What UFOs and Joe McCarthy Have to Do With the Assault on the Capitol - Slate

Jason Colavito "credits" journalist Drew Pearson, while battling Senator Joe McCarthy in the early 1950s, for originally injecting flying saucers into the political ideological battle--and by ultimate extension, into the most far-right of politically-oriented groups. Colavito's comparison/contrast of the liberal-oriented 1951 movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, in which Pearson portrayed himself, and the conservative-oriented 1951 movie The Thing From Another World certainly seems apposite. Whether Colavito is right on the larger matter of far-right extremism and conspiracy thinking permeating mainstream ufology is surely more debatable, though he provides examples in addition to his recent skewering of an Ancient Aliens icon in Erich von Daniken Puts Out Official Statement Attacking Me by Name. Thinkers within the UFO community such as Kevin Randle have noted the field has a record spattered with intolerance; per Jan Harzan and the Decline of MUFON. Skeptics often seize upon such "fringisms" to brand not only serious ufologists but fortean/anomalist thinkers in general into a catchall unsavory category of "believers" in extreme and ridiculous things. While such linkage would likely make most researchers uncomfortable, it likely doesn’t even represent the linked beliefs of most UFO interested persons. (WM)  

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from THE ANOMALIST https://bit.ly/3qnJECd