The spirit of the conference
For more than fifty years, the study of the UFO phenomenon has remained confined within the framework of an activity with poorly defined boundaries, called ufology. This despite the fact that the phenomenon has never lost its scope and continues to display its multiple, bewildering facets throughout the world. This kind of confinement within such a ghetto can be explained in various ways.
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Some aspects of the phenomenon remain extremely puzzling and can, for example, be classified among phenomena referred to as "paranormal," towards which my scientific community shows a legendary allergy.
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The vast majority of the elements made available to scientists, with very rare exceptions, consists only of witness accounts, always subject to doubt, and sketches, photographs, and videos.
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Supposedly scientific approaches are often tainted with highly speculative aspects, which leads many scientists to declare that the UFO phenomenon does not present itself as a possible subject of study, and that no concrete object of study is available "to place on a slide and cover slip" upon which laboratories could base concrete research programs.
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The methodology employed by certain groups, even when these groups have a certain official aura, remains questionable, very embryonic, or even tainted with irredeemable methodological faults.
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Finally, within a vast community of people, the UFO file and the questions it raises provoke psycho-socio-immunological reactions, called by others "cognitive dissonance," which manifest as a blanket, irrational rejection, comparable in all points to an allergy phenomenon.
In conclusion, for more than fifty years:
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The entire scientific community has turned away from the UFO file, considering its study as a waste of time and money, the result being that this approach has in fact been taken over by non-scientists who call themselves "ufologists," a term that refers to no discipline with well-defined boundaries, and which is only an activity that, at best, consists of collecting testimonies and photographic or video documents. However, these people have always been the first, the only ones, and continue to be the only ones who, with their meager means (a notebook, a tape measure, a camera, a ... compass) attempt to gather information, even if it is poor in content, essentially testimonial in nature, while much more sophisticated, relatively inexpensive means could have been made available to them for a long time.
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Let us add that within their political and military spheres, some countries, it seems, technologically advanced countries, have apparently held information for decades that they avoid disseminating, under the pretext of not wanting to create disorder, or even panic, within the population, since such information could support the idea that our planet has been the object of visits and incursions by extraterrestrials for more than half a century, and probably much earlier. It is also pointed out that the release of such information, documents, or pieces of evidence, could completely destabilize terrestrial structures, political, economic, religious, and scientific.
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Conventional science, faced with this idea, immediately raises the barrier, the counter-fire of the impossibility of traveling at speeds greater than that of light. Yet, if we look back at the history of science, it is evident that it has always undergone profound changes, the impossible of yesterday suddenly becoming the possible of today. The examples are countless. Any scientist worthy of the name must consider that what is impossible today might become, through a new paradigm shift, the possible of tomorrow.
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Finally, the last aspect: the UFO subject is the site of powerful currents of disinformation, whose result is to discredit the file. With very few exceptions, cinematic productions or literary works result in classifying the phenomenon in the category of new folklore. The word "science fiction" was created for this purpose (while today's science is ... yesterday's science fiction!). Some small groups organize around mentors, who adopt a guru-like attitude. Sects have been formed, such as the Raëlians. It should not be excluded that secret services have either facilitated the emergence of such movements or created them from scratch, in order to misinform the population, easily, by playing on millennial fears or messianic expectations, or both at once. The most commonly used technique is amplifying disinformation. This strategy consists of mixing real facts with fantastic aspects aimed at discrediting certain aspects of the file.
It is also not excluded that the UFO phenomenon itself secretly carries out its own disinformation operations, in order to maintain a skepticism considered protective within the population and to avoid a sudden realization of the presence of extraterrestrials on our soil, which could lead to unforeseen, difficult to predict, paradigmatic upheavals on religious, political, social, and economic levels.
The Earth has known numerous "ethnocide" examples throughout its history, during abrupt contacts between two civilizations too far apart in technological-scientific and, more generally, cultural terms. Discreet ethnocides are at work in many parts of the world, destroying forever traces of cultural and artistic elements, cultural and linguistic ensembles, fragments of history, or even precious medical and pharmacological knowledge, within populations that had previously been protected from any contact with "the modern world."
In the few years that have just passed, France and England have made public archives, admittedly devoid of scientifically or technically usable information. It is, as always, only testimonial material. Recently, it was brought to the public's attention that an important statesman, Winston Churchill, had formally prohibited the dissemination of the testimony of a bomber crew who, during World War II, had made a close encounter with a UFO, an object of metallic appearance, whose performance was incompatible with the technology of the time. The reason given by the Prime Minister would have been to avoid alarming the English population, already worried by the threat of a German invasion.
The way the French media have reported the news is significant of the complete discredit that the UFO file has in France, within the press circles. On the TF1 channel, the journalist began his announcement by saying:
- We knew the politician, the war leader. But we didn't know that Winston Churchill was also interested in science fiction.
What we must consider is that such a presentation does not translate...