Here we go again. . .

[THX1138]

Check this shit out. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34940931/from/ET?pg=1#Tech_UFOBuzz&GT1=43001 . Oberg's a 'yes man,' if ever there's been one. The guy sickens me, although, it is interesting to note that after Kenneth Arnold's sighting, U.F.O.'s changed, for the most part, from cresent-shaped to disk-shaped craft, almost as in response to the mistaken media description. I'm certain that it means something. I just can't decide what.

 

[Kevin Daly]

Check this shit out. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34940931/from/ET?pg=1#Tech_UFOBuzz&GT1=43001 . Oberg's a 'yes man,' if ever there's been one. The guy sickens me, although, it is interesting to note that after Kenneth Arnold's sighting, U.F.O.'s changed, for the most part, from cresent-shaped to disk-shaped craft, almost as in response to the mistaken media description. I'm certain that it means something. I just can't decide what.

While I think there's more to it, it's hard to escape the conclusion that in at least a proportion of cases people having misunderstood Arnold's "saucer" analogy (or hearing news reports that used the term out of context) simply saw what they expected to see.

It's also possible that we're dealing sometimes with a phenomenon that deliberately conforms to our expectations of how it should appear (consistent with the air ship sightings in the 19th century), but I can't help thinking that's stretching to find an exotic explanation for something that is often a sociological phenomenon.

This doesn't mean I think UFOs are all products of mass hysteria or misidentified mundane objects, nor that I don't think people have actually observed disk-shaped objects - but it does mean there are very good grounds for assuming a high noise to signal ratio.