The UFO UpDates List carried a couple of interesting things this past week but one of the items that caught my eye was a post by Chris Rutkowski concerning noted astronomer, Phil Plait and his latest book.

Chris chose to title his post 'Bad Astronomy, Very Bad Indeed', but after reading some of the things he wrote, I would think it should have been named something along the line of 'Pull Back A Little And Watch The Trees Instead Of The Forest'.

Phil Plait doesn't believe there are any UFOs and to support this claim he states:

"People who spend most of their time watching the sky are amateur astronomers."

No amateur astronomer has ever told Phil Plait that they have seen a UFO. Therefore, No amateur astronomers have ever seen a UFO. Now for those of you whose eyes have crossed, I will attempt to translate this into something that the family cat could understand.

It would be like saying most brown haired women have brown eyes. I have never met a brown haired woman with blue-eyes, therefore, there is no such thing as a brown-haired woman with blue-eyes. I think most of you, especially the women with brown-hair and blue-eyes can see the stupidity of the argument.

But, just when you thought Phil Plait had stuck his foot in his mouth, he managed to open wider and stick the other one in there too. He said, and I quote. "only people unfamiliar with the sky see UFOs. And since witnesses are unfamiliar with the sky, their UFO sightings are all explainable." STop the presses... is it too late to put in another nomination for the Darwin Award?

My daughter when she was 3 years old and not on the planet long enough to probably be considered by Mr. Plait as being "familiar with the sky" used to point out the car window as we drove along and say, "Look, a bird. Oh, look, a plane," and it wasn't too much longer before she would say, "Oh look, a goose." I do believe that more than a few of the people not familiar with the sky have a higher intelligence than a 3 year old and before they declared something as an Unidentified Flying Object would have discounted the stuff that is supposed to be up there like planes or birds.

Now, what could be the reason that Mr. Plait has come to this bold conclusion that there is no such thing as a UFO, you might ask? Well, it seems that Mr. Plait was at the launch of a Space Shuttle and was bewildered by a formation of lights approaching the Cape. He continued to watch these lights until it became evident that they were nothing but a flight of ducks. He reasoned that since an experienced sky observer like him could be fooled for a few moments by a flight of ducks that everyone who has ever seen a UFO could be fooled. Once again, Brown-haired, blue-eyed women don't exist.

By the way, there have been sightings by astronomers, however, it should be pointed out that astronomers watch SPACE and not the sky around us in most instances. Also most of them don't even use optical sightings anymore and depend on what the camera records for them. In a way, astronomers watch the forest while most of us here on earth are looking at the trees. With his latest revelations, I'm not sure Mr. Plait could win the Darwin award but he would certainly be a contender...

But that's just my take on it.