Some progress has been made in the twenty-eight years since. A growing number of individual scientists are showing an interest in UFO phenomena. But it remains true to this day that professional scientists risk losing their jobs and reputations if they become too publicly interested in UFOs.
Thus it comes as welcome news that the Society for Scientific Exploration, headquartered at Stanford University, released the following announcement on October 9, 1997. CNI News thanks Dr. Hal Puthoff for forwarding this text.]
There may be more to UFO evidence than just verbal reports of what people see in the sky.
Some UFO evidence may be worthy of scientific investigation.
This is the tentative conclusion of a panel of scientists convened by the Society for Scientific Exploration to examine this matter.
The panel of nine scientists met at a conference center near New York from September 29 to October 3.
The panel reviewed evidence presented by eight UFO investigators, and will issue a report within a few months that summarizes the workshop activities and makes recommendations for further research.
The panelists were drawn from France, Germany and the United States. The investigators came from France, Germany, Norway and the United States.
The strong representation from France is due to the fact that France is the only country that has an unclassified on-going official investigation into UFO reports. This program, at CNES the French Space Agency in Toulouse, is headed by Jean-Jacques Velasco who was a participant in the workshop.
Velasco described damage to soil and vegetation associated with a strange object that was seen to land at a farm in Trans-en-Provence in France, departing within about one minute. This evidence has been analyzed by scientists in France on behalf of CNES.
Other evidence presented and critically reviewed at the workshop included photographs, video records, spectroscopic data, radar records, reports of malfunctions of automobile and aircraft equipment, material specimens, and radiation-type injuries to witnesses.
"We made no effort to solve the UFO problem," said Von Eshleman of Stanford University and Thomas Holzer of the High Altitude Observatory, Co-Chairs of the Review Panel. "We had a far more modest goal. We were here only to inform ourselves about claimed evidence, and to try to decide if further scientific study of such evidence is likely to significantly advance the resolution of the UFO problem."
The "UFO problem" was defined by Peter Sturrock of Stanford University, director of the workshop, as the problem of understanding the cause or causes of UFO reports.
"Honest people report strange observations. Not all reports have obvious explanations. So what are the not-so-obvious explanations? I would like to see scientists play a more active role in helping to unravel this 50-year old mystery. I see the workshop as a small step in this direction."
Other members of the panel were Randy Jokipii of the University of Arizona, Francois Louange from France, Jay Melosh of the University of Arizona, James Papike of the University of New Mexico, Guenther Reitz from Germany, Charles Tolbert from the University of Virginia, and Bernard Veyret from France.
For further information, contact Peter Sturrock, Stanford University, 650-723-1438.
[Independent investigator Jared Anderson (Jared@valuserve.com) contacted Peter Sturrock for further comment and then reported the following, reprinted with permission:
"According to Sturrock, the jury is still out regarding whether the sum of available evidence constitutes a necessity for serious scientific study [of UFOs]. However, the prospect looks very high... It looks like Sturrock may be planning to re-analyze the Condon report, which has already been done by several UFO organizations and independant researchers but has never been done at the University level with the caliber of scientists in the SSE bios. Marsha Simms (of SSE) told me they are looking forward to 'replacing' the Condon report with their own."
NOTE: The Society for Scientific Exploration publishes the Journal for Scientific Exploration. Visit their web site at http://www.jse.com/ ]
Original file name: CNI - SSE on UFOs.final
This file was converted with TextToHTML - (c) Logic n.v.