Monday, October 31, 2005

Oooh! My UFO teacher speaks!

I'm listening to "Voices of the Family" on NPR, and one of the guests is Dr. David Jacobs. He's a UFO researcher who taught "UFOs and American Society" at Temple when I was an undergraduate, and I recognized his voice on the radio straightaway. He was a good teacher, and the course was not easy, despite what you'd have thought from the title. Although I can't say I believe his claims (Carl Sagan said it best about extraordinary claims and extraordinary evidence), I can say he doesn't come across as crazy. That's important, because he believes in the abduction theories*, and that stuff is creepy.

The class involved a lot of history of the sightings, and of course an in-depth look at the abduction stories. Unlike what you hear on TV, not all sightings are by John-Deere-cap-wearing nobodies in the country. That doesn't mean that they're true, but I always feel as though I have to point that out.

*I'm using the word "theory" in the layman's sense, not the scientific sense. Would that creationists followed suit.

No comments: