Franklin Institute astronomer Derrick Pitts is one of this country’s leading scientific stars. He’s been named one of the Top 50 African-American research scientists, and he’s a media force, having appeared on MSNBC, The Colbert Report and The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson and hosted his own local weekly radio show on WHYY. So why, exactly, is he endorsing a book that is, well, pro-UFO?
Science is looking for ET in microbes these days—not via strange lights in the sky. But Pitts says the book UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record by Leslie Kean, pointed out to him by a colleague, motivated him to adopt a more … curious viewpoint. “I had the view, too, that UFOs were seen by hicks,” he admits. “But in this book you had really credible people reporting these experiences, and while I have no hard data to say what they report is an absolutely true experience, I came to think the stigma surrounding the subject is unfortunate.”
For the record, what Pitts endorses is the “unidentified” aspect of an unidentified flying object. “I have never seen a UFO myself,” he says, “and I am not saying that UFOs are ET spacecraft. I am saying [that] here, there is some mystery, and we should be able to address it scientifically, without all the stigma involved.”
Pitts’s endorsement will run on the paperback edition, which comes out in August, and he knows the stigma surrounding those three letters “UFO” could taint him in the eyes of some. Just saying there’s something worth looking at is usually regarded as verboten. “I don’t really care,” he says. “Because that’s not real science. The scientific viewpoint is to admit when we don’t know something and look for answers.”
This article originally appeared in the July 2011 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
June 28th, 2011 at 2:15 pm
June 28th, 2011 at 8:24 pm
June 29th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
June 30th, 2011 at 4:09 pm
July 1st, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Thanks, first of all, for responding. I have to say I’m a bit surprised by the reactions of both Sam and Manuel and I hope we can talk this through. First, Sam, I simply have no idea where Dr. Pitts comes off here as “some half-cocked loon.” I think he comes off as a brave and solid scientist. Is there a particular line in the article itself that troubles you? (It’s true, I didn’t write the headline.)
Also, Manuel, you and I may have to agree to disagree on my characterization of Kean’s book. In my own estimation, it is decidedly a “Pro-UFO” book, in that she advocates further study of *unidentified* flying objects. To me, that’s what a UFO is—not a flying saucer, or for that matter a weather balloon, but an unidentified something someone saw in the sky.
In pitting Kean’s opinion against a hardcore skeptic, who would say there’s no real mystery involved, Kean is definitely *Pro* UFO.
I actually just wrote a book myself, Fringe-ology, in which some issues like these, including UFOs, are addressed. So I’m far from willfully ignorant—I read Kean’s book—and really think that instead of always arguing about these topics, we ought to remember to enjoy the stories involved, too.
Witnesses are real people, with real lives, and whether they are misperceiving natural phenomena or glimpsing something, for lack of a better term, “far out,” they should be treated with some basic decency and respect and not dismissed out of hand. The tales they tell are also often wildly entertaining, with the kinds of details to fire people’s imaginations and get them thinking about a whole range of possible explanations. I would have thought this article on Dr. Pitts would get that across.
July 29th, 2011 at 3:37 pm
Thanks for writing it, Volk.
October 26th, 2011 at 11:55 pm
October 28th, 2011 at 8:15 am
I have actually witnessed ghostly encounters in settings where other people also witnessed them, thereby ensuring me that it was real. I have witnessed UFO/UAP encounters where other people were present and also heard about UFO activity from locals going back hundreds of years and possibly more so yes, there are things our 5 little senses are limited in picking up and there are things out there that will blow the minds of many people.
December 21st, 2011 at 1:04 am