Posted on 02/11/2019 10:02:05 AM PST by BenLurkin
In American Cosmic, D.W. Pasulka, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, draws on a six-year ethnographic study and the work of Carl Jung (Flying Saucers) and Jacques Vallee (Passport to Magonia and The Invisible College) to explain the widespread belief in aliens. Pasulka identifies three aspects of UFO inquiry: physical evidence (crash sites and artifacts); testimonials made by experiencers; and the persistence of belief whether or not there is verifiable evidence to support it.
Pasulka also challenges the view that UFO believers are uneducated, fringe members of society. Some very well-regarded scientists, she indicates, are convinced that non-humans have visited Planet Earth; they have chosen to remain anonymous to protect their professional reputations.
Using a method common among anthropologists, Pasulka maintains she neither believes nor disbelieves but insists that testimonials are, in important ways, “real.” This approach allows her to gauge the impact and internal logic of a “thriving belief system.”
Pasulka regards them as “heroes,” who have “the guts and ability” to take on skeptics, and are “fighting the good fight for the right reasons”: because they believe, and “they would say,” because they know.
Pasulka turns her attention to television shows and movies. Models of “events” can be conflated, she asserts, even when one “representation” is real and the other is fictional. The likelihood of putting a model in “the wrong bucket” increases when producers (whose clients include National Geographic, The History Channel, and The Smithsonian) use a genre called “specialist factual programming” to fuse archival material and special effects to create realistic montages, with “documentary” in the title.
These productions influence memory, Pasulka emphasizes; “they contribute to belief in fabricated UFO phenomena.”
(Excerpt) Read more at psychologytoday.com ...
I’m OK with the concept of inter-dimensional spiritual entities. Every faith is full of these and there just might be something to it.
Interesting notion indeed....
Brought to mind the ‘machine elves’.........
Google ‘machine elves’...
Someone wisely told me something the other day concerning all this in relation to zero point energy technology. If we did have this capability of time travel would it be prudent to let anyone know? If it got into the wrong hands who knows what they could do with it.
Every day we are getting closer to real AI. Who would have thought 50 years ago we would have phones capable of what they can do today. Who knows if maybe UFO’s are piloted by an AI source, capable of long space travel, unaffected by gravity and and other physical phenomena, yet still operate and record and interact with the physics of our world. AI with the ability for thought and reason hundreds or maybe even thousands of earth years old.
I think so too. If we can believe in other dimensions like the biblical heaven and hell why not believe they could be a scientific fact?
Never had the ayahuacha.....
Ok say they’re star faring “smart sensors”. Travel for 100s, 1000s of years maybe self-repairing could go on indefinitely maybe. Do they report back? If they do still limited bt the speed of light. Do they just collect data just for the sake of collecting it like Vger?
I don’t know about ours being the only ones... Have you done an image search of the Vril women yet? lol
It was only those gals on Moonbase. It was a really great look though.
As Rumsfeld once said, “we know what we know”, and” we know what we don’t know” and then there is the” we don’t know what we don’t know.” 50 years ago, we didn’t know what we know now, I am sure we don’t know what we will know 100 years from now.
Turtledove’s short story, The Road Not Taken has an interesting spin on your choices.
Let’s agree to disagree. Wormhole travel doesn’t require high-speed (warping time and space). Sci-Fi imagination is a reality now. Just think about how your grandparents’ grandparents would view today’s technology. And that is a mere 100 or so years ago. No communication, horse travel.
Now imagine our technology (if we don’t kill ourselves) a thousand years from now. In fact you can’t, it’s impossible. No one at this point and time can conceive what the future holds as far scientific knowledge. Technological advancements in all fields are being cubed, advancing at faster, and faster rates.
I know !
:)
Its alien teenagers joy riding!
Rectal probes are their version of toilet papering lawns!
I’m not saying I’m a disbeliever. I’ve seen a UFO myself. A black triangle floating across the sky without making any sound. It was pin-drop silent. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it was controlled by aliens from another planet. I have no explanation for what I saw, and that’s that.
Two things...
1. I have a relative who has been involved with military intelligence for a very long time. He has briefed Presidents on security matters. He worked with/for the labs out here in New Mexico for many years.
I would like to tease him about the intelligence he was not even allowed to acknowledge, forget about discussing it. One time, after he was particular put out, we had the following discussion:
Him, “You like science fiction, don’t you?”
Me, “You know I do.”
“So you think we might have some high tech stuff that we keep secret.”
“Of course.”
“Well take what you think we have, add 100 years, and you’re getting close.”
Item 2...
In 1974 there was an uptick in interest in UFO’s. One of our local radio stations had a guy who did remote broadcasts at events who, on the air, was claiming that he was watching a UFO, near Lockhart Stadium (Fort Lauderdale). My dad, who usually scoffed as such stuff, got a gleam in his eye and said, “Let’s go find him.”
So we jumped in his VW Bug and high tailed it to the stadium. As we came around the corner of the stadium and were cutting across the parking lot, a low flying ball/oval of light crossed our path, about 100 yards ahead of us, with a WFTL van in hot pursuit. We sat there with our mouths hanging open as the ball sped up, crossed Commercial Boulevard, and took off nearly vertically at a high rate of speed. What was particularly eerie was the silence. The thing made no noise at all.
My father was a no-nonsense kind of guy, a school teacher, who never liked sci-fi. Every now and then our experience would come up in conversation and we were both in agreement that it wasn’t a plane, or helicopter, or blimp, or balloon. It was under some sort of control and it scared the crap out of both of us.
So, in summary, I believe that there is SOMETHING to the UFO reports. Whether they are our craft or from somewhere else is way beyond my pay grade.
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