Are U.F.O.s "Real"?
My Thoughts on Unknown Mysteries and Why I Write About Them
In my last satirical column, The Latest Strangeness, I posted a story about a UFO that temporarily shut down a U.S. nuclear weapons facility in 1967. On a Zoom call, my sisters asked me if the story was real. It is a reasonable question anyone with a brain probably asks when they hear that story. What caught me off guard, however, was that they were asking ME if it was real. As if I had the answer tucked away somewhere because I had delivered the information.
My first response was, well, yes. It is a “real” story that real people working at that facility have told for years. However, I quickly realized that wasn’t really the question I was being asked. They were asking me if I thought the story was “true” and, more importantly, whether they should believe it as true, also.
Since the topic came up, I thought it would be a good time to provide some of my thoughts on these paranormal mysteries, and why I have chosen these subjects as a backdrop for my comics.
My interest in the unknown began with checking out books on U.F.O.’s and the Bermuda Triangle from the school library as a kid. Alien beings, the Loch Ness Monster, and alternate dimensions were just too intriguing for my imagination to ignore. Despite my early interest, however, for most of my life I never considered paranormal stories as anything more than a curiosity or amusing thought experiments.
I had a handful of experiences over the years I might consider possibly paranormal if nothing more than coincidences at best, but I have never been one to fully accept any explanation of strange events without a thoroughly logical examination.
So, to be blunt, if someone asks me if I “believe” the vast majority of these strange stories that I research, my broad answer would be I believe very little of it. I tend to focus more of my thoughts on what I actually know rather than determining what I believe or don’t believe.
If you study this stuff for very long, you will find that most people who study these topics seriously are very careful about how they throw around the word “believe.” (Sorry, Agent Mulder.) This has less to do with their fear of being proven wrong by skillful debunkers and more to do with their understanding that determining and committing to a belief closes off unexamined answers that may be beyond our current ability to either conceive or comprehend.
The short answer about all of the “high strangeness” (a term coined by Dr. J. Allen Hynek in the 1970’s) is that the stories witnesses describe are often so bizarre and absurd, it begs us to question if there is in fact something intelligent going on behind this phenomena, what possible form of logic could be driving its purpose—if there is a purpose at all?
Some speculate that U.F.O.s, alien sightings, Big Foot sightings, and all the rest may simply be accidental glimpses into dimensions beyond our human abilities to perceive. A real-world example of this limited capacity to perceive might be found comparing our eyes to those of the mantis shrimp. The shrimp’s visual receptors have 16 cones to receive light compared to humans who have three. It may be impossible to say if these shrimps truly see more colors on the spectrum, but we will honestly never know until humans somehow grow more light receptor cones in their eyes.
The same type of difference in perception might be true in terms of psychic abilities of people who seem able to see dead people more easily than others. Or animals like dogs that stare and bark at empty spaces as if someone were there.
Back to what I think is true and not true about these stories, I definitely believe that many of the people who have these experiences perceive something out of the ordinary. Can I explain what they saw with more earthbound scientific reasoning? Perhaps sometimes. Could they be lying? Sure.
However, it is not for me to assume without proper data one way or another whether that person’s experience was either extraordinary or plain ordinary. What I can examine from a person’s story is all the given circumstances surrounding the event: who the witness or witnesses are, what were the known facts around what occurred, what is the history leading up to and after the event, etc. Often even that available information can be subject to speculation if strong sources are not provided (which is usually the case.)
I did not start studying this material seriously until probably around 2016 or 2017. I had been listening to some podcasts like Bizarre States and Bigfoot Collector’s Club mostly as fun distractions from my workday, but eventually I thought that ghosts and aliens would be fun topic to explore in comic book form.
I originally used the paranormal stories in a more tongue in cheek way when I began writing. While I was writing my larger graphic novel story (still in progress), I applied my research in a more immediate form to a satirical Instagram comic (Flying Saucers Are Swell!) about U.F.O. stories from the 1940’-1960’s. It was supposed to be humorous entertainment and perhaps a somewhat educational glimpse into the outmoded perceptions of an earlier era.
At about that same time, however, the increased threat of fake news stories was becoming more and more prevalent in social media. The deeper I delved into the topic of high strangeness for comedic purposes, I began to see some parallels that I thought might be useful to address the more serious real-world themes that were dividing our country. In the same way that fake news was being manipulated to influence the masses with propaganda in the present, the way people believed in and tried to explain stories of the bizarre might serve as a valid metaphor for trying to define that blurry line between truth and fiction in the media.
For example, one of the major themes that has come up in the graphic novel story I am writing is the relationship between asking questions and freedom. Freedom is in part founded not only on having the ability to ask questions freely but also the ability to ask the right questions with sound information.
In my story, there is an entire alien species that is forbidden from asking questions at all. They exist with a set amount of information uploaded into their brains that is all the amount deemed necessary for them to do their jobs. While the aliens are based loosely on real world stories from my research, as a writer I have been able to take creative license with my aliens to tell the story I want to explore.
In conclusion, I definitely take the real-world stories I hear and read about these encounters seriously. It would be a disservice to the experiencers who describe some of these terrifying encounters to treat them purely as trite material to simply make entertainment. I cannot explain the stories with any amount of certainty as purely paranormal, but I also have no authority to explain them away as something ordinary with any certainty either. I can only examine the evidence presented to me and do my best to make an informed opinion.
The stories I present in this newsletter are merely meant to expand minds and present possibilities for others to ponder. My hope is they will provide some fun, some curiosity, and perhaps a little fear which I think is good for the soul.
However, I do not intend to take a stand on what any of these mysterious happenings are or are not despite having my own opinions. That journey into the unknown is one my readers will have to take alone.