UFOS, Aliens, and Me
76
Last night I watched the first episode of "UFO Hunters" on the History Channel. It was pretty stupid. Four guys, all supposed 'specialists' and scientists, go around looking for proof of alien visitation. They do not find it. Big surprise.
"UFO Hunters" is no "Ghost Hunters," I'll say that much, although it is clearly patterned after that popular show. Same structure, same gimmick, only the volume is turned up about a hundred notches and the guys don't grow on you like the Ghost Hunter guys do. These guys are just annoying.
The show got me thinking though, about the evolution of the whole UFO phenomenon and my personal relationship to it, which has by turns, over time, been one of fascination, skepticism, irritation, confusion, and creative theory.
As a child I was fascinated by the very idea of extraterrestrial visitation, and frequently had vivid dreams about it. I remember in particular one "Twilight Zone" episode about a creature on the wing of an airplane taunting the only guy who could see it. I was about 8, I think, and that one kept me up all night.
As a kid I had vivid dreams of flying and, curiously, vivid nightmares about the Virgin Mary, who has been connected to the UFO phenomenon by several prominent writers. The flying dreams felt absolutely real, and involved simply looking down over the terrain of the neighborhood I lived in while sailing over it. In the dream, the map of the terrain was fairly accurate with blocks being where they should be and everything occurring in real time, at night.
The Virgin Mary dreams were much more bizarre. In these dreams I would peek into a neighbor's window and see the Virgin Mary standing in the center of the room. Upon seeing her, I would instantly feel utter, indescribable terror. It wasn't like seeing a live person, but rather like seeing something terrifying in a full-body Virgin Mary mask. Folklorists and ufologists have long noted that BVM sightings (Blessed Virgin Mary) are often very similar to UFO sightings, with bright lights (think Fatima), apocalyptic messages (pray, the end is near), and virtually no physical proof that the phenomenon ever happened.
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I hit my teens and early twenties just as the UFO sighting craze was morphing into the alien abduction craze. Bud Hopkins was cranking out bestsellers and hypnotizing housewives all over the place, and wouldn't you know it, abductees were everywhere, just waiting to pour out the truth that Hopkins swore was out there. I read Hopkins first book and felt sick at my stomach throughout, 'recognizing' the aliens described as components of other vivid dreams and 'memories' of things that had never really happened to me.
I wrote to Hopkins and he called me on the telephone about a month later. He said he was floored by my letter, and he wanted to hypnotize me. He was absolutely sure there was much, much more under the surface...but first he wanted me to fill out a questionaire.
When the questionaire came, I saw immediately that it was basically a 100-question primer that taught exactly what Hopkins expected abductees to say under hypnosis. He was coaching them with this ridiculous 'questionaire' and anyone who didn't answer it correctly was crossed of his hypnotee list. This honked me off. What a charlatan. What a creep. I threw the questionaire away and resolved to figure the whole thing out myself.
I went to graduate school to study paranormal events and myth. By this time I was in my 30s, and determined to get to the bottom of something, even though I had pretty much no idea what it was. I took courses in psychology, philosophy, and philosophy of science. I got straight As and presented papers at academic conferences and forums. And, probably most importantly of all, I had a nervous breakdown.
Memories of a violent crime that damaged me badly in my twenties came crashing in on me so strongly they felt hallucinogenic. They were disruptive and crippling. I got myself a therapist and hobbled across the grad school finish line and into a part-time adjunct teaching gig that I quit after a year.
About this same time, a professor at Indiana University did some experiments in 'false memory syndrome,' and they hit the press in a very sensational way. Because of that, and because of my own distress, it was important to me to verify my 'memories' of assault, and sadly, I was able to do this fairly easily. My family remembered, others remembered, it seemed I was the only one who had been out of the loop.
Amnesia in a common and well-known reaction to trauma: often victims never remember car accidents, crimes, etc. I realized that my alien 'memories' were inextricably intertwined with my assault memories, and it hit me that they were operating like a protective screen.
People don't deal well with the brutal victimization of others, but UfOs and aliens they like. In other words, socially speaking, it is much more acceptable to be an alien abductee than a victim of a violent crime. Disclosing that you think you might have been abducted by aliens makes people curious. Disclosing that you have been violently assaulted for no sane reason makes people horribly uncomfortable.
Suddenly it all made sense.
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I began to gobble up skeptical books by the dozens. I wrote to Hopkins and also to David Jacobs and John Mack and explained to them that they were wrong, and that what they were doing might be actually harmful to people who may have suffered real trauma and were covering it over with fantasy. No one responded, to my total lack of surprise.
I wrote up my theory for the Skeptical Inquirer and they printed it up and praised it. That felt good, but not for very long. What bothered me was the vividness of all these non-memory UFO-related memories. They did not just feel real, they felt hyper-real, realer than real. In fact, to this day I can only dimly remember fractured bits and pieces of my assault, but I vividly remember exactly what an alien's face looks like and how it feels to look into it.
I am in my 50s now, and quite happily recovered from any earlier trauma. I have a great life. When I watch UFO shows, I feel fairly convinced that a big part of the 40s and 50s incidents was a government psi-op disinformation campaign, designed to take the American public's mind off nuclear proliferation and other scary weapons in development. By the 70s and 80s, we were deeply into biological warfare, and suddenly the aliens were back, but this time they were abducting people and doing medical experiments on them. The parallels are hard to miss.
But I still have come to no sweeping conclusions. The phenomenon will not die. It is somehow tied into our age, inscribed on our collective unconscious in ways that even we do not understand. The unifying theme is either deception, total loss of control, or apolcalypse, and sometimes all three. And people who have direct experiences never forget them, they just learn to shut up.
If only the 'UFO Hunters' weren't such clowns. That too is part of the whole scene: it seems you can't be a UFO investigator unless you have a tic or a bad toupee, and also a proclivity for reciting lines from bad sci-fi movies in an overanimated way.
But it's okay.
I have learned to live with mystery and confusion. It's called life. And maybe ultimately, that is what it's all about.
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Comments
Thanks robie2! Coming from you that means a lot. Vive life!
This was an honest article, had no idea trauma could be reinvented into a different memory as coping mechanism. The UFO phenomenon is something we will never know if its true, I think of Whitley Strieber's stories which I read years ago and which scared me. LOL!
For sure, Whitley Streiber. I forgot about that guy! Stephen King wrote an alien novel too. God was that one weird. Must have written it during his cocaine period.
i dont think ufos exists
Until and unless there are sound proofs, the UFO's will remain mystery and subject of interest. Well written and good hub.
Thank premsingh!
u can think wat u want maham but if there is an infinite galaxy out there then y are we the only lifeforms to live in this universe of ours y not more we do not know of others may be saying the same as u ohtes meaning aliens "wat if there are no other life out there only us" so maham consider your thought
I agree with you over UFO Hunters, what a joke. When the show begins, we joke around and ask each other how many aliens they will find this time? How about zero! I found it a very lame show, certainly not worth the History Channel, but then again they also have Monster Quest which is a lot like UFO Hunters, they look and look, but in the end they prove nothing.
I have seen a UFO when I was 5, and have yet to outgrow the scary UFO dreams. Sometimes, I really believe there is something to the whole thing, other times I think it is all a big farce. Remember, the easiest way to control people is through fear. If the govenment wanted to control us, as if it does'nt already, the threat of aliens attacking us might be a way to unite mankind.
My logical mind wants to believe that UFOs are a farce, but then again I remember my sighting when I was 5, and I am sure that was real, unless of course my 5 year old brain was simply sleeping.
I think there are a lot of people out there who make a very good living writing about UFOs. I guess in time we will know the truth, whatever truth really is.
"Sometimes, I really believe there is something to the whole thing, other times I think it is all a big farce."
I feel the same way. I go back and forth on it. On a rational level it seems nuts, but then the experiences I've had were so vivid--hard to let them go.
Thanks for posing your thoughts on it. Someday we may know. I hope so.
Great article, deep as always and as we expect from you. And yes, pretty much every UFO show I have ever seen pisses me off for being so stupid that they unconvince people purely based on how moronic they are. The only reason it pisses me off so bad is because I saw a UFO when I was 13 (which does not mean I saw aliens, btw, but it does mean I saw something very clearly and distinctly and for an extended period of time at reasonable proximity that has yet to show itself to have been something we use in our military or aviation etc. to date). The way these shows pretend to investigate but really just riddicule the UFO thing irks the crap out of me. Nobody will take it seriously as long as they keep airing the dumb phony crap as if it were maybe real, but then disproving it near the end. Just skip that crap.
Frankly, UFOs might not even be aliens, they might be us coming back in time, or maybe just fancy military stuff. Who knows? All I know is that stupid shows only make finding the truth harder to do.
Thanks Shadesbreath. I actually spent lots of time researching and writing about this stuff in graduate school, and one day it dawned on me that no one was ever going to take any of it seriously and I began to lose interest in grad school. I did graduate, but so what? I'm a flunky CSR now--seven years running....like, yeah great Pam, here's your hairnet.
Someday though, I will write a popular book about it. Maybe soon, the way jobs are looking these days! (might have lots of time pretty soon!)
Well, if you do write it, and can't find anyone to critique your early drafts, I'd love to read it. Not that I won't buy it when it comes out; I'm just impatient and like having special priveleges.
It's a deal! I get it done, I'll shoot you the first draft.
"The flying dreams felt absolutely real, and involved simply looking down over the terrain of the neighborhood I lived in while sailing over it. In the dream, the map of the terrain was fairly accurate with blocks being where they should be and everything occuring in real time, at night."
Pam this sounds like astral travelling, a very real an memorable experience.
Another experience people can have when delving into their subconscious is scarey or unattractive faces. Not everything is as it seems on the surface and means different things to different people. It's often likened to a reflection of your subconscious so if gremlins from the deep are there, your own delving of your consciousness may produce ugly image to mirror past experiences.
There is allot of hype around UFO's and aliens and it conjurs rubbery green creatures with one eye. But then there are unidentified images of the not so common kind that don't fit this description, they are nonetheless very real and pertinent to your life experience, be it this epoch or a previous one.
Jewels, I've thought about the astral travel aspect before and think there may be validity to that theory. I think it is possible and maybe as a child I was able to do that spontaneouldy.
You know, your information about faces and dreams was VERY helpful though. One of the most vivid memories of an alien face came in a 'memory' or dream about my brother--He was sitting in a kitchen chair and was about eight years old, and there was a whisper "Don't touch him!" but I did, and when I did, his face transformed into this horrifying alien face that I still recall in incredible detail. I can see it today as if it were a photograph.
Here's the thing: At that age my brother had severe emotional problems and was caught setting neighborhood fires and also burning toys in our attic and breaking the windows out of garages with a friend. He was eight and already in trouble with the police.
My parents were young and overwhelmed and not that skilled at parenting, and mostly they dealt with this by beating him severely (we are a year apart, my brother and me). The violent crime I survived and eventually did recover from involved my brother and about six of his friends--I was in my early 20s when it happened. My brother always resented the fact that my father beat him severely but never beat me. (It's understandable he would feel that resentment, but it's not rational. It wasn't my fault my Dad was out of control.)
So that all makes perfect sense. Perhaps my unconscious mind was trying to say, "Here's the problem, Pam. It's not aliens. It's your alienated brother and the loss of his human feelings as a child."
Thank you. I mean seriously, that really put a piece of the puzzle back into place for me. I really appreciate it.
Ahhhh, you've given me goosebumps - I get that strongly when a space of clarity lands. When my 3rd eye opened and I started 'seeing' and learning about seeing, this was one of the topics my teacher spoke about. The faces - ugly or beautiful - it's not always clear what they represent. It is a common experience when people have vision. when looking at someone or into someone they see a face appear, like their face changes, morphs. And what can be seen is either something beautiful or ghastly. And those faces can represent many things, depending on where your consciousness rests, or in some cases what it is you need to see. It is showing you something. You are totally on the right track with this.
My father recently died and he was a drinker and a not so good father to have. I have 5 brothers and each of us has our own story to tell. He affected us all differently. During the wake the day of his funeral 3 of my brothers offloaded some of their story and it helped me to see their side. I was also very relieved that I was able to share my side too. It is never the same, just flavors of the same experience. Your brother only ever saw himself getting beaten and possibly thought his suffering was worse than yours. He was probably trying the best way he knew to ask for help, it just came in the form of resentment.
I have to thank you too because as you were relaying your flying experience it brought up a memory of doing similar when I was young. I used to fly around our front yard at home. Wow - how clever!!
Wow, I'm so sorry you had the bad dad experience too. I actually loved my dad a lot, but he was not a happy camper and in retrospect I can see that when my folks died my life finally started to get a lot happier--Not the politically correct thing to say, but the truth. I hope they are all in a better place now. Thanks Jewels.
After reading all the above,I feel compelled to post links to some UFO related websites.
This website has a two hour video that was made at the national press club in washington D.C. in may of 2001,has many witnesses ,both military,and civilian.
http://thedisclosureproject.org
This one is about man made UFO'smodeled after crashed UFO's
http://www.eyepod.org/Nazi-Disc-Video.html
"The unifying theme is either deception, total loss of control, or apolcalypse, and sometimes all three."You’re loaded with imaginative thoughts, and too sensitive to have ever followed through with a proper examination of a UFO experience. I had an UFO experience unlike anything that you described. I was actually being groomed for adduction. And because my real adduction experience is something which you never experienced, it does nothing to explain to others what possibly happened to me in an isolated area on beach near the town of Peterhead, Scotland in 1975. I never experience deception, total loss of control, or apocalypse (a word that you misspelled), but I always felt in control, no sense of doom, and was a very reward experience. I gain value information about the reality of UFOs from my experience. It’s people like you that make it hard for the people like me to come forward and tell their story, because you others think that the truth of UFOs found in getting a diploma at a university. All you have proven is that imaginative people like yourself are given to being deceived, influenced. I want you to know that my experience did not produce the anxiety levels that your overactive imagination triggered in your quest to understand your personal experiences. I do not believe in reaching for conclusions of my UFO experiences before having all the facts. You offered me nothing of value in my search to know more, but the idea that people like yourself are susceptible to mental manipulation. I have never had mental trauma in all of my UFO experiences, not even when I was followed out the beach by a small grey. Erick Gemmell
Erick, I'm not sure why you feel compelled to discount my experiences while affirming your own. It's not a contest. I'm not saying you were not followed around by 'greys' in 1975. Maybe you were. How should I know? I'm talking about myself, not you.
Some ufologists have interesting factual things to say, others are scammers IMO. But it seems a bit defensive to wander the internet looking for imaginative people to bash. Why not write your own hub? I'd read it. Best wishes to you.
This was a short but fascinating- and honest- window into your life. I see this has been up for some time and I came across this piece- quoted in full- on the ‘paranormal musings’ blog. My experiences are very limited. Still I find myself believing things that- well normal people think are absurd, plain weird, or crazy. I don’t think they are any of these things. What I do think- and sometimes it seems as if I have been painted into this corner by a process of elimination- is that we plainly don’t know what is really going on. Of course being human beings we think we know a lot more than we do. Some of us know more than others it goes without saying. But there is something going on most of us have little grasp of and it was put best perhaps by Terence McKenna: “We are part of a symbiotic relationship with something which disguises itself as an extra-terrestrial invasion so as not to alarm us.” A very strange comment but closest to the heart of the truth as anything I have come across.
Jsmes I really like McKenna's way of putting that--Thank you for sharing it. I believe something similar, that we just don't know but what we do know is not always the product of human pathology or overactive imaginations.
I'm fairly open about my experiences but it's risky. I mean, even among people fascinated by UFOs, there are folks who get, well, mad at me! lol! Seriously, there are 'scripts' and no one likes deviation, no matter which side they are on. But I find it fascinating to simply take this stuff at face value and just kind of go, whoa.
I mean, life is weird. We don't any of us know what the hell we're doing here, and the ones who pretend to know strike me as the most dangerous. Thanks for your thoughts. :)
What a brilliant hub! Very insightful. I've always had an interest in UFO phenomena, believing it in my pre-teen years, eating up Eric Von Daniken et al. in my teen years and now residing in a reasonable skepticism. I suppose it is a lot easier and certainly less unsettling to gaze into and imagine the mysterious depths of an outer space that is mathematical, physical and subject to control, than the even more mysterious depths of our own minds.
Thanks Arthur--I wrote this so long ago. Your comment gave me a chance to clean up a bunch of spelling errors and reformat it for better ad revenue. I'm not sure it's so 'brillilant'! LOL! But it's very kind of you to say that.
Recently I began writing on the paranormal for the region of Michigan in which I live at Examiner.com. It's fun because it gives me a chance to check out some local groups and kind of get out there and poke around. I'd like to write a book on this stuff and probably will eventually--something along the lines of the Harpur interview I sent you but written in a more readable, accessible style. (I hope.) I'm quite self-obsessed, so I thought I'd weave my own experiences into it, too.
Thanks for reading this! And for your kind words about it. :)
Exceptionally well written hub Pat! Although I've been touching on things that seem "out there" to many, my comment is not to expound in any way, nor unfortunately offer any "light" on the subject. We all have our stories of the unusual and inexplicable. My goal is only to make sure everyone gets out of their little box by experiencing some of them personally :) If we could all express ourselves as well as you do, less would seem inexplicable :)
Perhaps I was fortunate to only read (Sci Fi wise) "Stranger in a Strange Land" or "Time Enough for Love" - I dream of pioneering new worlds and am always conscious of how I might be hurting the grass when I walk on it lol Grok?
Hi SEM Pro--I remember "Stranger in a Strange Land"! When I was in high school in the late 60s it was the cool hot book, and so radical! lol! Now, not so much maybe, but those were the days alright. I do agree that most people have their weird stories but keep them close to the chest so as not to seem crazy. We're all a little crazy IMO, but that's often the best part. :)
Honest article but one that could bite back.
The Ghost Hunters (the boys I call them) we all admire tremendously so. They're simply down to earth good ole boys. The UFO Hunters are 'personally' just like Jason and Grant. They're personalities are different but as far as being the good ole boys - they are just that.
You know Jason and Grant well, such as the rest of us, which is why you feel the way you do about them. You accomplished such by watching numerous shows, which allows you to get to know them. One single program of UFO Hunters is not going to dictate how you feel about the UFO Hunters.
That 'stupid' program made it through 36 episodes before being canceled. If it were that unworthy, it wouldn't have made it through season 1, let alone season 3. If you're going to judge these guys, you might want to meet them personally someday. You would be set back by how personable they are.
Lastly, that first UFO Hunters show you're speaking of, absolutely stunk. It was one of their worst but they got better as time went on and some were actually great.
Eileen (aka: Atrueoriginall)
Thanks for sharing your point of view. It always amazes me what some readers take personally. I'm just a nobody writing a column online for some Adsense pennies. I doubt the UFO Hunters lose much sleep about what I think of their show, and I'll bet they earn a few pennies more than I do too, but I do agree that their later shows are better than their earlier ones. If I've mortally offended any of them I would be the first to apologize, but I'm pretty sure I haven't.
Mostly I just get frustrated with the formula for these kinds of TV shows. Ghost Busters uses the same formula, I just personally like the show better.
People get mad at me over UFO stuff, TV shows, all kinds of things, and yet, they steal my writing instead of creating their own. They steal it a lot. This particular hub has been stolen so much it is all over the place online now, so much so that I don't even bother filing copyright infringement forms anymore. I'd never get anything else done if I tried to do that.
So it's hate mail or theft, those are my choices here. I could leave off comment capsules altogether, but I know many readers (like you) like to vent. I know one blogger who posts her hate mail on a separate blog entitled, "Monetizing The Hate." She keeps it all, posts it with ads, gets ad revenue off people who leave notes about how much she sucks. Now that takes guts. (And TRUE originality.)
You also have the option of writing your own stuff here at Hub Pages, in which case YOU can have the thrill of being blasted daily by strangers for having any opinion on anything at all and putting it on the net. Since you are A True Original you probably already do that, but maybe everyone loves you. Maybe you only get love letters. If so, applause. Good for you.
My feeling is, don't get so mad about TV. Life is too short. So I don't like that show and you do, so what? It's not that important. Thanks for commenting.
robie2 says:
2 years ago
"I have learned to live with mystery and confusion. It's called life. And maybe ultimately, that is what it's all about."
I love this last sentence--a fitting ending to a provocative, personally revealing, well written hub. Let's hear it for life!