Message posted by werD on November 02, 2006 at 9:59:16 PST:

As a sociologist, I am way more interested in these phenomenon as they relate to the public notion of intelligence and facts. Whether or not there are actual events that have stimulated people's fascination and belief in the existence of extraterrestrials or sinister government plots, the combination of all of these ideas is quite remarkable.

The film mentions surveying the area of an alleged crash with a Geiger counter- why? The conflation of so many related concepts in UFO culture is too coincidental. Why is it that, generally speaking, sightings of UFOs are related to government coverups, hidden technology- and also included, an apocalyptic message?

In a time period when our government, and the nature of truth and humanity itself is under question by so many groups, it really makes sense to me that our explanation of the paranormal would take on such a conspiratory character. People's explanations for things they really do not understand seem to illustrate such strong emotional content that I wonder about the sanity of the individuals involved. Traditionally speaking, when small numbers of individuals see something they don't understand, they develop an explanation based on the existing structure of reality-- or if they cannot explain it, they experience a sort of depression referred to as Anomie- a sort of kafka-esque alienation with the world based on the destruction of the social fabric in one's own mind.

The fact that UFO fanatics don't fit either of these patterns insists they're simply counter-cultural. Instead of having found phenomenon that prevent accepting social reality, they have previously rejected social reality and look at the world in search of reasons why it is invalid. With groups like heaven's gate, the ECK Temple and others, it is entirely reasonable that non-religious groups could come together around essentially false ideas-- but in such a lonely world as today, why wouldn't they?

Sorry, shooting in the dark I know- but it is fascinating!!!

In Reply to: Re: Probability of visitation posted by Chris McDowell on November 02, 2006 at 7:52:28 PST:

Replies: