When I was a kid, I was a big believer in UFOs and in aliens visiting Earth. I eagerly lapped it up any time the History Channel had a show about aliens, or really about anything vaguely supernatural/cryptozoological… which, even in the late 90s and early 2000s, was pretty embarrassingly often for a television channel that was literally named the History Channel.
It didn’t matter that I had never seen a UFO* or a flying saucer or a slender gray humanoid with enlarged black eyes lurking in the darkness; I was willing to believe because it made the world a more interesting place, I guess. That, and because the History Channel and other various pieces of pop culture were constantly telling me to believe.
(*Okay, technically I’ve seen a UFO, because technically everyone has. An unidentified flying object? That could be any bird you don’t recognize. If you don’t like that interpretation, fine, it could be any light in the night sky you don’t recognize. Was that an airplane? A helicopter? A shooting star? If you don’t know, it’s a UFO by definition.)
In case it wasn’t clear by the title of this post and my usage of the past tense, I no longer believe there are extraterrestrial intelligences secretly visiting Earth. I don’t know when exactly I stopped believing, so I can only assume it was a slow fade-out over time as I matured and became more worldly and eventually realized “wait a minute this whole concept is nonsense.”
That said… Once in a while, maybe once every few years, I’ll look back into the online ufology community for nostalgia and to see what the current discourse is, or whether there have been any new major events or “sightings” or what have you. Not that I ever expect anything real. If anything “real” ever happened, we’d be hearing about it on the news without needing to seek it out from the fringes.
But oh my god, in the last few years, the community has gone absolutely batshit insane.
Ever since the 2021 UAP report to USA Congress kicked off the modern wave of interest in UFOs “UAPs” (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena), things have just been getting dumber and dumber. I’ll admit, when the report came out, I was excited! It was the first official governmental recognition of anything UFO-related in decades, which is pretty cool! There was a new disclosure movement, with credentialed new figureheads like Luis Elizondo and David Grusch.
And the true believers took that ounce of legitimacy and ran with it. Even when the new big names in the movement started falling into a cycle of “vaguely tease something big will be announced soon, wait for that date or month to pass, nothing happens, and they never mention it again.” Even when the new big names started repeating decades-old debunked ufology lore, like the claims of Bob Lazar about the anti-gravity properties of “Element 115.” Which, first of all, that’s not how elements work. And also, he’s already a confirmed liar about his credentials, so why believe anything else he says?!
When the big names in the UFO movement start associating with known frauds, and repeating the known lies of known frauds, and setting and breaking promises in an ever-growing hype cycle, and start selling books and making podcast appearances and doing anything other than contribute to the cause they say they’re fighting for… It almost sounds like…
When the true believers aren’t busy with hyping up the next alleged disclosure date that will come and go like all the others before it, they’re sharing blurry photos and videos of dots in the sky that are most likely airplanes, but on some exciting occasions turn out to be balloons. They’re telling newcomers about “CE5,” a type of meditation by which someone can telepathically summon a UFO. They’re theorizing over the meaning of a disclosure figurehead’s latest statement that aliens have something to do with consciousness.
Hey, maybe that’s why there’s no physical evidence of them ever. Because they’re non-physical entities that can only be perceived through human senses, not photographed. Maybe that’s why CE5 works! Maybe that’s why no one has yet taken up the offers of skeptics, “summon a UFO and I’ll film it on my high end camera equipment.” Maybe you won’t be able to perceive UFOs in the first place until you open your mind and become a true believer. Maybe, just like main character Winston in 1984, all you need to do is strain your mind until 2 + 2 = 5, and then you’ll be able to see UFOs everywhere you look.
It’s a full-on cult, and the only way to join it is to surrender all grasp on reality.
There’s nothing fun or nostalgic about this anymore. Who could derive any joy out of watching such a misguided group of people walk themselves ever deeper into such a bottomless pit of delusion?
Last year, they spent at least a full month debating the legitimacy of a pair of videos that seemed to show Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 being circled by a trio of orb UFOs and then disappearing into a giant energy portal. There was frenzied back and forth every day, with incredibly detailed analyses of the videos. Analyses of the heat signatures in the video allegedly from the military plane that was following MH370, and whether that heat distribution was realistic for that model of plane. Analyses of the coordinates in the satellite video and whether they changed at the right speed to match the plane’s speed. Analyses of which satellites were actually in that patch of sky that day, and whether their camera software UI was a match for what was seen in this video. People were pulling every move they could think to either confirm or debunk the videos.
And then someone finally found the exact stock VFX effect from a 90s VFX pack that was used for the big energy portal, and proved clearly once and for all that this whole thing was a big waste of time.
It should have ended there. Anyone who was in it for the genuine pursuit of truth would have stopped it there.
Instead, the ufology cult spent another few weeks debating and digging in their heels, refusing to admit it could be a hoax, and letting the whole thing slide out of the daily discourse until it was no longer on anyone’s radar and they could pretend it never happened.
I just don’t get it. Yeah, it’d be cool if aliens existed and were nearby or even already here. But what’s the point of turning it into a fucking religion? Why can’t people just let the lack of compelling evidence speak for itself?
But then, that’s the same problem I have with conspiracy theories in general. A handful of times now I’ve gone into a big conspiracy theory with an open mind, watched their most popular documentary or two, did some supplemental reading, and concluded: there’s nothing there.
When the best evidence you can find for a conspiracy theory is “hmm isn’t it suspicious that all these unrelated details look like they COULD be related? maybe it IS all connected!“… then there’s no conspiracy.
But on the other hand, if the new meta in ufology is “it all might have something to do with consciousness,” who am I to argue?
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