108 issues of SETI League's "SearchLites" ("The World's Longest Running SETI Publication") now added - Includes comments on ufology

Russian researcher Mikhail Gershtein has helpfully drawn my attention to "SearchLites", the newsletter of the SETI League.

The website of the SETI League states that SearchLites is "the world's longest running SETI Publication" and also gives permission for reproduction in whole or in part, provided credit is given.  

So, I have now added searchable copies of 108 issues of SeachLites to the USA folder of the online archive that I have been helping to create.

Various issues of "SearchLites" contain comments on UFOs and ufology. 

For example, one issue (Volume 6 No 2) contains an article by Allen Tough that argues in favour of adopting wider strategies to attempt to detect extraterrestrial intelligences since "We have no idea of the origins, history, thought patterns, emotions, ethics, core values, purposes, technological capacities, or other major characteristics of extraterrestrial intelligence".  That article raised the possibility of searching for "smart probes" that could have reached our solar system - but was at pains to distinguish any such search by SETI scientists from ufology:  

"All of us in the SETI field worry about being confused with the UFO field. We encounter this confusion in our classrooms, at the faculty club, at social gatherings, in legislatures, and in donors' offices. But there is no need to let our fear and anger lure us into poor decisions about our own scientific strategies. If our sober assessment concludes that smart probes could have readily reached our solar system, for instance, then we should have the courage to search for them. To reduce confusion, we should frequently point out that our scientific approach differs from the UFO field in three key ways: 

(a) we are deeply committed to skepticism, verification, peer review, and the scientific method; 

(b) we build in strict safeguards against hoaxes, self-delusion, and erroneous data; and 

(c) we adopt protocols to avoid premature and immodest claims."

I'll try to get permission to add searchable copies of some other SETI newsletters/magazines soon.

If there are any other SETI newsletters that are worth added, feel free to mention them to me and I'll look into the permission position.