[CAnet - news] Has the Internet killed the UFO phenomena?

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[From a posting on the SETIleague. Great article on the power of the
blogsphere. Some excerpts -- BSA]

http://www.techcentralstation.com/110905A.html

If you're looking for one of those famous, big-eyed alien abductors, try
looking on the sides of milk cartons. The UFO cultural moment in America is
long since over, having gone out with the Clintons and grunge rock in the
90s. Ironically, the force that killed the UFO fad is the same force that
catapulted it to super-stardom: the Internet. And therein hangs a tale about
how the Internet can conceal and reveal the truth.

It's hard to remember just how large UFOs loomed in the public mind a mere
ten years ago. The X-Files was one of the hottest shows on television;
Harvard professors solemnly intoned that the alien abduction phenomenon was
a real, objective fact; and Congressmen made serious inquiries about a
downed alien spacecraft in Roswell, New Mexico. Still not enough? You could
see the "Roswell" movie on Showtime; you could play "Area 51" at the arcade;
you could gawk at stunning pictures of crop circles in any number of
magazines; and you could watch any number of lurid UFO specials on Fox or
the Discovery Channel. And USENET! Egad! In the days when USENET was
something other than a spam swap, UFO geeks hit "send" to exchange myths,
sightings, speculations, secret documents, lies, truths, and even
occasionally facts about those strange lights in the sky.

Yet in recent years, interest in the UFO phenomenon has withered. Oh, the
websites are still up, the odd UFO picture is still taken, and the usual
hardcore UFO advocates make the same tired arguments about the same tired
cases, but the thrill is gone. What happened? Why did the saucers crash?

The Internet showed this particular emperor to be lacking in clothes. If
UFOs and alien visitations were genuine, tangible, objective realities, the
Internet would be an unstoppable force for detecting them. How long could
the vast government conspiracy last, when intrepid UFO investigators could
post their prized pictures on the Internet seconds after taking them? How
could the Men in Black shut down every website devoted to scans of secret
government UFO documents? How could marauding alien kidnappers remain hidden
in a nation with millions of webcams?

The Internet taught the public many tricks of the UFO trade. For years,
hucksters and mental cases played upon the credulity of UFO investigators.
Bad science, shabby investigation, and dubious tales from unlikely witnesses
characterized far too many UFO cases. But the rise of the Internet taught
the world to be more skeptical of unverified information -- and careful
skepticism is the bane of the UFO phenomenon. It took UFO experts over a
decade to determine that the "Majestic-12" documents of the eighties were a
hoax, rather than actual government documents proving the reality of UFOs.
Contrast that decade to the mere days in which the blogosphere disproved the
Mary Mapes Memogate documents. Similarly, in the nineties, UFO enthusiasts
were stunned when they learned that a leading investigator of the Roswell
incident had fabricated much of his research, as well as his credentials.
Today, a Google search and a few e-mails would expose such shenanigans in
minutes.

What the Internet gave, the Internet took away.

 

The Internet processes all truth and falsehood in just this fashion. Wild
rumors and dubious pieces of evidence are quick to circulate, but quickly
debunked. The Internet gives liars and rumor mongers a colossal space in
which to bamboozle dolts of every stripe -- but it also provides a forum for
wise men from all across the world to speak the truth. Over the long run,
the truth tends to win. This fact is lost on critics of the blogosphere, who
can only see the exaggerated claims and gossip. These critics often fail to
notice that, on the 'net, the truth follows closely behind the lies. A great
many of us accept Internet rumors and hoaxes in exchange for fast access to
the truth.

 




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These news items and comments are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect
those  of the CANARIE board or management.

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