No Future?
I spent all of last week at the Laughlin, Nevada-based UFO Congress; and while there I had a number of interesting and insightful conversations with attendees, including one guy who had flown over from the UK to attend the event. As we got talking, he related to me how he felt that the “UFO scene” in the UK was practically dead, and was concerned that in a very short time it would be no more - at all, ever again.
Well, the guy has a point. As he noted to me, the days of the late 1990s when there were numerous glossy magazines on Britain’s newsstands (such as Alien Encounters; UFO Magazine; Sightings; UFO Reality; Enigma; X-Factor; Uri Geller’s Encounters; and probably several more that I’ve completely forgotten about) are now long gone.
He spoke in sad tones about the fact that the weekend-long conferences of the 90s (such as those organized by the sadly-departed Graham Birdsall) are also long gone, that many other large-scale events are suffering from non-attendance, and that many of the small UFO research groups around the UK have closed their doors, and have vanished into oblivion.
He wanted to know what could be done to rectify the situation. I mused upon his words and then wondered out loud if anything actually should be done to save it. Now, that might sound strange coming from someone who has been - and still is, when I’m in the UK - an active part of that scene. The man was shocked, but in retrospect, I think he misinterpreted my comment.
My words were not directed at UFO research in the UK or even at the players on the scene per se. Rather, they were directed at the mentality of trying to ressurect the “good old days” and make things like they were a decade ago. And my comment to anyone trying to do that is this: why?
Looking back at the UFO subject in the UK, we see an interesting pattern: certainly from the 50s onwards the scene was not unlike that in the US - with publications (such as Flying Saucer Review), lectures and books a staple part of the field - a field that catered to a body of highly dedicated individuals. Much was the same in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.
It was, however, in the 90s - and with the advent of X-Files mania - that things changed dramatically, and led to a massively increased UFO presence in the mainstream news media, in TV dramas, on the newsstands and on the book-shelves of shops all across the nation.
Indeed, anyone reading this who was on the British scene in the period 1996 to 2000 will know exactly what I mean. But those years have gone. Completely and utterly. The printed magazines, and the deep debates over a pint of beer on this case or that case, have been replaced by Net-based discussion, blogs, e-newsletters, pod-casts and more.
Then I realized what it was that my fellow-countryman at Laughlin meant. He yearned for the days that came before the Internet really took off. He yearned for those weekends of packed conferences, with familiar faces on the lecture circuit, and the idea of a safe “ufological family.”
Well, too bad. Things have changed since then; ufology has changed; people have moved on (or dropped out of the subject completely) and the scene is far different today. However, it’s far from dead. Stuart Miller’s UFO Review is a perfect example of the way in which much of UK Ufology has become a Net-driven entity. And that’s a good thing, in my view.
Yearning with nostalgia for the “good old days” is stupid. Very stupid. Those days are gone. The scene is radically different; the medium for discussing and debating the subject has changed; and rather than trying to resurrect the scene in a format that no longer exists (aside from in the minds and memories of certain elements of the UFO community) we should realize that things change and embrace whatever the future brings, and not hang onto the past.
Now, if today there was no decent research being done, I would be the first to suggest we go back to the days of the 90s. But that’s not the case. Look at all of the material that has been unearthed via the Freedom of Information Act by researchers such as Dave Clarke and Gary Anthony. Look at Stuart Miller’s UFO Review. Look at Gary Heseltine’s studies of police-originated UFO reports. Good research is still out there, solid studies are being undertaken, and deep debate continues. However, all of the above is being shared largely via the Net, and to an audience that is dedicated to its cause. But that audience has changed - in numbers (less), and via the means with which it communicates with each other.
But that’s life. Technology changes, people change, scenes change, and yes (shock!) even ufology changes. So what if no-one wants to attend conferences that have an audience of 1,000-plus? So what if there are no more magazines on the newsstands?
None of that is important. What is important to note is that those that retain their interest and passion for the subject are still around, still quietly and carefully investigating, still debating with colleagues - albeit, as I have stressed, in a radically different format from ten or twenty years ago.
So for those that yearn for the past, I say: Don’t. The past is gone. If ufology is to survive (and I know that more than a few in the UK are concerned that it may not) it doesn’t need to be propped up by watery-eyed nostalgia, and a desire to ensure that it remains forever fixed in a 90s mindset. It should move on, embrace technological change, and deal sensibly with the fact that things have altered.
All that matters is that good, solid research is undertaken and shared with those that care to know about it. Once, it was shared with thousands via the medium of print and massive conferences. Today, it’s shared via the Net and to a far smaller audience. But, as I said, things change, and the worst thing we can do is to live in the past.
Nostalgia is not a bad thing; and it’s certainly fun to look back on those long-gone days and remember the good times and the laughs. We all do it and it’s essential to us as human beings - in all walks of life, and certainly not just ufology.
But where nostalgia becomes problematic and troubling is when there is a desire to not just look back on the past with fondness, but to try and rigidly ensure that the future remains stuck in the past, never changing, and never developing. Such desires as far as the UFO community is concerned are usually instilled by a fear of change; a lack of self-confidence in what the future might bring if things are altered; and the fact that certain players who enjoyed the minor-celebrity-status that the lecture circuit and the magazines gave them in the 90s have been elbowed out of the picture, or relegated to the sidelines. But that’s life: here today; gone later today.
Ufologists just need to deal with the fact that the subject and scene has changed. Don’t get caught up in that utterly tiresome “good old days” mentality.
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Mar 06 2007 
March 6th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Nick,
I don’t see this happening as much in the U.S., but I also don’t see things changing very much in the philosophy and methods of Ufology–we’ve mostly just moved the old guard onto the internet. The diversity of opinion available to anyone with a computer and internet connection is refreshing though. Maybe that is where the gold lies for the future.
You and I and many we know were born right on the cusp of a generation that regards the net as something near to a miracle, but aren’t afraid to use its powerful potential. Those that think of websites as retooled print magazines or old-style BBSs will not advance the field very quickly.
March 6th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Nick, there’s a Sufi story that goes:
A Sufi master and one of his students were out walking one day when the student suddenly stopped the master and demanded, “Master, have you not noticed that wretched individual over there and his cruel mistreatment of his beast of burden? Oughtn’t we to do something about it?”
The master replied, “Before you go any further, first realise this: you see an owner kicking his donkey - I see a man kicking his wife!”
As with all Sufi materials, this story has many levels of meaning, but I’m using it here to underline what you were said with your account about the UK, Laughlin attendee.
The owner in the Sufi story might REALLY believe the reason he’s kicking his donkey is because it’s misbehaving; but what the Sufi master perceives is the man is REALLY expressing his anger with his wife.
It’s like when people form rock bands, (and who amongst us pursuers of the literary/artistic/unusual hasn’t at one time or another?), there’s always at least one guy who says, “We’re doing this for the music, maaan, keepin’ it real…” and while HE might believe this, everyone ELSE recognises he’s the one band member who’s really ONLY doing it to cop off with “chicks” and the off-chance of making a shed load of money.
Similarly, when Tony Blair was making the case for war with Iraq, I said to a mate at the time, “You know what this is really all about, don’t you? He failed as a would be rockstar, and all this rushing round the world on jets, being greeted by the world’s press is the nearest he can get to going on a world tour.”
The point being, like you inferred about your Laughlin, UK chum, people - all of us - often do stuff we think is for one reason, but which is sometimes for reasons we never ever even begin to suspect.
I wonder how many of the all-believers who insist every blob in a photograph is proof positive of UFOs/Bigfoot/ghosts, etc., and vehemently round on anyone daring to ask a question vaguely interpretable as unbelief, suspect the possibility they’re motivated not by passionate belief, but unacknowledged doubt?
Ditto all the skeptopaths with their calm, rational and reasoned call for people who believe in God to receive compulsory lobotomies, and for all professional paranormalists to be automatically sent straight to deathrow without benefit of a trial: do they ever suspect their motivation might not be the necessity of defending the truth, but a fear it might reveal itself as different from what they want it to be?