Bad Astronomy

Edgar Mitchell is at it again. Yawn.

A lot of folks have been asking me if I heard that Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell has been talking about UFOs again, and CNN felt the need to carry the story.

The thing is, this isn’t a story. Mitchell isn’t saying anything new, and it’s certainly not surprising that CNN would write this fluff piece.

I’ve written about this before: Mitchell is an Apollo hero, but that doesn’t give him any authority at all when it comes to flying saucers. And, of course, he still has no real evidence at all for his claims. It’s a rehash of the same tired old stories, and there aren’t even blurry photos for this one.

So this isn’t news in any sense, and the article itself is a tad hysterical. I love the quotation from the UFO believer who says that UFOs are the “third rail of politics”, that is, a topic no one wants to touch. That’s actually true, but not because no politician dares risk the ire of the shadow government that controls the saucer fleet. It’s because no politician wants to look like a fool discussing it. Or at least very few do; it may not have cost Kucinich the Democratic nod in the Presidential race, but it sure didn’t help.

So please, spare me the same tired stories, the fuzzy videos, the pilots who think balloons are alien spacecraft, and all the rest. Someone wake me when all these UFO folks who are rending their garments have some actual evidence.