Scientific Inquiry Into Extraterrestrial Life
In the early days of Ufology, researchers appeared too eager to verify sightings, which they then interpreted as evidence of 'nuts and bolts' spacecraft piloted by intelligent EBEs. Like numerous deities and other extraterrestrial visitors, EBEs are generally held to be concerned about human conduct. This concern was widely reported in the spate of UFO sightings after the Second World War and the beginnings of the nuclear age. Sensationalist reports merging with Hollywood fantasy led to a distancing of orthodox science from Ufology. Explanations offered by Ufologists frequently ignored Occam's razor, which is a rule against multiplying entities or - in general terms - a rule which says don't involve extraordinary hypotheses until the ordinary ones have been eliminated. The apparent resistance to falsification also contributed to Ufology's lack of credibility. However, modern Ufologists, such as Jenny Randles and Paul Fuller of the British Unidentified Flying Object Research Association (BUFORA), are strict adherents to Popperian-inspired scientific methodology, enthusiastically seeking to falsify EBE explanations and providing explanations which are acceptable to orthodox scientific opinion. In this respect the modern Ufologist is a debunker rather than a myth-spinning believer. Explanations in terms of atmospheric phenomena, hallucinations or hoaxes are generally expected from BUFORA publications. Over the years the BUFORA standpoint has been vindicated. So much 'confirmatory' evidence has been demonstrably unreliable. Photographs, which were once considered as hard evidence, are now held to have zero credibility because of the likelihood of fakes. With the advent of sophisticated image-manipulation computers whose work is undetectable, photographs unsupported by other reliable confirmatory evidence are unacceptable. Eye witness reports are also problematic as they are frequently influenced by psychological and cultural factors.