening, Mr John Wall. John is a professional engineer who has been called a ‘snivelling, insinuating little worm’ by Graham Hancock, author of ‘Fingerprints of the Gods’. John was here to skeptically evaluate Hancock’s work and give an overview of the so called ‘Alternative History Movement’. He wasted no time whatsoever in firstly poking fun at Uri Geller and certain things that he stood for which again raised many laughs in the audience. Sitting there, I began to realise the stark difference between the society I run, Strange Phenomena Investigations (SPI UK) and this one. We never poke fun publicly at individuals who are working in the field; at best we will state publicly that we disagree with them, but never go so far as to publicly raise some laughs at their expense!!

The title of John’s talk was, ‘Alternative History and the Ma’atians From Cyberspace’, subtitled, ‘Weighing the Evidence for Alternative History’. John was only about 5 or 10 minutes into his talk when chairman Nick Pullar stood up and told us all to be quiet as it was now 8:02 and that palindromic moment that he referred to earlier was now upon us. He asked each and every one of us to look at the dartboard with Uri Geller’s picture on it, and stare at Uri’s eyes. He asked out loud, “Can anybody see anything thing? Is anyone getting anything?” It was hard to hear Nick for the loud belly laughs that came from all quarters of the room. As some people were wiping the tears away from their eyes, Nick quickly apologised to the speaker and asked that he resume his talk.

John then continued with references of ancient civilisations throughout the world by that early pioneer Erich Von Daniken. John showed how in his belief, Von Daniken’s work and conclusions were very flawed, he went on to say, “I personally would never trust anyone with the initials V.D. in a name”. Needless to say, this got the desired result and the audience fell about once more. To his credit, John Wall opened my eyes to a lot about the work of Graham Hancock and others. He spoke about the face on Mars and showed how very different that face was now owing to recent photographs taken of it by NASA. In 1976 the Mars face was clear as a bell, whilst fairly recently (and he showed the slide to prove it) you wouldn’t think it was a face at all (if it ever was in the first place!) He presented some fascinating stuff about the pyramids of Egypt and told us that when he was there, the pyramids smelt of smelly western tourists! John might have raced through his slides, but there was no denying he knew his stuff, and a subject like this requires more than the time allocated to him. His humour was admittedly at the expense of Graham Hancock and whilst as I mentioned earlier these two chaps may not get on and disagree about each other’s work, it’s nonetheless not professional to raise laughs at the expense of others. I also found John’s discussion on the famous Piri Reis map fascinating. He clearly showed that the original promoter of that map, one Charles Hapgood, only saw what he wanted to see, for as John Wall pointed out, the map that Hapgood looked at clearly had the words ‘conjecture’ on it! At this point chairman Nick Pullar said that there would be a short 10-minute break for everyone to refresh their glasses. Needless to say I partook of this clever advice, but before doing so got talking with a gentleman sat next to me. Like me, this was his first meeting and he said that he was on a search for the truth, “I think we all are”, I replied. This chap never came back for the second half!!

Resuming the talk John went into many many aspects of ancient civilisations, and brought up the name of Zechariah Sitchin. Sitchin too has claimed many wondrous things regarding ancient civilisations and men from the stars. Mr Wall stated quite categorically that in his opinion, Zechariah Sitchin was an out and out fraud and that he was more than happy to say slanderous things about him. The audience was then shown underwater walkways and steps, although as John pointed out these were all ‘natural formations’. Slide after slide after slide was shown by John all of ‘natural formations’ which Hancock and others believe were either terraces or walls of some ancient and forgotten culture. “Nonsense” said John. Looking at the slides of these underwater formations and hearing John point out the alternative explanation, well, it seemed he had a point! He then showed how flawed Hancock’s work was in regards to the three Egyptian pyramids and their alleged precision and alignment to the stars on Orion’s belt. Hancock, Wall said, misled his readers with shoddy assumptions, whereupon John with his descriptions and drawings showed that there were no correlations from the pyramids to the stars. John called the book ‘The Fingerprints of the Gods’ which was written by Hancock, ‘FOG’, as presumably it clouded the reader’s judgement on matters discusses by Hancock. John then had a go at Astrology and gave it as much credence as he did the works of Hancock.

‘Signs of the Sky’ is a book by one Adrian Gilbert, it too, said John, is heavily flawed, as is ‘The Book Keeper Of Genesis’ by Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval and also ‘The Message Of The Sphinx’. And in regards to Graham Hancock’s latest book, ‘Underworld’, well John thinks it would have been better called ‘Blunderworld’ and would make a great door stopper. He also said that Graham Hancock is an ancient world Jilly Cooper!! He didn’t stop with these ancient civilisation authors; a number of interesting articles on ancient civilisations have been featured in the Daily Mail of late and John asked the audience had anyone read the ‘Daily Fail’. So dear reader, you can see the feelings that the guest speaker had towards his fellow ‘seekers of the truth’!

All the above may sound very ‘picky’ by me and I really don’t mean it to be so. John Wall presented a thoroughly fascinating lecture which, believe you me, made me sit up and think. We as researchers need to see what the skeptics are presenting; we need to attend their meetings and shouldn’t alienate ourselves from them. Far from it, we need to work side by side with them where we can both hopefully share in discoveries and put our hand on our heart when either ‘we’ or ‘they’ are wrong. My attendance at the Skeptics in the Pub (as they call it) meeting was an exercise for me to practice what I preach. I am always banging on about how there are two sides to every coin and for us never to take any story at face value. Good and honest research may well uncover hidden treasures, which will be a benefit to us all.

At the close of the meeting I spoke to chairman Nick Pullar (calling him John, oops how embarrassing!) where Nick proceeded to tell me that he had checked out the SPI web site and found it interesting but didn’t share my views on our research into the ‘Devon Case’. I expressed the view that this was not a conclusive and researched case, that article basically just told it as it was but I was impressed by his comments nonetheless.

All in all, my decision to attend the Skeptics in the Pub meeting was a good one, there were around 45 people there and the guest speaker was very knowledgeable. And although they kept poking fun at other researchers, which I felt was over the top, the evening was a thoroughly good exercise in ‘peering over the garden wall’ into the next door neighbours garden!!

© Malcolm Robinson, Strange Phenomena Investigations (SPI UK). Reproduced with Permission

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