My background in Psychology—it being my major—began to show through this week during the research portion of my paper. I say this because while researching on my chosen topic of UFOs I began to look at it from more of a psychological view point. I believe that there are many answers to the question of what are UFOs, but I am just as certain that some of these answers can be provided to us from the field of psychology. To begin with I planned on not having a huge amount of material in my paper concerning psychology, but I decided that would not be true to my desire to write the best possible paper, nor would it be true to my actual beliefs. I suppose the only reason I wanted to leave it out, was because for many, it will take away credibility from the possible other answers to the question. I fear that readers will read possible solutions that seem rational, and stop there thinking process there. Although I believe most of the proposed rational solutions to UFOs are likely, I also believe that there is still a mystery left after applying these solutions.

I began by searching Academic Search Premier, PsycARTICLES, and the Research Starters databases for; UFO or abduction or alien, articles that were peer reviewed, and received 7160 results. At this point I narrowed my search to only include articles from the PsycARTICLES database, and struck gold in the form of Ghosts, UFOs, and Magic: Positive Affect and the Experiential System, which will undoubtedly be a valuable resource in my paper.

I also spent time this week trying to educate myself on what it takes for a source to be considered scholarly. I found a link for a nice little chart on the W233 research help page, which helped a little, when it comes to scholarly journals, but still left me scratching my head when it comes to books.

Having just returned home from my honeymoon in Florida and then Tennessee, I must admit that UFOs have not exactly been in the front of my mind. The honeymoon was my; first time traveling south of the Indiana border, first time that I ever saw the ocean (stayed on it actually), first time that I ever stayed in a log cabin on a mountain (Smokies), and of course it was my first honeymoon period. Good times!!!

To this point the research portion of my paper has gone rather roughly, maybe not, but kind of. My problem is not; that enough information on the topic of UFOs exists, or that I am having problems finding information on my narrowed topic of UFOs and Governmental Involvement, rather my main problem seems to be finding a criteria for deciding weather or not a source is scholarly. I must claim almost complete ignorance on the subject, except for the obvious ones, such as a college professor. In my annotated bibliography I included books by; Nick Pope a former head in the Ministry of Defense of England, Philip Corso a former Chief Army Intelligence Officer, and Stanton Friedman a former physicist that worked for the United States Government. I suppose my main question is, do these credentials qualify these individual’s work as scholarly? I am willing to concede that upon the mere mention of UFOs, the average person has visions of charlatans, or just burst into laughter, but I would argue that these are highly credible (scholarly?) individuals, making seemingly outrageous claims, that deserve research. As I mentioned previously, I have narrowed my topic from, what are UFOs, to UFOs and governmental involvement. Also I mentioned previously, there is an abundance of information available on this narrowed topic, I just hope it is considered scholarly.

I openly welcome, and would love to receive suggestions from my classmates on any aspect of my paper, from the direction, all the way to the sources.