Robert L. Park

One of the most common explanations for the many of the thousands of UFO reports made each year is simple delusion: No matter how observant people are, it's easy to be fooled under the right conditions. In the following viewpoint, physicist and UFO skeptic Robert L. Park reflects on his own UFO incident. Park teaches at the University of Maryland in College Park and is the director of the American Physical Society, headquartered in Washington, D.C.

In the summer of 1954, when I was a young Air Force lieutenant, I was sent on temporary assignment to Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico, to oversee the installation of a new radar system. Late one night I was returning to the base after a weekend visit with my family in Texas. I was driving on a totally deserted stretch of highway...