The Mythology Of UFOlogy By A Long Time Student

Hosts Tim Beckley and Tim Swartz welcome to Exploring The Bizarre (KCORradio.com) DAVE HALPERIN whose friendship with Beckley goes back to when they were both teenagers. In the UFO controversy, the skeptics are right about the less important point: UFOs have no physical existence. TheUFOlogists are right about the more important point: UFOs are a vitally important subject, never to be dismissed as “bunk” or “claptrap.” Attention must be paid. UFOs, like religion, are a human phenomenon. They have nothing to do with space travel or life on other planets. Back in the 1960s, David Halperin was a teenage UFOlogist. Later he became a Professor of Religious Studies at theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he taught until his retirement in 2000. His specialty: religious traditions of heavenly ascent and otherworldly journeys. He is the author of five books on Jewish mysticism and messianism, and a novel, "Journal of a UFO Investigator," published in 2011 by Viking Press and translated into Spanish, Italian, and German. His non-fiction book, "Intimate Alien: The Hidden Story of the UFO," will be published next year by Stanford University Press. He blogs on UFOs, religion, and other subjects dear to his heart at www.davidhalperin.net.