Word.ws English Dictionary

pelicanist

pelicanist noun: someone who attempts to explain away UFO reports by means of any explanation, however illogical.

Noun

pelicanist (plural pelicanists)

  1. (derogatory) Someone who attempts to explain away UFO reports by means of any explanation, however illogical.
    • Kottmeyer and others who use the psychosocial hypothesis constantly produce evidence to support their ideas, whereas the ETH proponents can produce only cranky ideas about magnetic, anti-gravity or interdimensional saucers, accompanied by a constant whining about "sceptics" and "debunkers" (not to...2000 November 22, “Blue Resonant Human” (username), “::: Should Saucers Spin? :::”, in alt.alien.research, Usenet
    • Meanwhile, those of us who’ve experienced UFOs in various ways are called mentally ill, intellectually challenged, spiritually needy, liars, drunks, drug users, attention getters, drama queens, and more. Those all are worse than being called a thug, skeptibunkie, or Pelicanist. (Pelicanist is a...2006 September 12, “LordOfThyNight” (username), “The Usual Purple Tinged Hyperbole About UFOs”, in The Paranormal & Ghost Society, Usenet

Examples of pelicanist in a sentence

  • Those all are worse than being called a thug, skeptibunkie, or Pelicanist. (Pelicanist is a term coined by UFO researcher Jerome Clark.)2006 September 12, “LordOfThyNight” (username), “The Usual Purple Tinged Hyperbole About UFOs”, in The Paranormal & Ghost Society, Usenet
  • Skepticism of the pelicanist flavor perhaps ?2009 November 29, “Tom Booth” (username), “For Serena,”, in alt.fan.landmark, Usenet

Forms of pelicanist

pluralpelicanists

Origin of pelicanist

From pelican + -ist. Coined by Jerome Clark in reference to claims that Kenneth Arnold's UFO sighting in 1947 was pelicans.

Questions about pelicanist

What does pelicanist mean?
Pelicanist means someone who attempts to explain away UFO reports by means of any explanation, however illogical.
How do you use pelicanist in a sentence?
Those all are worse than being called a thug, skeptibunkie, or Pelicanist. (Pelicanist is a term coined by UFO researcher Jerome Clark.)
What part of speech is pelicanist?
Pelicanist is a noun.
What is the plural of pelicanist?
The plural of pelicanist is pelicanists.

Words near pelicanist in the dictionary

  1. pelican pots
  2. Pelican State
  3. Pelican Stater
  4. pelican's foot
  5. pelicanish
  6. pelicanist
  7. pelicanists
  8. pelicanlike
  9. pelicanries
  10. pelicanry
  11. pelicans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pelicanist (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “pelicanist.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pelicanist. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.