While it is wrong to assume legitimacy based on educational merit, it is, unfortunately, the result of a society focused on the sciences and technology. How can one presume to have seen a flying saucer without the proper education as to what the planet Venus looks like when the earth is at a particular point in its rotation? Using information and sciences largely beyond the experience and grasp of the average individual, an astronomer or physicist can come up with a complex equation of numerous natural phenomena combined with unreliable witness testimony to explain that the craft following your car down a dark, deserted road a mere 50 feet off the ground was actually the planet Venus seen in a particular light. Without similar scientific expertise to offer a rebuttal, the average Joe is left looking the fool, having been roundly put into his place by the intelligentsia.
Friedman is able to play the game on the skeptics’ terms. He can talk the talk, understand the data, and, using formidable debating skills, can offer a counterargument to the establishment claims. And, frankly, he has plenty at his disposal. Friedman debates even the technology and science behind the ability of flying saucers to travel such great distances. Many skeptics point out that even if life does exist on another planet, it would be too far away for those beings to travel here. However, Friedman refutes that argument; simply because man doesn’t understand yet how it can be done doesn’t mean that interstellar travel isn’t possible (even as I write this, the scientific world is buzzing from the report that a neutrino may have surpassed the speed of light in the CERN particle collider; though it has yet to be verified, it would mean a revolution in physics—something that was once thought impossible has happened). One of Friedman’s favorite lines is, “Progress comes from doing things differently in an unpredictable fashion.”13 And, indeed, he has history on his side to prove his point; it was thought that man would never fly and that landing on the moon was impossible. Friedman even coauthored a book on this very premise, entitled Science Was Wrong, detailing the scientific establishment’s lack of imagination in the past.
Part of Friedman’s salesmanship is his coining of certain phrases, usually humorous, that he uses as talking points—the way a politician sticks to his stump speech. Friedman has been doing this for a long time, so naturally he has an inventory of preset answers. He uses terms like “nasty, noisy negativists” to describe the rabid skeptics; he defines SETI as “Silly Effort To Investigate.” He has the ability to use talking points and frame the discussion on his terms and therefore is a difficult target for skeptics and a ray of light for the believers. Friedman is certainly not the only accomplished and educated ufologist, but he has certainly managed to corner the market on selling himself and his message better than anyone else. In a world where those who are confronted with the paranormal are looked upon as fools by the establishment, Friedman comes to their defense, rhetoric blazing.
During our interview Friedman rehashed many of his traditional lines, but in his defense, my questions weren’t that profound. There are only so many times one can answer a question such as, “Why don’t the aliens just land on the White House lawn?” before it becomes boring to answer. However, it was his answer to that very question, no matter how well rehearsed, that reveals Friedman’s hopes for humanity embedded in his study of ufology. His answer was simple: “Why would they?” In Friedman’s view, man has squandered his potential and is still holding himself back. He lists a series of humanitarian failures—from wars to starvation and poverty. He cites the millions killed in World War II alone, and the use of nuclear weapons on our own species, which raises the obvious question that if human scientists came across a particularly violent and intelligent species in nature, would they just walk up and say, “Hello”? Probably not. Like much of the paranormal, Friedman’s research has led him to the big questions—the questions that define our existence.
Who are we? This question has bedazzled scholars for millennia. Are we the masters of all we can see? Is there a God providing hope and perhaps fear for all of us? Or are we casting God in our image to justify our ways? These may seem to be strictly religious questions, but they are not. Many wars have been fought over interpretations of God and the Universe and governments for or by the people, and the need to fight Evil and do Good. The other guy is always the evil one, isn’t he? And God is always on our side, right?14
Perhaps this is why ufology and skepticism can often take on the appearance of religious fervor, if not actually become a religious belief—because the study of these phenomena will ultimately point to the truth of our existence. What you believe, or what you want the truth to be, may define what side you end up on in the debate over the paranormal. Science takes a back seat to these deeper questions, though science indeed frames some of the debate. Friedman’s assertion that progress is made through doing things differently in an unpredictable way could also be applied to the social sciences, because, thus far, it appears we have reached a less than testable, perfect theory for governance and maintenance of humanity. As Mr. Friedman mourns the squandering of potential, perhaps he hopes that something new and different may eventually save us. We are quite young as a species, and if there are alien civilizations that predate us, then it means they have been able to not only survive an alien world and its environment but also survive each other. Mr. Friedman sells a dream and tells people that it is possible and, like so many other dreams before it, could eventually come true. With that kind of message, is there any wonder that he has been able to support his family financially throughout the years? The more the world spins out of control, the more his message resonates. He is salesman, preacher, politician, and scientist supported by the people, for the people … and for the aliens.
Reading Dr. Carl Sagan’s book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, reminds me of a conversation I had while bartending a restaurant located in a secluded and wealthy area of Connecticut. After overhearing that I was a graduate student, a retired couple at the end of the bar started discussing with me the merits of education and reading; I will call them Joe and Mary. After a few martinis Joe leaned over the bar and, in a whisper, said to me, “You see, well, my wife and I are intellectuals.” Confused and wondering if this “intellectual” thing was a paying job, I pushed him for a little more information. He continued, “Don’t you think that we”—myself included now; I assume because I was in grad school—“as intellectuals are under attack in this country?”
I looked around, still a bit confused, and asked, “Under attack by whom?” Gesturing as if to refer to the rest of the world or at least the rest of the people in the room, he said, “All these dumb people!” I could only smile and agree and say, “You know, I do feel that I’m under attack by dumb people.” The sarcasm was lost on him, thanks to the martinis, and at the end of the night I still received a generous tip.
In a society that is both knowingly and unknowingly mired in belief systems based on faith, the skeptic can often find himself frustrated, angry, elitist, and a bit vindictive. One can hardly blame him when the price of such unfounded and unproven beliefs can exact such a tremendous toll. From the Associated Press, 2009:
A jury has found five New Zealanders guilty of manslaughter in the death of a family member during an exorcism ceremony to drive a “makutu” or Maori curse from the woman. Nine family members of the victim, Janet Moses, 22, performed an exorcism on her in October 2007, forcing water into her mouth and eyes to flush out the demons and lift the makutu. Moses drowned and a 14-year-old girl the group also believed was possessed suffered serious eye injuries as people picked at the demons they saw in them, the High Court hearing was told.15
The power of belief has compelled some of humanity’s worst atrocities, all in the name of some unproven, unknown entity. Skeptics, on the other hand, take the world for only what can be seen and proven with empirical evidence. It can be a noble position at times, while in other cases skepticism can become the very thing it claims to rebuke—blind faith. Either way the skeptic’s position ca
n ofttimes lead him or her to being the lonely nerd sitting by him- or herself at the lunchroom table. In other words, the skeptic can be a bit of a downer.
Carl Sagan is, perhaps, the most famous skeptic in recent history. His ability to render science interesting for the masses made him a great spokesman, similar to Stanton Friedman. And like Stanton Friedman, he attended the University of Chicago and worked on serious scientific programs, largely with NASA. Friedman and Sagan sparred occasionally regarding the question of alien life forms visiting earth. Friedman coauthored a book about the Betty and Barney Hill abduction while Sagan worked to debunk the story. However, they remained mutually respectful, and Friedman actually wrote an article on Sagan after his death, praising his ability to bring science to the masses.
While Sagan did work with NASA, much of his fame and fortune came from engaging with the paranormal. He was the preeminent skeptic; the intellectual who used science to trump the faith and folklore of the masses and assure the world that the modern scientist had everything well in hand—that life and the cosmos could be boiled down to a chemical equation or quantum physics. Unfortunately for the skeptic, those chemical equations and quantum physics are written in a language that is largely unreadable to the average Joe or Jane. This leaves the skeptic/scientist in the position of being the sole possessor of the knowledge of the mysterious workings of the universe; it puts the skeptic in an elitist position, which means he or she can often have difficulty reaching the masses.
It is difficult to draw a line through the sand as to which side has benefited more from paranormal’s economic potential. Certainly, those who teach and write about the paranormal have a very large group of customers willing to buy books, DVDs, and attend lectures. Indeed, most of the world is comprised of religious people who believe in a supernatural explanation for existence, and thus, are inclined toward paranormal belief. However, the skeptic enjoys a level of prestige that is often lost on those who follow belief and faith over empirical science. That prestige comes with the various merits and degrees bestowed upon these men and women by universities and colleges. These are men and women who are adept and trained in the sciences. They have been trained to see the world through the prism of known science. If they form any differentiation between the known and the unknown, it is a difference between the observation of a known and understood natural occurrence and a yet-to-be-understood natural occurrence, but still a product of nature and the physical forces that operate therein. As Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote in his short story, “The Haunted and the Haunters,” “Now, my theory is that the Supernatural is the Impossible, and that what is called supernatural is only a something in the laws of nature of which we have been hitherto ignorant. Therefore, if a ghost rise before me, I have not the right to say, ‘So, then the supernatural is possible,’ but rather, ‘So, then the apparition of a ghost is, contrary to received opinion, within the laws of nature—i.e., not supernatural.’ ”16 Scientists, therefore, are not averse to the unknown—in fact that is their bread and butter—but they tend to be non-accepting of supernatural theories.
For the intellectual skeptic there is a niche market, though not as sizeable as the market for believers in the paranormal. Prometheus Publishers publishes books almost entirely devoted to skepticism and disputing the paranormal. It also has a monthly magazine entitled The Skeptical Inquirer, which offers articles and investigations of paranormal phenomena that are almost always roundly debunked. Run by the Center for Skeptical Inquiry, both Prometheus Books and The Skeptical Inquirer regularly produce and sell to their growing audience.
Sagan, like many skeptics will readily admit, wants to believe in the paranormal but can’t, due to that pesky little rule called the scientific method; “I had been interested in the possibility of extraterrestrial life from childhood, from long before I ever heard of flying saucers. I’ve remained fascinated long after my early enthusiasm for UFOs waned—as I understood more about that remorseless taskmaster called scientific method.”17 Sagan hoped to find extraterrestrial life and was instrumental in setting up SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), which uses a radio telescope to broadcast into outer space the Arecibo message, which he cowrote with Dr. Frank Drake, in the hopes that it will be heard by intelligent life forms and translated, so that contact can be established.
Sagan was highly successful in his public career. Along with his extensive work in the sciences, he is most widely known for bringing science to the masses through his writing and television work. His book Cosmos became the best-selling scientific work ever published in English, and he had many notable follow-ups, including a Pulitzer Prize for The Dragons of Eden. However, one of his greatest successes was his novel Contact, which imagined the consequences if the Arecibo message was ever received by intelligent beings and contact were established. The book was a best-seller and was eventually turned into a movie starring Jodie Foster. It remains one of the most imaginative and realistic portrayals of contact with extraterrestrial beings ever written. Unfortunately, Sagan passed away before he was able to see the film on screen. Sagan was popular with mainstream audiences and fostered his own catchphrase of “billions and billions” and was an occasional guest of late-night talk shows. He had a certain charisma that many in his profession lack—he had a passion for the sciences but was able to popularize it and elevate the average Joe to the level of informed, scientifically aware, above-average Joe.
Friedman and Sagan are complimentary opposites, but both are ultimately humanist in their aspirations; they are/were men on a mission to change humanity for the better. One of the reasons that these two men make such an interesting dichotomy is that their pursuits are not limited by their respective viewpoints; Friedman believes that earth is being visited by extraterrestrial beings but Sagan did not. Each offers evidence, each has impressive scientific background and education, and each is an engaging public presence with the conviction of an evangelical preacher and the swagger of the consummate politician. However, they are bound to each other by an underlying ideology: that humanity is descending into calamity. Friedman writes,
I should think it would seem strange to the visitors that 30,000 children will die every day of preventable disease and starvation, and that we apparently can’t afford to spend enough money to make a dent in the tragic statistic. We know we are fouling our waterways and the skies above, but we certainly don’t seem to be able to get together with others on the planet to solve what are planetary (rather than national) problems. Certainly, despite all the jokes about aliens landing and saying ‘Take me to your leader,’ we know there is no leader of the planet to whom to be taken.18
Similarly, Sagan writes,
I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.19
Sagan wrote this hauntingly prophetic passage in 1996—before the Internet had become a life-changing force, and before the world was forever changed on 9/11.
Both men had a vision—a message in their work; and this is why they are so strangely connected. Perhaps it is why Friedman felt it necessary to pen an article praising Sagan’s work when, in life, the two had been so at odds with each other. They are each sending a message through their opposing viewpoints: humanity is on the wrong track, and continuing on this path will inevitably lead to destruction. We are capable of so much more, and yet, each and every day we prevent ourselves from truly advancing. In this way they were like evangelical pr
eachers, and in this way they were perfect embodiments of what the paranormal represents—a warning to us to change our ways, lest our society be destroyed. Each of them urges us to return to a value system, one that values life, nature, possibility, and science, and each of them believes that man is capable of so much more. The way a preacher warns mankind of the error of his ways and encourages him to aspire to divinity, likewise, Friedman and Sagan admonish mankind to aspire to divinity. They urge us to become god-like through an understanding of the sciences, reaching for the stars, communicating with superior beings, and embracing benevolence for all mankind. Perhaps this is why their message resonates so well with the public and why they were each embraced by the media; they are not necessarily selling aliens or science but are rather selling an ideology that man faces ruin and must act in order to save himself. It is an ideology buried deep in their respective viewpoints, but one that is, nonetheless, communicated to the listening audience. Friedman and Sagan are like two sides of the same coin; balanced on edge, they face different directions but are made of the same metal.
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