Every generation, it seems, must have its own UFO “flap.” (“That’s the technical term,” I once heard Carl Sagan wryly observe.) We had flaps in the 1950s, 1970s, and 1990s (the SI anthology The UFO Invasion: The Roswell Incident, Alien Abductions, and Government Coverups, Prometheus Books, 1997, chronicled our coverage of that one). After a lull, now we’ve been in the midst of another, mostly manufactured mystery pushed by UFO enthusiasts. They even got a Pentagon report, issued June 25 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. But for them, what a disappointment it must have been. Only nine pages. No case studies. No details. Unidentified blips in the sky, but not one word—not one, nothing!—about aliens or extraterrestrials.

Author Guy Harrison begins our special UFOs in the News feature section with an insightful overview, “How to Keep Your Brain on Solid Ground During this Latest UFO Excitement.” Veteran UFO skeptic and longtime SI contributor Robert Sheaffer contributes two articles. The first critiques The New Yorker’s disappointingly naive fifteen-page article that helped fuel the public excitement. The second details other credulous media coverage. Investigator and writer Mick West, whose proposed explanations for at least four of the most widely seen Navy UFO videos helped keep things in needed perspective, starts a new SI column, “The Practical Skeptic,” with his analysis showing how almost all UFO beliefs contain an element of conspiracy thinking. Amid all this, our Committee for Skeptical Inquiry issued a statement to media, prepared by several fellows, urging greater caution in reporting on UFO claims and offering nine constructive tips. We publish the complete statement. It has been a fun ride, this 2021 flap—if a bit frustrating for we science-minded skeptics to see this all happening again. But, in the end, perhaps it’s been a sobering lesson for the wider public.

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We have an intriguing mix in our three other feature articles. Philosophy professor Sven Ove Hansson of Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology documents how postmodernists and social constructivists in academia, most of them sociologists, have promoted pseudoscience and science denial. Physicist Taner Edis follows with a thoughtful plea that skepticism needs more historians and social scientists, providing broader perspective. And, as if we heard him, that is followed by a report by Ted Goertzel, a professor emeritus of sociology at Rutgers, “‘I Was Wrong’: Religious Prophecy and the 2020 Election.” Are the Hansson and Edis articles in conflict, or do they complement each other? You can decide. Overall, I think they are both right. The postmodernist movement in academia, strongest in the 1990s but still active today, has damaged the public’s perception of science. When you hear people claiming science is just constructed opinion, you hear its echoes. At the same time, historians and social scientists who actually understand and appreciate science can bring valuable critical perspectives to a whole range of topics of interest to science-minded skeptics. I think skeptical inquiry, and science overall, are strengthened and broadened when that happens.

—Kendrick Frazier