Jan L.
Aldrich is a UFO enthusiast and apparently the main guy behind Project 1947, a
research effort funded by CUFOS, FUFOR, and MUFON,
to gather information about alleged UFO sightings, personal accounts and material UFO nuts usually take as evidence for
extraterrestrial interference with life on Earth, especially from the period up
to and including 1947. A resource like this could, of course, be a completely
neutral affair, but that doesn’t seem to be the direction in which Aldrich
wants to take things (as for instance per his contribution to the Proceedings of the Sign Historical Group UFO History workshop edited by Thomas Tulien.) In one sense that’s understandable; the truth of the
claims made by UFO enthusiasts are impossible without a major conspiracy, and
although a case could be made that Aldrich remains on the less unhinged side of
UFO enthusiast efforts, he is still perilously close to donning the tinfoil hat
for real. Like so many others, Aldrich appears to take e.g. the absence of
declassified US Naval UFO documents and undisclosed O.N.I. UFO investigations
as evidence that the government knows stuff they don’t want to share. There are
alternative, simpler explanations.
Diagnosis:
Again, Aldrich does not appear to be among the more hysterical or incoherent in
the UFO crowd, but his research efforts can hardly be classified as unbiased
and reality-based either.
It is curious that out of the legitimate proven loons that populate the UFO subject, you choose Aldrich who spends a great deal of time unearthing formerly classified papers on government UFO investigations and making them public. And yet at the same time it is admitted that he is on the less-unhinged side of the topic. Why not put more unhinged ones in the encyclopedia instead of someone trying to be serious? That is the topic of the list, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteYeah, have to agree with uhr. It would be one thing if you thought he was misguided or biased, but based on what is written here he hardly comes across as a fullblown whack job.
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