The Satisfaction of Not Knowing
By Mark O’Connell
As UFOs go mainstream, UFO “believerism” goes into overdrive, and only muddies the waters
Belief is a tricky bugger. If you “believe in” something, does that mean you are certain of the objective reality of that something, or does it mean you acknowledge that the something may not be objectively real but you are nonetheless convinced that the something has a power, a meaning or a significance that is real? Do you believe in a thing, or an idea?
These are questions that have plagued the surprisingly vast community of UFO enthusiasts for decades, and that have — also surprisingly — remained largely unaddressed by that community. But with UFO sighting reports (and UFO lore) taking up more and more of the general public’s attention, and more voices in the UFO community sensing a long-sought opportunity to share their beliefs with a seemingly receptive audience, it appears to be a good time to ask what it is that the “true believers” actually believe.
I have been an active participant in the UFO scene for the past decade, starting out in 2011 writing a somewhat tongue-in-cheek UFO blog called High Strangeness (www.highstrangenessufo.com). I had been fascinated with UFOs and aliens since I was a child, but my interest had waned somewhat over the years. So, when I decided to start writing regularly on the topic I knew I had some catching up to do. I immersed myself in the field, schooling myself on the latest cases and the current thinking, and I quickly discovered two things. First, it was a VERY crowded field: there were an awful lot of people already writing blogs (and producing podcasts) about UFOs. Second, these UFO bloggers and podcasters all took themselves VERY seriously. It was hard to tell if this was because they wouldn’t tolerate any levity where their passion was concerned, or because the entire lot of them just had absolutely no sense of humor. I just know that, with some notable exceptions, they did not find the phenomenon entertaining in the same way that I did.
So, I began my little blog, and quickly decided on a narrative arc for myself: I would sign up as a “Certified UFO Field Investigator” for the amateur UFO investigation group, the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON). It was my hope that, by interviewing people who had reported strange sightings of, and experiences with, things they couldn’t understand or explain, I would gain a better understanding of just what moves a person to report a UFO sighting, and how the experience changes them.
Now, there’s not much to being a MUFON Certified Field Investigator. Read the manual, take the (open book) test, and sew the badge on your jacket. Most “investigations” consist of asking the witness to repeat what they already described when they reported their sighting to the MUFON website, and then filling out a “case report” that more often than not ends up being classified as “Unknown” or “Insufficient Data.” Which doesn’t really get us anywhere at all.
It’s pretty easy work, but you can learn a lot of interesting things. For instance, a sizeable number of people who report seeing a UFO simply want to know two things:
1. What did I see?
2. Has anyone else seen it?
These became such benchmark questions in my investigative work that when a witness didn’t ask them, I would find their testimony a shade less credible.
Of course, I could rarely answer the first question. Now and then it would be obvious from the witness’ description that she/he/they had actually seen something perfectly ordinary like the planet Venus, or the star Arcturus, or a sundog. But for the most part, I had no idea what the person had actually seen, and I would tell them so. The second question was easier to tackle. Because the shapes and descriptions of UFOs are so consistent over time, very often I would be able to tell the witness that, yes, the thing they saw is reminiscent of something that was seen in Kansas in 1964, or in Alaska in 1949, or just down the block last month. This would bring them no end of relief and satisfaction.
Here’s something else I learned: witnessing a UFO is cool. On my very first case as an investigator, I interviewed a single mom and her son, who had seen a strange, luminous object hovering over the field behind their apartment. Details were few, but their accounts matched up, and I got the sense that they had seen something out of the ordinary. But then it got interesting. The woman’s teenaged daughter, who had sat there silently as I interviewed the mom and son, suddenly said that she, too, had seen something strange. I asked her for the details, and she described seeing strange lights in the sky a few nights earlier in the week. Where the mother’s and son’s accounts were consistent and decisive, the daughter’s account was tentative, imprecise and rambling. It was obvious that the daughter felt left out and wanted to be part of the narrative by making up a “sighting” of her own on the fly. Nonetheless, I patiently heard her out and took notes, treating her account exactly as I had treated her mom’s and her brother’s. What the family’s conversation was like after I departed I can only imagine, but I was certain the daughter had only wanted to have seen something. Such is the power of the UFO.
As I spent more time in UFO world, I learned some things about myself as well. I learned that I had something to contribute to UFOlogy, the field of UFO research, even if I didn’t know yet what that was. And I learned that ambiguity is far more convincing to me than certainty.
This is crucial to my approach to the UFO phenomenon. I would much rather talk to someone who has no clue what UFOs are than someone who is absolutely sure that he/she knows what we’re dealing with. I know from my experience that I will learn more and ask more and better questions when I’m dealing with someone who is struggling yet striving to understand the phenomenon than I would in conversation with someone who has already decided on the “true” nature and meaning of the phenomenon. Usually the ones who are certain are the people with the least understanding.
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Writing my UFO blog and serving as a UFO investigator ultimately presented me with the opportunity to write a book about one of the most revered and enigmatic UFO researchers of all time, Dr. J. Allen Hynek. Dr. Hynek’s approach to the phenomenon has been formative in my development as a UFOlogist, but it remains, over 30 years after his death, frequently misunderstood. Case in point: Many who only know of Dr. Hynek from his depiction in the recently-cancelled Project Blue Book science-fiction TV series may be surprised to learn that the real Allen Hynek firmly rejected the idea that UFOs were “nuts-and-bolts” vehicles; that is, manufactured physical objects. He also refused to subscribe to the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH), which posits that UFOs are spacecraft piloted by beings from another planet. He considered ETH to be one possible explanation for the UFO phenomenon, but not the only one and certainly not the most convincing one. Perhaps most striking, Hynek had absolutely no interest in “saucer crash” stories, and — surprise! — was never known to have commented or opined on the alleged “Roswell incident” either in public or in private. His logic here is simple: if they’re not “nuts-and-bolts” craft, then UFOs can’t crash.
And while he is commonly referred to as a “true believer” where UFOs are concerned, Hynek would only go so far as to say, “I believe UFO reports are real.” He was a cheeky one.
And, boy, could he embrace ambiguity. This became clear when the Air Force sent him to investigate a troublesome UFO mass sighting that took place in Michigan in March, 1966. Over the course of several nights, UFO sightings were reported by several policemen, a farm family, a Civil Defense agent, a college professor and nearly 100 residents of a college dormitory. Witnesses at both the farm and the dorm saw lights touch down and move about in nearby swamps, as if intelligently controlled, and the cases caused a national sensation. Under pressure from the Air Force to explain it all away, Hynek interviewed over a dozen witnesses over four days, and came to the logical conclusion that the witnesses may have seen pockets of combusting swamp gas. More than that he could not and would not say.
But when he delivered this message at a press conference, the media didn’t hear the words “may have.” Anxious for a sensational explanation, they only heard “swamp gas,” and they ran with it. As “Swamp Gas” headlines appeared in newspaper headlines across the country, Hynek was reviled by UFO enthusiasts for “covering up” for the Air Force; the UFO people all wanted and needed to believe this case was “The Big One,” and they were furious that Hynek wouldn’t tell them what they wanted so badly to hear (many still disparage Hynek for what they imagine to be his ineptitude and/or deceit in his investigation of the swamp gas case).
We find ourselves today in a similar situation. Recent events have given the UFO phenomenon some welcome and overdue attention — it’s hard to argue with credible reportage and headlines in the New York Times, and admissions from the U.S. Navy that “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” (UAP — the hip new “science-y” term for UFO) have been encountered by their pilots. It’s also easy to see that present circumstances, with society and politics in massive turmoil, are likely to stoke the eternal hope, as similar societal and political circumstances did in Michigan in 1966, that The Big One is upon us at last.
But is it?
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At this point, I must make a confession: I myself have added to the confusion about “belief” with the subtitle of my book. While the title, The Close Encounters Man, is spot on, the subtitle is, I admit, problematic: How One Man Made the World Believe in UFOs. The truth is that my publisher came up with that subtitle, but it’s also true that I ultimately signed off on it. Why? Because I realized, and I was confident that readers would realize, that “believing in UFOs” is shorthand for “believing that there is a fundamental reality to the UFO phenomenon.” Practically speaking, though, How One Man Made the World Believe in the Fundamental Reality of the UFO Phenomenon doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, and would barely fit on the book cover. So, yes, I’m guilty of marketing.
That said, who are these true believers, and what exactly, do they believe? Well, in order to qualify as a UFO believer in 2020, you have to hold the following beliefs, and you have to hold them as though your life depended on them:
1. There is a single, absolute, objective “truth” to the UFO phenomenon
2. The government knows about the presence of aliens on earth, but is covering it up
3. The government is in possession of alien bodies/technologies/spacecraft
4. The government is reverse engineering alien tech in secret
5. Any day now, someone will come up with the “smoking gun” proof that UFOs are ‘real’
It is necessary to go through this list in its entirety, in order to fully understand UFO “believerism.” Let’s start with the first belief on the list, because it is one I am at peace with, because I think it may be true.
1. There is a single, absolute, objective “truth” to the UFO phenomenon
Part of me knows this may turn out to be the case. But I think it is just as likely that there are multiple truths about the UFO phenomenon, and we only perceive or understand one of them.
UFO researchers have often been struck by the seeming duality of UFOs. One moment they behave like solid, constructed objects, and then a moment later they behave like, well… something non-physical, like a gas, or a plasma, a psychic apparition or an artifact from another dimension. One moment a UFO is showing up as a real, unmistakable radar “pip” in an airfield control tower, and the next it appears to disintegrate into thin air. Sometimes UFOS seem to be both solid and non-solid at the same time.
There is scientific precedent for such a dual reality. It has long been known that light behaves simultaneously as both a wave and a particle. This is supposed to be impossible, but there is not a single scientist who can explain why the impossible is in this one case, possible. It is among the most baffling puzzles known to modern physics, but there is no doubt that it is real and observable. So, either what we think of as the laws of physics aren’t laws at all, or there are certain types of matter that are not subject to those laws, and we have yet to understand why.
So while I concede that UFOs may have a single, absolute, objective truth, something that is central to the believers’ way of thinking, I find it at least as likely from my own research that UFOs function on, and perhaps even create, multiple levels or modes of reality.
2. The government knows about the presence of aliens on earth, but is covering it up
This belief is as old as the hills. The hills around Roswell, New Mexico, that is. The government conspiracy/cover-up narrative began in the 1970s when a pair of UFO sleuths uncovered what they took as evidence that the government had covered up the U.S. Army’s retrieval of a crashed “flying disc” from a ranch outside Roswell back in 1947. In the ensuing years, Roswell became a mecca for UFO enthusiasts and a battle cry for conspiracy buffs. It is today a centerpiece of UFO lore and an article of faith for all UFO fans. Well, most, anyway.
To some of us, Roswell is unique in that it is one of the most heavily investigated UFO events of all time and at the same time one of the most poorly investigated UFO events of all time. Sure, it is possible that something extraordinary occurred at Roswell in 1947, but the case has been so twisted and contaminated and monetized that it’s impossible to say for certain what, if anything actually happened.
But there are some things we do know, and they may surprise some readers who consider themselves well-informed when it comes to the Roswell event:
· No one ever witnessed any object in sky above the ranch where the disc was supposed to have crashed.
· It follows, then, that no one ever witnessed any crash at the ranch or anywhere else.
· At least five different dates in July have been given for the date of the alleged crash.
· There have been no less than 11 different “crash sites” identified by Roswell researchers.
· There were originally no “bodies” reported to have been recovered from the alleged crash site, then one dead alien corpse was reported, then one live alien corpse, then four alien corpses, three of them dead and one alive.
I could go on, but you get the picture. And when you get the picture, you can’t help but wonder what exactly the government “knows” and is trying to “cover up.” Which story needs to be concealed? Some of them? All of them?
It’s worth noting here Allen Hynek’s thoughts on a government cover-up: “You can cover up knowledge and you can cover up ignorance. I think there was much more of the latter than of the former,” he once said. “I don’t believe the Air Force knows or has any answers.” It’s something to consider.
3. The government is in possession of alien bodies/technologies/spacecraft
4. The government is reverse engineering alien tech in secret
These two beliefs go hand in hand, and they go back to the very early days of the modern UFO era. The first mass-market book about UFOs, Behind the Flying Saucers, written by entertainment industry journalist Frank Scully in 1950, revealed that the U.S. Air Force had in its possession a crashed flying saucer and a crew of dead alien occupants. Scully went on to claim that the beings had unusually attractive teeth, and were dressed in the style of the 1890s. The story was ultimately exposed as a hoax perpetrated by two confidence men, but the book became a best-seller and created the template for all other “saucer crash” stories.
As fate would have it, a brand new “government cover-up of UFOs” story has emerged on #UFOtwitter in the past several days, this time involving a mysterious document allegedly found in the files of the late NASA Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell. The document is supposed to recount a meeting or meetings between members of the US intelligence community that allegedly prove not only that the U.S. government has in its possession the remains of multiple recovered UFOs and the alien entities inside them, but that it has been trying to secretly reverse engineer the “alien tech” recovered from the crash sites.
Is any of it true? A few minutes (or hours) of following the arguments on twitter, one would be justified in thinking that the existence of the document itself is of greater importance to UFO believers than the nature of the information allegedly revealed in the document. In other words, the real excitement to many UFO believers is that such a “smoking gun” document can exist at all. Whether the contents — you know, the actual words printed on the document — can be believed at all then becomes a side-issue. And so the document, and the brouhaha surrounding it, does a great deal to stir up consternation at the government, but doesn’t add one iota to our understanding of the UFO phenomenon.
5. Any day now, someone will come up with the “smoking gun” proof that UFOs are ‘real’
In UFO world, one must be cautious about mysterious “smoking guns” that appear out of nowhere to confirm one’s bias.
This is particularly true in regards to the Roswell ‘saucer crash,” which has been “proven” over and over again over the years, and yet still remains un-proven by any definition of the word “proof.” Here are some examples of noteworthy Roswell “smoking guns”:
· For a time in the 1980s, the Director of the Roswell Chamber of Commerce was supplying a group of Roswell investigators with documents issued from the Roswell Army Air Field from 1947 that seemed to prove that the military had, in fact, recovered a crashed flying saucer and its alien occupants. Turned out the informant had a stash of old Roswell Army Air Field letterhead (he had been stationed there in 1947) and a vintage typewriter and was creating those “authentic” documents himself…
· In the 1990s, a researcher revealed visual proof that the Roswell “aliens” were real in the form of a short black-and-white movie of an autopsy being performed on one the aliens. Fox TV aired the footage to a national audience, which should not surprise you in the least. The TV show was a sensation, but the owner of the film subsequently admitted that his film was, well, not exactly a fake, but a recreation or re-staging of an authentic alien autopsy film that had deteriorated beyond repair. So, yeah, still a fake.
· Most recently, a group of UFO researchers came into possession of two Kodak Ektachrome photographic slides found in a random box of slides in a random attic. The slides showed a small mummified body in a glass case with a blurred out placard in front of it. The UFO entrepreneurs claimed that these were images of a dead alien from the Roswell UFO crash, and The Roswell Slides became a sensation. A grand unveiling was organized in Mexico City, and people lined up to purchase tickets to the live event. As the excitement built, an enterprising UFO researcher used photographic processing software to un-blur the placard in the slides, and made a not-so-startling discovery: the placard revealed that the corpse was that of a Pueblo Indian child, on display in a museum at Mesa Verde National Park, which is located on earth. One could hardly think of a more offensive way to treat the remains of a Native American.
Lesson learned? Of course not.
Today you can buy “stock” for $5 a share (minimum purchase 70 shares) in a UFO research group that promises to share its UFO discoveries by means of movies it will produce (Just the other day I received an email from this group advertising their new line of “NASA inspired” casual wear, with a promise that I’ll receive a Koozie can liner for free with a $60 purchase!). Another outfit will lead you into the desert to make psychic contact with aliens for a mere $3,500. If you want to start smaller, you can buy one UFO author’s “lectures” for only $90. What you get for your money besides a warm feeling inside is anyone’s guess. It certainly isn’t proof.
Of course, I write all of this in the full knowledge that the UFOs could make me look like a fool at any moment. But I’m not too worried.
Taking a historical view, it’s hard not to acknowledge that the UFO phenomenon has been staying a few steps ahead of us for as long as we’ve been pursuing it. The phenomenon is very good at remaining just out of reach of our ability to understand it, and I can find no reason to expect that the phenomenon would suddenly reveal itself to us after so many decades of existential cat-and-mouse.
(That said, if there is going to be a big reveal that UFOs are spacecraft piloted by alien beings and that our government knows all about it — something the believers refer to as “Disclosure” — I doubt very much that our government would be the one pulling back the curtains. The aliens, if they exist, hold all the cards. They are far more likely to decide when and how they wish to be revealed, and not leave it to feckless human governments.)
Speaking of our government, I do share the believers’ mistrust of the government’s handling of the UFO phenomenon, but for a different reason. To me, the government’s recent announcement that they are open to considering the phenomenon is tempered by their painfully careful choice of words. A statement issued by the U.S. Navy last spring that seemed to many to be an admission that “UFOs are real” struck me as a crafty exercise in non-committal messaging:
“After a thorough review, the department has determined that the authorized release of these unclassified videos does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems, and does not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena. DOD is releasing the videos in order to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real, or whether or not there is more to the videos. The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as “unidentified.”
Yes, the Navy was stating that an image was visible in some video clips, but they were careful not to say what the unknown image or images were, or to imply that there was anything unusual or alarming about the images in the videos. The images were just there, that’s all. What’s more, the Navy stated that the images in the video “remain” unidentified. They wouldn’t use the word “remain” for no reason. What they are stating, it seems to me, is that the images in the footage are nothing new, ergo, nothing new is being admitted or conceded by the Navy.
I think it’s also notable that the government’s sudden interest in the phenomenon is framed by a subversion of the very definition of the phenomenon.
Lets look at the terms: The US government and military are suddenly very comfortable talking about unknown images in the sky, as long as they are referred to as Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) and NOT Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO). What’s the difference?
· Obviously, a UAP isn’t an “object,” which means it can be just about anything, or just about nothing.
· Also obviously, something that is “aerial” can simply be present in the sky, while something that is “flying” is actively moving around in the sky.
· Unidentified remains the same in both terms, as it basically leaves the door open for the phenomenon to simply be something we haven’t yet named or understood. It defines an absence, not a presence. Furthermore, that absence is, as far as we can know, peculiar to and created by our particular human, earthbound frame of reference, and not a quality of the object or phenomenon in question.
· The government can now declare that every UFO is a UAP, but not every UAP is a UFO. You see what they did there?
So, by renaming the phenomenon in the broadest, vaguest terms possible, the government has effectively reduced the phenomenon to an inert, passive presence with no apparent attributes beyond the fact that it’s just there, that’s all. And the UFO believers are fine with this, for some reason. Apparently, the term UAP gives the phenomenon some thin veneer of science-y-ness. But it also dilutes and negates the phenomenon’s prime qualities.
Are UFOs real? Does it matter?
Everyone has to answer that question for his, her or their own self. It might surprise someone who has read this far that I truly believe in the reality of the UFO phenomenon. I just don’t know what it is or what it means, and I’m okay with that. I’m okay with not knowing because, despite the fact that I am not certain of its objective reality, I am certain that the phenomenon has meaning and significance (even if it originates in my psyche). As I state in my book, some mysteries were meant to be savored, and not necessarily solved.
What I object to and recoil from is people insisting that the only satisfactory explanation for the phenomenon is that aliens with advanced science and amazing spaceships are able to journey to our earth from God knows where in the universe, traversing billions of light years, avoiding asteroid showers, plasma storms, cosmic rays and being spaghettified in a black hole, but once they arrive here they can’t stick the landing.
Again, I’m following in the footsteps of my own UFO hero, J. Allen Hynek, who delighted in considering all possible explanations for UFOs while not subscribing to any of them. As Hynek’s colleague Frank Reid once told me, “(Hynek) vacillated, sometimes day by day or hour by hour. His vacillation on the subject was proof of his scientific integrity.”
He didn’t know, but he knew. Funny how that works.
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