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Are UFOs & Ufology In Decline? If So—Why?

Why is Ufology on the decline?

  • Pre-Millenial tension has subsided

    Votes: 1 5.3%

  • Preoccupied with terrestrial problems (war, terrorism, the economy)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • No-one watches the X-Files anymore

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • No cases of significance in the last few years

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Too many recent hoaxes

    Votes: 4 21.1%

  • Realisation it will never be proven with photos and video alone

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • The visitors are lying low for some reason

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • They’ve finally realized it’s all bollocks

    Votes: 2 10.5%

  • UFOs are probably secret military stuff, and the military ain't talkin'

    Votes: 2 10.5%

  • The internet has killed discussion groups off, by and large

    Votes: 1 5.3%

  • All/some of the above

    Votes: 9 47.4%
  • Total voters
    19
I would suggest that anyone who is looking for the media blinkeredness , should read "The Missing Times". This explains the way media is used to withhold information and put out reports debunking sightings.

Secondly , when we say "Ufology is dead" what does that entail? Sightings are still consistent and people are still reporting these sightings but the issue over whether the media wants to report these cases , is another matter.

Not a criticism , but the Fortean Times UFO section is not showing Fortean principles in its reporting or discussion of this phenomena.
 
graylien said:
The Guardian's comment that "it would appear that public interest in UFOs has waned significantly since the 1970s film Close Encounters of the Third Kind suggested we are not alone" is patently ridiculous, of course. The high-water mark of 'public interest' in UFOs was surely between the late 80's and mid-90's - fuelled by the likes of Streiber, Hopkins, and the fledgling X files...
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I think interest in UFOloogy goes in waves, there was the original 50s wave, then a peak in the late 60s with Eric Von D et al. Another peak in the late 70s with CE3K, then the early 90s with Strieber & the X-files.

There's not really been anything to stir interest lately (unless the SERPO farrago goes mainstream). IMO, we're on the downturn of the latest ghosts and psychic wave at the moment and still on the crest of conspiracy wave (especially religious conspiracies, thanks Dan Brown) as far as the public interest in the weird goes.

UFOs may come again.
 
definitely right about that, timble - adding to this, i think that the early 90s were a high point of public interest in all things alien, but there was so much rubbish about that people just cooled off it.
 
Timble2 said:
I think interest in UFOloogy goes in waves....IMO, we're on the downturn of the latest ghosts and psychic wave at the moment and still on the crest of conspiracy wave (especially religious conspiracies, thanks Dan Brown) as far as the public interest in the weird goes.

UFOs may come again.
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UFOs will come again (in this sense) - you're spot on about things going in waves. The frequency is getting shorter these days (the turnover is getting quicker - the ghost and spiritualism thing is waning now after only a couple of years), but they all get their regular spell in the spotlight.
 
One of the problems is that, despite so many people possessing digitial cameras with a movie record facility, there hasn't been any (to my mind at least) convincing film taken of a UFO in flight.

Coupled with the fact that so many people are aware of what can be done with even the cheapest bit of photo/movie-editing software, I think mainstream society has realised that:

A. If UFOs are common enough to be worthy of so much study, then there should be more film of them. There isn't.

B. And even if there was a piece of convincing digital film, there are now so many ways of doing special effects on a budget that you still couldn't take it at face value.

Which, I think, has led to a general diminishing of interest all-round, really.
 
The "old ufology" of monolithic organizations, monthly mimeographed newletters, paper magazines etc is largely moribund, but the "new ufology" of websites, blogs, posting boards etc is going like gangbusters. Why join an organization when you can start your very own with a few taps on a keyboard? Why subscribe to a magazine when you can edit your own online, for a potentially limitless readership, and hardly any expense?
 
Magonia are currently running an essay competition - one of the themes being "Make Ufology History".
Is ufology a science, could it ever be a science, or is The Pelican right, and we should ‘Make Ufology History’?
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See also the Pelican for the background to the theme.

(Of course, even the most sceptical Ufologist doesn't really want to make Ufology history. No more Ufology would mean no more book deals, no more mailing lists, no more ego-inflating debates, and no more being big fish in little ponds.)
 
If by UFOlogy's supposed "decline" we mean the breaking down of the artificial walls which kept UFO research compartmentalized and separated from all the rest of Forteanism/Paranormalism, I'm all for it.

For centuries we had a plethora of fairy lore. Yet during the 1950s and 1960s fairies seem to have been almost completely subsumed into UFOlogy. Instead of silver-winged fairies and silvery-gossamer fairy-nests from St. Martin's Land we now had silver space ships disgorging little silver-clad "Martians."

But over the past 30 years fairy lore seems to have returned in all its traditional glory.

Names change, titles come and go, but the Phenomenon remains.

The late parapsychologist Scott Rogo seems to have been moving in this direction shortly before his murder 25 years ago.
 
I noticed some time ago that it seemed to be British UFOlogy which was going belly-up and NOT North American or even Western Hemispherean. As for the latter it's difficult to imagine any scholarly pursuit going defunct which has Scott Corrales to catalogue and research it.
 
UFOlogy has grown increasingly compartmentalized, a fortified island all to itself, cutting itself off from the rest of Forteanism and Paranormalism, and done so as painfully as an ingrown toenail. It has become as inbred and incestous as the Kallikaks and the Jukes.

I've met far too many UFOlogists who simply cannot conceive of ghosts as anything other than transparent UFOnauts, or of fairies other than tiny ones, or phantom panthers and ABSMs as other than things dropped to Earth from "flying saucers.".

I started out pretty much as a strict UFOlogist, but eventually came to realize that the chalice of wonders we call reality is so marvellously much more than merely aliens chug-chugging around the Universe in spacee ships.

P. S. Please note that I am by NO means rejecting the possibility of interstellar visits nor of the importance of studying and researching reports of such visits..
 
It doesn't help that many of the people interviewed re: saucers look and sound either geeky or odd. I remember when Pope and Brunei were being hailed as Mulder and Scully. Erm no, specky nerd with cheap clothes and an old trout. Take your pick.

Saucerology (ho ho) needs charasmatic, non geeky, photogenic researchers etc. Then they may be able to get the message across. So saucer folk read up on communication and persuasion theory. A lot of it works!
 
Well, it's interesting you say that because the UFO Iconoclast recently suggested in a rather unpopular blog entry that Ufologists are ignored because they're ugly.

A rather superficial opinion perhaps, but nevertheless, a sexy Ufologist might well stir things up a little. A while ago, I tried to get the board excited about Kittie Klaw, but no one seemed interested.

Okay, she's not really a Ufologist as such, but she's written an essay about alien abduction, has debated the ETH with Nick Pope, has a degree in psychology, is an avant garde cabaret performer, and looks mighty fine in a nurses uniform.

What more could you ask for in a woman ... um, I mean in a Ufologist?
 
:eek:

The "UFO Iconoclast" ? Isn't that merely the name that the RRRGroup have been using lately?

You know, this RRRGroup:

link

and

link

(It was very strange how their original blog was abruptly erased, why do you suppose that happened?)
 
Yeah, Rich Reynolds seems to have become persona non grata these days. Personally, I think of him as merely a rather extreme version of the new breed of 'Ufo Blogger' that seems to have arisen recently - namely Ufologists whose area of study is not really UFOs at all but rather Ufology itself.
 
"Persona non grata", well maybe, but really anus non grata seems more apt in his case.

:roll:
 
I regard Mr. Duck as an erudite and profound member of the FTMBs but I have spent the past two days writing all over the walls of my apartment:

"I shall never, ever listen to Gadaffiduck in matters of feminine pulchritude."

That's because I've been amazed for years at the multitude of attractive and indeed beautiful women within UFOlogy.

I regard Georgina BRUNI (Brunei is the country) as EXTRENELY comely.

But my own heart belongs to another UFOlogist, former beauty contest queen Linda Moulton Howe.
 
OTR...we have to disagree on Bruni - Idon't know miss howe...so cannot say. But you have my apologies.Indeed, while at conventions(many moons ago) I have seen normal looking attractive women. However, I am concerned at the level of attractiveness and nerdyness etc displayed or portrayed in general. This is not me being cruel....we have all seen how UFOers are portrayed in film and tv shows etc. We have all seen UFO experts debate on the box, regardless of the normalcy of some, the overarching impression is one of ...ugh..how sad. Which is sad in itself. I also think that the decline in saucerology stuff is the fact that regardless of released files and scholarly articles, there has been no improvement in evidence for saucers or alien visitors. One can only be kept waiting on tenterhooks for so long...
 
Kittie Klaw! Kittie Klaw!

Sorry, I forgot myself there for a moment.

The funniest UFO expert I ever saw on the box was Troggs frontman Reg Presley rambling on about crop circles. I wish I could find a clip of it.
 
Seems the public interest in the phenomena has waned drastically in the last few years... many UFO research organisations have closed. There seemed to be a mjor resurgence in the late 90's which coincidentally corresponded with many sc-fi/UFO/Alien shows such as the X-Files.
 
It comes and goes in waves. I recon hardcore UFO-lovers still are the same interested as before, however sometimes the "public" gets drawn in [like in the 90's], but it seems that once the novelty is over, people go back to be interested in something else.
I am personally glad all the fuss has ended. Couldn't stand all this tounge in cheek joking on TV shows or even news.
This is the case with many things. You could say that ghosts are "out", no programs as of late. However people still see them.

UFO's will be back with any new news. Maybe a chupacabra caught alive or similar. Its just dormant...
:snore:
 
I think the problem is that UFOlogy long since PROVED its original premise - that weird lights and shapes unexplainable by (and therefore non- existant to) the Science of 1947 commonly appear in the skies.

But UFOlogy had but one explanation its own self - that such apparitions MUST be technologically-engineered craft piloted by space travellers. No other theories need apply. Beyond that the "science" seemed hopelessly lost.

[Even the very few variant ideas suggested by a minority of UFOlogists - that these sky lights were time machines from our own future or Atlantean remnants rising up from under the sea or from deep inside the earth - continued to preach intelligently-controlled vehicles or machines.]

And UFOlogy studiously cut itself off from the rest of Paranormalism, like a fortified island, so that it starved for lack of new and original ideas. (The late parapsychologist Scott Rogo tried to build a bridge here but didn't live long enough to complete it.)

Thus UFOlogy foundered on its own severely limited and stunted vision.
 
Dingo667 said:
UFO's will be back with any new news. Maybe a chupacabra caught alive or similar.
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I keep extensive files on Chupacabra and strongly expect their existence will be eventually proved, but I fail to see their connection to UFOs.

There have been one or two suggestions that Chupas were "dropped" by UFOs, but that's been suggested for just about everything.

Clumbsy UFOnauts.
 
I think what Dingo was getting at is that all the disciplines in the Fort canon wax and wain in popularity. It is cyclical, most definitely. As was pointed out, UFOs were big ten years ago, then ghosts came to the fore again (Most Haunted, etc etc), next up looks like being Cryptozoology again (hence the chupa remark, I'm guessing.)
OldTimeRadio said:
I think the problem is that UFOlogy long since PROVED its original premise - that weird lights and shapes unexplainable by (and therefore non- existant to) the Science of 1947 commonly appear in the skies.

But UFOlogy had but one explanation its own self - that such apparitions MUST be technologically-engineered craft piloted by space travellers. No other theories need apply. Beyond that the "science" seemed hopelessly lost....
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Very true. Mention that you're interested in UFOs to most people and they'll immediately mention "aliens". I've always said I don't believe in the ETH, (and by extension don't believe in alien abductions), but quite happily concur that something is happening. The fact that I don't think Zeta Reticuli etc have anything to do with it doesn't detract from that fact in the slightest. People, me included, have seen odd lights in the sky that are difficult to explain in mundane terms.

Who knows, perhaps one day it will turn out to be aliens, in which case, I'll happily admit I was wrong. But for the moment, I'm satisfied that they're terrestrial in origin.
OldTimeRadio said:
....And UFOlogy studiously cut itself off from the rest of Paranormalism, like a fortified island, so that it starved for lack of new and original ideas. (The late parapsychologist Scott Rogo tried to build a bridge here but didn't live long enough to complete it.)

Thus UFOlogy foundered on its own severely limited and stunted vision.
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That's a good point. I've heard full-on, tin-foil-hatted, aliens-are-everywhere nuts scoff at the mention of ghosts, OOP animals (unless aliens moved them there), etc.

That said, you do get this in all the other disciplines, too. The "my weirdness is more scientific than thine" stuff. And overall, it doesn't do much good for the image of Fortean pursuits in the wider community, especially the scientific one (however hypocritical that may be, as the latter is riddled with petty battles, arse-covering and posturing...).
 
OldTimeRadio said:
But UFOlogy had but one explanation its own self - that such apparitions MUST be technologically-engineered craft piloted by space travellers. No other theories need apply. Beyond that the "science" seemed hopelessly lost.

And UFOlogy studiously cut itself off from the rest of Paranormalism, like a fortified island, so that it starved for lack of new and original ideas. (The late parapsychologist Scott Rogo tried to build a bridge here but didn't live long enough to complete it.)

Thus UFOlogy foundered on its own severely limited and stunted vision.
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I don't think that's true - various other ideas have come into play over the years. Have a look at what Magonia has to say on the subject, for example. 'Nuts & Bolts' ufology still seems to be pretty popular on the net too. It seems to me that the interest base has moved onto the net and out of organisations and magazines.
 
Obviously there are trends in popular culture and I agree that general interest in 'paranormal' phenomena comes and goes like everything else. I also think that the spotlight of popular scrutiny does very little for the respectability or development of any particular field as usually a single hypothesis is included in the package - UFO = ETH, ghost = dead person, crypto = flesh and blood creatures etc leading to a polarisation of opinion between 'believers' and 'non-believers' that does not in any way encourage critical thinking, serious investigation or the formulation of other theories etc. Really all it does generally is spawn a lot of cheap TV and books, provide a living for a few charlatans, troubled souls and rent-an-opinion talking heads and convince a few people in the scientific and religious communities that the world is going to hell in a handcart of new-age wooly thinking.
However if it wasn't for the popularisation of the unexplained ..... cf the partwork of the same name, nonsense like vonDaniken, shows like the X-files or Strange But True or whatever many of us would never have become interested in that sort of thing in the first place, or never have found the resources for our earliest researches.

I honestly don't think ufology is 'dead', I just think that currently not every other programme on Discovery is about Roswell and every other person sporting some sort of 'grey' face emblem about their home/car/person like ten years ago. Even the bloody ETH is doubtless still going strong ;)
 
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