I Am So Over the Whole UFO Thing

The other day someone posted a link to a UFO sighting in east Texas. He was a little excited. I understand; there was a time I would have been, too. After all, I saw a real UFO. I mentioned this briefly in Growing Up Miles, Part 2 on another blog:

"One night mom and I were watching a late night sci fi movie (giant, three legged robots stomping around the desert with death rays, IIRC). There was a commercial break, and we got up to stretch. We wandered to the front door to look out. There was a giant fireball sort thing slowly descending out of the sky behind the Franklin Mountains. This was between midnight and 1AM. Much too big to be the sun or moon, and too slow to be anything falling. Mom and I just stood there until after it was gone. Then we stared at each other, both hoping the other would say something first. When we did talk, we realized we'd each seen the same thing. We could never find anyone else who admitted seeing it. When she called the AFB and army bases, they refused to say anything, just wanted a full report on what we'd seen. So I have seen a UFO. What was it? What does it mean? No idea, the U was very much "Unidentified"! I spent the next couple of years reading everything I could on UFOs and desperately wanting to see more. Finally gave up, never saw anything again."

This obviously glosses over the couple of years I spent researching this. It ignores the fact that every so often throughout the rest of my life, I read about a UFO and dig again, and once more come up unsatisfied.

I grew up with a brilliant scientist and professor of a Father. I also grew up reading both science and science fiction. I got my first chemistry set on my 6th birthday; experimentation, investigation and engineering have been some of my BFFs ever since. I always wanted to KNOW things. What things? Everything. All you scientists and engineers out there (latent or otherwise) get this.

But there was precious little to know about UFOs. There were reported sightings, lots and lots of reported sightings. There were allegedly officially documented sightings by test pilots, interceptor pilots, SAC bomber pilots, commercial passenger pilots, ground RADAR operators, NORAD, and probably bald eagles and seagulls. But almost none of it showed up in major media or anything official an unclassified civilian would ever see. Even the rumors of rumors of official sightings of rumored documents of official sightings were classified. If they even existed. They might be rumors, too.

Nearly the worst thing was that almost everyone who claimed to have encountered aliens seemed to have either gotten an anal probe or been sexually investigated. If there were aliens out there they were at worst perverted, and at best incapable of comprehending human anatomy. While I can understand some mild confusion and possibly disbelief (let's face it, we're laid out pretty uniquely), one would think that a people capable of crossing distances at speed the Enterprise crew only dreamed of could fathom human anatomy fairly quickly. Some of the most damning evidence against UFOs being spaceships was that the alleged travelers weren't curing our diseases, much less giving details on 100MPG carburetors.

But even worse than this was the shoddy reporting, the shoddy evidence (when there was any), and the lack of anything remotely scientific or intellectually useful surrounding any of the phenomena.

So I quit worrying about it. As a Christian, there are really only a few possible answers:

1. There are no such aliens.
2. There are such aliens, and they never fell, so we are probably off limits (C. S. Lewis covers this well in his space trilogy).
3. There are such aliens. They fell, and Jesus died for them or God otherwise provided for them. In that case why are they playing hide and seek?
4. These are demonic manifestations.

I know people who subscribe to each of these theories. But personally, I no longer much care. It's fun to speculate, and UFOs and/or space aliens will likely appear in some of my stories now and then, but... who cares? Either they don't exist, or they are pretty much avoiding us. Unless and until we have verifiable contact of some sort (whether that's an alien making rude gestures at the Hubble, Gort's arrival, or Loki shows up with the Chitauri) there are far more interesting and far better uses of my time.

Maybe some day I'll meet a space alien. If and when that happens, I'll offer a hug. Until then, I'm still offering hugs to any humans who need or want one. You're awesome and loved, and so are the space aliens-- real or imagined. Unless they're demons. No hugs for demons.

If you're into UFOs, that's great. Have fun. If they are real, I hope you are the one who can wave solid evidence in my face and laugh. I'll happily buy you dinner. And you get an extra hug/

Unless you're a demon. No hugs for demons.