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11.20.6

Appearances Nightly: Selected Audiences Only

It’s often asked, mainly by the anti-UFO people, why is it that UFOs/aliens and other weird things haven’t appeared to men and women of science, to our political leaders, to Those That Count. Why is it, they ask, no world leader, no acclaimed scientist, has been abducted by aliens or awakened one morning to see a landed flying saucer in their backyard? Since this hasn’t happened (presumably) they insist that the only logical conclusion is this: there are no such things as UFOs, Bigfoot, extraterrestrials, Nessie, the chupacabras, and other anomolous things.

It’s an interesting question and one that’s been discussed many times. It is true that paranormal phenomena, cryptid sightings (Mothman, Bigfoot, Nessie, BHMs: Big Hairy Monsters, etc.) religious/mystical experiences, and the UFO pheoneoma (and sometimes they’re all intermingled) seems to occur around “the people, or the folk,” as contrasted with the upper levels of our society. If academics, scientists, and politicians, and to some extent, religious leaders, are experiencing anomalous phenomena, very few of them come out publicly with their stories.

(With religious leaders there are exceptions, and in fact, many UFO “cults” have become religions of a kind, with their own leaders. The Raelians are an example, so was Marshall Applewhite. But these are “outsider” religions and leaders, their stories suspect, and are not considered credible by mainstream religious structures. The others however have become religious because of the paranormal encounter, not prior to belief. A possible exception would be Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. )




I’ve seen several UFOs in my life, and have also experienced all kinds of paranormal phenomena (including an interesting ‘vision’ of the BVM during meditation; how’s that for a nice Jewish girl?) and I know several people who’ve had these kinds of experiences as well. I’m sure many of you reading this have either had, or personally know people who’ve had, these kinds of experiences. But I’m not an academic, scientist, politician, or religious figure.

How many of these strange events have happened to the afore mentioned people? We can only speculate, because clearly they’re not sharing with the rest of us.

UFO sightings, Bigfoot and other cryptid encounters and ‘BVM’ (Blessed Virgin Mary, or Marian Apparitions) seem to appear almost exclusively to the “regular folk.” And often times to the poor, the so-called ‘lower classes.” With Marian apparitions ‘she’ almost always appears to only children, who are in many ways the most disinfranchised of any culture. Children are small, they don’t have jobs or their own money, they’re expected to behave and listen to adults, they’re not taken seriously. Yet the phenomena intentionally appears before the very groups of people who have the least chance of being believed.

How often do we hear -- sometimes as a joke, sometimes seriously -- that “UFOs appear only to hillbillies?” Untrue of course but the point is, no matter where you live in the United States, using the word “hillbilly” or some equally trivializing name: farmer, hick, redneck, trailer trash, sends a negative impression to others. It’s an unfair, classist, and untrue thing to say of course, but I don’t think there’s anyone reading this who hasn’t heard this. Some even take a sort of pride in using these slurs, as if living in a trailer, or the South, or in rural areas automatically guarantees unintelligence and worse, low character.

It seems to be some kind of slam against both the phenomena of high strangeness (UFOs, Bigfoot, BVMs, etc.) as well as the hoi poli. Since such things like UFOs, Big Hairy Monsters, Mary don’t appear to the ‘upper management’ of society, then they don’t exist. And if they don’t exist, they don’t matter. And the great unwashed masses who see these things don’t matter either; after all, they’re just making up silly stories.

But if we turn this around (in true Trickster like fashion) and look at it another way, we find that if these anomalies and experiences of the mystical and the mysterious have been occurring for centuries to everyone but the esteemed and powerful of society, maybe they’re not so esteemed after all. (And any from that strata that does experience such things and comes forth, or demonstrates an active interest in the weird, is shunned by their peers. Recent examples of this include Dr. John Mack and Dr. Jeff Meldrum.)

The question isn’t why don’t UFOs, or the BVM, or Bigfoot, appear to our leaders, to our scientists, to our academics? The question is: why do they persist in appearing to everyone else but those that who presumably have power?

Suggested Reading

Denzler, Brenda: The Lure of the EdgeThe Lure of the Edge: Scientific Passions, Religious Beliefs, and the Pursuit of UFOs

Harpur, Patrick: Daimonic Reality

Garoutte, Aileen: Joseph Smith Contactee (UFOexperiences blog)

The Book of Mormon

Swann, Ingo: The Great Apparitions of Mary: An Examination of the Twenty-Two Supranormal Appearances, Ingo Swann

Vallee, Jacques:The Invisible College


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