UFO Fact Or Fiction annon Unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, as they're fondly called, are one of the century's most intriguing and controversial mysteries. Since ancient times, UFOs of all types have been accounted for. More today than ever, hundreds of thinkers, theologians, and scientists have tried to answer why there are or whether there aren't UFOs.
According to some, the speculation that UFOs are alien spacecrafts from another world is an absurd and foolish proposal. Others vehemently disagree and assert that extraterrestrial life is not only possible, but such life forms may be superior, technologically advanced beings who visit our Earth regularly. Are these 'flying saucers' a figment of our imagination? Or, are they a genuine reality we prefer to dismiss because we fear the scary truth that we are not the only master race? Are we hesitant because society dubs such 'immature' psycho tantamount to subscribing to belief in ghosts? These are a few of the many pertinent UFO questions the mature individual must address.One of the most popular theories that support and explains the existence of alien beings is the ancient astronaut theory. This theory contains three main schools of thought.
The first states that aliens bred with our primitive forebears thereby creating modern man. The second is quite similar. Aliens performed genetic engineering on apes thereby creating the Homo Sapiens and man's intelligence.The third, and least accepted, is that colonists from another galaxy came to Earth, mated with the primitives and established a high level of culture, before being destroyed by some natural catastrophe. And upon this catastrophe and destruction, we build and grow (Fitzgerald 1).
Berossus, a Babylonian scholar, may have been the first astronaut historian. He said that ' animals endowed with reason' bestowed the Sumerian culture before 3000 BCE. The Sumerians, along with their cultural inheritors, the Babylonians, never referred to such beings as gods. Rather they were depicted as 'disgusting abominations,' a description only deserved by uninvited alien visitors (2).
One step further takes the astronaut theory and surmises that with it, we can understand the later religious cultures, such as the Hebrews who are thought to have borrowed much of Sumerian practice. Such religions and secret societies, with their elaborate and complicated rituals may actually be 'preserving from a previous epoch fragments of an esoteric and little understood knowledge, just as the Egyptian, Hebrew, and Mayan priests guarded in their temples the inspired word of their self-possessed creators (3).' Alien originators may have set down certain rites which became confused over the years, resulting in the various ancient religions; aliens being the source of our notion of God. This also may explain how miles long designs, only viewable from the air, were created in ancient times. The only rationalization for the possibility of such designs is that the ancients had assistance from the sky, namely extraterrestrial assistance. Many UFO theorists, astronomer Morris Jessup being the forerunner, go even further: not only were pre-Biblical and Biblical times full of Alien intervention, but he contends that the UFO phenomenon is the missing link between Biblical supernatural accounts of miracles and established, contradicting science.
Jessup explains that 'nothing is supernatural and nothing is outside nature (12).' He continues that the Bible is full of UFO accounts, depicted by various descriptions: angels, the revelation on Mt. Sinai, the burning bush, and Elijah's levitation to heaven. Jessup says the Bible is a physical record, not a collection of divine revelation 'although the miracles of this and all religions invite rational and physical explanation, if we grant the 'existence of spatial intelligence (13).'' Another thinker, Brinsley Trent, follows the theme of extraterrestrial interpretations of the Bible and claims that the Garden of Eden was, as many ancient texts point out, not the underground, but in the Underworld - i.
e. outside the orbit of earth, meaning Mars. When the Great Flood occurred, Noah built a great 'boat,' a spaceship, and landed on Earth (Life 16).However, Cornell astronomer Carl Sagan warns that this ancient astronaut theory and the 'saucer myths' represent a compromise 'between the need to believe in a traditional God and the contemporary pressures to accept the pronouncement of science (Fitzgerald 5);' therefore, according to Sagan, the proposition that aliens exist and the astronaut theory should be tossed. Many theorists assume the Bible is a totally separate entity and don't associate or contradict the UFO phenomenon with the well established theological belief system in the supernatural.
Wilhelm Reich, for one, a noted Austrian psychoanalyst, claimed to have witnessed various UFO crafts and believed that these aliens are hostile. Such aliens wish to rob Earth of orgone, a 'cosmic life energy allegedly present in air, water, and all organic matter (Life 52).' He proceeds to say that saucers run on this orgone energy, hence exhuming a bluish color due to 'orgone exhaust.' Moreover, orgone exhaust is 'deadly orgone (Life),' causing sickness in people and creating parched desert where ever the crafts land. The Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, totally differed.
He theorized that all 'people can tap into..(a ) collective unconciousness-an area of the unconscious that..
contains information derived from the experiences of the human race as a whole rather than the individual..This storehouse contains universal symbols called archtypes..that present themselves spontaneously in dreams or visions..
evoking strong imaginative response..One such image was the mandala, a disk shaped symbol that represents completion..[hence UFOs are not] real objects, but rather mandalas.
.visioned by people looking for..equilibrium (53).' Jung's approach is quite debatable. However, as shaky an argument it may sound, it's as viable as those who welcome the notion that aliens do exist.
Other more common and more understood theories explain that aliens are well intentioned visitors who wish to observe their human contemporaries for purely scientific purposes. However, British astronomers Sir Martin Ryle and Sir Bernard Lovell both warn that we must regard all other life in the universe as potentially a fatal threat to humankind and, in effect, discourage the effort to communicate with such beings (Referring to the many attempts to communicate with aliens via powerful satellite dishes.) (Fitzgerald 7). With all the theories in mind, we come to the next issue.What are people, in reality, seeing? Kenneth Arnold was a normal businessman in Idaho.
As an upstanding and reputable citizen and an expert on flying, Arnold was believed when he said that he witnessed a ship zoom back and forth at an approximated 1,350 miles per hour. This incident provoked a considerable amount of national debate and gave birth to what historians termed the 'modern flying saucer era.' There were sightings before the Arnold case. However, following it, there was a myriad of reports and calls.
Although many were hoaxes, not all were. And most of those who have claimed to have witnessed UFOs swear that in no way could they be anything but an alien spaceship.Simply due to the fact, as in the Arnold case, that these crafts maneuver in such humanly impossible speeds and in gravity defying manners. At one moment the UFO is spotted hovering over a house and one second later can be seen 25 miles away. People also have described the crafts as huge cigar shaped buzzing objects or the more popular silent, metallic type saucers. These reports include interference with television signals and the halting of car ignitions.
Such claims, as Bob Bletchman, in an interview explained, are the best evidence due to their testimonial consistency. When you have hundreds of people on an individual basis, from all backgrounds, depict the same scenario, time and time again, there is little room to doubt their truthfulness.People even assert that they've seen the pilots: described anywhere between two inch bees to Nazis (Fitzgerald 3) to little green men with six fingers. An eerie complement of UFO sightings are these strange and exact circular patches of p ...
