Nov 20 2007
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Apparently, UFOs Are Not “Cool”
For the umpteenth time, the uber-hipster site boingboing (which, incidentally, I love) has featured a post on cryptozoology with our pal Loren Coleman. In the couple of years that I’ve been looking in on their site, I have yet to see any post on UFOs. Why?
Perhaps this is because the cyber-punk authors that are their spiritual forebears are rooted in the science fiction community, which has always been notoriusly anti- everything-to-do-with-UFOs. Remember Issac Asimov? Many science fiction authors and more importantly, their fans apparently pride themselves on their ability to discern real from hallucinatory as decreed by most mainstream science. To their way of thinking, those who are interested in the UFO enigma don’t realize that they are engaged in a chase after fictions.
This analysis does not include all sci-fi authors-John Shirley and Mac Tonnies are notable exceptions. Shirley is highly skeptical of most claims, while Tonnies actively revels in the UFO subject, albeit with an outsider point of view. I don’t know enough about others like Bruce Sterling and William Gibson, or even J.G. Ballard to make a judgement. Perhaps readers can enlighten me. A few months ago, I mentioned William Burroughs‘ (who arguably transcended the sci-fi genre) interest in the paranormal and UFOs, and how it informed his worldview and more importantly, his writing.
Cryptozoology, for its part, is at least rooted in things that seem a little closer to “reality.” Bigfoot resembles other animals we all know about, and most people would accept that one might be captured someday, but many cryptids fall into the same category as UFO sightings, at least to me. Consider that many more UFO flaps than most researchers care to remember include sightings of Bigfoot-like entities doing very un-Bigfootlike things, such as carrying glowing orbs.
A famous cryptid case, the celebrated Dover Demon, looked like something that most of us would expect to step out of a flying saucer, but was actually seen furtively scurrying around near a road in Massachusetts in 1977.
The hipster element seems to concentrate on the undiscovered animal aspect of cryptozoology, since it is apparently in the safe zone of the possible. It is a fun an interesting aspect of the sort of excellent work that Coleman has been doing for years, but not as dear to my heart as the truly unexplainable and bizzare cases that he has uncovered, such as phantom kangaroos hopping around the midwest, or scary clowns trying to abduct children from schoolyards. My favorite remains the Riverside Bridge Monster sighting, which again dips into the world of the truly paranormal, where sightings blur the edge of our collective reality-just like UFOs
Forget “disclosure,” we need a campaign to make the UFO subject hip and cool.
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November 20th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Maybe you and Nick should start wearing fedora hats…
November 20th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
UFO’s/aliens already went through their “hip” phase in the 90’s when the X-Files was at its peak popularity. The classic gray alien visage practically became the 90’s equivalent of the smiley face.
By the turn of the millennium I think people were sick of it. These things always go in waves of popularity.
November 20th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
RPJ,
The Beatniks are due for a resurgence.
Perhaps we should go all emo–but that was a few years ago, and we’d look pretty silly.
November 20th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
X,
Perhaps that’s why my magazine stayed in the black for the last few issues.
Well, bring back the coolness, then!
November 21st, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Red Pill,
They can’t wear Fedoras because that would require taking off the tinfoil helmets. Who knows what crazy ideas the friendly dolphin space brethren would beam into their brains if the tinfoil was ever removed?
~R~
November 21st, 2007 at 4:32 pm
We could line the inside of the fedoras with foil. BTW, it must be thick BBQ-type foil, not the flimsy household kind.
November 21st, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Greg said:
“Forget “disclosure,” we need a campaign to make the UFO subject hip and cool.”
I love it!
November 22nd, 2007 at 3:56 am
Greg is actually very right to say that the best thing that can happen for UFOs is for them to be cool again.
Currently they’re viewed by the hip media as something for young kids and retirees to waste their energies on - then of course there’s us geeks caught somewhere in the middle.
Mainstream popularity is the death of cool - and like Close Encounters and then ET before it - after a brief peak the X Files was the death of the UFO subject in the late ’90s.
Once UFOs got dark and subversive in the mid-late ’80s then suddenly the hipsters, teens and underground types were interested again. These are the people that the hip media listen to and, a decade or so after the material has been softened and moulded into a more palatable form, then the mainstream media take hold.
The past decade has seen a number of new threads and memes entering the UFOlogical lore - from reptilians, to MILABS to Serpo - none of which by themselves has single-handedly revitalised the subject. So it’s ironic that the current resurgence of interest is very much in the straight ET-or-not-ET vein. And this is the sort of tedious dialectic that many thinking people find very boring.
It’s because of this that, even though UFOs are gradually making headlines again, particularly in the USA, they are considered a dead topic for people who like to think that they’re on the cutting edge of culture. UFOs have become just another part of the cultural ecosystem. They’re like ghosts, or weather - something that’s always there. Unless someone presents a new approach or angle for thinking about them, I don’t know how the critical media is going to take the subject seriously.
The irony is of course, that I - and I’m sure it’s the same for you lot - meet people every week, in every facet of culture - from the uber-cool to the totally straight - who are fascinated with the subject and have often had interesting experiences themselves. And they love to talk about it - in private.
As a side note, I think it’s interesting that James Fox’s conventional pro-ET doc ‘Out of the Blue’ is currently being brushed up for a big theatrical release. While it’s not exactly ground-breaking material (and there’s also one well-known piece of art/hoax footage in the version I’ve seen) - it’s the sort of thing that will inspire future generations of kids who might then make UFOs cool again when it’s their turn to be cool.
We’ll all be old-timers by then, but hey, old people are cool…
November 22nd, 2007 at 10:22 am
The idea of fashioning UFOs into a cool thing might be about as worthwhile a venture as asserting seawater is salty–it seems to me it’s intrinsic, and anyone not recognizing it as such on one level or another probably does not need to be affiliated with it. The UFO and its mysteries call its own, and that is the law of coolness.
November 22nd, 2007 at 11:30 am
Personally; I don’t think the ufo subject can ever be cool; but, what would be cool is a mass group walk to area 51, just don’t drink their coolaid.
November 22nd, 2007 at 11:49 am
To worrying about being cool is not cool at all… I think
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Richell wrote: “The UFO and its mysteries call its own, and that is the law of coolness.”
That’s true as well.
but hip and cool are too different things.
November 22nd, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Very true Regan; Greg does write “hip and cool.” So– UFOs may fly through time-pockets of hipness and non-hipness, as which everything is possibly subject–that does not affect their inextractable innercool.
November 23rd, 2007 at 10:01 am
Many millions of marketing money are spent every year on trying to define cool…
Hey, perhaps that’s where all that Pentagon black budget cash is going too.
“Mr President - I think we’ve worked out how to make UFOs cool again. Shall we Inform the Visitors?”
November 24th, 2007 at 1:09 am
Mark,
Where have you been? Nice to see you commenting again!
Why not make other, non-ETH theories part of “the cutting edge” (or what appears to be, since some these have been around for over 40 years.) We find that many things that appear to be new are in fact ideas that have been repackaged. I always think of Marlene Dietrich’s line from Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil: “It’s so old it’s new.”
November 24th, 2007 at 1:11 am
Richelle,
You’re right. Hip seems to be more time-specific than cool, at least in a larger sense.
November 24th, 2007 at 1:15 am
RPJ,
See Mark’s comment on manufactured “cool.” That’s more like what I’m talking about-perhaps some campaign to put the idea in people’s heads. I know that’s sneaky and NOT cool, but we’re talking desperate measures here!
I don’t think we usually hear about the latest things because someone simply heard about them. That’s what PR firms and press releases are for.
November 24th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I’ve been to a Mufon symposium. About the least cool people you will ever meet. Average age 60+. We need another Terence McKenna to bring a hip factor to the issue.
Having said that, those Bigfoot people aren’t any cooler. They tend to be hunter types- and flannel went out with grunge.
Give me a room full of geriatric ufo folks anyday of the week. If you can get past the smell of Aqua Velva you will come to see they are good folks.
I also think the politics are often different between the two crowds. UFO crowds tend to be more liberal (perhaps due to all the New Agers in attendance- ufology has attraced its share of New Agers before they were called New Agers) and the gun loving, hunting types who frequent Bigfoot boards tend to be more conservative.
I find bigfoot interesting, but only as it might relate to ufos.
November 24th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
As Devo sang, “We’re through, being cool”.
November 24th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
I’m afraid there are many aspects to this, to get mainstream attention (or a mention on Boing Boing) you need a perfect storm of them all coming together at once.
As has been said media interest waxes and wanes and in some ways Boing Boing and such sites reflect that.
Ufology did well in the eighties and nineties because they could present a solid nuts and bolts explanation (ETH and/or secret military test flights) which gave something unambiguous to hook into. Now the weight of evidence has made things much less clear and it isn’t so easy to pin down.
Cryptozoology has made big strides focusing on the zoology (thanks to Loren Coleman, Karl Shucker, CFZ, etc.) and the idea of animals yet to be discovered is a good story that is easy to tell (as long as you don’t focus too hard on the weird aspects
), Specifically with Boing Boing Loren Coleman seems to have got his foot in the door which makes it easier for him to get a mention.
Boing Boing must receive hundreds of links a day so it is often down to getting the attention of one of the bloggers over there. I have thrown them a handful of links but the only link specifically to us wasn’t even a link I’d submitted so it can be a bit random. If there was an editor over there who was interested in part of Ufology or you managed to pitch a story in such a way that it got people’s attention then you’d find more interest in the this. They are certainly interested in Forteana and human oddity so it isn’t an impossible prospect.
The problem is the field can be so diffuse. You aren’t going to register a blip on the media’s radar with talk of odd lights unless they are spectacular.
Things with potential:
* Caret - possibly even more than Serpo but it needs to be pitched as a weird media/nature of belief thing but again as there is no answer it can be difficult to pin down.
* Aliens as post-singularity entities - came up recently over on PHB and I’ve seen rumblings of it elsewhere.
I do think it could be a PR thing as the current perception seems to be of Ufology being a bunch of trainspotters in anoraks who jot down every odd cloud and strange light in the sky as definitive evidence of alien spaceships. Instead as things stand it takes about the nature of belief and the manipulation of media. Equally it has moved on from the 50s B movie notion of alien visitors (which cool sci-fi types sneer at) and possible explanations are all the kind of things that seems popular at the cutting edge of sci-fi: posthumanism, alternate realities, contact with vast unknowable entites (e.g. Subanthropic Principle), the occult (Lam) and on and on. The problem isn’t really with Ufology it is that people’s perception of it hasn’t moved on in the last decade or so. It could be all we need is a name change and relaunch - can I suggest Nufology?
And let’s be honest if you and Nick can’t make this sexy we might as well pack up and go home.
November 24th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Hi Greg,
I’m pretty sure William Gibson is a Fortean. Several of his recent books have convinced me of that much.
As for the connections between UFOlogy and CryptoZoology …. did you catch this most excellent post of Loren’s:
Cryptid: Code Beyond Cryptozoology
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/slsa-code/
“This slippage of the term across fields of inquiry suggests the code-breaking characteristics of cryptids: cryptids defy taxonomies and disrupt evolutionary explanations, showing up everywhere. Whether monstrous, lost, found, gone wild, stray, or transformed, they elude human government of the natural world, reminding us of our limited power and knowledge. In this way, code-breaking cryptids also function as recognizable outposts of viability. Typified by an iconic association with place, cryptids are thus mappable, their expression in a variety of forms irresistible—though they remain, paradoxically, inscrutable.
Following Stephen Jay Gould’s advice that “we can best understand a natural object or category by probing to and beyond its limits of actual occurrence,” in this presentation I examine several instances of cryptid code-breaking in narrative and visual modes: science journalism’s speculative revisions of human evolution triggered by the Flores Man discovery; Tasmanian folklorist Col Bailey’s photographic presentation of the extinct thylacine; and artist Alexis Rockman’s refiguration of taxonomies to include all manner of cryptids.
- Stephanie S. Turner”
November 25th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Are you trying to tell me that “Disclosure” isn’t cool?
I don’t care what you say, the chicks dig Ufologists. ‘Specially the ones with the pot bellies with the fanny pack at the conventions with the alien shirt who has you backed into a corner with bad breath informing you about the importance of the Roswell Crash as you try to divert his attention so you can make a quick getaway to the bar to hit on all the chicks there that dig Ufologists…
These things seem to go in phases. Right now Ghosthunting seems to be the craze what with the reality shows with these dimbulbs who got their ghostinghunting licenses in a crackerjack box.
I’ looking at spontaneous combustion making a comeback in 2008!
Did I mention that the chicks dig Ufologists?
November 26th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Mmmm, I’ve been thinking (hey! it amazed me too) and one thing to consider is that the fortean topics get the attention of the media and society in general based on the current cultural paranoia.
See, in the 50’s UFOs was all the buzz because there was this paranoia of invasion fed by the Cold War developments. During the 80s and 90s UFOs were still big because there was this fear that we might blow ourselves up with Atom bombs, and thanks to movies like JFK and programs like the X-Files, in the 90s there was this feeling among the population that governments are not to be trusted and that they lie and keep things hidden from the citizens on a general basis.
It is a hunch of mine, but I believe this popularity cryptozoology is getting lately might have something to do with popular fears of ecological catastrophies and global warming. The idea of undiscovered animals reminds us of all the species that are becoming extinct due to the action of man,and there is this sense of… urgency, that if we do not hurry up and find those cryptids, in a few years it will be too late cause they will become extinct, and whether they existed at all or not will remain a mistery that to haunt us forever.
November 27th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Ben D,
Good analysis. I prefer the older UFO fans as well. They’re usually more polite.
November 27th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Emperor,
Right, right, and right. Perhaps reviving the altered consciousness aspects of the UFO phenomenon would also work too, provided it was packaged properly. What hipster could resist anything to do with drugs?!
November 27th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Miles,
Loren’s wordsmithing puts me to shame, but UFOs could also be classified “by an iconic association with place,” although the place may be more psychological than geographic.
November 27th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Adam,
Where are these chicks?
November 27th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
RPJ,
You have probably nailed it. Crazes often do follow current cultural paranoias, which are in turn amplified by the people whose job it is to make money off of our fears.
December 1st, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Fears… Maybe you wrote about this already, but did you happen to hear or read about the on air (and still brewing, it seems) fight between Daniel Pinchbeck and Strieber?
December 18th, 2007 at 7:58 am
Although a touch of necromancy on this posting I have been keeping an eye on this with a special eye on Boing Boing as the biggest blog that would be interested in this field.
Loren Coleman obviously is still getting strongly featured:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/11/27/loren-colemans-top-c-1.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/11/20/cryptozoology-with-l.html
And an interview with Greg Taylor got a mention:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/12/10/interview-with-the-d.html
That was submitted by Mark Pilkington who has been doing well getting stories mentioned:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/12/17/occulture-music.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/11/26/far-out-101-strange.html
Although I have submitted stories (sometimes with a UFO angle) none of those have been picked up but then they have linked to us twice (not sure where they got the links from - possibly directly or possibly via The Anomalist):
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/12/05/people-with-backward.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/24/videos-of-ramanas-le.html
It is a mixed bag but as well as cryptozoology (or more specifically Loren Coleman - the CFZ don’t seem to make similar inroads) it is a mixed bag of magic, human oddity, fringe science, occulty themes, conspiracies and general weirdness.
Sooooo while nuts and bolts UFO stories probably aren’t cool, there are plenty of grey areas where Ufology crosses over with other Forteana that do have potential to be “cool” (or at least of interest to a broader group of people) although I haven’t found the right angle to crack it yet
December 19th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
And perhaps this is part of the answer - they are cool when they are official:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/12/19/japans-chief-cabinet.html
February 25th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
As a further update since keeping a track of things we’ve received 8 credits for stories on BoingBoing (none of them ones we’ve submitted, as far as I can recall):
http://del.icio.us/wunderk/links2us%2Bboingboing
None of them are really UFO-related - apart, possibly, from the most recent one which is an art exhibition that pitches itself as being designed by and for aliens.
February 25th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Emperor,
Thanks for the updates. It seems the better road in terms of hits is to latch yourself to the Coast to Coast behemoth. We’ve gotten more hits from that than anything else. Still, it would be nice to get a mention at one of my favorite sites. How do you submit stories or links to BoingBoing? I aware that Mark P. knows David Pescovitz, who is one of their writers/ editors.