Skeptical of Skepticism

Can I trust my skepticism?

It's a question I've been asking myself lately because of UFOs.

They aren't called UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) these days. They're called UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena). Perhaps the name was changed to distance the subject from the "flying saucer" imagery that dominated popular culture since the late 1940s.

One thing is certain: the phenomenon is being taken more seriously than it once was. There have been televised Congressional hearings in the United States, along with the ongoing release of government materials and testimony from military personnel.

For most of my life, I've regarded UFOs as a subcategory of Cold War kitsch. Even if the phenomenon is entirely fictional, it remains worthy of interest. Like any enduring cultural artifact, it tells us something about who we are and what preoccupies us. It is, in its own way, another form of storytelling.

That's why I'm a sucker for eyewitness accounts, which forms the vast majority of 'evidence'. I've tried to avoid the more sensational material, but I've read a number of books by reporters who strike me as credible. I've watched fighter pilots testify before Congress about encounters they cannot explain, and followed the release of government videos with genuine interest.

Even more tantalizing is the archival material, much of which is now easily accessible online. Yes, there is an enormous amount of garbage out there. But if you know where to look, some of what you find is remarkably compelling, particularly the older eyewitness reports, interview recordings and photographs, before the existence of iPhone filters.

What becomes difficult to dismiss is the sheer volume of accounts. Thousands upon thousands of documented reports spanning decades, continents, cultures, and social classes. The witnesses include fighter pilots and police officers, scientists and teachers, farmers and businesspeople, children and grandparents. They come from every conceivable background. 

Even if one were to presume that the vast majority of the reports are hoaxes, the remaining percentage would constitute a very large number of encounters. 

Some cases, in particular, resist easy explanation. The most persuasive to me involve multiple sources of corroboration, large groups of people observing the same phenomenon. And of those (there are many dozens) some are especially compelling because they involve children who report having the same experience. One such event happened at Westall School in Melbourne, Australia, in 1966 in which there were reportedly as many as 300 first-hand eye witnesses. Another more recent event took place at Ariel School near Harare, Zimbabwe in 1994, where 62 children aged 6-12 described a remarkably similar encounter with a craft and unusual beings.

At what point does the cumulative weight of evidence begin to outweigh lingering doubt? When the tables turn, and it's the skeptics who start looking like the ones pulling at loose threads to preserve a conclusion. That's when skepticism begins to resemble a belief system rather than a method of inquiry.

We live in a strangely incongruous time. We are surrounded by technologies that would have seemed like magic only a generation ago. Smartphones, artificial intelligence, self-driving vehicles—each would once have belonged to the realm of science fiction. Reality seems to be melding with the imagination.

At the same time, this is an era of manipulation and deception, where images can be fabricated and videos altered convincingly with your personal device, making trust ever more difficult. Even believing your own eyes comes into question.

The obvious recent example is how the assault on the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021, became questioned, despite millions (perhaps billions) of witnesses on TV, countless hours of video footage, and extensive testimony and documentation.

It seems that today, more than at any other time, if an alien spacecraft landed in the middle of Central Park, was witnessed by thousands of people and filmed from every angle, most people would refuse to believe it. More likely they would find reason to call it a hoax and dismiss it as some kind of conspiracy. 

Check out the dark satire Don't Look Up. It's a film about a comet on a collision course with Earth and how easily we are manipulated and lulled into a state of collective denial.  

But human beings are fundamentally believing creatures. The battle is always over what we believe and, as Orwell documented, who controls that belief. 

Belief makes ordinary life livable. Every morning you head out to the driveway because you believe your car will start. Or you wait for the metro or the bus because you believe it will arrive. You believe you'll arrive at work safely. You make plans for next week, next month, and next year based on belief.

None of these things is certain, it's solely based on past experience. Plus, verifiable facts take us only so far. Beyond them lies a vast territory of assumptions, expectations, probabilities, and trust.

Even deeper, the aspects of life that give existence meaning—creativity, invention, ambition, hope—are all rooted, to some degree, in belief. We make decisions based on assumptions we believe to be true and commit ourselves to futures that do not yet exist.

Which is why I've started becoming skeptical of my skepticism. After all, skepticism relies on a set of beliefs too.

Not in UFOs, ghosts, or miracles, but belief in the reliability of certain methods for knowing anything at all. Belief that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Belief that human perception is flawed. Belief that simpler explanations are usually preferable to more complicated ones.

These are reasonable assumptions. They are probably indispensable assumptions. But they are assumptions nonetheless.

At some point, every worldview rests upon foundations that cannot themselves be proven, even skepticism.

I'm not ready to entirely abandon my skepticism. Just a little more prepared to be open to possibility.