Imagine, in the fullness of time, the supposed extraterrestials/extra-dimensionals/trans-temporals/aliens, whatever, finally decided to come out in the open, (and here I’m ignoring the dispute that’d immediately ensue as to what constituted PROOF they really were extraterrestials/extra-dimensionals/trans-temporals/aliens, etc.).

Further imagine - no matter how unlikely - that because of some quirk of their technology or/and ‘physical’ nature or/and point of origin, they and their ‘UFOs’ still appeared to us, given our present perceptional and technological limitations, just as fuzzy, blobby, and out of focus as ever they did in all the disputed photos and videos, etc.

Then not only would all those disputed photos and videos suddenly be indisputably seen for the EVIDENCE they always were, but subsequent technological developments used on the photos and videos would reveal them for the PROOF they always were too!

I suspect following this line of reasoning’ll only be difficult for scienT*TS as opposed to scienTISTS, skeptoPATHS as opposed to sceptICS, all-believers as opposed to the genuinely open-minded.

P.S.

A prime example of good blog-watching, if you don’t mind me saying!

I was part of that furor and you should know that I have huge problems with labelling UFO occupants as “aliens.” Due to my own “armchair research” as one person put it and to my own personal experience my opinion has been brightly colored to think that UFOnauts are of a completely terran origin.

My thought about life in the universe is that it is probably right under our nose and we miss it. The sun and the planets themeselves may be sentient and we don’t know it. Not that I buy into the mothership Earth mindset very well either. Call me a cynic.

On a UFO listserve I read I recently caused an uproar (Frank Warren will know what I’m talking about) because I stated that UFOs were about as tangible as wet dreams. Elusive, undefinable but leaving embarrassing evidence in the morning. I was attacking the ETH and admonishing the NICAP / MUFONites for not keeping an open mind. I also threw out the thought that UFOnauts were more akin to faeries and demons than “aliens.”

All our stalwart UFO researchers could respond with were quips about how “I probably havn’t had a good UFO experience” and that I was an “armchair researcher that shouldn’t quit his day job.” I wonder what Whitley Streiber or the folks from Point Pleasant would say about that.

Well they got one thing right, it wasn’t a good experience. If aliens are here the UFOnauts may be whats keeping them from first contact, if I was an astronaut a local phenominon like that would scare the shit out of me. Not as much as say all the religious and racial warfare or the wholesale self destructive nature of the local inhabitants, but it would be one more thing to give me pause.

If the research community would just drop the assumption (don’t throw out the theory, just the assumption) of UFO = aliens then I think they would make leaps and bounds headway into knowledge of these creatures and the variety of dimensions we and they live in.

Jess

You originally said that we have no solid proof of dreams, so I was discussing it from that angle.

Yes, UFOs arguably do exist in “external reality,” since multiple witnesses see the same thing. Many UFO encounters seem to exist in a realm of dream logic, but I don’t think dreams are as elusive as UFO encounters, becuase almost everyone has had dreams. As you say, they share some of the same characteristics, and are often just as inscrutable.

What will it take to make the UFO experience undeniable to the majority of the population? I don’t really know. We need to expand our definition of what “reality” is. Actually, everything is “in the mind,” it’s just that some of the things that are in there seem more likely to affect our bodies and other external things that we experience in ordinary, waking consciousness.

It looks like we bascically agree on these matters, anyway!

I agree with your assertion that adding more credentialed people to a standpoint of external-reality belief is a good first step, but because of that squirrely, elusive nature of UFOs, I don’t think that will happen until the experience of such becomes absolutely irresitable–until their existence is undeniable. Many people believe it is already there, and for some it is, but obviously not completely quite yet. The question is: what is it going to take?

Yes, just as I stated in my reply to Jess, these are all loaded terms.

We do have good evidence of dreams, brainwave patterns, and REM, but these are things that we can put in a lab and examine, and everyone has them. UFOs are rather squirrely and don’t seem to cooperate with disciplined examination, at least as science is configured at present.

What we need is acceptance by many more credentialed people that these things do exist in external “reality.” That would be a good first step.

Did you see the furor a couple of months ago on “we all know that ‘UFO’ means ‘alien from outer space’?”
That’s where most of the population and the people who ask and answer questions on the NASA site are at right now.