The Problem
Some of you might wonder what UFOs and Bigfoot have to do with each other, or why I’m dedicating a whole post to them. The answer to the second question is: it’s just fun! The answer to the first question is that both share several interesting features in our culture. Frist, sightings of UFOs and Bigfoots (bigfeet?) are relatively widespread. Second, both attract those who are drawn to conspiratorial thinking. Third, there are strong social stigmas associated with the topics. Fourth, it seems that the broader scientific community rejects the existence of both entities out of hand.
I am going to assume that most of my readers already have an impression, maybe even an opinion, on these two topics. I would further assume the opinions fall into the general category of conspiracy theory and nonsense. Our peripheral knowledge of such things is likely to be informed by the pop-culture fascination with weird things and weird people. For some great examples of the weirdness, see the superb coverage by “All Gas No Brakes” on Bigfoot hunting and Alien conventions (literal tears of laughter watching these). Whereas the scientific process is boring and rarely begs for attention, watching people commit their lives to the bizarre and whacky is truly mesmerizing.
Before getting too far into the topic allow me to anticipate a few counterarguments already brimming in the minds of my rational readers. Even the hint of taking UFOs or Bigfoot seriously might cause some readers to doubt the stability of my mind. Let me quickly call out that such an impulse is more likely derived from the stigmas of these topics than it would be to any rational or scientific thinking. I am pro-science (which is not to say that I am scientific in all my thinking!). Specifically, I am pro the scientific method, which, surprisingly, needs to be distinguished. We could probably spend the rest of the post exploring the difference. At the highest level the scientific method is:
observation → question → research → hypothesis → experiment → conclusion.
This method can be applied to any topic area (that is measurable) and provides the scientist with better information about that topic. I hope we are all on the same page here.
Another nonsensical argument that I can predict a couple of you feeling drawn to like camels to water in a dry and weary land, is that I am already a believer and am trying to validate my beliefs by collecting confirmatory evidence. Again, as with the first potential counterargument, this rebuttal has nothing to do with rationality or scientific thinking, but with stigma and assumption.
Let’s get back on track. I follow many science related channels, publications, and educators, and every once in a while UFOs and Bigfoot will get mentioned in a tangential way. A frequent sentiment expressed in these moments is a kind of chuckling dismissal of the concepts. What intrigues me about these responses is that they embody non-scientific thinking; a hypothesis is formed and a conclusion is made without observation, question, research, or experiment.
The overall problem and cause for curiosity seems to be that many scientists shortchange the scientific process when it comes to certain topics. On paper, scientists should be the most open minded people of all. They observe something interesting, ambiguous, or paradoxical, and begin to ask questions that ultimately guide them toward a better understanding of that which they first observed. What I observe instead, is that many interesting topics go unquestioned and unresearched by the broader scientific community.
The Process
My interest in such things began when I listened to Joe Rogan’s interview with Bob Lazar. It is important to listen to this interview and consider its veracity. Too many scientists discount first hand accounts like these because the said scientist begins from a claim of knowing what is and isn’t possible. They then denounce first hand experience and accounts, coming up with various alternative explanations. I realize that the data we want to collect in official experimentation, following the scientific method, needs to be more substantial than eye-witness accounts and anecdotal stories. However, the whole point of the scientific process is that it begins with observations and questions.
A frequent refrain from prominent science communicators, like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, is, “show me the evidence”. And yet, there seems to be a refusal to look for evidence, or to acknowledge that there are precursors to evidence available. As demonstrated in this MSNBC interview, Tyson claims to be thinking rationally about UFOs, but instead makes several assumptions that immediately disallow him from observing any evidence that might exist. In other words, Tyson creates a strawman hypothesis, demonstrates why that hypothesis is wrong, then concludes that his hypothesis is correct. His counterpart in the interview, former CIA director John Brennan, is much more modest. Brennan’s stance toward UFO sightings is actually more scientific, saying,
…a lot of these phenomena that have been observed, including by Navy pilots, are unexplained, and I don’t think that there is any way that we can exclude the possibility of certain types of explanations…. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
That doesn’t stop Tyson from proceeding to erect a flimsy strawman version of the existing evidence, which he then huffs and puffs at till it falls apart. The interviewer congratulates Tyson on his keen mind, comparing him favorably to Carl Sagan. We are then shown a clip of Sagan using the exact same type of illogical strawman argument to show why there are no such things as UFOs. In both Sagan’s and Tyson’s reasoning it is obvious that they equate “UFO” with “alien”, though no necessity exists to do so.
To spell it out, Tyson and Sagan have a paradigm which implicitly asserts that UFOs are alien craft; that UFOs travel from deep space to earth; that lack of very specific kinds of predefined evidence is proof of their nonexistence; that the existence of phenomena that are hard to observe/avoid observation is likely impossible. They preclude certain experiences, encounters, and events because they don’t fit into the paradigm to which they hold.
I want to point out that I am not defending the existence of UFOs or Bigfoot. What I am pointing out is a gap in the logic used when various science communicators (Tyson being our synecdoche) are blinded to interesting evidence via assumptions and stigmas.
The Discovery
Observation is the first step in science. Observation demands a passive openness to the world, to what might be, to what you don’t already know. How is it that those trained in science find themselves, all too frequently, incapable of genuine observation?
In reflecting on this modern mystery I’m reminded that scientists and science educators are still human, like you or me. Isn’t that profound? The impulse to hold them to a different standard of thinking is both understandable and naïve. In one sense, we would expect trained scientists to maintain a more tenaciously modest and open mindset when considering that which may or may not exist. The reality is that, like any of us, it is always easier and convenient to discount evidence that doesn’t fit within our paradigm.
As I’ve done the light bit of investigative work (not science) on these two topics, the most compelling discoveries have been the first hand accounts. It isn’t that there is any one story or one person that I can point to and say “I know, for a fact, that they are telling the truth! Bigfoot/UFOs are real!” Nor is there anyone I can point to and say “I just believe them, in my heart!” Rather, it is the sheer volume of sightings communicated first hand across a variety of platforms. Is everyone lying? Is every sighting explained away as mistaken identity? Do people just want to believe in such things so badly that they hallucinate them? It is easy to sweep all these things away and say, “all nonsense.” It is especially so when you haven’t tried to listen, when you refuse to observe.
UFOs & Bigfoot