Has anyone seen my flying saucer?
Published on Jun 26, 2007 at 9:45 pm.
7 Comments.
Filed under Uncategorized, astrophotography, college teaching.
One of the things that comes from being an astronomy professor is that whenever anyone calls the college and asks about anything in the sky, the operators relay them to me. Also, if you do a search of the college faculty for astronomy faculty, my name is prominently displayed, along with my office number. Normally, this is a question along the lines of, “What are the prerequisites for your class?” or “What did I see in the sky last night?” But, occasionally I get someone who has a more difficult question like “I found this rock and I want to know if you can tell me if it is a meteorite.” But, all too often I get someone who has absolutely no science background at all, and they are calling to tell me of their “discovery” that will revolutionize physics, such as a perpetual motion machine or a way to get free energy out of the air or some such. A lot of people don’t know the difference between astronomy and astrology, so I have gotten people calling asking about their horoscope. And, every now and then I get someone calling wanting to talk about flying saucers.  That happened last week.
Last week, a gentleman called the college and found out about me. So, he wanted to come show me his pictures of a flying saucer and buildings on the Moon. I told him that I’d be willing to look at his photos and tell him what he was likely looking at. From his description, it sounded like he was seeing surface features on the Moon. He said that he took photos of the Moon, and that he would see things, and then several days later he didn’t see them. Well, that is actually a pretty common thing, I told him. The relative position of the Moon, the Sun, and the Earth makes certain features easy to see at certain times, and tougher at other times. For that very reason, we have our students look at the Moon in different phases.
Well, he came by today. And, he was very nice, and very polite. He was very exited to show me his photos and some movies that he took using his video camera. Naturally, he was blowing up the images to near the resolution limit. He very carefully pulls up a picture on his laptop, and then points to a lit ring on the night side of the terminator. “There! That’s a UFO!” he proudly claims. “No, that’s a crater,” I counter. He insists that it is a UFO. So, I pull out a map of the Moon, and some photos. And, I can identify the crater and it shows up clearly in the photos. He is not convinced. I have a computer of my own. I can pull up a map of the Moon and have it shaded as in the phase of the Moon on the day that he was observing. He still isn’t convinced, even though that crater clearly is in the right position just past the terminator. I explain that the crater walls are high enough for the sun light to be hitting the crater wall but not the surrounding plain.
Then, he pulls up photos showing a crater. The next image is a day later, and you can see a mountain range right along the terminator. He insists that to be a cluster of buildings. And then on the next image it can’t be seen, so he insists that they moved.Â
This gentlemen does this for several more images. Each time, I can find the objects on maps and photographs showing them to be natural features, but he just isn’t convinced. His video camera with a 1600 mm lens is far superior to the Lick Observatory photos. And, of course any NASA photos are not to be trusted since they’ve been altered to remove signs of the aliens. Oh, great. I soon realize that he’s been listening to one of those radio shows that touts flying saucers and a government conspiracy to cover them up.
No matter how I tried, I could not convince him that what he was seeing were natural lunar features. Of course, he was rather disappointed that he hadn’t convinced me that he’d photographed flying saucers and alien buildings on the Moon. But, at least he was very nice, and very respectful.
So, this raises a question. Why do people who have absolutely no training in astronomy or physics think that they know more than people who have spent many years in graduate school? After all, to they also want to perform their own surgery? Do they think that they know more about medicine than a physician? Or, would they think that they could be an interpreter at the United Nations because they had read a book about French? Oh, but wait. There are people who think that they know more medicine than doctors or researchers. And, there are people who will argue with a person who is a native speaker of a foreign language about what that language means. So, I guess that it isn’t surprising that they think that they know more than I do about astronomy.
But, it always surprises me when I show them something very clearly, and they still don’t want to believe it. After all, it is more exciting to believe that there are aliens on the Moon and that the government is covering up that fact. But, it just isn’t real.
-Astroprof
Astrogeek on June 26, 2007 at 11:19 pm: 1
Obviously you’ve been brainwashed by aliens from the Pleiades, and are part of the government/corporate/university coverup.
Darnell Clayton on June 26, 2007 at 11:30 pm: 2
Heh! It’s like the face of Mars conspiracy that never went away.
What you should do Astroprof (I don’t know your real name so Astroprof will have to do) is find some way of making money off of this.
Then, you could retire early.
Although, on further note, the only way you could make money would be by taking his side (so he could claim you as a source).
Oh well, the only good thing that could come out of this is that perhaps you could convince him to support human re-visitation of the moon in order to find those mysterious moon colonies that keep popping up.
Astrogeek on June 27, 2007 at 1:16 am: 3
I forgot to ask before… are you associated with UCO Lick, or did you just use the moon photos from there? I’m just curious, because I’m in the San Jose area, and managed to snag tickets for the July 20th Summer Visitor’s Program.
Astroprof on June 27, 2007 at 4:20 am: 4
Darnell: One reason that I blog anonymously is so that I can write about things like this without clearly identifying anyone or any particular college. And, yes, this sort of thing does remind me a lot of those who refuse to believe that the “face” on Mars is just a trick of shadows and not a real face-shaped artifact. So many people, if they want to believe something, will simply believe it no matter what evidence is presented to the contrary.
Astrogeek: No, I am not associated with Lick. Rather, we use poster sized photos of the Moon with our students in a lab exercise to get them familiar with surface features on the Moon before we do careful studies using the telescopes. They can see more in the telescope once they know what something about what they are looking at.
A Ler…-- Rastos de Luz on June 27, 2007 at 4:39 am: 5
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cephyn on June 27, 2007 at 10:36 am: 6
“Why do people who have absolutely no training in astronomy or physics think that they know more than people who have spent many years in graduate school? ”
For the same reason that people with no formal training or education in climatology don’t believe in global warming. For the same reason people with no background in biology or science don’t believe in evolution. They think they’re smarter than the experts. Incompetence breeds confidence.
Kelly on June 27, 2007 at 11:51 am: 7
The same reason, I suppose, that there are young earth creationists teaching their kids YEC, and listening to the teachings of so-called scientists. I pity their kids when (if) they get to college.