(15) UFOS & UFOLOGY

 

Close encounters of the third kind.

The modern mythology par excellence, a mythos of extraordinary depth and complexity – one that has even absorbed former fairy folklore, angelic visitations, and divine encounters into itself, as well as forming part of new religions.

Technically, there is nothing mythic about UFOs in their purest sense – as unidentified flying objects. Observations or sightings of aerial phenomena and unidentified flying objects have been a prosaic matter of fact, both since human flight and previously throughout history.

And there is nothing mythic about any number of prosaic explanations for them, which could well be the subject of their own top ten – setting aside human error (often of known or subsequently identified objects), delusion, hoax or psychological effects, there are a number of ordinary objects or phenomena.

Aircraft or balloons. Astronomical objects. Atmospheric objects and light phenomena, including my personal favorite I yearn to see for myself, ball lightning.

Of course, what is mythic is the hypothesis that has become synonymous with UFOs – the extraterrestrial hypothesis, essentially UFOs as alien spacecraft or visitation. Although arguably that is one strand, albeit the predominant one, of various overlapping hypotheses, which propose exotic explanations other than ordinary phenomena.

Timecraft rather than spacecraft (and future humans or posthumans rather than aliens). The cryptoterrestrial hyphothesis. The interdimensional hypothesis. Space Nazis or communists.  Or some sort of government conspiracy to manipulate perception.

UFOs and ufology have a number of layered elements. There are the UFOs themselves – ranging from the foo fighters and ghost rockers of WW2 (or their predecessors as mystery airships) to more contemporary black triangles, flying saucers and green fireballs.

Then there’s the aliens, most predominantly the aliens known as the Greys, or their predecessors Little Green Men – the former being suspiciously humanoid and nude – as well as their predilections for cattle mutilation (presumably as bowsers they pump as fuel for their spacecraft), crop circles, abduction, and the omnipresent probing (or lurid sexual fantasies to rival those of witchcraft).

That last always throws in a skeptical note for me. It’s hard to imagine that aliens are so advanced as to cross light years of space or different dimensions just to give some hick an enema. I mean, I would, but I’m not particularly advanced and that’s just my sense of humor.

Also – why is it never the sexy aliens? Although there is (or was) a strand of aliens in UFO mythology as Nordic aliens.

And then there’s the deeper levels of UFO mythology revolving around human interaction – or conspiracy – with aliens. Roswell and Area 51. Men in black. Majestic 12. And my personal favorite, the endless ancient alien hypotheses, with Eric von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods foremost among them for me – aliens built the pyramids!

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

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