A bright light descends over Jerusalem. It hovers over the Dome of the Rock for a few seconds. There is a bright flash and the light suddenly ascends vertically into the sky at an impossible speed and disappears. That is what surfaced in a video taken by an unknown person last week. Just to make things interesting, that video was followed by another taken from a different place overlooking Jerusalem, and seems to show the same chain of events. Then a third video appeared, and a fourth. Surely this was it, the long-awaited and long-demanded proof that extraterrestrials are visiting our planet? How could this possibly be anything else, with four videos taken by four independent witnesses? The media went into overdrive, with ITN only one of the networks picking the story up.
Yet as is so often (and predictably) the case, nothing is quite what it seems with stories of the unexplained. Nobody could produce the people who had allegedly filmed the UFO. The original video appeared on a UFO website not noted for its critical judgement. And then the third video was demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt to be a fake, where a light had been superimposed on a well-known stock photograph of Jerusalem. But perhaps most suspiciously of all, in one of the world's most closely-monitored troublespots there was absolutely no response from the Israeli secuity forces. No scrambling of fighters, no sirens, no troops on the streets, no evacuations. Nothing at all. If the UFO had been a Palestinian missile, the Israelis could have suffered many casualties because of their complete lack of any sort of reaction to an object descending on Jerusalem. And if this had been the first stage of an alien invasion, humankind was asleep.
There are reasons to be suspicious of the other videos too. When the bright flash occurs, it is not reflected in the gold dome of the temple. There seems to be some sort of parallax error in one of the videos which makes it look not quite real. And only yesterday, somebody managed to identify both the video editing software the videos were created with, and the exact video effects which had been used. It looks like the videos are a clever fake, put together by unknown persons who are obviously very, very good at video manipulation. Their motives remain unknown, although one might suggest a few. But in the absence of any corroborating evidence, that's all one can say at the moment.
That's not, of course, the view of many. These days, whereas once you could probably only have discussed the videos at a meeting of your local UFO society in a damp church hall somewhere, the instant democracy of the internet means you can put forward your views to millions of people and get listened to. It doesn't matter what your views are, or what expertise you have, your voice is as loud as anybody else's. I've been trawling through a few such discussions, just to see what was being said and by whom. Depressingly, I found the same old views, being discussed by the same groups of people.
1. The Conspiracists.
This is quite the largest group. Conspiracists, almost-exclusively American, believe that of course UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin, and "the government" is engaged in a conspiracy to keep the truth from you. They thus believe that governments are able to fool millions of people for long periods of time, thereby endowing those in power with a level of competence not borne out by experience or history. Conspiracists exhibit a high degree of paranoia, and dismiss any pleas for actual evidence with the pat answer that there is plenty of evidence but the government is hiding it from you. Conspiracists maintain that the government lies to you and has always lied to you about what is real and what is not (they are thus automatically part of that other group: the Moon Hoax theorists). They will get quite aggressive and insulting if you disagree with them, as befits paranoids, and are totally incapable of listening to any opposing views. In the case of the Jerusalem UFO, I've seen Conspiracists claiming that the third, faked, video was made by the (American) government, knowing it would be discredited and thus casting doubt on the authenticity of the other videos. Conspiracists see smoking guns and shapes in shadows everywhere. For them, The X Files was a documentary series. Attempting rational discussion with Conspiracists is therefore pointless.
2. The Hippies
They may not be actual hippies in appearance, but they certainly think like them. Hippies believe that UFOs are flown by aliens who have come here to save us from ourselves, and who will fix all the world's problems. A new age of cosmic awareness will be ushered in and people will live in peace and harmony. These are dressed-up religious beliefs, of course - benevolent aliens instead of a returning saviour. The Hippies probably listen to too much Steve Hillage and are usually harmless, but they live in an alternative reality. Attempting rational discussion with Hippies is therefore pointless.
3. The Armchair Physicists
This group comprises those who have a detailed knowledge of alien technology and know how the laws of physics can be circumvented. They will come up with the most elaborate explanations of how, for example, the UFO in the video can accelerate so impossibly quickly. One explanation I read was all to do with photon traps and gravity nullifiers. If these sound familiar, it's because it's of our old friend the Heisenberg Compensator reversing the polarity again: Armchair Physicists have probably watched too much Star Trek and/or any of the other identikit American sci-fi series where laws of physics are shredded on a regular basis. If you try to disagree with them, Armchair Physicists will usually reply that 21st-century technology is nothing compared to advanced alien tech. When you make the basic point that, just because a civilisation possesses technology thousands or millions of years ahead of ours, it still does not mean that it can break the laws of physics whenever it feels like it, you are usually ignored. Armchair Physicists have a pretty low opinion of modern science, and they are almost always scientifically illiterate, preferring to get their physics from TV sci-fi rather than actually learning it from books. Attempting rational discussion with Armchair Physicists is therefore pointless.
4. The True Believers
They are out there in large numbers: those for whom any sort of unexplained phenomenon is a sign from God. Thus, in one discussion I read, the Jerusalem UFO was an angel sent from Heaven: in another, somebody just quoted thirty verses from the Qu'ran (as if this in itself was an explanation). Another quoted the Bible and warned of the "end times". This group probably also includes those who believe that Elvis was an alien ("The night Elvis was born, a blue light was seen hovering above his house", to quote a woman in a TV documentary I saw a while ago, rather delightfully mixing rock'n'roll and the Nativity) and those who generally have a problem distinguishing fact from fantasy. Jesus, Mohamed, Aliens, the Rapture, the Second Coming, Elvis, Star Trek...all of these and many more get mixed up and confused, thrust into the merciless blender of American popular culture and emerging at the other end completely lacking any sort of anchor into the fabric of reality. Of all the groups, attempting rational discussion with True Believers is the most pointless.
5. The Rationalists
The smallest group. The Rationalists calmly and patiently ask for a critical examination of the evidence, and that no conclusions should be drawn about the Jerusalem UFO until this has been done. But their voice is more often than not ignored, or drowned out by that of the other groups. One can often detect a note of despair in their posts. The Rationalists are not necessarily scientists, but all are scientifically-literate individuals who know that the only way to assess whether evidence is genuine is to apply rational and forensic investigation, above all approaching the question with an open mind.
Whatever the truth about the Jerusalem UFO, one thing is certain: that rational and logical dicsussion of it on the internet is largely pointless. There are just too many kooks, paranoids and obsessives out there: discussion of UFOs attracts them like flies. The internet's greatest strength, that it gives a voice to everybody, is also its greatest weakness: that no matter how wacko your views, they are given equal billing.
But science, as we know, is not about equal billing: everybody's views are not equal. Science is a meritocracy, where those with the most qualifications and expertise are those whose views should be listened to, not the rantings of some trailer-park bozo with an axe to grind against the guv'ment. This is extremely difficult for a large number of people to understand and accept, because their egos will not let them. They have a big problem with somebody knowing more than they do.
Years ago, one vision for the internet was that anybody's contributions should be vetted by a committee of experts, which, as we now know, would be totally impractical. But behind the idea was the fear that the internet would, if not vetted, become a giant free-for-all where the only views which got listened to were from those who could shout the loudest, not from those who actually knew what they were talking about. The concern was also that anybody would be able to post anything on the internet and call it fact.
The Jerusalem UFO has demonstrated two things: that the nightmare vision of an unvetted internet is probably even worse, in reality, than what was feared, and that rational, productive discussion of unusual events is incredibly difficult. Personally, I have no views one way or the other about the Jerusalem UFO, because there are some huge gaps in the data at the moment: while my inclination is to reject the idea of visitations by extraterrestrials, I think it is important that my view is justified by the evidence, or lack of evidence, surrounding this affair. In other words, I remain to be convinced, but if the evidence is demonstrated to be true beyond reasonable doubt, I am more than happy to accept it.
But for the moment, in the strange world of internet discussions, it's business as usual. And outside the internet, it's amazing how, in more than fifty years, nothing , seemingly, has changed. Or has it? Recently I watched the first-ever episode of The Invaders, the Quinn Martin TV series from 1968, where the hero, David Vincent, witnesses a UFO landing and spends two whole series trying to convince a skeptical America that it's being invaded by Communists - sorry, aliens. The invaders look just like us you see, and you never know whether people you meet are aliens, or merely American. A lot of the action takes place in darkened warehouses and abandoned factories. It's a classic slice of American paranoia, a true product of its era. David Vincent really did see an alien spaceship landing, but cannot convince his fellow Americans of that. If the programme were to be made today, one feels that his task would be so much easier. After all, according to a study a few years back, more than eight million Americans believe they've been abducted by aliens, so presumably they at least have no problem believing in alien invasions or UFOs over Jerusalem. People seem so much more prepared to believe anything these days, and are drifting further from sources of authoritative information which might disabuse them of their beliefs. Somewhere along the line, critical thinking has all but disappeared. Perhaps it's been abducted by aliens too. Can we have it back please?
Footnote: In the first episode of The Invaders, one of the aliens is Grandma Walton. As well as this being the stuff of nightmares, it confirmed a theory I'd held for a very long time.
