Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

[SkeptInq@aol.com]

 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER ELECTRONIC DIGEST 1/19/00

 Visit the CSICOP and Skeptical Inquirer Magazine website at
http://www.csicop.org. Receiving over 200,000 hits per year, the CSICOP site
was rated one of the top ten science sites by HOMEPC magazine.

 In this week's SI DIGEST:

 --Response to Recent Illinois UFO Sighting
 --Failed Psychic Predictions Scores Media Attention
 --CFI West Featured in LA TIMES/ Calendar of Events On-Line
 --A Quick Primer on the Jan. 20 Eclipse
 --Washington Post: Growth in Alt. Medicine Funding
 --Fox News: Journey to the Most Mars-like Place on Earth

 RESPONSE TO RECENT ILLINOIS UFO SIGHTING

 Joe Nickell
 716-636-1425 x310

 The latest UFO flap takes us to southwestern Illinois where a giant,
blimp-like object was seen at 4 a.m. on January 5, 2000.  Witnessed by four
police officers patrolling in as many small towns, and also seen by the owner
of a minature-golf course, the unidentified flying object has renewed the
controversy over alleged extraterrestrial visitations.

 Although uniformly described as huge, slow-moving, and bearing red lights,
the craft was otherwise characterized conflictingly:  It was "traveling
silently" or "emitting a low-level buzz."  One police officer reported it was
flying "very low," while another placed it "at a very high altitude."  The
latter only "quite possibly observed" the object, but another source claimed
it was triangular and the length of a football field.

 Unfortunately, eyewitnesses are at a disadvantage in estimating size,
altitude, or speed since in the case of a UFO those three factors represent
multiple unknowns.  If the guess of one measurement is wrong, the others will
be also.  And even a reliable witness may err in describing an unfamiliar
object or a familiar one viewed under less than optimum conditions.

 Flying saucer buffs, lacking positive evidence of extraterrestrial craft,
rely on negative evidence:  they emphasize the word "unidentified" that is
represented in the acronym UFO.  However, merely because something is
unexplained in no way implies a paranormal phenomenon.  To suggest that it
does is to make an "argument from ignorance," a logical fallacy especially
associated with mystery mongering.

 While the object flying over southwestern Illinois is presently a mystery,
the fact is that most UFOs eventually become IFOs:  Identified Flying
Objects.  The sightings that remain unexplained do so because of a lack of
available data.  In cases in which UFOs did finally succumb to diligent
investigation, they were invariably revealed to have been misidentifications
of natural or manmade objects or occasionally hoaxes.

 NICKELL is Senior Research Fellow with the Committee for the Scientific
Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), and investigative
columnist for Skeptical Inquirer, The Magazine for Science and Reason.  He is
the author or editor of fifteen books on investigation including _The UFO
Invasion_, _Entities_, and most recently, _Crime Science_.

 For more information, go to:

 --"UFO sighting brings media attention, investigative team to Southern
Illinois"
 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
 January 12, 2000


http://www.post-dispatch.com/postnet/stories.nsf/ByDocID/07FC2564152580F986256
86400459EC4

 --Report, photo, and sketch from the Millstadt, IL. Police Department.

 http://millstadtpolice.homepage.com/aircraft.html

 FAILED PSYCHIC PREDICTIONS SCORES MEDIA ATTENTION

 Providence, RI-based science writer Gene Emery's annual round up of failed
psychic predictions was a hit with the media when released at the end of
December.  At last count, Emery's scorecard of psychic failure had been
covered in dozens of print outlets including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago
Tribune, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Buffalo News, Clev
eland Plain Dealer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Portland Oregonian.  Emery
and CSICOP Senior Research Fellow Joe Nickell also appeared on a number of
radio shows across the U.S. and Canada.

 You can read Emery's release at
http://www.csicop.org/articles/psychic-predictions/1999.html.

 CFI WEST FEATURED IN LA TIMES/ CALENDAR OF EVENTS ON-LINE

 In other "end of the millennium" coverage, the Center for Inquiry-West in
Los Angeles was featured in a Los Angeles Times article on Sunday, Dec. 28.
CFI-West Executive Director Jim Underdown issued an offer to millennial
doomsday believers offering 10 cents on the dollar for cars, houses and other
valuables to people who believed the world would end on Jan. 1.  In the
article, Underdown is pictured at his desk with a six-foot blowup of the
Jan./Feb. 1999 special Armageddon issue of Skeptical Inquirer in the
background.

 Visit the CFI-West website at http://www.cfiwest.org.  To find out about
their upcoming events for January and February, go to
http://www.cfiwest.org/calendar/index.htm .

 A QUICK PRIMER ON THE JAN. 20 ECLIPSE

 The following is courtesy of CSICOP fellow Andrew Franknoi:


 January 20, 2000
 Total Eclipse of the Moon

 An Information Sheet by
 Andrew Fraknoi (Foothill College)

 1. What Is Happening?

    On January 20, there will be a total eclipse of the
 Moon.  In such an eclipse, the Moon and the Sun are
 opposite each other in our skies, and the Earth gets between
 them.  This means that the Earth’s shadow will fall on the
 Moon, darkening it about 3 ½ hours.

 2. When Will the Eclipse Happen?

    On Thursday evening, the full Moon begins to enter
 the Earth’s dark shadow at 7:01 PM PST.  The total eclipse
 begins at 8:05 PM and ends at 9:22 PM PST.  The last of
 our dark shadow moves off the Moon at about 10:25 PM.
 (For the east coast, add 3 hours to the times.)

 3. What is Visible During a Lunar Eclipse

    As the shadow of the Earth covers the Moon, note
 that our natural satellite doesn’t become completely dark.
 Light bent through the Earth’s atmosphere still reaches the
 shadowed Moon and gives it a dull brown or reddish glow.
 The exact color of the glow and its darkness depend on
 the “sooty-ness” of our atmosphere -- how recently
 volcanoes have gone off and how much cloud cover, storm
 activity, and human pollution there is around the globe.

 4. Is it Safe to Watch, and How do I Watch?

    Since the Moon is always safe to look at, and the
 eclipse only makes the Moon darker, there is no danger
 in watching this eclipse with your eyes or through a
 telescope.  (The dangerous eclipse is the solar one,
 where it is the Sun that gets covered.)  Lunar eclipses are
 nice to look at without equipment, and fun to see through
 binoculars and telescopes.   This is one astronomical
 phenomenon that (provided the sky is clear) doesn’t
 really require you to go to a dark location to see it
 (although subtle changes in color are best seen from dark
 locations.)  If you go to a location away from city lights,
 be sure to dress warm, and take a thermos of hot
 chocolate and someone with whom you like to stand
 in the dark!

 5. What Can I Tell My Kids (or Kid Brother or Sister)?

    Be sure to suggest that they take a careful look at
 the shadow of the Earth as it moves across the bright face
 of the Moon.  What shape is it?  The round shape of the
 Earth's shadow suggested to the ancient Greeks, more
 than 2000 years ago, that the Earth’s shape must be
 round too.  Eclipse after eclipse, they saw that the Earth
 cast a round shadow, and deduced that we lived on a round
 planet -- long before there were spacecraft and astronaut
 pictures showing the Earth’s blue globe from orbit.

 Andrew Fraknoi
 Astronomy Department, Foothill College
 E-mail: fraknoi@admin.fhda.edu

 WASHINGTON POST: GROWTH IN ALT. MEDICINE FUNDING

 Maverick Treatments Find U.S. Funding
 Cancer Therapy to Be Tested Despite Mainstream Medical Doubts
 By Susan Okie
 Washington Post Staff Writer
 Tuesday, January 18, 2000; Page A01

 To read the full article, go to:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-01/18/073l-011800-idx.html

 "In his Manhattan office, physician Nicholas J. Gonzalez treats cancer
patients with a nutritional regimen that relies on coffee enemas, a
restricted diet and as many as 160 vitamin and enzyme capsules a day. He
doesn't use standard tests to monitor the treatment's effectiveness. Instead,
he sends a sample of a patient's hair to a Louisiana laboratory, where it is
analyzed to derive a "total cancer" score--supposedly a measure of the body's
tumor burden. Some cancer specialists believe Gonzalez's treatment is
ludicrous, but officials at the National Cancer Institute aren't scoffing. In
partnership with the National Center for Complementary and Alternative
Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health, the institute is
sponsoring a five-year, $1.4 million study of the treatment. It is expected
to enroll as many as 90 patients with pancreatic cancer, one of the disease's
most lethal forms. Gonzalez's ability to win federal backing is testament to
the growing political and economic clout of "alternative medicine" and to the
increasing patient demand for treatments that defy traditional medical
techniques. Alternative medicine is now a thriving business, despite concerns
about the cost, safety and effectiveness of many of the treatments..."

 FOX NEWS: JOURNEY TO THE MOST MARS-LIKE PLACE ON EARTH

 Fox News Goes to Antartica...
 An Expedition to the Most Mars-Like Place on Earth
 7.00 a.m. ET (1100 GMT) December 3, 1999 By Amanda Onion

 For the introduction to the special section on the FoxNews website, go to:
http://www.foxnews.com/science/antarctica/introduction.sml

 This January, FoxNews.com will join an expedition to the bottom of the
Earth, where searing winds and teeth-cracking temperatures once led explorer
Robert Scott to remark, "Great God, this is an awful place."  So, why go to
Antarctica? The answer is, quite literally, in the heavens.  There's no
better place on earth to learn about Mars, according to Richard Hoover, an
astrobiologist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and lead scientist of
the Antarctica 2000 expedition.  The goal of the private, non-profit
expedition, sponsored by the Planetary Studies Foundation, is nothing less
than to hunt for possible Martian-like life and meteorites. The expedition
launches about a month after the Mars Polar Lander hurtles down to the polar
ice caps of the Red Planet's south pole on Friday, Dec. 3.  "Looking in
Earth's most extreme environments will help us sharpen our senses when we
look for signs of life on Mars," said Hoover. "And some of the most
interesting communities of life are those found on rocks and glacial ice."
The 10-member Antarctica 2000 crew, including Hoover, former astronauts Jim
Lovell and Owen Garriott and a university geologist, will fly from Punta
Arenas, Chile, on January 5 to Patriot Hills in western Antarctica. From
there the expedition will fly to a remote region near the Thiel Mountains and
set up camp for about five days.  Finally, the expedition will push on to the
South Pole station, for a few quick circles around the pole before returning
to Patriot Hills.  This reporter and Fox News cameraman Adam Petlin will be
there every step of the mission, filing exclusive features and photos of the
journey. In the weeks before the trip, FoxNews.com will also feature in-depth
articles on everything from the history of exploration in Antarctica to the
continent's political structure to the global impacts of its shifting ice
sheets.

 _________________________

 SI Electronic Digest is the biweekly e-mail news update of the Committee for
the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP.)

 Visit http://www.csicop.org/.

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skeptics of the twentieth century, religious traditionalism and paranormal
belief, the second coming of jesus, and the pseudoscience of oxygen therapy.

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