UFOLOGY,WHAT IS IT

Ufology is a neologism coined to describe the collective efforts of those who study unidentified flying object reports and associated evidence. While Ufology does not represent an academic research program, UFOs have been subject to various investigations over the years, varying widely in scope and scientific rigor. Governments or independent academics in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, and the Soviet Union are known to have investigated UFO reports at various times. No national government has ever officially and publicly asserted that UFOs represent any form of alien intelligence. However, several governments have displayed interest in UFO phenomena. Perhaps the best known study was Project Blue Book, previously Project Sign and Project Grudge, conducted by the United States Air Force from 1947 until 1969. Other notable investigations include the Robertson Panel (1953), the Brookings Report (1960), the Condon Committee (1966–1968), the Project Twinkle investigation into green fireballs (1948–1951), the Sturrock Panel (1998), and the French GEIPAN (1977-) and COMETA (1996–1999) study groups.

Ufology has never been fully embraced by academia as a scientific field of study even though it was, in the early days, the subject of large scale scientific studies that produced reports described to follow.[1] Prior to August, 2008,[2] one could not obtain a "ufology" degree from any college or university[not in citation given], though there have been a few college or university courses on the subject, often from a folklore perspective.[citation needed]
Ufologists vary from fringe proponent David Icke to respected mainstream scientists like Peter A. Sturrock, J. Allen Hynek, Jacques Vallee, James E. McDonald, or Auguste Meessen, some of whom argue that UFO reports are as worthy of study as any topic, and deserve case-by-case analysis using the scientific method. Debunkers include Philip Klass and Dr. Donald Menzel.
Not all ufologists believe that UFOs are necessarily extraterrestrial spacecraft, or even that they are objective physical phenomena. Even those UFO cases that are exposed as hoaxes, or found to be delusions or misidentifications may still be worthy of serious study from a psychosocial point of view.

Dr. Carl Sagan was quite skeptical of any extraordinary answer to the UFO question, but in 1969, he co-organised a symposium on the subject, thinking that science had unfairly neglected the UFO question. However, Westrum wrote that "Sagan spent very little time researching UFOs ... he thought that little evidence existed to show that the UFO phenomenon represented alien spacecraft and that the motivation for interpreting UFO observations as spacecraft was emotional". [3] Sagan's college classmate Stanton T. Friedman criticized Sagan for ignoring evidence, such as "600-plus UNKNOWNS of Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14". Friedman refers to a table in Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 that he says "shows that the better the quality of the sighting, the more likely it was to be an 'unknown', and the less likely it was to be listed as 'insufficient information'" [4] (p. 42). Friedman argued that this empirical data directly contradicts Sagan's claim in Other Worlds, that the "reliable cases are uninteresting and the interesting cases are unreliable. Unfortunately there are no cases that are both reliable and intesting".

In her critique of the Condon Report, Diana Palmer Hoyt notes that "The UFO problem seems to bear a closer resemblance to problems in meteorology than in physics. The phenomena are observed, occur episodically, are not reproducible, and in large part, are identified by statistical gathering of data for possible organization into patterns. They are not experiments that can be replicated at will at the laboratory bench under controlled conditions." (see external links below)
Along these lines, Peter A. Sturrock suggests that UFO studies should be compartmentalized — as are most scientific endeavors — into at least "the following distinct activities:
Field investigations leading to case documentation and the measurement or retrieval of physical evidence;
Laboratory analysis of physical evidence;
The systematic compilation of data (descriptive and physical) to look for patterns and so extract significant facts;
The analysis of compilations of data (descriptive and physical) to look for patterns and so extract significant facts;
The development of theories and the evaluation of those theories on the basis of facts."[5]
Study of UFO sightings has yielded results applicable to other fields, such as in weather phenomena (see Hessdalen) and in human perception, such as the study lead by the SOBEPS for the Belgian flap in 1989-'90 or the studies of the GEPAN/SEPRA in France.
The lack of acceptance of ufology by mainstream academia as a field of study means that people can claim to be "UFO researcher", without the sorts of scientific consensus building and, in many cases peer review, that otherwise shape and influence scientific paradigms. This has allowed many to stake out territory and disseminate claims, information and analysis of widely varying rigor and quality.

Some ufologists, such as Stanton Friedman (2008), consider the general attitude of mainstream academics as arrogant and dismissive, or bound to a rigid world view that disallows any evidence contrary to previously held notions. Others charge that mainstream rejection of UFO evidence is a classic case of pathological science. Astronomer and ufologist J. Allen Hynek's famous comment regarding this subject is, "Ridicule is not part of the scientific method and people should not be taught that it is."[6] Another comment by Hynek regarding the frequent dismissal of UFO reports by astronomers was, "Close questioning revealed they) knew nothing of the actual sightings, of their frequency or anything much about them, and therefore cannot be taken seriously. This is characteristic of scientists in general when speaking about subjects which are not in their own immediate field of concern."[7]
Critics like Robert Sheaffer have accused ufology of having a "credulity explosion."[8] He claims a trend of increasingly sensational ideas steadily gaining popularity within ufology.[8] Sheaffer remarked "the kind of stories generating excitement and attention in any given year would have been rejected by mainstream ufologists a few years earlier for being too outlandish."[8]
Whether or not this view has a basis in evidence, James McDonald long ago expressed the view that extreme groups undermined serious scientific investiation, stating that a "bizarre "literature" of pseudo-scientific discussion" on "spaceships bringing messengers of terrestrial salvation and occult truth" had been "one of the prime factors in discouraging serious scientists from looking into the UFO matter to the extent that might have led them to recognize quickly enough that cultism and wishful thinking have nothing to do with the core of the UFO proglem." In the same statement, McDondald said that [9]
Again, one must here criticize a good deal of armchair-researching (done chiefly via the daily newspapers that enjoy feature-writing the antics of the more extreme of such subgroups). A disturbing number of prominent scientists have jumped all too easily to the conclusion that only the nuts see UFOs." [10]

We all need to join together for truth,and to get Ufology recognized as a scientific study of the UFO phenomenon,and the have website add Ufology as a category