UFO gathering draws believers and belittlers

By Leonard David

Senior space writer

updated 10:45 p.m. ET July 14, 2006

BOULDER, Colo. - The 37th annual Mutual UFO Network symposium is being held this weekend in Denver, attracting throngs of believers and the downright curious — as well as upright skeptics and debunkers.  

The symposium’s title is the drawing card: “Unconventional Flying Objects: The Best Evidence.” The three-day gathering features a potpourri of UFO discussion — from border crossings of the third kind, UFO crash retrievals and triangular UFOs to the alien agenda and ethics of contact. You can also add in reports on the physical evidence for UFOs.

There is no doubt that UFOs are here to stay, John Schuessler, the network's international director, said at the group’s headquarters in Morrison, Colo. “We see no drop in UFO reports,” he told Space.com, but he added that some of the characters in the UFO arena muddy the waters … a lot.

Schuessler said the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON, is devoted to help unravel the UFO saga and set society straight on the prospects of possible visitors from afar.

“MUFON is working diligently to improve the data collection process, train workers in the field, and improve the credibility of documented evidence,” Schuessler explained. “We have approximately 350 volunteer consultants and research specialists with good scientific credentials. At the present time we have more than 450 trained field investigators throughout the U.S. and have another 800-plus in the training process. That is pretty good for an all-volunteer cadre.”

There are issues to wrestle with in sorting through UFO sightings, Schuessler noted.

“We have found that a lot of the scientific-sounding responses given to cases in this field are often nothing more than opinions by well-credentialed individuals that have actually done no field work,” Schuessler noted. “They give their answers in a way that makes them seem like they actually know what they are talking about, when in fact they are doing nothing but debunking based on their own beliefs. That happens on a regular basis, and many people believe them. Science is not well served when this happens.”

Continuing mystery and controversy
There is something of potential importance within the UFO mystery, and it is twofold, according to Don Berliner, a longtime UFO investigator and an independent aviation/science writer. He also is chairman of the Fund for UFO Research, located in Alexandria, Va.

First of all, there are the detailed descriptions from veteran airline and military pilots of objects seen at close range in broad daylight.

“These were said to have been solid, metallic-looking objects with sharp edges and simple geometric shapes that were completely unlike any known aero-spacecraft, and displayed performance — extreme speed within the atmosphere, violent maneuvers and spectacular acceleration — that was even farther from the norm,” Berliner told Space.com.

Secondly, there is the “excessive zeal” shown by the U.S. Air Force when claiming to have solved the UFO mystery, Berliner suggested. “Statistics were manipulated, intelligent adult witnesses were treated like naive children, explanations were fabricated, scientific theories were twisted to fit, information known to have been false was released to Congress and the public, and portions of witnesses’ testimony were ignored when they clashed with prepared explanations.”

All of these claims, Berliner added, can be supported with quotes from Air Force documents, letters, reports and public statements.

Still, there are many UFO sightings that deserve to be chalked up to more down-to-Earth explanations, Berliner said.

“Most reasonable persons, no matter what their conclusions, agree that the great majority of UFO reports are easily explained as misidentified conventional phenomena. It is the remaining 5 to 10 percent that constitute the continuing mystery and controversy,” he concluded.

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