I Believe in UFO’s
Under the desert stars, in the dusty outskirts of Las Vegas, that's where I grew up. Just a stones throw from Area 51. So it‘s no wonder the first books I checked out from my school library were about UFO’s. Large, thin, hardback books, full of mysterious grainy photos of what appeared to be visitors from outer space. This was my introduction into the supernatural.
I was born a believer, just like my grandmother. We used to love talking about UFO’s, aliens, and things that go bump in the night. But as I grew up, I developed a strong sense of doubt by finding explanations for everything. Not to find the truth, but just to feel smart. Somehow, I always found a way to debunk a supernatural claim, even if I knew nothing about it.
This gave birth to a period of shallow skepticism. Not the true skepticism of the Greek Skeptikos, which welcomes an open mind. No, it was more like a talisman, to ward off any fringe ideas I didn’t understand. This lasted until my 28th birthday, the day of my first magic mushroom trip, after which, a new vision of the world began to take shape.
That’s when the New York Times published an article about the Pentagons investigation into “Unidentified Arial Phenomena”. All of a sudden, expert witnesses were beamed into the spot light, where they shared their personal stories of UFO encounters. Air-traffic controllers, military pilots, NASA astronauts, CIA officials, etc. These were serious people with a lot to lose in the face of public ridicule. And yet, it seemed like all stigma and stereotype was abducted overnight.
Conversations about UFO’s started cropping up everywhere — the gym, coffee shops, family phone calls. Turns out, most of us believe we’re not alone in the universe. But we also resist the idea that we’re being visited on earth. Granted, it's hard to imagine an alien zipping through the clouds, blasting ‘Free Bird’ by Lynyrd Skynyrd. But why do we assume these crafts have biological pilots? Wouldn't it be drone technology, or self-flying AI? After all, if we have a remote controlled rover on Mars, which we do, wouldn’t aliens have something more advanced?
Art by Dave Pollot
Of course, there are countless reasons to be doubtful. For example, why are the images always low quality? Why is it, with 500 hours of video uploaded every minute to YouTube, there isn’t more footage? And where are the Google satellite images of these space crafts? But maybe the problem isn’t low quality images, but low quality questions.
I started reading books on UFO’s again. But instead of blurry photos, I was searching for sharp ideas. That’s when I found ‘Super Natural’ and ‘Passport to Magonia’. Two books which fundamentally changed the way I viewed the supernatural. So before I proceed, please understand, my intent is not to convince you. My intent is to reboot the conversation about the supernatural. To see things in a different light, from a different angle, and a different frame of mind.
Submitted for your approval: maybe UFO’s have less to do with outer space, and more to do with inner space (i.e. consciousness). This is where an experience with DMT or magic mushrooms would be helpful, because we’ll need to reject the false binary choice of “real” or “not real”. But if departing from the common definition of reality is hard for you, consider the following. About 95% of the physical world is still completely unknown to us, such as dark energy, dark matter, etc. Of the remaining 5% we do know something about, well, we’re unable to sense the vast majority of it. We have little access to the full range of the electromagnetic spectrum. We’re basically deaf, dumb, and blind by comparison. So for now, let’s table the concept of “reality” and take a different route. Let’s focus our attention on historical context, experience, and culture.
It’s easy to see that UFO encounters share a common theme with the perennial philosophy of gods, demons, angels, fairies, and related folklore. For example, the modern experience of aliens coming down from the sky, is not unlike the ancient experience of gods descending from the heavens. From this stand point, we don’t have to take UFO encounters so literally. Instead, we can accept them as a human experience, and a shared cultural story. And stories of the supernatural have always found their way into zeitgeist since the beginning of recorded history. Miraculous healings, telepathic abilities, precognitive gifts, levitation, etc. The experience of these powers have been with us for millennia, and they are “real” in the sense that people experience them. And these stories speak volumes about who we are and how we make sense of a world that is completely consumed by the unknown.
What someone experiences as a UFO encounter, doesn’t have to be a “real” alien visiting from a distant planet. Instead, what is perceived as a UFO or Alien might be a projection (influenced by television, literature, pop-culture) to make sense of an experience that we can’t fully perceive, but is there, just out of reach. Even adjusting for the lies people tell, just a small percentage of these stories can clue us into something deeply strange happening just beyond our 5 senses.
If you’re still not buying this, let’s assume that alien encounters, or alien abductions for that matter, are just nightmares, hallucination, or other mental phenomena. The sheer volume of these experiences is worth taking note of, in and of itself. Why are so many people having those experiences? What’s causing it? And if it’s all in our heads, is that enough reason to ignore it?
“It’s all in your head ...
You just have no idea how big your head is.”
Do I understand these concepts well enough to convince you in a blog post? No. Is it a cop-out to take “reality” off the table when we’re lacking physical evidence? Maybe. But as mentioned before, my intent is not to convince you, but expose you to a new line of thinking. One that is far more adventurous. It is here, in this space, where I firmly believe that fortune will favor the bold.
For those of you who are still with me, I’d like to point out one last observation, if only to cleanse your palette and bring you back to earth. In that New York Times article, the Pentagon used the term UAP (Unidentified Arial Phenomena), instead of the typical UFO. Well, I have my suspicions why.
During the Cold-War, the USA and the USSR were both exploring psychic phenomena as a weapon of war. These ideas were tough to sell up the chain of command. So both of them changed the nomenclature surrounding ESP in an effort to sever ties with the occult. The Americans called flying clairvoyance “Remote Viewing”, and the Soviets called telepathy “Long Distance Bio-Signal Transmission”. This made research funding easier to secure, because it gave these fringe ideas a scientific patina, which is something they could sell. Could we be seeing the same trick with the term UAP’s? It’s possible… But as long as the term UFO is lumped in with what modern science considers nonsense, it’ll be difficult having a worthwhile conversation about what’s flying over our heads or inside our minds, and that’s a damn shame. Just because an idea is cloaked in the fashionable science jargon of that day, doesn’t make it any more true. It’s important to remain skeptical to all ideas, especially those which fit your preexisting world view. Because that’s where we’re most vulnerable to lazy thinking.
TLDR. Here’s what I believe: UFO’s are real. Obviously. They’re nothing more than Unidentified Flying Objects. 95% of them are hoaxes or misunderstandings. The remaining 5% are something else, which we might call visitors if we loosen the term and divorce it from the false binary choice of “real” or “not real”. Ignoring the tropes of Hollywood, there’s another way to interpret these experiences that has little to do with reality, and everything to do with the shared human experience that spans all recorded history. What we’re experiencing might be a projection upon something which exists just beyond our senses. And if you’re willing to join me in the middle ground between science and superstition, between skepticism and mysticism, I believe we can figure this out. At the very least, we could light a joint and think out loud. Life is short, so have some fun.
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