THE FAITH-BASED SCIENCE OF SUSAN CLANCY (Budd Hopkins)
Recently I appeared on "Larry King Live," along with Clancy and several others, when one of the guests showed a blow-up of the world-famous Trent UFO photographs from McMinnville, Oregon, arguably the best-known UFO photos in existence. They were prominently featured in "Life" magazine in 1950, and have been reproduced hundreds of times since in many publications. What's more, in 1969, after careful analysis, an investigator for the skeptical Condon Committee described the McMinnville photo case this way: "This is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric, psychological, and physical, appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disc-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight of two witnesses." Optical physicist Dr. Bruce Maccabee has investigated this case thoroughly, flying to McMinneville, interviewing the Trents, their family and neighbors, taking his own test photos from the same location, and carrying out literally months of optical analysis of the original pictures. Maccabee's work has been published widely, but the photos themselves should be familiar to anyone with even a cursory involvement in UFO study and research. Yet, during the Larry King program, abduction authority Susan Clancy glanced at the photos on the monitor and said something like this: "that could be anything...someone who threw up a hubcap or a Frisbee or something." Her evident ignorance of this case, and, by extension, of the literature and history of the UFO phenomenon, was aptly illustrated by this glib, contemptuous wisecrack, a remark one might expect to hear late at night in a Texas barroom, but not from someone holding a Ph.D. degree from Harvard. Earlier, when King asked her how she became interested in the subject of UFO abductions, she began her answer this way: "I've been studying aliens for..." Studying aliens? Again, this peculiar description of her work in the laboratory is not what one would expect to hear from an experimental psychologist on an ostensibly serious TV program.
4 comments:
The problem is that both Hopkins and Clancy are hopelessly biased -- although of the two, Hopkins' rationale is the most sensible.
WMB--
While I find Clancy's dismissal sickening, I suppose I find Hopkins' zealous subscription to the "nuts and bolts" model almost as disturbing.
"Clancy is _not_ researching alien abductions."
Actually, Clancy thinks that she IS studying AA. To her AA = false memory syndrome.
Furthermore, Clancy's research into false memory syndrome is based entirely on her assumption that alien abductions are fictions of the mind. WTF?! How the hell is she supposed to establish how "false memory syndrome" works if it is not at all certain (and there is in fact evidence to the contrary) that her subjects are actually suffering from false memory syndrome in the first place?!?
In fact there is virtually NOTHING substantial upon which Clancy can base her fundamental assumptions (viz., that alien abductions are not actually taking place). She bases them ENTIRELY on her own simple-minded and uninformed prejudice (as is evident from her own comments on the matter). Is such "research" even valid?!?! This is science?!?!???
Regarding my first point: Just look at the title of her book in question, and judge for yourself --
_Abduction: How People Come to Believe They were Kidnapped by Aliens_
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