Word: offing
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Dates: during 1970-1970
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The next time you see a flying saucer, remember, it may be all in your mind-particularly if it reminds you of a penis.
Two Harvard psychiatrists considered this possibility-that reported sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO's) could be explained in terms of unconscious mental processes-in a paper presented December 26 at the 136th annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.
"The degree of controversy which surrounds the subject," said Dr. Lester Grinspoon, associate clinical professor of Psychiatry at the Medical School, suggests an extraordinary appeal, an emotionalism which far exceeds the usual involvement in scientific subjects in our scientific age."
"This report was intended as one possible explanation for some of the sightings," Grinspoon said last night. "It is clear that some things have been seen-but the 'ufologists' are not taking into account the possibility that some of these reports may be by disturbed people, or by normal people...
The two psychiatrists initially suspected, Grinspoon said, that a significant fraction of the sightings were related to the sighter's "primary process thinking," a kind of thought process more prominently exhibited in persons with certain kinds of mental disturbances.