The Truth Is Out There?

I haven't paid much attention lately to one of my pet subjects, UFO's. For this, my dear aliens and conspiracy lovers, I apologize. But today, I return to the murkiness that is unidentified flying objects.

As I've stated before, my fascination with this topic was kindled when, as a child, I read my parents' copy of Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past. We also had at least one book in the house about the Bermuda Triangle, which also fed my imagination.

I've never seen a UFO, but I'd certainly like to. I've never met anyone who's claimed to have seen one, or to have been abducted by aliens. I like the kitschiness of it all, sure, but I'm also intrigued by the possibilities of interstellar travel and of beings who have conquered such an onerous task.

Earlier this month CNN's web site posted a link to this story, from Denver:

This video is unlike other UFO footage I've seen. Often times, people capture hovering lights off in the distance, or shiny objects that move slowly and then zoom off at incredible, gravity-defying speeds. Many times, the videos are, of course, faked.

But this one shows what appears to be very small objects moving at speeds that, as one aviation expert says, are faster than any aircraft known to man. This expert says he has no idea what he's looking at -- could be debris being blown into the sky (this seems very unlikely).

Are these drones of some sort? This also seems unlikely.

CNN.com also recently posted a link to a news report from a Kentucky TV station about another odd-looking UFO. This one looks a bit like a double-edged shaving razor to me. By the way, nothing of interest happens on the video below after the 1:30 mark.

The amateur astronomer who filmed this object says the thing hovered for more than two hours before disappearing. Others in the area spotted it as well, and called police.

I'm not sure what to make of either of these stories. I believe that these folks captured real images, not something doctored. I know that they are hard to explain phenomena. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to think.

Of course, there are people who spend considerable time thinking about, studying, reporting on, obsessing about, stressing over the idea of unidentified flying objects and what they mean to the future of the planet, of mankind, of the universe.

Many of them are crazy. But not all of them. Some are scientists who put a lot of work and thought into just what is happening on our planet, in our atmosphere, in people's minds.

My main source for all things UFO and conspiracy, AboveTopSecret.com recently posted a link to a research paper presented in 1989 at a conference of the Society for Scientific Exploration, held in Colorado. The paper was researched and written by Jacques Vallee, who, in addition to being an astronomer and astrophysicist, is a venture capitalist and novelist.

In the paper, Vallee lays out his case for why UFO's are not extraterrestrial (sorry, ET; maybe you should drown your sorrows).

I've read through a lot of the paper, which is quite lengthy, and Vallee's arguments boil down to this:

• after crunching numbers in what, to me, are confusing ways, he concludes that the number of UFO landings on the planet tallies more than 14 million over the past 40 years. As such, these incidents must not be extraterrestrial in nature, because why would aliens need to visit so much in order to gather information?
• Even if aliens, by happenstance, looked similar to humans, they would need to modify their bodies using genetic engineering "to enhance their ability to work and survive in space, as humans may have to do" over the next century.
• "Whatever the supposed 'Aliens' are doing, if they actually perform what appear to be shockingly crude and cruel simulacra of biological experiments on the bodies of their abductees, is unlikely to represent a scientific mission relevant to the goals of extraterrestrial visitors."
• "the extension of the phenomenon throughout recorded human history demonstrates that UFOs are not a contemporary phenomenon"
• "the apparent ability of UFOs to manipulate space and time suggests radically different and richer alternatives" such as new concepts of physical reality.

No matter how you slice it, this all blows my mind. Either there are aliens flying in from other planets researching the Earth and its inhabitants, or there are elements of life on this planet, and of the human mind, that are so foreign to us as to be equivalent to space invaders.

Maybe Kool Keith can explain it to us: