The Myth and Mysteries of UFOs. By Thomas E. Bullard. Lawrence Kansas: University of
Kansas Press, 2010. 417 pp. ISBN 978-0-7006-1729-6
UFO
books run the gambit from slapped together pulp jobs with little thought to
accuracy to Ph. D dissertations that rely on scholarship without a thought to
style. Thomas (Eddie) Bullard’s book, The Myth and Mysteries of UFOs, is
one that walks the fine line between over the top scholarship and the bottom of
the barrel trash. His is a book that belongs on everyone’s shelf because of the
scholarship and the readability.
It
was, for me, confusing at first. I wasn’t sure where he was going with his
scholarship. He wrote about sightings that most of us inside the UFO community
knew about, but he often answered the questions about their reality. Or maybe I
should say about their extraterrestrial nature. Clearly something had happened,
but Bullard seemed to provide us with answers for those strange cases.
The
massive sightings of March 3, 1968, in which a number of witnesses described a
cigar-shaped UFO with windows on the side, for example, was explained as the
re-entry and break-up of the Zond IV spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union.
This has become an accepted explanation throughout the UFO community and one
not without merit.
The
case is interesting because, as Bullard notes, while some thought of alien
craft, there were those who recognized the sighting for what it actually was.
Bullard suggests that the reason there weren’t more reports of this with the
proper answer is because those who properly identified it felt no compulsion to
report it. Those who thought of it in terms of an alien craft did.
But
the real importance of the sighting was how it applied to other, similar reports.
In 1948 two airline pilots saw something that they described as cigar-shaped
with square windows. This was, of course, the same thing said about the Zond IV
reentry. A cigar-shaped craft with square windows. Of course there was no
returning space debris in 1948, but there were bolides, very bright meteors,
that could give the same impression and often do.
Bullard
looks at the UFO phenomenon through the eyes of a folklorist who is studying
the legends and myths of the human race. He notes that humans, from the very
first, were reporting the strange apparitions in the sky that we now call UFOs
or flying saucers. He looks at the history of those myths.
But
he is not telling us that all UFO sightings can be explained with such a study,
only that science might learn something about human nature, about how we view
the world as opposed to how our ancestors viewed the world, and that there is
something real happening. Some of the sightings aren’t based only on our
perceptions, but on something concrete and tangible flying, or floating,
through the sky.
He
acknowledges many of the answers for what people have seen, but also makes it
clear that these answers do not cover everything that is seen. It is impossible
to write off a UFO sighting that was witnessed by dozens, especially when the
object, or objects, are detected by radar or have been photographed or leave
traces on the ground.
In
other words, Bullard sees something of value in the study of UFOs. There is
science that can be applied, and science has been negligent in what they have
done with UFO reports. Rather than be intrigued by them, science simply ignored
them.
This
is a book that has been needed since 1969 when the Air Force sponsored study at
the University of Colorado, popularly known as the Condon Committee, rejected
the idea of UFOs. They found that not only did UFOs not pose a threat to
national security, one of the Air Force’s requirements, but more outrageously,
nothing of scientific importance could be learned by studying them. Skeptics have
cited this investigation as if it is the final word on UFOs since it was
released.
Bullard’s
book, however, is the important and long needed counterpoint. He’s not arguing
that UFOs are extraterrestrial, though it appears in some places he has reached
this conclusion. No, he’s arguing that some UFOs demand scientific study. They
might not led to alien spacecraft but they will certainly add to our knowledge
of the world around us. While national security might not be an issue,
scientific understanding of our world is.
While
alien abduction might not be extraterrestrial creatures taking humans into
their craft for examination, neither is it explained by sleep paralysis. While
sleep paralysis may, in fact, explain some abduction tales, it does not explain
them all.
Bullard’s
argument here, then, is that UFOs deserve academic study. Hufford’s study of
the Old Hag, as outlined in The Terror that Comes in the Night, which is
about bedroom visitation, led us to a more complete understanding of the
phenomenon related to sleep paralysis. The study of the UFOs might lead us to
an better understanding of our psychological make up.
With
that said, Bullard is also suggesting that there are UFO sightings that are
sufficiently strange, sufficiently documented, with sufficient eyewitness
testimony, that demand study. This might lead us right into the
extraterrestrial.
Bullard
is suggesting that we stop dismissing UFOs by saying the witnesses were drunk,
uneducated, unsophisticated, or simply of below average intelligence, and apply
our science to them. He looked at the UFO phenomenon with the eyes of a trained
folklorist and found much that required study. He is saying that other
sciences, both physical and social, might benefit from a similar academic analysis.
Ridicule
is not a way to learn something new. Ridicule is a way to dismiss something
without having to know anything about it. Bullard tells us that now is the time
to stop ignoring UFOs and actually try studying with the same sort of academic
precision that is devoted to other types of anomalies. Now is the time to begin
the real science and not the pseudo-science that has gone before.
