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?

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.