David Clarke summarizes in his book the psycho-social hypothesis in the following fundamental concepts .
- There is no such as the UFO phenomenon, but there are lots of phenomena that cause UFO
reports. - There is no such thing as “True UFO”.
- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
- Accounts of UFO experiences form the core of the syndrome but stories do not constitute “evidence”, they are folklore.
- Culture not experience creates the UFO interpretation but some experiences are independent of culture.
- The UFO syndrome fulfils the role of the supernatural “other”.
- The extraterrestrial hypothesis and other exotic theories cannot explain UFOs.
- The idea of a superconspiracy to hide the truth about UFOs is unfalsifiable.
- The common denominator in UFO stories is the human beings and see in believe in them. People want to belief in UFOs.
Summarizing one might say that, even if a very tiny proportion of UFO reports were generated by novel physical phenomena or psychological processes, they would not be the UFO phenomenon, which would still exist in their absence. The real UFO Phenomenon is actually a collection of stories around which a huge folklore has accrued, and is a product of the individual and collective human imagination. It tells us about human beings not aliens or unexplained phenomena.
