Of Astronauts And Aliens

Apollo 14 astronaut and sixth man to walk on the moon Dr. Edgar Mitchell has been in the news recently for his assertion that a UFO/ET conspiracy has been going-on for the last 60 years, perpetrated by NASA and the Gov't in order to hide the fact that aliens have been hittin' up the Earth for a while. The Daily Mail has the story here.According to Mitchell, Roswell pretty much conforms to the stories told about it, and there have subsequently been "many" UFO visits to ol' Terra Prime here, each one nefariously covered up by NASA (and, presumably, Cancer Man). During the radio interview that started all the news stories a-spinning, Mitchell said that the aliens were "little people who look strange to us"; in other words, your standard issue Gray. Mitchell also seems to imply that the aliens are at least non-hostile, since their amazing space technology is supposed to be so far beyond ours that turning our little dirt ball to so many ionized particles wouldn't tax them in the least. Of course, NASA has refuted the claims, saying that they don't track UFOs, and that we haven't been visited by Beings from Somewhere Else. Of course, seeing as how they've been blamed for the conspiracy, I doubt that folks will take the offical NASA line seriously.Which sort of makes you wonder about credibility, doesn't it. All these stories have been awfully flattering to Dr. Mitchell. He's always identified early on as "6th man on the moon", his Apollo record is brought up, and his quotes and ideas are passed on without any comment or editorializing. It seems that having been in space makes him an authority on everything about space, including speculative topics like alien intelligence and visitation. That often seems to be the case in the world of the "true believer." It's an argument from authority of course, and false authority at that. I mean, I've been in hospitals; does that make me an expert of surgery? What does an astronaut know about UFOs, or aliens, or secret government plots to obscure those things? No one seems to be asking what Mitchell's credentials are in regards to his knowledge regarding the vast UFO-conspiracy.A quick look at NASAs bio for Mitchell is a little interesting, actually. If you scroll down to the "business experience" section, it turns out that Mitchell was one of the founders of the Institute of Noetic Science (IONS)!The IONS is a group that describes itself thusly:We are a nonprofit membership organization located in Northern Californiathat conducts and sponsors leading-edge research into the potentials and powersof consciousness-including perceptions, beliefs, attention, intention, andintuition. The Institute explores phenomena that do not necessarily fitconventional scientific models, while maintaining a commitment to scientificrigor.That last bit is interesting; IONS effectively says that the scientific method doesn't work for what they look at. That means that they DON'T do SCIENCE when investigating all their brainy-wainy, mindy-windy, psychic stuff.Sort of puts ol' Mitchell and his claims into perspective, don't it? He's not really into the whole "scientific method" or "evidence-based claims" side of things. And yet, when he goes around claiming that their are aliens, they've visited the Earth, and there is a heinous conspiracy to hide all that from the common folk, no one bothers to bring up the fact that he's ALSO associated with a group who eschews science and the peer-review process when making its claims about the paranormal. IF his credibility is being derived from what he once did (i.e., astronaut stuff), then shouldn't it also include his affiliation with the IONS and his obvious interest in the world of explicitly non-scientific fringe ideas?