UFOs, Sovereignty and Politics
ignorance is political rather than scientific"- that’s the conclusion
of two prominent university professors who had the results of their
research on UFOs published in the August 2008 edition of Political
Theory. It was the first time a major political science journal had
published an article dealing with the UFO phenomenon so it has
predictably sparked controversy in the academic world. The joint
authors of "Sovereignty and the UFO," are Alexander Wendt, Professor of
International Security at Ohio State University; and Professor Raymond
Duvall, Chair of Political Science at the University of Minnesota.
Their article breaks new ground in opening up for academic debate the
way in which evidence of UFOs has not been seriously analyzed in the
modern era. Their main argument is that this is due to a "metaphysical
threat" that UFOs pose to the sovereignty of modern states. This threat
comes not from the reality of UFOs as an inexplicable physical
phenomenon that ultimately have mundane explanations, but the implicit
assumption that UFOs are intelligently guided vehicles controlled by
extraterrestrial intelligences (the extraterrestrial hypothesis).
Wendt and Duvall argue that a serious study of UFOs could undermine the
"anthropomorphic sovereignty" under which modern states operate. They
explain in their paper: "When sovereignty is contested today,
therefore, it is always and only among humans, horizontally so to
speak, rather than vertically with Nature or God. In this way modern
sovereignty is fundamentally anthropocentric (pp.607-608)." Put simply,
only humans compete for sovereignty over the population, resources and
territory of the planet.
In the absence of any conclusive scientific evidence of intelligent
extraterrestrial life, political sovereignty remains an exclusively
human affair. This is why, according to Wendt and Duvall, modern states
have not devoted sufficient scientific resources to the UFO problem.
since 1947 over 100,000 UFOs have been reported worldwide, many by
militaries. However, neither the scientific community nor states have
made serious efforts to identify them, the vast majority remaining
uninvestigated…. For both science and the state, it seems, the UFO is
not an "object" at all, but a non-object, something not just
unidentified but unseen and thus ignored (p. 610).
This directly led to Wendt and Duvall concluding that states are
deliberately promoting an "epistemology of ignorance." They write: "our
puzzle is not the familiar question of ufology, "What are UFOs?" but,
"Why are they dismissed by the authorities?" Why is human ignorance not
only unacknowledged, but so emphatically denied? In short, why a
taboo?" (p. 611).
One critic, Henry Farrell, responded to their paper arguing that "the evidence is inadequate to the claims made." . In their online response to Farrell´s criticism ,
Wendt and Duvall agreed that they had supplied insufficient evidence in
support of their theory but that the "intent in the paper is not in any
case to test our theory: it is to demonstrate the existence of an
unacknowledged puzzle, and then, in the spirit of systematic
theorization, offer what we think is a plausible solution to it."
Farrell´s criticism is the familiar skeptical position used not only to
challenge the evidence supporting UFO research and the extraterrestrial
hypothesis in the first place, but also claims that governments are
systematically covering up, or in denial over, the evidence. Wendt and
Duvall are not positing a systematic government cover up of the
evidence, but are proposing the theory that there exists a deep denial
by the modern state over the significance of UFO evidence: "the
sovereign represses the UFO out of fear of what it would reveal about
itself (p. 625).
UFO researchers have long claimed that the governments have covered up
evidence confirming the extraterrestrial hypothesis, or are in denial
over the evidence. Terms such as "Cosmic Watergate" have been coined to
describe the government UFO cover-up, and how this systematically has
influenced public perceptions over the extraterrestrial hypothesis.
Other researchers have referred instead to a government "foul-up" which
is that governments basically have mangled the scientific research of
UFOs, and it´s up to civilian researchers to shepherd government
authorities back onto the right track.
Wendt´s and Duvall´s theory is a variation of the government foul-up
argument. Rather than governments consciously choosing to neglect the
serious study of UFOs through a deliberately thought out public policy
process, this denial is expressed unconsciously due to the metaphysical
threat posed by UFOs. They point out that these "are questions of
social rather than physical science, and do not presuppose that any
UFOs are ETs. Only that they might be" (p. 611). Consequently, this
leads to arguably Wendt´s and Duvall´s most significant observation
about the fundamental nature of the UFO issue stated at the beginning
of this article, "UFO ignorance is political rather than scientific"
(p. 613).
The greatest contribution of Wendt’s and Duvall’s article is that it
correctly casts light on the political factors that contextualize
evidence of UFOs and the extraterrestrial hypothesis. For decades, many
have argued that the study of UFOs is a scientific problem that
requires a strict application of the scientific method to get
definitive answers. The scientific approach has made little progress
since political factors have not been properly accounted for in the way
modern states are in denial about the evidence (the foul-up thesis),
and/or cover-up hard evidence supporting the extraterrestrial
hypothesis. The shift from a purely scientific approach to a more
politically oriented understanding ought to be greatly welcomed. It
will provide greater awareness of how modern states participate in the
study of UFOs and the extraterrestrial hypothesis. Wendt´s and Duvall´s
"Sovereignty and the UFO," moves academia one step closer to formal
political studies of evidence concerning the extraterrestrial
hypothesis, and its public policy implications. That will ultimately
lead, as I argue elsewhere ,
to the development of ´exopolitics´ as the formal political discipline
for studying the public policy implications of extraterrestrial life.
Author´s Note: An abstract and further details of Wendt’s and Duvall´s paper is available online here
Dr.
Michael Salla is an internationally recognized scholar in international
politics, conflict resolution, US foreign policy and the new field of
‘exopolitics’. He is author/editor of five books; and held academic
appointments in the School of International Service& the Center for
Global Peace, American University, Washington DC (1996-2004); the
Department of Political Science, Australian National University,
Canberra, Australia (1994-96); and the Elliott School of International
Affairs, George Washington University, Washington D.C., (2002). He has
a Ph.D in Government from the University of Queensland, Australia, and
an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Melbourne, Australia. He
has conducted research and fieldwork in the ethnic conflicts in East
Timor, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Sri Lanka, and organized peacemaking
initiatives involving mid to high level participants from these
conflicts.
Courtesy: American Chronicle
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/71678
