Monday, July 19, 2010

What Happened To UFO Reporting?


From fascinating enigma that had us looking toward the stars, to paranoid ramblings that have us now clutching our chakra crystals - what happened to UFO culture? In particular, I ask about the state of UFO magazines. Where once we could count on fascinating tales of unidentified craft in various periodicals devoted to the issue, we are now left with a handful of rags that seem to spend more time talking about ESP, the Raelians, ley lines, and esoteric spirituality - even ghosts and monsters! To be honest, if I could turn back the clock a few decades, I would. I miss the good ol' days when investigators did just that. Investigate. Frankly, I blame the aliens - for not showing up. Had they, then folks would have something to focus on instead of allowing their minds to wander and speculate about things that were based on little but dubious testimonies and paranoid supposition. Sure, the fringe element has always been there, but the bulk of publications just dealt with telling the story and presenting the facts as they were known, often with a scientific slant. Idle hands, as they say, are the devil's workshop. So, with the Visitors late to the Barbecue, some people apparently got a little bored. Next thing we knew, they're out at Sedona chanting beneath a pyramid made from copper tubing. Well, I have two words about that: Dry Lightning. It's as if there is a collective frustration that nothing more has been discovered. Fundamentally, we are nowhere nearer to understanding the phenomenon than we were half a century ago. This fact, for many, will simply not suffice. They have a deep seated need to understand, and in supplication to that obsession, they begin to seek answers beyond the scope of the observable.

3 comments:

WHORLBOOKS said...

Sometimes it is the lesson we learned in childhood...get kicked off the play ground and you go find a group that will let you play...UFO as a subject as been so ridiculed by talking heads, denigrated among those who should be open to exploring the unknown (scientists), and attacked by those people with an agenda to debunk anything that isn't nailed down. It takes strong people to withstand that concerted efforts of the last 50 years to make the issue disappear. The intriguing part remains that it has not disappeared....

Steve Sawyer said...

Interesting that for a posting dated July 19, 2010, the comment above somehow got dated Nov. 28, 2007--how does that happen?

Cullan Hudson said...

It's a repost, which Blogger should have posted on the date specified, but for some reason didn't. Who can fathom the inner workings of Blogger?