Bom-ba-BA! Emerging from the spacecraft that suspiciously resembles a golf cart covered with aluminum foil is a horrific, unfathomable, detestable, loathsome, other-worldly monster. Doo-dee-da-da-doooo!
Heh-heh-heh, hah-hah-hah-hah. Nearby, an angry black and white Japanese man lets loose a string of badly dubbed English curses as the thing edges toward a group of terrified onlookers. He offers his expert advice.
“Run for your lives (la-da-da)!” the angry man says, his mouth still moving long after he spits out the final word. “The brain-sucking body-smashers from Pluto have invaded our world! They want to kill us strong men, scatter our children like silly birds, and generally make merry with our women-folk! Run for your lives!”
Ba-da-ba-da-ba-da-DA!
Have you ever seen a movie like this? You probably have – these types of films are the picture of everything “cheesy” in the wonderful world of science fiction. More than likely, this is the scene that your mind conjures up whenever someone mentions UFOs or aliens or other “Area 51” terms.
But even after aliens invade Hollywood for the majillionth time, some of us are left wondering, “Are UFOs actually extraterrestrial spacecraft?”
“No, they are not,” says Dr. Donald Luttermoser, an expert in the fields of physics and astronomy and a professor at ETSU.
This Saturday, he and Dr. Richard Ignace will be conducting a lecture titled “Are UFOs Extraterrestrial Spacecraft” at 7:30 p.m. in the ETSU Astronomical Observatory. This lecture is part of the Observatory’s open house and is free of charge for the public.
“Most UFOs are misidentifications,” Luttermoser says. He believes that UFO stories seem plausible because they’re being told by educated, reputable citizens. Their problem is that they don’t have the training to know what they’re looking at.
Luttermoser recalls an incident that occurred last semester. He received a phone call from a friend who wanted him to watch a videotape of a UFO and decide whether or not it was real.
Apparently, a gentleman had videotaped a “spacecraft” traveling at incredible speeds through a cloudy sky. The object appeared to drop in and out of the cloud cover, eerily going about its “unidentified flying object” business. The man who taped the event firmly believed that he had witnessed visitors from another world.
After a few minutes with the tape, Luttermoser determined that the man had been filming a wayward balloon.
How can Luttermoser identify a seemingly inexplicable event like this so quickly? The answer is simple: Because he knows what he’s doing.
“You hardly ever hear of an astronomer or a meteorologist seeing a UFO,” says Luttermoser, “because they know the night sky.”
Other UFO sightings, Luttermoser believes, are merely hoaxes by people wanting attention. During his lecture, he will discuss some of the most convincing hoaxes and show the audience what makes the pictures and videos false.
While Luttermoser doesn’t believe UFOs are spacecrafts, he certainly doesn’t believe that we are alone in the universe. He just thinks that any civilization advanced enough to harness the enormous amounts of energy needed to traverse the monumental distances between the stars would have the technology hide from us humans.
Or suck out our brains and blow us to smithereens! Ba-doo-ba-da!
Okay, he didn’t actually say that. That’s a conclusion I came to on my own. But you can’t argue against the logic of it, can you?
Anyway, everyone who attends Luttermoser’s lecture will have the opportunity to look for UFOs and any other celestial objects through the observatory’s main telescope. The eight outdoor telescopes that are also a part of the facility will be available as well.
Venus, Mars, Saturn and the Great Nebula of Orion are just a
few of the objects that stargazers can expect to see.
Even if UFOs aren’t actually alien spacecrafts, they are, at least, unusual.
These “star parties” are events that the Department of Physics, Astronomy and Geology would like to throw monthly, depending on the weather.
If you plan to attend on Saturday, make sure the sky isn’t too cloudy – the open house will be cancelled if Mother Nature won’t cooperate. Call the observatory at 929-3382 if you have any questions.
And be careful when you’re looking at Pluto – those brain-sucking body-smashers hate it when people stare.

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