Making UFO Sense Often Sucks
“Schrodinger’s rabbits”
We just got back from a screening of David Lynch’s latest film INLAND EMPIRE, and it occurred to me that there is something that we can learn from art and the creative process when delving into UFOs and other associated weirdness.
One film festival presenter reportedly introduced Lynch with the line, “He’s a genius. I think.” One of the main reasons for his “genius” is because he increasingly does not allow his conscious, reasoning right brain mind to get in the way of telling a story that wells up from the primordial akashic “soup” through his subconscious and onto the screen. This is one of the great goals of all successful art. Lynch also studiously avoids explaining anything to his audience and interviewers. Like Schrodinger’s quantum cat, he realizes that the minute he “collapses the wave function” of the creative message with an “explanation,” the work of art is ceases to speak to much of its audience–the cat is dead (or alive, but the question is not open anymore.)
The source and meaning of truly “unexplained” UFOs seems to be hidden, and will likely remain that way for quite some time. It will reveal itself to us when we are ready, or when it is. Many UFO cases, if looked at from a symbolic perspective, reveal more to our humanness than simple questions about “where the aliens come from and what they’re doing here.”
A short look at a classic UFO case, from the perspective of a symbolic work of “art” may be in order. How about the Joe Simonton case from Eagle River, Wisconsin, 1961? Simonton was in his house making breakfast when he was summoned outside by a noise “like tires on wet pavement.” Hovering over his driveway was a round object about twelve feet high and thirty feet in diameter. A “hatch” opened on the side and Simonton peered in to see three men in close-fitting uniforms. One was apparently cooking something on a flameless grill. Most of the inside of the craft was a dull, matte-black. One of the men motioned that he wanted Simonton to fill a metal jug (which was handed to him) with water. This he did and gave it back to the strange man. He was given three “pancakes” hot off the grill before the thing closed up and flew off over the pine trees.
Any attempt to interpret this episode logically obviously falls flat. Many have tried, but it’s a dead end. If we hypothesize a bit on the basic elements of the story, we can come up with a few interesting things:
1) The thing apparently came from, and went back to, the sky. Many things we associate with gods, unseen forces, and the unknown reside in the heavens.
2) The men didn’t say a word to Simonton. Talking about things often robs them of open interpretation and ultimate personal meaning. Many religious disciplines stress the value of silence.
3) He was given three plain (they turned out to be ordinary wheat gluten) flat wafers. I do not need to emphasize the symbolism of holy wafers and the more widespread act of ingesting food and drink that is alleged to have mystic powers.
4) The outer part of the “craft” was “brighter than chrome” according to Simonton, while the interior was black. The “men” were dressed in black outfits with black caps. Shining truth on the outside contrasted with occulted, secretive black on the inside brings up images of spiritual promise contrasted with more difficult to grasp truths contained within any path to true understanding.
This is just a quick overview of the Simonton episode, but the Ufonauts may be hitting closer to home in some cases than we usually think. Other famous cases (like the Mothman story) are even richer in symbolism, particularly of the darker side of human and spiritual experience. This is only one attempt to “interpret” the UFO puzzle, but it is offered as a simple example of what can be done once we stop trying to pigeonhole the subject into one scenario. Others may (and will) go further.
A great volume in this vein is the rare title Cyberbiological Studies of the Imaginal Component in the UFO Contact Experience, which may also be the longest title in UFO book history. Pay any price if you can find it.
(Image at the top of the post is a still from INLAND EMPIRE.)
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Jul 01 2007 
July 1st, 2007 at 3:19 am
Jacques Vallee once commented on the fact that , in traditional folklore, the faeries were reputedly very fond of pancakes.
July 1st, 2007 at 4:17 am
I just posted this on Michael Prescott’s blog about spirit mediums:
Michael what I’m getting at is that the spiritualist mediums were projecting the repressed Other (blacks, orientals, Natives), that science has oppressed through mass ritual sacrifice. In other words science is Freemasonry and the cutting-edge of science always relies on these type of paranormal projections.
Isn’t Lynch basically just another spirit medium — projecting the tantra of technology?
July 1st, 2007 at 10:03 am
Drew,
He may be “just another spirit medium,” but he makes films about it.
What’s wrong with a “tantra of technology,” (although I don’t think that’s exactly what he’s doing)?
July 1st, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Interesting… If you take away the “UFO automatically equal ET” factor, then I think the stories become more interesting.
When Betty Hill was shown the map, the being never said his planet was on the map. He never even said he came from a planet at all for that matter. He was only asking if Betty could find hers, as if he was testing her astronomical knowledge. It might have been a map of our own solar system for all we know (and some have made an interesting case out of that idea). But we have the situation where it was assumed that the balls with most of the lines going to them must be “Home”, and that seems to correlate to Zeta Reticuli. Therefore we have reached this mythic conclusion that ET comes from Zeta Reticuli.
July 1st, 2007 at 10:21 pm
I just ordered a copy of Cyberbiological Studies of the Imaginal Component in the UFO Contact Experience.
Thanks for the book lead. I look forward to reading it.
July 2nd, 2007 at 1:12 pm
I’m with you Greg. Lynch said that Eraserhead was his most spiritual movie. It makes sense ‘cuz when I almost blew a load from that lesbo love scene in M.D. well it didn’t seem spiritual at the time but now it does. haha. If only I had been in full-lotus in the theatre as is now the norm then I could have creates some spiritual ectoplasm instead. haha