What happens when your pet bonkers theory becomes mainstream?

[brixtonbrood]

For many years we have been fans of the Earthlights theory of UFOs (main proponent Paul Devereux, main features, seismic faults, earthquakes, triboluminesence, piezoelectricity, temporal lobe epilepsy brought on by freak EMFs). It's plausible yet wacky, not particularly widely known (Devereux doesn't have a Wikipedia entry, though Persinger's very similar theory does) and highly satisfying.
Now suddenly it's been adopted by the MOD! I don't think I wanted it to be that sort of true. And there's a tiny conspiracy-craving part of me that finds it less plausible now it's The Official Line.

Comments

Triboluminescence?

[zengineer.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that - a new term and a new physical process I hadn't heard of (I've just Wikied it). No chance it could explain any UFO sighting I have heard of though.
I was an astonomer when younger and the leading light in our local group liked to investigate UFO sightings. He gave a really interesting talk that left me with the impression that;
1) There is some weird stuff going on that we fundamentally don't understand.
2) 90% of the really weird stuff goes on only in the heads of the people who see this kind of thing.