Setting aside for a minute the issue of scientific validity, I want to comment on what I find personally more interesting: Eli's article does focus on UFO fascination and research as a social fact. Regardless of the question of whether UFOs exist or not, the public's excitement about them is a social fact. I would be interested in asking: what brought about this social fact?

Just to throw off-handedly some suggestions, I would say there are several motivations for this fascination, and they might go far beyond the mere desire to attract attention or be "unique". I think the pessimism brought about by WW2, creating a disillusionment with the possibility of a good world, might have encouraged a yearning for other possibilities. Interactions with beings from other planets would also minimize our preoccupation with international conflict - all of a sudden people would have something new to be excited or worried about!

Which brings me to another possibility; the public need for panic, if such a need indeed exists. There are studies of how a "culture of fear" is created; some of that is reflected, more popularly, in Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. I guess aliens constitute a very universal, terrifying and at the same time unifying entity.

If we all need something to be afraid of, it may also be that we need something to believe in. The hope for the existence of "something out there", which was more traditionally manifested by religious faith (and still is!) may have found a "scientific" framework. Again, I'm not commenting on the existence of deity or on the existence of UFOs (and I do stress that there is a big difference).

For some of the fascist and Nazi people involved, who are mentioned in the story, the existence of aliens would provide an external source to validate their racist ideologies; by making them seem part of a bigger plan, which we do not know enough on, they are made more palatable, or the horror in them may be somewhat transcended.

Any thoughts?