By Greg Bishop
Every once in awhile, various UFO fans call for a new organization of ufologists who will supposedly solve the enigma once and for all. This may be a mistake, given the nature of the subject, and how it presents itself to us.
The phenomenon appears to have standardized itself over the last 20 years or so. Abductions are carried out by what look like humanoid beings, often of the type depicted on the cover of Communion, at least much of the time–if we are to believe researchers who study this type of thing. Does this mean that the rest of the aliens decided that we weren’t worth the time, or that they are on a cattle kick now? Reports from non-English speaking countries continue to exhibit more variety, or American and British researchers are keeping the anomalous information to themselves.
Sightings remain frustratingly fleeting and photos and video of UFOs are now practically useless, since they can be faked so easily. Why have there never been any good images taken of aliens, or whatever they are? Images floating around the internet could easily have been faked, or faked and leaked for reasons we can only guess at.
As George Hansen points out in his book The Trickster and the Paranormal, the UFOs and possible “aliens” are by their very nature deceitful and mercurical. Hansen also writes about the possibility that this deception may be due to our expectations as much as any intention on the part of the phenomenon. It is as if the phenomenon has adjusted itself to our scrutiny, or perhaps we have done this in order to make it easier to think about.
We may have set ourselves up for an inaccurate view of UFOs by our preconceptions and by the very nature of our mindset and even our language. How can we theorize about something that stands outside what we can describe or even think about? A non-human point of view may even look like a deception because we can’t understand it fully.
Applying our standard concepts of information gathering to UFOs and the paranormal may be like trying to catch water in a fishnet, except that we don’t even know that the water is there. Organizations like MUFON apply a structure of research-taking statements from witnesses, analyzing photos and radar traces and trying to figure out what an extraterrestrial civilization would be doing here-while the UFOs continue to appear and disappear. No real progress has been made in nearly 60 years, at least not by the civilian groups.
This is perhaps why a breakthrough (or at least a step in the right direction) will probably be made by either a small group or an individual who is quietly researching as you read this. The idea will probably not come from the UFO community, since many of them are focused on the ET hypothesis, which has not yielded any good results as yet.
Mavericks have been the source of many breakthoughs in the past, and there is no reason why a solution to the UFO puzzle cannot come from a non-aligned individual. Given the anti-structural nature of the problem, it is almost inevitable that this scenario is the most likely.