UFOs stand alone and apart, meaningless after all
Copyright 2020, InterAmerica
In a recent dialogue with an academic pal, he wished to
impose upon me that Capitalism intruded upon every aspect of daily life.
He was wrong, of course. Capitalism plays a great economic
force in human life but at a subliminal level for most and not at all for many
more.
And other interactions of great powers and individuals mean
nothing for daily life; the China/U.S. new “Cold War” or the pre- sentation of
the current [2020] Oscar nominations get social play but neither affect one’s
daily rote, and have only an indirect bearing on what humans and societies do
each day.
And UFOs? No UFO event has ever impacted society in a way
that altered behavior, my pal’s Capitalistic obsession, religious strife (The
Muslim/Hindu confrontations) or loony pastimes: the NFL playoffs): nothing!
A UFO incident is a bubble, a one-time, unique phenomenal
event that impacts, sometimes, the witness to the event or someone who’s heard
about it, but no one else, outside the witness’s circle.
UFO incidents come and go; none affect society, only
Constantine’s alleged observation of a cross (not a UFO) during his battle at
Milvian Bridge brought about a major change in society:
But that was not a UFO incident, just a projected
hallucinatory observation, if it actually took place.
All other UFO or UFO-related activities (incidents/
observation, what have you) have never impacted mankind or civilization,
despite the Ancient Astronaut nut-theory.
Has Roswell or Ken Arnold’s vision or Lonnie Zamora’s
encounter or the 1976 Tehran confrontation, or the Phoenix lights, so on and so
on come to bear on society or life, I mean significantly?
Like Capitalism, which has little more influence than any UFO incident, or
China’s economic and military thrusts which will dissi-pate one day, UFOs are
one-time events meant for the witnesses – as José Caravaca insists –more than
anything else, and even then offering nothing in the way of substantial
information or alteration for human society.
UFOs are a lonely quirk in humanity’s move from primitive
activity to more primitive activity, as Facebook shows us.
Like the bubble-encased Martian crafts in George Pal’s War
of the Worlds rendition, UFOs cannot be impacted, do not impact – as the
movie’s machines did – anything along the daily road we all traverse.
RR
posted by RRRGroup at
Monday, January 13, 2020
29 Comments:
I think John Keel wrote about this... Isn´t it so that UFOs (whatever they maybe) affect only individuals and rarely those individuals gather any following?
Okay, my latest thought: UFOs are just fun, I should try to keep it that way and not be too serious.
By
Jerry Cornelius, at Monday, January 13, 2020
@Rich - well, I beg to disagree!
Kenneth Arnold's sighting (mainly via the media's wilful misreporting) introduced the concept of UFOs & 'flying saucers' to the masses, serious mainstream journalism (including those of a once exclusively political or 'defence-tech' persuasions) is now taking note and tv channels are awash with UFO programmes from the 'sublime' ('Unidentified'/'UFO Europe: The Untold Stories') to the ridiculous ('Ancient Aliens'/'Alien Files Unsealed' etc.)
Massively popular podcasts such as The Joe Rogan Experience (with millions of regular listeners and subscribers) regularly tackle & discuss such subjects (including a recent 2-hour in-depth discussion with Commander David Fravor of Nimitz 'tic-tac' fame) and according to a National Geographic Survey, more Americans (77% in fact) believe that the existence of 'aliens' is a much more likely proposition than 'Jesus was the son of God'
link: https://www.sott.net/article/271567-More-Americans-believe-aliens-have-visited-Earth-than-believe-that-Jesus-is-the-Son-of-God
That's a radical, societal sea-change in just a few decades. If that survey had been conducted in the forties or fifties (or even arguably in the 70s) most people would've responded with a mixture of humour and/or bemusement whereas now the majority seem to accept the phenomenon as real.
By
DrDee, at Monday, January 13, 2020
Rich, decent blog post that subliminally describes the UFO construct of society. It fairly tracks with my line of thinking...UFOs do not impact me on a day to day basis. My pay scale remains the same (depending on union contract), my mortgage stays the same. Government policies both locally, state and federal impact me, yet the "UFO" or "ET" stories have no impact other than a chance to foray into fantasy.
By
Tim Hebert, at Monday, January 13, 2020
DrDee...
I have to disagree with your disagreement -- and remember I luv ya.
I'm talking about "real impact" -- a sea change in society, not a waspish news item that only UFO fanatics continue to row their boats in.
UFOs do nothing about anything -- even though I'm obsessed with them, as are you and other intellectual hippies.
It's not like St. Paul's delusional vision, or the Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki or Napoleon's
loss at Waterloo.
UFO's are a personal event that, while getting some news media hype (like Arnold's) ends up going nowhere...certainly nowhere in the evolutionary stream that is physical and spiritual both.
RR
By
RRRGroup, at Monday, January 13, 2020
Gotcha, Tim...
We sane realists keep trying to moderate the UFO fanatics, to no avail, sadly.
But that's kinda fun too...
RR
By
RRRGroup, at Monday, January 13, 2020
Jerry...
I know you are a member of the Rich, Tim, Jerry "normalcy club."
RR
By
RRRGroup, at Monday, January 13, 2020
"just a projected hallucinatory observation"
"St. Paul's delusional vision"
Rich, how do you arrive at such certainty in your "diagnoses"? Unfortunately it seems your application of them is largely determined by whether you like (e.g. Lonnie Zamora--sane and reliable observer) or dislike (e.g. St. Paul, Christians generally--loons "projecting" hallucinations) the observers.
By
Anonymous, at Monday, January 13, 2020
St. Paul, Matty, had all the attributes of a psychopath.
You're in the psychology field; that you miss those attributes is alarming, well, maybe just disappointing.
And I do like Zamora. He didn't persecute Christians then try to redeem himself and his guilt.
RR
By
RRRGroup, at Monday, January 13, 2020
Rich,
We were talking about a "delusional vision," no? You muddy the waters with the irrelevant psychopath smear.
By
Anonymous, at Monday, January 13, 2020
Well, St. Paul was "ate up with anxiety" which is well documented in his letters, with that said, I have to demur on being a psychopath. BTW, redemption and acceptance of guilt (sin) is the hallmark of Christianity.
By
Tim Hebert, at Monday, January 13, 2020
Matty:
The delusional reference comes in the gestalt of Paul's total behavior over a period of time, from his rampage against early Christians until his death,
He acted psychopathically in a mild form after his initial acts against the Christians.
Are you defending him and his actions.
He became a fanatic.
Tell me how you see Paul in the context of his proselytizing.
RR
By
RRRGroup, at Monday, January 13, 2020
Yah, Tim...
Psychopath is a little harsh, but Paul has been troublesome, for a long time for me, and others of the Faith.
RR
By
RRRGroup, at Monday, January 13, 2020
Rich,
The "gestalt" thing looks deliberately obscure to me. I think my original claim is right, and is supported by your latest comments: you dislike Paul and this distorts your psychologizing about him. I also note other peculiarities, such as your ready acceptance of Smith's forged Secret Gospel of Mark. It seems you're drawn to, and supportive of, whatever might scandalize Christians.
Now, I don't mean to be an ass, but if we're going to go along with your pal Freud consistently, surely we have to inquire into the basis of your obvious hostility to Christianity. (Certainly an honest psychoanalyst could fill tomes working out the source of Freud's perverse attacks on that religion.)
By
Anonymous, at Monday, January 13, 2020
Matty:
While the Church is a firm fixture in my life and was to be my "career" choice once, I am not blind to its flaws, some major.
Even when one has a live object, one should not overlook flaws but decide to accept them (or not).
What surprises me is your obstinate non-objectivity when it comes to people and things you like or dislike.
The Church is not above reproach, so many things awry that to list them would be tedious beyond reason.
Christianity is a thing that can be scrutinized and found wanting in many quarters, but -- and take this for what it's worth -- I'm a firm believer in the Shroud of Turin as the actual burial shroud of Jesus.
Good and bad (Evil) are not so black and white as you seem to see them.
I love your naivete about some things.
You are an intellectual hippie. That's why I find you fascinating and sweet.
You seem like a babe in the woods when it comes to psychology and God among a few other things.
RR
By
RRRGroup, at Monday, January 13, 2020
Rich,
"What surprises me is your obstinate non-objectivity when it comes to people and things you like or dislike."
You're repeating what I said to you back at me. Perhaps this is intentional but it looks odd--like a completely undisguised instance of the "projection" you Freudians are so obsessed with.
Christianity can be criticized endlessly, and of course has been. That's pretty irrelevant to my observation, which is your eagerness to lap up anything that might scandalize Christians, no matter how ridiculous (e.g. Smith's Secret Gospel). In other words, your criticisms don't look particularly considered--they indicate a desire to be provocative or incendiary more than anything, and so suggest animus, as I've already noted.
"You are an intellectual hippie"
"You seem like a babe in the woods when it comes to psychology"
These I find especially strange. My writing here on psychology is primarily skeptical with respect to received psychological wisdom. Hardly a defining feature of naivete. Conversely, you seem happy to uncritically accept whatever is on offer in research that's seen some devastating challenges in the many decades since its debut, challenges I suspect you haven't actually confronted, hewing close your moldy grad school textbooks. This permissive endorsement of psycho-nonsense ironically looks quite "hippie"-ish to me.
By
Anonymous, at Monday, January 13, 2020
All that you write, Matty, is true.
By intellectual hippie I'm creating a category for my academically inclined pals here.
You, like my buddy Brian S often will get sidetracked by a small provocative aside -- like Paul's delusion -- and miss the opportunity to lambaste my overall argument or posting.
It's like seeing a beautiful woman and overlooking her beauty, concentrating on a slight smear of her mascara.
You guys go off topic to attack a stupidity of mine, a small chink in my point that should little offend or have time spent on.
I like the dialectic and never take umbrage at criticism.
I try to be a devil's advocate.
But you "hippies" hopped up on minutiae don't allow a full head of argumentative beer, absorbed by a footnote that is not worthy of distended debate, of is it?
RR
By
RRRGroup, at Monday, January 13, 2020
Rich,
OK. To make up for my off-topic remarks (although does it really surprise you that your iconoclastic statements attract responses?), I'll comment on the thrust of your post.
I don't at all agree with your apparent view that what isn't directly relevant to daily life should be discounted as meaningless. It seems to me that people frequently understand much of what makes up daily life to be meaningless and detestable, but often take fleeting experiences to be of great existential moment. For instance, a near-death experience or the sighting of a dead loved one's apparition (the latter is surprisingly common) may last a mere few seconds or minutes, but alter someone's life permanently and profoundly. Conversely, many people in more or less urbanized settings will spend huge chunks of their lives idling in traffic. Almost all of them will take those traffic experiences to be time-wasting and meaningless, to be avoided as much as possible, even though they intrude into daily life and have an important role in shaping it.
Now, to be sure, your point seems to be that particular UFO experiences are effectively meaningless because they change nothing for anyone other than the witness. So it seems I haven't addressed your point. But I'd disagree with your claim that the experiences are effectively meaningless to all those they don't directly affect. UFOs clearly have been of deep interest to huge numbers of people who've never seen a UFO--far more interesting and meaningful than the humdrum vacuity of their moment-to-moment wake, shower, drive, work, drive, eat, sleep lives. They're far more animated by UFOs' intimation of some fascinating reality alien to their cubicles and Toyotas than the stupid trivial nonsense that they endure daily. If what mattered most in life could be boiled down to "mortgage," etc., then most people would probably not want to be alive. There's a reason the vast majority down through history and still contemporarily have taken religious and other broadly transcendent concerns to be so central to life, even though few people can directly engage with this "lofty" stuff on a daily basis.
By
Anonymous, at Monday, January 13, 2020
Matty:
I'm going even further: UFOs are meaningless altogether.
And I'll try to address that again, in a posting later tonight about my seeming need to push buttons and be provocative just for the thrill of it, a view held by my UFO pals and anti-pals.
RR
By
RRRGroup, at Monday, January 13, 2020
I thought UFOs held the key to the meaning of reality itself, Rich ... I'm confused.
By
Anonymous, at Monday, January 13, 2020
@Rich
"I know you are a member of the Rich, Tim, Jerry "normalcy club."
I hope that was a compliment : )
By
Jerry Cornelius, at Monday, January 13, 2020
Only if we get our hands on one, Matty.
RR
By
RRRGroup, at Monday, January 13, 2020
Jerry:
It is.
RR
By
RRRGroup, at Monday, January 13, 2020
@Matty:
In Rich's own words, remember?..
*
-> I like the dialectic and never take umbrage at criticism.
I try to be a devil's advocate.
But you "hippies" hopped up on minutiae don't allow a full head of argumentative beer, absorbed by a footnote that is not worthy of distended debate, of is it? <-
*
Rich likes to play the Devil's advocate, he's toying with YOU/US:).........
By
Daniel, at Monday, January 13, 2020
Toying? Me, Daniel?
Nice guy that I am, down deep.....
RR
By
RRRGroup, at Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Daniel,
Yes. Rich likes to be a gadfly--to as many as possible, it seems. I do like to think he is serious about some of the views he presents here and I try to engage accordingly. I often get the sense that I'm being played, though! :)
By
Anonymous, at Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Hahaha!:) Yeah, we know your a nice guy Rich, but your confusing some of the time, with playing the Devil's advocat:)..Amusing to you, and confusing to us. But I guess it keeps us on our toes:) Look out, Rich is on the loose!?:).......
By
Daniel, at Tuesday, January 14, 2020
@Matty:
Your doing just fine, Matty.......
By
Daniel, at Tuesday, January 14, 2020
@Rich - 'UFOs do nothing about anything'
The Navy - with its steadfast refusal to release longer higher resolution video evidence of things we're now informed 'we weren't meant to see' in the first place - would seem to disagree that it's all just a lot of fuss about 'nothing'.
It appears to be a serious 'National Security' issue of the utmost secrecy.
By
DrDee, at Thursday, January 16, 2020
I agree, Dee, that the current UFO encounters might be a game-changer but up to now, nada.
RR
By
RRRGroup, at Thursday, January 16, 2020
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