Arthur C. Clarke was not a UFO "debunker" despite Ufologists wanting to portray him as such. He was a sceptic who wanted to see the evidence and that is what scientists should do. Of course Clarke was seeing what most people saw and that included Flying Saucer review and when you look at the content of those publications it is not impressive -though there are good cases worth noting.
UFO news was rather limited; organisations did not send Clarke reports that they thought would stump the sceptic instead they sent or offered to send their sightings catalogues or summaries which as I can testify were poor at best.
At the time that Clarke introduced this series a lot of re-thinking was going on. He, like many others had been influenced by science fiction and it was believed that if aliens discovered humanity it would result in major landings in world capitol cities so everyone would see and know about it.
However, there were others who were discussing how humans would react if they found a new alien civilisation. Spying on it from afar, the odd undercover landing to get samples and try to avoid any contact and, slowly, build toward a contact if we (1) had technical superiority and (2) the planet's inhabitants were not of an hostile nature. I hate to cite Star Trek but I will; Star Fleet with it's non interference and surveillance policy building up to First Contact when it was deemed the right time is how some scientists were thinking.
Humans are wiping out wildlife and the environment at an alarming rate despite having the knowledge that we are doing so. Humans are also killing each other by the thousands in wars, crime and for other 'reasons'. Who would want open contact with a civilisation like that? A civilisation that is already in a space race to fight over and claim mineral deposits on the planets and asteroids - would you give such a civilisation your home address and zip code?
Clarke was also unaware (to a degree) of stealth technology and how each power block -Soviet Union and United States was blocking each others space detectors and the claim that a pencil could be detected in space is somewhat odd when we have had several very large asteroids pass close-by and meteors hit Earth and no one knew they were coming. And they were a LOT bigger than a pencil. In a way those were more innocent times and we have to remember that "arch sceptic" (Ufologists claimed) Sir Bernard Lovell "laughed at" and "ridiculed" UFO reports. In fact, Lovell was looking for the evidence to back up the reports and when you consider that in the late 1990s Walt Andrus of MUFON was asked (by me) for the best 10 "solid" UFO cases for an official presentation he responded that he did not think that one case could be found that was solid evidence!
I have spent five decades looking at CE3K/AE reports and although there are very credible cases none of them is 100% solid or proof of extraterrestrial visitation. They are anecdotal evidence that provide a glimpse at possible visitors but what we really need is an item stolen by a percipient in a UFO encounter or even material from a UFO that appears to be undergoing maintenance or some quick repair. It needs to be made very clear: no fragment or part of a seemingly constructed non-terrestrial craft has ever been recovered and all that we have to date are con stories.
Looking at CE3K/AE reports takes you away from what might be constructed craft which leave us puzzled in many cases and let's us look at who or what may be operating them. Are there consistency in reports of this kind? Yes and I have listed some in my books. Some types it seems Ufologists have never noted because they do not treat seriously or even consider such reports.
I have no idea how or why they dismissed the debunkers claim that Robert Taylor had an epileptic seizure (probably due to the physical evidence) but some at the Ministry of Defence had seen a report on the Livingston Incident or Dechmont Woods Encounter West Lothian, Scotland in 1979. The conclusion (private) was that this was a "very interesting incident" which raised my eye brows! Debate over a case is something that should be welcomed but if you hear of an incident and your mind is already set on it being "explainable" then you lose your argument. I know people who have epilepsy and some are astronomers; they do not all go into seizure when they see Venus or any other astronomical object -the Moon is big and bright but we do not get a huge influx of reports epileptics collapsing in waves at a full Moon.
There is a fear of UFO (as in aliens who are superior to humans) being real amongst many and in science it is so obvious that it becomes embarrassing. Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke and many others in the science community believed that it was possible that aliens visited Earth in the past but we really needed to find ancient alien artefacts to prove this.
We live in a world where UFO fakers, 'ghost hunters' and cryptozoologists will fake and even distort the facts to their own ends. We know they have faked reports. 'Ghost hunters' like to dress all in black and go on "night hunts" in which if a floor board creaks or a piece of rubble in a derelict building is a sign that 'ghosts' or 'demons' are active and, yes, they do fake clips and the 'ghost' walking left to right or right to left is the biggest fraud and at the last count I had seen 95 such clips. Ghost hunt during the day when everything can be seen and adding to clips later is more difficult.
We look for evidence and if all we can get is anecdotal evidence then we will take that and build on it rather than decide a pinpoint of light in the night sky is an alien spacecraft when it is...a pinpoint of light.
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