Wednesday, April 27, 2011

The Disclosure and UFOs Poll

The latest poll has been concluded and I have to say that the overall results do not surprise me, but I am stunned to see that so many still believe Disclosure is at hand. I don’t know if these votes were cast by the same people who voted that way last time and didn’t bother to read the analysis or if they are simply that clueless.

As everyone can see, the majority of the 192 votes (58 or 30%) were cast by those who believe there is nothing to disclose. This suggests we might have a nice mix of skeptics who visit the blog, and those who believe the government has been honest in its reporting on UFOs.

Over on the Magonia blog, the majority, 61% (47) votes, were cast by those who believe there is nothing to disclose. I think that addresses the difference in the average readers there. More of their readers are skeptical and maybe leaning toward the debunking end of the scale.

Magonia voters didn’t have a chance to vote for “Not for Years.” Fifty-two people (27%) suggested that it wouldn’t be for years here.
I had a category of “Never, but They Know) which received 34 votes or 17% of the total. Magonia had a similar category of “They Know but Won’t Tell Us,” which got 17 votes or 19%.

We both had a “It’s Coming,” category. Twenty-seven (14%) thought it was coming sometime in the future. At Magonia, it was simply labeled “Sometime,” and received 17 votes or 19%.


I had a category of “Disclosure is at Hand,” that received 21 votes, or 10%.

Anyone who has been around the UFO field for a while knows, as I pointed out last time, that rumors of Disclosure have been around for nearly as long as the public interest in UFOs. The first rumor of Disclosure that I know of was the one swirling around The Day the Earth Stood Still (no, the good one in 1950 and not the latest one that sucked all the charm, wit, and intelligence from the movie). Disclosure didn’t happen in 1950 and it is not going to happen now unless something radically changes.

That change could be the landing of an alien craft that can’t be denied, hidden or covered-up. It would be a world event that would require the governments to acknowledge that aliens are here. Until the aliens, if they are visiting, decide to announce it, I don’t see our government making any change in its policies.

What we learned in this poll was that on both sites (and both sides of the ocean) the largest number of voters agreed that there was nothing to disclose. My majority was half of that at Magonia.

Interestingly the “Never, but They Know,” category over at Magonia commanded at larger percentage than it did over here... that is 19% to 17%, but then I have five categories to their three.

The bottom line seems to be that the majority of the voters don’t believe there will be any sort of Disclosure, either because there is nothing to disclose, or that the government is not inclined to disclose any time in the near future.

All of this suggests that those suggesting Disclosure is at Hand have failed to convince the majority of the people that such is the case. It might be that they have failed to make a case for Disclosure is at Hand, or we all are so aware of what is happening, we know that Disclosure will not be coming. Either way, the poll suggests it won’t happen for a long time if ever.

8 comments:

David Rudiak said...

Picking nits:
"The bottom line seems to be that the majority of the voters don’t believe there will be any sort of Disclosure, either because there is nothing to disclose, or that the government is not inclined to disclose any time in the near future."

Kevin, referring only to your poll, that is not correct. A slight majority, 100/192=52%, believe disclosure is coming, sooner or later. A slight minority, 92/192=48%, believe there will never be disclosure. Margin of error in such a small poll of 192 voters is about 7%. So basically a statistical tie.

"As everyone can see, the majority of the 192 votes (58 or 30%) were cast by those who believe there is nothing to disclose."

Not a majority (>50%), but the largest single group of your five choices, or a plurality, 30%, think there is nothing to disclose.

On the other hand, 70%, or a true substantial majority in your poll DO think there is something to disclose. 17%, however, are highly skeptical that anything ever will be disclosed.

cda said...

As John Rimmer pointed out in the Magonia poll, different voting systems give different results. However, I would expect that even if confined to one voting system, polls in other countries would yield different results from that in the US.

Look at that Roper poll a while back which 'proved' that 4.5 million (or some such figure) Americans had, or thought they had, been abducted by ETs! Also, Sturrock once did a poll of US astronomers on their UFO beliefs. All interesting, provided you do not take the results too seriously.

How many US citizens still believe man never went to the moon? How many US citizens a few days ago insisted Obama was born in Kenya? I expect many still do, even after yesterday's display of his birth certificate.

KRandle said...

David -

You are, of course, correct. This is what comes from not proofreading in my haste to get something posted.

Clearly the largest bloc of votes was for nothing to disclose (30%).

So, the bottom line is that a slight majority believes that disclosure will happen... I don't believe it will unless or until something outside forces it and let my bias color my thinking.

So, with David's clarifications, we now have a much better analysis.

But then, the poll is not scientific since the participants are self-selected and that everyone visiting this site failed to participate. You can look at at the Flag Counter numbers to see that... and the Blog statistics confirm it.

David Rudiak said...

cda mostly pointlessly wrote:
Look at that Roper poll a while back which 'proved' that 4.5 million (or some such figure) Americans had, or thought they had, been abducted by ETs! Also, Sturrock once did a poll of US astronomers on their UFO beliefs. All interesting, provided you do not take the results too seriously.

How many US citizens still believe man never went to the moon? How many US citizens a few days ago insisted Obama was born in Kenya? I expect many still do, even after yesterday's display of his birth certificate.


Yes, a mere poll doesn't prove the truth or falsity of anything, other than what people think is true. That also includes the opinions of skeptics, BTW, not just people who express "pro-UFO" beliefs. They shouldn't be taken too seriously either.

Polls, however, can measure things that otherwise one can only guess at. That is why there are polls. Want to know which way the public is likely to vote? Take a poll.

Or want to know what percentage of astronomers report seeing UFOs? Take a poll. That is what Sturrock did. (answer 5%) Also Hynek (11%). And Gelb and Hynek of 1800 amateur astronomers (24%).

That doesn't tell us what they actually saw, but DOES disprove the hoary old debunking myth that astronomers, professional and amateur, never see or report UFOs.

Polls also consistently show that it is also the most educated, not the least educated, who believe there is something to UFOs, even maybe alien spaceships. Sturrock also found that in the professional astrophysics crowd he polled. Those who knew the least about the UFO phenomenon were more likely to be skeptical. Those who knew the most were much more eager to favor further investigation.

cda said...

To DR:
I agree with your general remarks. I would only repeat that as far as UFO beliefs or conspiracy beliefs are concerned, the Roper poll on abductions was probably the most pointless and useless poll ever conducted. But since this was not the original topic for discussion, I think we can safely drop it.(Must have cost quite a bit too).

David Rudiak said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
David Rudiak said...

If Disclosure happened, would we even know it or acknowledge it?

Recently several, seemingly genuine, previously classified documents have been released by the CIA and NSA, strongly suggesting officials admitting to UFO/ET reality, yet they have generated almost no buzz, particularly in the usual tone-deaf mainstream press.

Two Kennedy documents, only 10 days before his death, have Kennedy beginning a process to establish closer contacts with Russia concerning UFOs and joint space missions.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378284/Secret-memo-shows-JFK-demanded-UFO-files-10-days-assassination.html

The first top-secret document has Kennedy ordering the CIA to do a full classification review of all UFO cases with national security implications, “high threat cases”, clearly distinguishing knowns from unknown, before approaching the Soviets about joint space missions and extended cooperation. This information was also to be shared with NASA to help in their “defensive responsibilities.”

Why would Kennedy be concerned about national security implications, high threat cases, and defensive responsibilities if UFOs were fictional, nothing more than hoaxes, hallucinations, mass hysteria, misperception, witness retrospective falsification, lying by UFO writers, nonexistent Mogul balloons, etc., etc., etc. (Add your own nonsense skeptical "explanation" here.) Obviously, he would not. The Russians were every bit as capable as we were through their radar, electronic intelligence, jet interceptors, gun cameras, radiation detectors, etc., etc., of determining whether UFOs were real, high-technology craft, not just figments of the imagination.

The second Kennedy document, a “National Security Action Memorandum” to NASA, again has Kennedy wanting the U.S. and Russia to cooperate more in joint space missions, which I interpret, in context of the accompanying document, as Kennedy wanting a united front against a possible common threat.

And the fascinating NSA documents, now on their website, has two NSA technical journal articles circa 1966-1969 stating 'we received messages from outer space' and then decrypting them. Depending on who you read and their interpretation, they amount to official disclosure or are a hypothetical exercise by the NSA cryptologists very interested in ET contact. However, the text of the papers at no point mentions them being a hypothetical exercise.

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ufo/key_to_et_messages.pdf

There are other NSA documents that at the very least indicate that scientists and analysts within NSA treated the UFO question VERY seriously:

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/ufo/index.shtml

Check out, e.g., #35, "UFO Hypothesis and the Survival Questions."

cda said...

DR:
"If Disclosure happened, would we even know it or acknowledge it?"

"Recently several, seemingly genuine, previously classified documents have been released by the CIA and NSA, strongly suggesting officials admitting to UFO/ET reality, yet they have generated almost no buzz, particularly in the usual tone-deaf mainstream press".

The answer, I think, is that the "tone-deaf" press and the scientific world in general do not attach the importance to these documents that you do.

Certainly we would be informed by the media of any disclosure, were it to happen. Look at all the furore over the ALH84001 Mars meteorite some years ago when the press went bananas over the alleged life forms discovered in it.

Look also at the very recent fuss in the online press over that Guy Hottel memo of 1950, which was said to 'prove' that the crash of an ET craft, with the recovery of bodies, actually occurred at Roswell.

Why do you suppose the public (and the scientific world) would ignore such a disclosure it if occurred? Certainly it would need close scientific scrutiny and verification, but it would never be ignored if the revelation came from an official source.

The only exception might be if the announcement came on April 1.