2009-01-06

The UFO Craze: Media exaggeration and hoaxes!

Although it is common sense that the popular press play up and exaggerate stories, it wasn't until I read the research of Martin Gardner that I realized just how much of a role imaginative newspaper editors had played in the creation of the UFO craze. It started in 1947, when Kenneth Arnold saw 9 small weather balloons that were strung together, 'flying' in formation in the sky. The papers came up with the idea of 'flying saucers' on their own, and henceforth, enthusiastically published hyped-up articles attributing all unidentified flying objects to mysterious advanced technology and aliens. It was a science-fiction decade, with a popular press to match.

The contents of "Alien Life and Planet Earth" by Vexen Crabtree (1999) is now:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

is humanity likely to attract intelligent alien life when it's highest civilizations still sanction circumcision?
obviously they would stay far away from earth aghast.
fortunately for space aliens,(if they exist); by the time humans are advanced enough to contact them, circumcision will have completely ceased on earth. Self definitively.
from:Sian Tiksom

Vexen Crabtree said...

Sian - unfortunately, I doubt that aliens would understand the psychosexual and superstitious implications of this barbaric piece of minor surgery. They could be more abhorred by us cutting our hair, shaving our beards, wearing clothes, trimming our nails, etc.

So although I share your reasonable dislike of circumcision, I doubt it'll be a factor in alien's opinions of us as a species.