Are UFOs A Cosmic Art Project?
For the past couple of years, I have been giving a lecture called “The 1950s UFO Contactees: Charlatans, or Unrecognized Art Movement?” In the talk, I discuss the activties of the Contactees and their prodigious output of writing, drawings, paintings and artifacts, and how these can be considered creative ways to get a message across. Looked at in this context, it does not matter whether the inspiration comes from space people, from their own imagination, or a combination of the two.
A broad overview of the history of UFO sightings and contact can be examined in the same way, but the problem becomes what the message (if any) could be. Most people (at least those interested in the subject) would say that aliens are here and have been visiting us since at least the late 1940s. Some go further and insist that these aliens are intimately interested in our politics, religion, and even our DNA. None of this has ever been proven in a way that most of the human race would accept as unquestionable proof. That leaves us where ufology is today. It has not changed in 60 years. That’s a long time for something to remain unanswered, especially something as ubiquitous as UFOs.
Perhaps the reason we are not getting anywhere is that we almost always choose to look at the problem from the perspective of a society where science has answered most of our questions about our world and the universe. It’s a great tool, but not the only one in our box. We should take a look at others that may be just as valid, but not as obvious.
Humans express themselves in a variety of ways. When we look at razor-sharp pictures beamed to us from another planet, many of us are amazed and inspired that the human race could accomplish such a thing. We can also see a great painting, or hear a piece of music and this affects us in other, but similar ways. We can be touched by things that light up the circuits of our left or right brain. The best ones may be stimulating both.
The Annunciaton by Sandro Botticelli - 1490
This is one of my favorite paintings. It’s a subject that was treated by many Italian Renaissance artists–specifically the moment when an angel is telling Mary that she will become pregnant with Jesus. It’s a good example of the right/ left brain dichotomy and synthesis. The composition is centered emotionally and physically on the space between the outstretched hands. The vanishing point of the lines in the floor tiles lead right to it. A variety of concentric circles outlined by Mary’s body and the wings of the angel radiate outward from this point as well. What Botticelli was trying to do was to entertain, teach, inspire, and enlighten the viewer, when painting and sculpture was the only visual game in town, and Roman Catholicism was the biggest game in philosophy.
One more.
Woman With A Guitar by Georges Braque - 1913
This one shows how far we had come by the turn of the 20th century, and artists were breaking with traditional ways of seeing. We still see a representation of objects–a guitar, a newspaper, a table–but Braque is taking a two-dimensional surface and playing with space, time and emotion in that limited space. Things move and perpectives change. We concentrate on the things that interest us. When we examine the painting, we realize that there is a lot more going on when we look at something than just a frozen moment in time.
The intelligence (and there is almost definitely one) behind the UFO enigma may be doing something similar to these artists. When a witness sees something flitting through the sky (or perhaps closer) s/he is often forced to at least temporarily suspend what they think about “reality.” Some cases (like certain great art works) achieve a permanent shift in the witness’ worldview. It’s strange that most researchers choose to ignore this aspect of the UFO experience.
Next: What are they trying to say?
This entry was posted
on Saturday, September 22nd, 2007 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Beliefs, Contactees, Evidence, UFO Sightings, UFOlogists, UFOlogy, UFOmystic Exclusive, Wake Up Down There. You can follow responses via RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is not allowed.
del.icio.us Digg Reddit BlinkList Google Ma.gnolia StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Help
- Related News Stories:
- No related posts »
|
Sep 22 2007 
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:22 pm
What do you think of Jung’s ideas on UFO’s Greg?
September 22nd, 2007 at 6:58 pm
mister anderson,
I always thought that his theories were valid, but not all-inclusive. The era when he formed them was full of uncertainty and turmoil in a way that people had not faced in the past. I think that he tried to reconcile a basic and perhaps unknowable phenomenon to square with his own views of the personal and collective psyche.
Therefore, he saw them as synchronistic symbols of a race searching for its own solace and some kind of reassuring identity. In other words, they arrived because we willed them to. In this train of thought there are perhaps allusions to something like tulpas.
I don’t completely agree with this, but it does inform my personal opinions to some degree. As I have said before, I think that there is an intelligence behind the phenomenon that does not come from a human source, at least humans as we accept them, but the interaction between us and this “other” is what needs to be looked at. We may be as culpable for our conception of UFOs and aliens as whoever “they” are.
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:27 am
Here’s a shot at what’s relevant about Jung. I realized this when I was evaluating what I thought about the O’Hare case. I realized that we, all of us, are on this side of the phenomena. That is, the spherical disk, whatever it was, we are on this side of that phenomena, & since we can’t see what’s on the other side of that phenomena, everything we have to say about that phenomena is pure speculation & projection. And it is at that point that Jung becomes relevant. He has a lot relevant to say about the speculation projection side of this phenomena. The ideation we engage in about UFO’s involves self vs other, heaven vs earth, sacred vs profane/mundane.
We just don’t know what the UFO phenomena is.
p.s.I’m still not getting these comments in my email. Is there some way to get this to happen?
September 23rd, 2007 at 8:44 am
I sure would love to hear that lecture.
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:52 pm
And Freud might have said that sometimes a cigar-shaped mothership full of aliens is just a cigar-shaped mothership full of aliens.