The Exaltation and/or Reverie of UFOs

Copyright 2018, InterAmerica, Inc.

In a previous piece here I suggested that UFO witnesses are a special breed; that is, UFO sighters (and paranormal experiencers) seem to gain the attention of weird, other-worldly phenomena.

Jacques Vallee has stated that UFO witnesses may be the clue to what UFOs are, and a number of ufologists (UFO buffs) are climbing on that bandwagon, me among them, to some extent.

But while most UFOs have been and are seen by the run-of-the-mill humans, the common man (more so than sophisticated types) and are products of a neurological/psychological kind in those instances, there does appear to be a concrete UFO reality that appears or has appeared without benefit of a mental environment but that is not what I’m addressing here.

French UFO skeptic Gilles Fernandez is best able to cite the cognitive reality or unreality of UFO sightings and the mental stability or instability of those who witness UFOs.

Gilles is a cognitive psychologist.

But there are a number of citations extant that show how stress, drugs, general health, neurological displacements, psychological predispositions, et cetera, can evoke access to imagery and experiences that fall into a category that belies reality.

Those citations are available to UFO inquisitors should they take the time to seek them out.

For example, a paper about stress and the accompanying effects can explain how some UFO sightings (many that we all have dealt with) have come about, how or why they occurred:

The effects of stress and stress hormones on human cognition: Implications for the field of brain and cognition by S.J. Lupien a, F. Maheu b, M. Tu c, A. Fiocco a, T.E. Schramek at a.) the Center for Studies on Human Stress, Douglas Hospital Research Center, McGill University, Montreal, Que., Canada b.) Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program, Emotional Development and Affective Neuroscience Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA c.) University of British Columbia, Centre for Community Child Health Research, 480 Oak Street, L408, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6H 3V4

“Although adrenaline does not readily access the brain, it can still impact the brain through its actions on the sensory vagus outside of the blood–brain barrier, with information transmitted into the brain via the nucleus of the solitary tract. The most important brain area containing adrenergic receptors is the amygdala, which has been shown to play an important role in fear processing, and memory for emotionally relevant information.

“Because of their actions on brain structures known to be involved in fear detection and memory for emotionally relevant information, the stress mediators enhance the formation of so-called ‘flashbulb memories’ of events associated with strong emotions, including fear ...

“ …in the early 1960s, the discovery of neuropeptides as substances having not only classical endocrine effects, but also affecting brain and behavior, significantly extended our view of hormones and opened the door to new possibilities of hormonal actions on the brain (for a complete historical background, [see de Kloet, 2000].

“Moreover, an emotion possesses many of the properties of a stressor. First, it often has an identifiable source. Second, it is usually brief and leads to an intense and conscious experience of short duration.

“ … the more attention given to an event, the higher the probability that this event will be elaborated (relating the information from this event to other situations and related concepts in memory) at the time of encoding.

“The level of attention devoted to an event at the time of encoding will greatly depend on the emotional salience of this event.”

Now, no one is going to apply the stress explanation to sightings but it certainly can offer an explanation for some iconic sightings if one takes the time to look at the witness account with a serious eye.

But here are other possible influences for UFO sightings, and I’ve noted some of them over time here: drug use (the Travis Walton “abduction”), mass hysteria (the Fatima sun movement), neurological displacement, epileptic-like seizure (the Robert Taylor “assault”) and various psychological maladies (many of the humanoid encounters listed here from Rosales, Redfern, Swords, et al.)

My point? That UFO witnesses are open to visualizing UFOs for a number of reasons, some even having a mystical-like experience, mostly where UFOs appear as glorious lights in the sky at night or bright phenomena during the day….the UAP that some UFO buffs extol as UFOs when all that is witnessed is the Jungian phenomena or the Father Gill configuration, which had a more concretized reality for the deluded witnesses.

Yes, I think some UFOs may be probes from advanced other-world civilizations but so few as to preclude an explanation for the number of UFO sighting reports.

And many UFO sightings are misperceptions of mundane things surely, but those that are represented by detailed, authentic reports of odd things and entities seen are products of consciousness that transcends common sense and only happens to certain humans at a moment of euphoric bliss or temporary stress, some sightings induced by ingestion of befouled ingredients or even contaminated air.

The possibilities for UFO sightings are as manifold as the speculative imagination allows.

That UFO adherents refuse to ingratiate themselves to those possibilities goes to the heart of ufological ennui.

RR