God Save 'The Debunker'

Why Skeptics Keep UFO Discourse Alive

In 1994, Larry King hosted his famous “Live from Area 51” broadcast. It featured many big names from the UFO community, and attempted to provide a debate which would settle the UFO question. Fact versus fiction. Real versus False. Right versus Wrong. Let’s just say the ‘jury is still out.’

However, the 90 minute episode did raise an interesting (exo)philosophical point which does need to be revisited.  Larry King suggests at one point that much of the UFO debate hinges upon our capacity to ‘believe’ the witness. Set against the backdrop of the Nevada desert, and the infamous Area 51, the concept of the extraterrestrial reveals and renounces the ‘Truth.’

​The UFO discourse exists in a dualism; a blend of attempted scientific method and research mixed with an open democratic ideological free-for-all. Objective and subjective simultaneously; both and neither. This places the UFO discourse into an interesting cultural state, and more importantly, fundamentally requires skeptics and debunkers as essential players in the UFO game.

One segment of UFO discourse hinges upon witness credibility, and that the UFO is an objective ‘thing,’ physical and present. It is something that can be studied. Furthermore, many within the UFO community push for a scientific approach to the UFO question. They argue that the UFO community must apply modern science to address these objects, and have ‘real’ scientists explore the UFO question. In essence, they posit that academic rigour, rationality and logic are essential to solving the riddle.

Others within the community, many skeptics and debunkers included, state that this scientific approach will achieve nothing. It is interesting to note that those members of the community who ‘believe’ in a more mystical UFO reality, and the hardline debunkers, follow a similar vein of thinking; scientific method has been attempted for 70 years, has solved nothing, and it is time to move on to something different. Furthermore, the argument goes that the UFO question does not turn upon human rationality and logic, but exceeds it as our human minds are too rudimentary to understand the broader cosmic reality. The abductee, the contactee, the witness, is more than a simple observer, but an ‘experiencer.’ The event intertwines with them in a mysterious way, divine, fetishized, and emotional. The object and subject are connected and  indivisible. A person does not simply ‘see,’ rather they are in ‘communion’ with the Other.

This ideological duality within UFO debate and subculture, this simultaneously objective and subjective state, generates a spontaneous discourse, reflexive to the constant interplay and shifting of ideological constructs. In other words, the UFO debate is constantly evolving and adapting. It is a truly postmodern system of objects, subjects and ideas. UFO discourse allows for any and all realities.

The discourse is chaotic, both meaningful and meaningless. The lines between information and misinformation (or disinformation) is not only blurry, it is constantly moving. However, the subculture continues to grow, UFO headlines still make the news, and the discourse continues to generate ideas, thoughts, theories and hypotheses. It continues to function, even in the chaos. This begs the question, how?

Enter the skeptics and the debunkers who are ever present and fundamentally essential to the survival of Ufology and the UFO discourse as a cultural phenomenon.

​UFO skeptics and debunkers are the glue that hold the subculture and the debate together. Mainstream science has basically excluded the UFO question from its ideological world view; it is this exclusion which allows Ufology to continue. Ufology itself has attempted to use the scientific method (albeit unsuccessfully) to turn various UFO hypotheses into ‘facts.’ A whole movement within the UFO community pushes for ‘Scientific Ufology,’ using the very academic discipline which alienates UFOs in an attempt to prove their objective reality.

Theologically, UFO discourse has negotiated many ancient and well established religious ideologies, predominantly aspects of Buddhism, Hinduism, and various indigenous Shamanistic practices, into itself. Discussions over universal consciousness, light beings, the Mandela Effect, spirit guides, energy crystals, prophesy, and divine visitors all exist within UFO discourse. Deemed as crazies and cooks, the mystical UFO believers have legitimized their own ideologies by suggesting their beliefs are ‘True’ while the rest of the world is blind to the facts. They’d argue that scientific understanding is irrelevant as it is a limited human construct. While this sounds a little out there, can any scientist truly argue and prove that the human mind, and the social constructs it generates such as science, is the pinnacle of all evolution within the cosmos? From an established philosophical perspective, this concept is pretty old hat. Metaphysics often deals with this, and many philosophers have dealt with God as a symbol of intelligence that exceeds that of humanity. I digress.

The chaotic nature of UFO discourse continues to pop up into mainstream culture due to the constant interplay between itself and the skeptics. The books and essays by Carl Sagan and Philip Klass legitimize the discourse, they provide the chaos with a bit of level ground that outsiders can stand on. The skeptics and debunkers, in a sense, contain the chaos, to allow for debate and discussion to occur in an understandable way. More importantly, the skeptics and debunkers are the ones who bring the UFO question to mainstream culture. The publicity they generate in their criticism affirms the UFO, and the UFO subculture simply pivots, and uses that criticism to grow.

It is interesting to consider the essential place of the skeptic and debunker in UFO discourse. Many within the community despise those who openly criticize their beliefs and experiences, however, without those voices of dissent within the UFO debate, the discourse itself would stagnate. To the broader mainstream culture not regularly involved in the nitty-gritty Ufological world, the skeptics and debunkers are hounds howling at night drawing attention to the darkness. Whether the critics know it or not, the more they speak, the faster Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane.

- MJ Banias