WHY THIS SUDDEN UPSURGE OF INTEREST IN UFOs?

             From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9    1093     4732         1185        246       82

July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572

Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130

Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82

Oct     21     1225      6849         571        703       85

Nov    25      2304    12025        620        518      118

Dec    30      3880    14748       1224       299      465

Jan     14      4142    15512        1151       189     712              

Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398

          25       2414    10578       1582        119      144

Mar     2        1989      9490        1726       110      194

          31       1115     12301        3950       458       58

April   6          906     11787         4211       631       37

May    4         853     13667         3025     3786       59 

         26         607     12348         2399     3842     101

June    1         287    10637        2346      3205       95

          30         249      8505        2127        991     383

 July    7          251      8440        1595        817     411

         14          374      8721        1574        580      453

         21          414      8638        1388        510      516

         28          483    10136        1366        641      520

Aug    4           656    10120        1118        532      423 

         10           657    10078        1183       468      189        

Summary:

• The U.S. had 101,254 new cases yesterday.  #2 was Iran with 39,139, #3 India 36,316 and #4 Brazil 35,245.
• Several other countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Japan are also looking bad.  
• China was reported in the news to be on the upswing, but they only had 143 new cases and no new deaths yesterday.
• How will the USA do for the rest of the year?  I have huge fears, for we have decided that remote learning is not ideal, most K-12 students are returning to school, and no one from ages 0-11 has yet been vaccinated.  Of course there will be more and more COVID-19 cases, for the Delta variant is dangerously contagious, and younger children will return home and infect the rest of the family and friends.  What kind of planning is this?

I only rarely write about flying saucers and other forms of unidentified flying objects (UFO).   The reason is simple.  I don't believe they are real.  Reminds me of God and ghosts.  All of them stretch the fabric of credibility.  But many people do believe, and I want to better understand why.  Who knows, they could ultimately be right.  

To them, logic or reality takes a secondary role to faith and other psychological or cultural factors.  The anti-vax protesters, for example, mostly have sincere personal reasons to avoid being vaccinated or having their children so inoculated.  It could have something to do with freedom of choice or a wide array of other feelings.  Misinformation feeds itself, and many spend time following or reading only about their beliefs, thus reinforcing an attitude.  Same thing happens in politics and UFOs.

Almost three years ago I posted on ALIENS AND FLYING SAUCERS.  In it I mentioned that I once worked for NASA on a SETI project, and experts in the field were reasonably accommodating about the potential of intelligent life out there in space, but kicked you out of their club if you showed any soft spot for flying saucers.  UFOs were loosely okay, because that is just a term for what can't today be explained by science.  Here is an excerpt:

You can find those articles if you wish to read the details, but I thought I'd at least summarize the editorial by Kendrick Frazier--Aliens and UFOs:  What They Tell Us about Ourselves:

• Topic is perennially fascinating.
• But it's one of those subjects where hope, wishful thinking, and unfetterred speculation seems to overwhelm reason, facts and evidence.
• Frazier did not say this, but to many, much of this might sound like religion.

Tomorrow I'll report on the unclassified nine-page report released in June to Congress by the Defense of Defense surveying 144 observations dating back to 2004. According to the New York Times:  U.S. Finds No Evidence of Alien Technology in Flying Objects, but Can't Rule It Out, Either.  Huh?  

It was this publication that catalyzed the recent flurry of media interest in UFOs.  A previous government investigation called Project Blue Book, which ended in 1969, also stimulated public interest in the field in those days.  I might also add that I'm currently viewing a  relatively new six-part Netflix series entitled Top Secret UFO Projects Declassified, which Rotten Tomatoes lists, but has not bothered to rate.  After a couple of episodes, my suspicions will be validated.

The Dow Jones Industrials will again break it's all time high today.

I'll end with a performance of John Williams and orchestra playing 50 years of Oscar songs.

-