UFOs: The Ascent and the Decline

Copyright 2017, InterAmerica, Inc.

A few of you may be familiar with Oswald Spengler’s magnum opus The Decline of the West, an important book that has lost its cachet in academia but remains pertinent in a number of ways.

And of course you know about Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

No, I’m not going to drag you through either book but they, along with a few others, tell us how empires, countries, and cultures rise and fall or decline, to the point of irrelevancy.

The UFO phenomenon is like that: it rose, reached heights of relevancy, but today is in decline, if not dead.

I know that many reading this still maintain that UFOs are integral to societal existence.

They aren’t.

UFOs are at the fringe of relevancy. Advocates say no. The Anomalist gang says no. Some of my UFO pals say no.

But the view or opinion that UFOs remain significant is delusional.

Flying saucers rose to prominence in 1947, as you all know. They peaked in the following two decades of the 50s and 60s, then started a slow but palpable descent.

Today, UFOs are the scum on the pond of civilization.

I maintain an interest because I’m soaked in flying saucer or UFO lore, a drenching that most attuned here are also besotted by.

But lest you misunderstand my stance, let me say (write) that one has to look at the UFO mythos in the same way that Gibbon and Spengler looked at the phenomena that interested them, a dead civilization and a dead cultural milieu: the UFO and its current Weltanschauung.

Nothing more, nothing less.

UFOs are archaeological.

That some try to coat UFOs with an ET patina doesn’t bring them back to life as a viable alternative to things that truly matter, and we all know what those things are, or we should know.

Don’t be put off by my dour position, as stated above and known by regulars who visit this blog, no matter its incarnation.

I’ll try to provide substantive musings, bolstered by artifacts of the UFO mythology as usual, and I hope some of you will continue to tag along for the ride.

RR

Psychedelic trips may open the mind, as some have suggested and created some UFO sightings?

Copyright 2017, InterAmerica, Inc.

This was from a topic in my Facebook feed:

"A group of tripped out volunteers just helped scientists better understand what’s going on in the brain when people take psychedelic drugs such as LSD, ketamine, or the magic mushroom molecule, psilocybin, The Guardian reports. Brain activity was increased and more sporadic while under the influence, the researchers show in a study published today in Scientific Reports. They suggest that these findings could give a bit of credence to the hippy notion that psychedelics open up “a higher state of consciousness” in the mind. Although what all this extra brain activity means, and whether it is healthy, is still far from resolved."

My pal, Bryan Sentes, who teaches at Dawson College in Canada, is an advocate for psychedelia because many notables (Kant, Coleridge, Freud) have used some form of mind-altering substances that, circumstantially, indicates they have been propitious for them.

But there is no doubt (none) that psychedelics and/or hallucinogenics alter reality. Bryan Sentes thinks this is for the good, I believe.

Me? My contacts with people, under the influence of psychedelics and hallucinogenics (marijuana among them) showed me that they were not operating optimally.

And since psychedelics/hallucinogens, along with alcohol and certain medicines, affect mental function, as neuroscience has shown – click HERE – setting up drug-induced psychoses, can we assume that some UFO related events derive from drug or alcohol use: the Desvergers case in Florida, the Travis Walton, “ordeal,” and several other UFO incidents I’ve noted here?

Such self-induced psychoses (hallucinatory events) are temporary so UFO investigators will, usually, not find them, did not find them, when they investigate(d) a UFO sighting’s witness.

A psychedelic or hallucinogenic episode comes and goes, usually, unless one is addicted to their use, but such addiction would surely show itself to a trained UFO investigator.

UFO researchers are inept pretty much, so catching or seeing psychedelic/hallucinogenic use, or even alcoholic use, would be missed (and has been missed) by them.

Yet, especially nowadays when psychedelics and hallucinogenics are prevalent more than ever, UFO sighting accounts don’t take them into consideration.

And they have never been considered in those cases I’ve noted above and here, such as the Robert Taylor (Scotland) “attack” or the Betty/Barney Hill “abduction” scenario, during and after the “fact.”

Psychedelics/hallucinogens and alcohol may enhance mental acuity – I don’t believe they do – as some say they did for writers such as On the Road Jack Kerouac and his pals William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg.

Psychedelics and mind-altering drugs are a problem, to my way of thinking, even as my buddy, Bryan Sentes, shows me otherwise.

That ufology has ignored psychedelics, hallucinogens, and alcohol is obvious, That such use may have an integral importance in UFO sightings, past and present, should be taken into account when UFO researchers offer a presentation of a UFO event they have studied.

(Cartoon image at top from vice.com)

RR