Microcelebrity
I have a book coming out Real Soon Now, and a co-author attached to that book who up to now has lived a peaceful life of relative anonymnity. But he's starting to get the kinds of weird emails that I have been living with for a while now. Seeing that, has made me reflect on the rules of thumb I have invented for myself over the years
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(I know: unhelpful pedantry is unhelpful).
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"UFO" doesn't automatically classify something as a ship from beyond the stars, full of greys fixin' to probe some monkey's uncle. The acronym classifies an object as being unidentified that happened to be flying.
There are many prosaic explanations for UFOs, like plasma phenomena (e.g., jets or sprites), satellites, drones, Venus, swamp gas, or chinese lanterns. But no one knows what they are until the evidence is challenged, and hard questions are raised about the incident. It's the difference between skepticism, part and parcel of science, and cynicism, confused as skepticism, where something's dismissed out of hand.
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Point taken about the term UFO. I made the same point myself, previously, at http://brotherguy.livejournal.com/74394.html
What most people call "UFO" is probably better described as an MFO: by which of course I mean a Misidentified Flying Object. (No other usages of "MF" need apply.)
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I had given a talk to the Irish Science-Fiction Society and the question period began.
"Do you believe in UFOs?" somebody asked.
"Yes, of course," I answered.
The questioner, who looked quite young, then burst into a long speech, "proving" at least to his own satisfaction that all UFOs "really are" sun-dogs or heat inversions. When he finally ran down I simply replied,
"Well, we both agree that UFOs exist. Our only difference is that you think you know what they are and I'm still puzzled."
- Robert Anton Wilson
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