Star Trek is The Answer
Wherein I discuss the two dominant camps in UFOlogy and how thinking like Jean-Luc Picard puts us in a better position to understand the phenomenon.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the juxtaposition between the nuts-and-bolts and metaphysical/consciousness “camps” within contemporary UFOlogy. If you’re not sure what those are then you probably shouldn’t read any further because this post isn’t for you. Run away from all of this and enjoy your life. If anything important happens we’ll let you know… over and over until you hate us.
I have done quite a bit of reading in support of both explanations for the weird things we see in our skies. I’ve reached the point where I can pretty much predict which cases are going to be covered in any UFO book once I know the general time frame. I’m in the prime of my career as far as annoying my wife goes. Anytime I force her to watch a UFO show I make it worse by quickly explaining the gist of each case before the narrator has a chance to. That’s not to say there isn’t a mountain of data to analyze and I certainly have a lot left to explore. My book list is painfully long and it’s at times overwhelming (but also exciting) how much more there is to discover.
I expected that at some point I would become entrenched — wholly devoted and convinced to the point of near certainty — that one of these explanations was the “key” to making sense of it all. But in fact the opposite has happened. The more I learn, the less certain I become about what we may be dealing with.
The one thing I am becoming more certain of is that a one-size-fits-all solution doesn’t work.
Sticking to either “camp” requires you to emphasize some datasets while de-emphasizing or outright ignoring others. If you commit to a no-holds-barred examination of the data you will find an enormous amount of diversity. Nuts-and-bolts enthusiasts tend to ignore that diversity. They have historically regarded “high-strangeness” cases as mere noise. Metaphysical/consciousness campers relish in examining all of the diversity within the data (from a safe distance of course). In the end, they end up with a different sort of one-size-fits-all solution. Zoom out far enough from anything and you’ll probably find a pattern. We are humans. It’s what we do.
It probably isn’t possible to completely prevent familiar thought-patterns. When confronted with the unknown, we don’t decide to reduce, compartmentalise, and label. These things happen in our brains automatically.
We need some form of closure… some way to get all of these loose sheets of paper off the floor and into the filing cabinet where they belong.
At this point, it’s fair to say we don’t actually know anything about the phenomenon. The only thing I (and most others who are devoted to the study of UFOs) can agree upon is that they exist. Even if they represent some sort of shared hysteria or product of the subconscious… you would have to agree they exist… in the same way our thoughts and beliefs exist. We may not be able to weigh our dreams, but we can surely agree they are real and have an effect — to some extent — on our lives. I’m not sure how one obtains four-way confirmation on figments of the imagination, but that’s another point for another post (psycho-social campers can GTFO).
Everyone has beliefs. Even those who use the word “belief” as an insult on the internet have beliefs. They may claim their beliefs are based on superior evidence, but they certainly have them. So knowing that belief is impossible for us to avoid — and doesn’t naturally enhance a neutral analysis of available data — we should figure out the best way to deal with it. Rather than trying to align our beliefs with what is most proximate to the truth (since we don’t really know), it is wiser to evaluate them by the effects they have on our behavior.
We should carefully curate our own beliefs, embracing those which help to increase our knowledge and hopefully — one day — our understanding.
It is in this spirit that I have chosen to believe that both explanations for the phenomenon have substantial supporting evidence and are thus worthy of serious attention and study. I find no compelling reason to favor one explanation over the other. To do so would require putting more emphasis on the data which supports my conclusion and less on the data which doesn’t. If there’s one thing I love more than truth, it’s being right. So instead of nailing down my own conclusions and wielding them like a cudgel… I’m taking the cowards way out.
I’ve decided to embrace the diversity within the data.
So what are the implications of this decision? Is there any reason to prefer this position over one of the others? Isn’t this just an example of me needing to be “different” from all of the other assholes on the internet who think their opinions are cool? Don’t I realize I’m just being contrarian for attention? Yes. Yes I do. However, there are two other benefits to this decision that shouldn’t be overlooked. The first is that it predisposes me to embrace all of the data equally, with little regard for how it might impact my worldview. But that’s not really as important as the other benefit:
STAR TREK IS REAL
I can think of no better analogy for what I have chosen to believe than this. Imagine you are a primitive non space-faring humanoid on a dying planet. You find yourself inexplicably (and in direct violation of the prime directive) onboard the starship Enterprise (NCC-1701-D). You meet captain Jean-Luc Picard, Worf, Data and other members of the crew. Imagine your excitement as you realize you’ve confirmed your species’ wildest suspicions. There are aliens with advanced technology and they’ve been observing your planet! This explains all of the weird shit you and your ancestors have been seeing over the centuries. You feel that you’ve finally arrived. You have the keys to reality, and who could have guessed? You had them all along.
But you’ve seen Star Trek — The Next Generation (and if you haven’t you also need to GTFO). You know that in Star Trek, reality isn’t so simple. You could perhaps call every lifeform the crew of the Enterprise encounters an “alien” but that would really be one hell of a reduction wouldn’t it? Even if you just stick to biological entities there is extreme, almost unimaginable diversity. Some space-faring lifeforms have very advanced technology… others not so much.
In Star Trek, possessing technology that allows you to travel space at incredible speeds doesn’t have the same implications many UFOlogists presume it does.
Some lifeforms are incredibly smart and perceptive. Others not so much. Some are beyond war and strife. Others are extremely violent and factional. Some stick to the prime directive and steer clear of developing planets. Others intentionally influence less advanced species for good. Some project power on lesser lifeforms, enslaving and exploiting entire planets or solar systems. Some are decidedly atheistic, while others maintain religious beliefs and customs. Some are parasites (there are seriously so many fucking parasites). Some are shape-shifters or invisible. Some are more machine than biological. Some use other species to reproduce or as food. Others are just giant-ass animals like space-stingrays. And that’s just on the biological side of things.
There’s also a whole host of intelligences Starfleet encounters which can’t be categorized as biological. There are sentient clouds of particles that are floating out in space, just waiting to fuck up someone’s day. There are balls of energized plasma whose entire purpose is to transform one or more members of the crew into paranoid maniacs or geniuses with uncontrollable sex-drives (there is no in-between). Other times there is no cohesive purpose… it’s more like art or some cosmic thought-experiment. Then you have the Q Continuum… the members of which can create whatever reality they want in an instant. This isn’t a trick. They can alter space, matter, time… anything really. There are species which worship these non-biologically bound intelligences. And depending on who they are… they may even deserve it.
There is a shitload of diversity within the UFO data we have available to us (and the same is probably true of the data we don’t have available to us). Is there as much as Star Trek? No. But there’s enough for me to believe we’re dealing with a lot of different things here, some of which probably won’t fit into any of the pre-labeled filing cabinets in our brains. Any attempt to distill all of this down to one tidy solution just seems to miss the mark. This doesn’t mean I think everyone who chooses to hone in on a theory is wrong or even misguided.
Whatever theory you subscribe to is probably right. They’re all probably right to some extent. If you don’t believe me… just look at the data. It’s ALL there.
It’s probably impossible to completely decenter humanity when discussing the phenomenon (or anything really). But I think it’s crucial for us to try. Our compartmentalized conceptions of material reality, metaphysical reality, psycho-social reality, spiritual-reality, consciousness et alia may not be as separate as we think they are. I predict that if we ever do meet and communicate with a non-human intelligence we will find these neat little categories are unique to our species. Our insistence that how they travel and what they do can be attributed exclusively to this or that may actually confuse them.
It’s surely been said from larger platforms, but we in UFOlogy aren’t watching enough Star Trek… and it’s sort of embarrassing.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but we need less certainty in UFOlogy. Certainty implies that we know what’s going on and we absolutely don’t. Star Trek discourages certainty about the nature of the universe or the intelligences within it, and I posit that our universe is pretty much the same (based on the data we have). At no point does captain Jean-Luc Picard attempt to sum up reality with a cohesive theory or framework. He’s seen too much shit for that. He knows his paradigms are going explode as soon as the next intergalactic parasite attaches itself to his spinal cord. So why should we be any different?
So what do you think? Are there any other fictional universes that may not be so fictional? How do you curate your own beliefs? Yell at me about this.
