There has long been a taboo in modern society on taking UFOs seriously, which has blocked any systematic science to try to determine what they are. Political Science professor Alexander Wendt from The Ohio State University, joined George Knapp to discuss why his recent TEDx Talk on the science of UFOs was flagged. Wendt said that he experienced "an epiphany" in 1999 when he realized that modern science is willfully ignorant of the reality of the UFO phenomenon. His view is that scientists are "even more cautious about it than the government," which blocks serious inquiry. That is curious, he says, because the implications of governments revealing the reality of the situation would be more destabilizing because there could be "a risk of a collapse of state authority."

In his TEDx talk, Wendt said he "called attention to the fact that no scientific community has ever studied this phenomenon." He is doing this work, he says, due to his belief that "the issue of the UFO is a political problem before it's a scientific problem," and that governments need to lift an embargo on discussing the subject before scientists can feel comfortable doing any research. He has moved ahead with a crowd-funded project to record UFOs with automatic cameras and tracking equipment. Wendt addressed the idea that if aliens are here, they might actually be native to Earth and hiding from our scrutiny. He called this "a very unsettling thought because that would mean that human beings are not masters of our own house." Related scientific paper.

------------------------

Patrick Harpur's groundbreaking book, first published in 1995, 'Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld' invites the reader to take seriously and think deeply about the subjects of alien visitations and abductions, lake monsters, Bigfoot, faerie folk, and lights in the sky. Harpur began by saying that he was always interested in paranormal phenomena, even when his "expensive education attempted to drum it out of me." As his research progressed, he realized that "the trouble with one theory is it excludes some set of the data," and he began to look farther afield for points of view not tied down to one explanation. He said that the Greek term "daemon" seemed to describe some of the issues and ideas he encountered, since aliens, fairies, and other creatures inhabit a reality that is "both material and nonmaterial at the same time."

Harpur acknowledged the effect of the 20th-century psychologist, Carl Jung, on his writing and thought, and his idea that a psychic reality was as accurate or more accurate than a strictly physical view of the world. He referred to this view as "a truer story, not a literal story," that is more applicable to human experience than a materialist concept of human existence. Although he was formerly very involved in the study of UFOs, Harpur revealed that he's now backed away from the subject, because "to devote oneself full time to it is to risk going a bit screwy." He believes that when fairies and other mythical beings were "banished by rationalism from nature, they appeared from on high" as UFO and aliens.