Terence Hines - Pseudoscience and the Paranormal

Finally, blatant misrepresentation of results has sometimes been used to sell biorhythm theory. Most often misused in this fashion was the work of psychologist Rexford Hersey (1931, 1932, 1955), who studied cyclic changes in workers’ moods and emotions. It is often claimed by biorhythmists (e.g., Dale, 1976; Holden, 1977) that Hersey’s work supports the theory. It doesn’t. Hersey did show that workers’ moods and emotions vary cyclically, but his data clearly show that the cycles vary greatly within an individual, due to environmental and other factors, and that different individuals have different cycles. This is just the opposite of what biorhythm theory requires.

An additional factor has led many to accept the validity of biorhythm theory as it applied to predicting events in their own lives. This factor, called the fallacy of personal validation, helps explain the belief in numerous occult and pseudoscientific systems, such as astrology and psychic predictions. Here, only its application to biorhythm theory will be discussed. The fallacy of personal validation hinges on the selective nature of human memory, as discussed earlier. Every day in our lives has its good and bad points, with most days being rather neutral—some bad things happen, but also some good things. Thus, if biorhythm theory predicted for an individual that a particular day was going to be “up” or “down,” there would always be events occurring during that day that would seem to verify the prediction. Thus, the prediction will seem to be quite accurate. Randi (1980) makes the point nicely. He gave a woman a biorhythm chart that covered two months and told her it had been made up based on her birthdate. She was to record its accuracy and report back. At the end of the two months, she reported that it had been very accurate in predicting her personal ups and downs. But it wasn’t her chart: To test the effect of belief on the perceived accuracy of the chart, Randi had sent her a chart based on his own birthday. He apologized and promised to send her the correct chart. She received it and, when she checked the new chart against the diary she had been keeping, “reported that this one was even more accurate” (p. 165, emphasis in original) than the previous chart. But the second chart wasn’t hers either. It didn’t matter what the chart “predicted”; as long as she believed it was hers, she perceived it as accurate. This is the heart of the fallacy of personal validation.

The belief that unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are some sort of extraterrestrial spacecraft is certainly one of the most prevalent pseudoscientific beliefs in Western culture. Dozens of movies have reinforced the view that “flying saucers,” or UFOs, are alien craft. Massively popular modern films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind have kept the UFO theme in the public eye. For a well-written and informative history of the UFO “myth,” see Peebles (1994). Bartholomew and Howard (1998) provide an especially detailed description of the early (pre-World Ward II) UFO sightings. An excellent book-length examination of the evidence for UFOs can be found in Sheaffer (1998).

UFOs are almost exclusively a post-World War II phenomenon. There was a series of sightings of cigar-shaped UFOs in the United States between late 1896 and early 1897, but this was an isolated series (Cohen 1981). During World War II both Allied and Axis pilots reported seeing “foo-fighters,” strange lights that followed their aircraft, but these reports attracted little attention (Jacobs 1975). The modern era for UFOs began on June 24, 1947, when private pilot Kenneth Arnold was flying near the Cascade Mountains in Washington State and saw nine unidentified flying objects that he described flying “like a saucer skipping over water” (pp. 36–37). The term flying saucer , and the public’s interest in the phenomenon, was born.

After Arnold’s sighting was reported, the number of other sightings around the country and the world grew. There was a major wave, or “flap,” of sightings in 1952. That year also saw the first reported contact between earthman and spaceman, or close encounter of the third kind . The first “contactee” was George Adamski, a handyman and failed mystic who met a visitor from Venus in the California desert on November 20, 1952. Adamski was the first of a series of contactees during the 1950s. Jacobs (1975) has noted that contactee stories of this era contain several common elements. The lone earthman was given a ride in the UFO. The occupants described their advanced culture to him and explained the workings of the craft. One contactee, Howard Menger, was lucky enough to have the aliens show him how to construct a “free-energy motor” (Menger 1959), although this marvelous invention somehow failed to forestall the energy crisis of the 1970s. The aliens would also predict dire happenings on Earth, such as atomic war, that would affect other planets. The contactee was usually given a mission to prevent this disaster and set the stage for final contact between the human and extraterrestrial civilizations. Somehow, the aliens always forgot to give their contacts any proof that they existed. They also must have been very bad psychologists, because the people they chose to carry their messages were almost invariably crackpots, lunatics, or charlatans. Thus, close encounters of the third kind were not taken seriously by many people until the 1970s, when such reports cropped up again, in rather different form.

As the 1950s wore on, UFO reports continued, and the U.S. Air Force became concerned. After all, people were reporting strange things in the skies—often reporting them directly to the air force. The fear was that they might be some type of Soviet weapon. Recall that this was the period of the McCarthy anticommunist paranoia. Thus, Project Blue Book was set up in 1952 by the air force to investigate UFO reports. However, the air force appears not to have taken the project too seriously; it had a small staff with little technical competence. Predictably, Project Blue Book was heavily criticized by those who felt there was really something to the UFO reports. In 1954 the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) was formed by retired Marine Corps Maj. Donald Keyhoe. It was the first private UFO research group, and the most conservative. NICAP correctly dismissed as crackpots or frauds the various contactees of the 1950s, when other private UFO investigating organizations were often taking at least some of these stories seriously.

From about 1958 until 1965 came a period of constant controversy over UFOs. The several private UFO groups battled with each other over who was the best, and with the air force, since they were convinced that the air force knew that UFOs were alien spacecraft but was keeping this truth from the American public. There were constant calls for congressional investigations of the UFO sightings, the air force itself, and its handling of UFO reports.

By 1966 the air force had concluded that there was nothing to UFO reports, either as a concern of national security or as extraterrestrial contact. Devoutly wishing to be rid of the entire matter, the air force contracted with a group of independent scientists to investigate all aspects of the UFO question. This group, headed by University of Colorado professor of physics Edward Condon, came to be known as the Condon Committee. Creation of the Condon Committee was greeted with optimism by all sides (Jacobs 1975). However, pro-UFO groups quickly became dissatisfied with the committee’s investigation. Factions within the committee fought over how to approach the problem. One group felt that the focus of the investigation should be the extraterrestrial hypothesis, while another faction “thought the extraterrestrial theory was nonsense and believed the solution to the UFO mystery was to be found in the psychological makeup of the witnesses” (p. 230). This dispute led to much internal dissension and fueled the private UFO groups’ discontent with the committee.