num_pages: 341
description: Sagan had interest in UFO reports from his youth, a letter querying the government as regards their reality having been uncovered thru the FOIA. In '64 he had conversations on the subject with Jacques Vallee. Tho skeptical of any extraordinary answer to the question, he thought scientists should study the phenomenon because of widespread public interest. Stuart Appelle notes that Sagan "wrote frequently on what he perceived as the logical &amp; empirical fallacies regarding UFOs &amp; the abduction experience. Sagan rejected an extraterrestrial explanation for the phenomenon but felt there were both empirical &amp; pedagogical benefits for examining UFO reports &amp; that the subject was, therefore, a legitimate topic of study." In '66, Sagan was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Project Blue Book, the USAF's UFO investigation. The committee concluded Blue Book had been inadequate &amp; recommended a university-based project to give the phenomenon closer scientific scrutiny. The result was the Condon Committee ('66-'68), led by physicist Edward Condon. Their controversial final report formally concluded--as if ignoring the body of the text--there was nothing anomalous about UFO reports. Ron Westrum writes that "The high point of Sagan's treatment of the UFO question was the AAAS's symposium in 1969. A wide range of educated opinions on the subject were offered by participants, including not only proponents like James McDonald &amp; J. Allen Hynek but also skeptics like astronomers Wm Hartmann &amp; Donald Menzel. The roster of speakers was balanced, &amp; it's to Sagan's credit that this event was presented in spite of pressure from Edward Condon". With physicist Thornton Page, Sagan edited the lectures &amp; discussions given at the symposium. These were published as UFO's: A Scientific Debate. Jerome Clark writes that Sagan's perspective on UFO's irked Condon: "...tho a skeptic, [Sagan] was too soft on UFOs for Condon's taste. In '71, he considered blackballing Sagan from the prestigious Cosmos Club". Some of Sagan's many books examine UFOs. He recognized a religious undercurrent to the phenomenon. However, Westrum writes that "Sagan spent very little time researching UFOs...he thought that little evidence existed to show that the UFO phenomenon represented alien spacecraft &amp; that the motivation for interpreting UFO observations as spacecraft was emotional." Sagan again revealed his views on interstellar travel in his '80 Cosmos series. He rejected the idea that UFOs are visiting Earth, maintaining the chances any alien spacecraft would visit the Earth are vanishingly small. In one of his last written works, he again argued there was no evidence aliens have actually visited Earth.
language: English
title: UFOs: A Scientific Debate
titlecomplete: UFOs: A Scientific Debate
genres: Paranormal, Nonfiction, Science
ratings_count: 43
publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc