Confessions of a UFO Asshole
Recently, Joe Murgia (aka UFOJoe) put out a lengthy four-part blog series on the infamous and hotly debated “Wilson Doc”. The doc is allegedly a record of a conversation between scientist and longtime government contractor Eric Davis and a former high ranking military official, Admiral Thomas Wilson. I’m not going to rehash the document here when so many have done such a thorough job of covering it. I would do a terrible job of it anyway. But to make a long story very short — The doc, if accurate, lends some credence to the idea that the US government has a hidden UFO reverse engineering program tucked away in private industry. Not only did Joe break down the story in detail, he also committed a cardinal sin by posting an MJ-12 doc in part four of his piece. What can I say? Joe is a rebel without a cause. He likes to live dangerously.
The reaction by prominent members of the “UFO Community” was fairly predictable. Those who had lent the docs no credence used their platforms to attack him in some subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Even those who have built their reputation on being fairly reasonable and polite went on to lecture him about how he was doing it all wrong. He interjected his opinions into the piece and didn’t provide any “real” evidence. When he didn’t immediately bend to their criticisms it devolved into mockery and condescension (way too quickly if we’re being honest). Here was a guy who put in a lot of hard work into something, getting eaten alive by all but a few.
I’m not blowing smoke up Joe’s ass here. This was great work. The piece was well written and pulled a lot of different data points into one place, some of which had never been connected in a cohesive manner before. He received kudos on the piece from George Knapp, Richard Dolan and a few other prominent figures who would make me weak in the knees if they ever noticed me. So that’s nice. Joe is a tough guy with thick skin. He can take the criticisms and mockery. He’s dealt with it before and he’ll be fine. But the reason I highlight this episode is because it represents a microcosm of a larger issue plaguing the UFO community: Most of us are assholes.
I love to argue about things — especially things that literally no one else I know cares about. Sometimes I’ll even argue with myself, going over points and counterpoints in my head, imagining what an opponent might say in response (it’s always super lame). Don’t judge me, because you probably do it too. I want to be right, and I want to be validated. But being right is usually better when other people — especially the people who have vocally disagreed with me in the past — are wrong. That’s what makes me an asshole. I like it most when other people are wrong.
The internet provides ample opportunity to dunk on people you don’t have “real” relationships with. You don’t have to deal with the fallout from treating other human beings like they only exist for your own validation. I’m not typing this as someone separate and apart from this system. I have contributed to it from the very first day I was able to express my own shitty opinions online. I am not here to pass down judgement from on high. I simply want to point out what I see as a major issue (and perhaps universal truth) in our community. We tend to encourage the people who validate us, and tear down those who don’t.
We all draw lines in the sand. The lines aren’t a problem. They function as a convenient rest stop for our brains. But the asshole in us likes to weaponize them, conveniently forgetting how much our lines have moved over the course of our own personal journey into the unknown.
“If everyone knows what I know now, then the only reasonable thing to do is agree with me”, or so we tell ourselves. Anyone on the opposite side must be crazy. They must be irrational or worst of all… gullible. But the real world doesn’t work like that. People aren’t calculators; and acceptable evidence of extraordinary claims will vary from person to person (not to mention which claims count as extraordinary). It’s why we serve jury duty instead of plugging in evidence to the latest and greatest super computer and seeing what percentages it shits out.
It doesn’t matter how right you are. If you are using your platform to mock other people because they disagree with you about UFO’s… you’re being an asshole and you need to stop. You are not the final authority on what constitutes acceptable or convincing evidence.
All too often our arguments aren’t designed to inform, educate, or persuade. Instead, they function as a sort of “UFO Virtue Signal” — a way for us to distance ourselves from those we’ve decided are foolish and a dog whistle for like minded peers to pile on.
I understand this intimately. I unfollowed someone a couple of weeks ago for talking about reptilians on the timeline, and I may have even posted a GIF to show my disapproval before I left. I do that a lot. I don’t even try to persuade. I just skip right to the sarcasm and then head for the exit. They weren’t “worth my time” to convince if they were foolish enough to believe that. What an asshole.
The attitudes and tendencies I’m describing here clearly aren’t exclusive to people discussing UFOs on the internet. But the very nature of the conversation we’re having makes it all the more ridiculous. Anyone who has been involved in this subject for any length of time whatsoever has gotten things wrong. We have all been duped. We have all been overconfident or gullible at one point or another. It’s just part of doing business. If you claim you’ve never gotten anything wrong you’re either lying, lacking in self-awareness, or new.
None of us avoids every dead end and rabbit hole. But instead of learning from our past mistakes, we tend to sweep them under the rug. Instead of seizing the opportunity to reflect on our own fallibility, we adjust our lines and dig back in.
The main point of this post (besides eliciting some validation from people who agree with me) is to plead with members of this community to be better to one another. If we’re being honest, most of us don’t have much of an outlet to discuss this topic in our day to day lives. This is it. These are the people we have. If we cancel anyone who disagrees with us about one aspect or another of UFO’s, we’re only hurting ourselves and (I would argue) the subject at large.
We should use our platform, no matter how large or small, to encourage one another on the journey. I’m not advocating for people to stop disagreeing, or even to stop arguing. Instead, I’m asking for us to give some thought to why we’re posting and what it will accomplish. Is it divisive or persuasive? Does it assume the best or the worst? Sometimes winning an argument isn’t worth it… and we may need to reevaluate what it means to “win” an argument anyway.
We need to do a better job of picking our battles. We have to accept that rational people disagree on things all the time and that disagreement isn’t an attack on our ability to comprehend reality. Not every controversy needs to turn into a referendum. Not every point needs to turn into a lecture. Not every hill is worth dying on.
This stuff means more to us than we would like to admit. Some piece of our personal identity is wrapped up in the validation we receive from weird UFO strangers online. We share a reluctant comradery, searching for that glorious smoking-gun piece of evidence that will light the world on fire… the one that will prove once and for all we were right… that we weren’t foolish for spending so much time and energy on this. It’s a nice thought. Who knows? It may even happen one day.
But until then, this is the community we have. If we ever manage to figure this out (and I am not entirely convinced we will) the most likely scenario is that we will have all gotten some things wrong. Maybe we’re getting the broad strokes right. But we just don’t know. If we ignore that possibility and punish divergent thinking, we will lose more than a few UFO pals. We’ll lose our curiosity.
