The Great UFO Hoax of 2009

[Originally posted at: Newsweek]

If you prefer to keep a little magic in your life—by which I mean believing in the possibility of UFOs—then read no further. For I am going to tell you about the latest UFO hoax.

You may remember the sightings of a UFO over Morristown, N.J., in January, which was blogged about and even captured on video that has been posted to YouTube as clips from TV broadcasts.

 

It was all a hoax, as the perpetrators reveal in this month’s issue of eSkeptic.

 

Last November, write Joe Rudy, who describes himself as “an avid reader of Skeptic magazine” who teaches science and gives private music lessons, and Chris Russo, who works in sales and says he “intends to continue his quest to spread reason and truth, one pseudoscience at a time,” the two 20-somethings were sitting around discussing pseudoscience and the many people who believe one or another form of it. “We had always had a strong interest in why people were so easily fooled by such irrational superstitions as psychic ability, spiritual mediums, alien abductions, and the like,” they write. So they “set out on a mission to help people think rationally and question the credibility of so-called UFO ‘professionals.’”

[Read the rest of this post at: Newsweek]

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