Reports of Unidentified Flying Object: So You Want to Be a Ufologist? Skeptical True Believers
This cult consists of individuals and a few groups with their various hang-ups, and to become one of them you must support their dictums and recite a few idiocies of your own, ever remembering that all witnesses are to be denigrated, ridiculed, or patronized. Let that hubris of yours really all hang out!
Your STB colleagues will be highly vocal individuals who truly believe that all sightings of UFOs are (a) misconceptions, (b) hoaxes, or (c) hallucinations. They truly believe that they know better what the witness or witnesses saw than the witness does. This category includes men and women with completely open minds: whatever they hear goes in one ear and right back out the other. Since they truly believe they know best in all things , they manufacture any data to support their hypotheses. This method of research is hardly acceptable in scientific circles, c but this does not bother them in the least. They truly believe that anything they do not know is not worth knowing. When there are UFO photographs that have been painstakingly authenticated, they declare the same to be fakes. By the same token, pilots have eyeball floaters and experienced radar operators are ignorant. To prove their commitment to the faith, they descend to near-libel against the serious scientist who studies the UFO phenomenon.
There is now evidence that some STBs are in the employ of the government, and of course, those who are jolly well know that people are seeing odd things in the sky. Learn to recognize an STB because there have been efforts by one or more of them to infiltrate genuine UFO study groups. The accomplishment of this aim spelled disaster for one group. And learn to distinguish between the STB and the reputable scientist, who through lack of time or inclination has never studied the UFO problem. The latter will be a skeptic because he knows nothing of the subject and will freely admit it .
With an inquiring mind and a healthy curiosity about life, you will not wish to be associated with the STBs and their ostrich philosophy. Do not despair yet. You have learned something, albeit mostly about the vagaries of the human psyche. As we prepare to move to pastures greener, apply rule one, apply rule two and keep on reading.