The Paradigm of UFO-Sweden (UFO-Sverige)
Johan Lindstrom

UFO-Sweden is an association for some kind of studies. What kind is a
puzzling question I want to investigate in this article.. The chairman, Clas
Svahn, is a dominating figure, directing the (in?) activities. He is also
editor of a journal with the same name as the association.

My starting point is a quotation from the political philosopher, Nicos
Poulanzas, who says:
"A science is defined by its territory"."Territory" means area of researech.

I want to make this thesis a bit more clear: "A science is defined by its
types of objects". Now this thesis shows to be an efficient tool, which
discloses that there are only two types of objects studied by UFO Sweden:

1) Optical illusions, e g, reflections of searclights from cars in the
clouds, giving the impression of a fast running object.
2) Technical trickery artifacts, e g, a cogwheel, galvanized and hanged up
in a nylon string
If there is a rare third typ, then this is, in agreement with the basis
definition of an UFO, an Unidentified Flying Object. But what this is,
does not interest the chairman.

Now, evidently, none of those types of data can give us any information
about the presence of eventual real UFO:s. We can see that logically already
implicitly. But the chairman is also quite explicit in this question, when he says (in an email to me):

"Unfortunately there are too many who interpret UFO datas as having an extraterrestial origin.
This hindrance is necessary to pass by first of all. (sic!) We (i e, UFO
Sweden) have done that. The question is whether you (the author) have done that."

As an axiomatic point of reasoning this is completely fantastic and absurd!
Because the normal presupposition of all research is that its object is
real. Even subatomic particles are supposed to exist. This axiom results in
a uni-polar hypothesis testing, analogous to fishing without any baite on
the hook, and then drawing the conclusion that there is no fish in the lake.
But for a normal bi-polar hypothesis testing it is necessary to give the fish a chance - we must at least put a shrimp on the hook. Otherwise you have never tested the hypothesis that there might be fish in the lake, i. e., that there are real UFO:s in the world.

If you are a little curious and innovative, then you must study the reality
hypothesis and be open to the possibility that they are extraterrestial.
There is a mass of information coming from air pilots and NASA technicians
who are quite otspoken on the question. The foremost among them is Bob
Lazar, a former NASA physical technician who gives us a description of the
propulsion aggegate in UFO:s coming from Zeta Reticuli, 43 light yeras from our planet.

A perspective from Habermas

Habermas speaks about three interests of knowledge , which here means
global and general interests for a direction of research, not the personal
interests of individuals.
They are the tchnological, the hermeneutical (communication and
understanding), the critical (analysing errors and their roots).

Now I want to add two further ones which are extensions of Habermas' theory:

4) The negative interest, when the researchers do not want to know, but
instead are avoiding possible evidence, are blind to and denying logical
consequences.
Behind this lies a defence of an established paradigm, especially the
world-picture which surely is the factor in question in controverses on UFO:s.
This is an extension of the psychoanalytic concept of defence, which here is
transformed in line with hermeneutics, so that the world-picture is seen as stronger than oidipus, because the former can start a "shaking of the foundations". Cf The conflict between Galilei and the church

5) The ideological, when the group has developed their own research program
based on the world-picture, contrary to well-known facts about reality. Often
inaccessible to criticism and change. This state of mind has been called "stereotype thinking"

A research steered by the interests 4 and 5 is a kognitive pathology, a
term coined by Sigmund Koch and Håkan Tornebohm. Koch is more explicit than Tornebohm and makes the diagnosis "deontologizing", which means avoiding all questions about the nature of reality, which is traceable in researchers denying the reality of something, like UFO-Sweden.

____________________________

Sources.

Habermas. J 1972 Knowledge and Human Interests.Boston: Beacon Press.

Swann, Ingo: Fireedocs, internet.

The term interests of knowledge is borrowed from Poul Tillich, but I think that the world-picture is more shaking than Tillich´s theology.

Koch, Sigmund 1981 The Nature and Limits of Psychological Knowledge. American Psychologist, p 257 - 269.

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