What are UFO’s

Whilst Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) are not usually the topic of my website, I have touched on it recently with the Knowles Family UFO Encounter and in the past too. Still though the topic of UFO’s has been one that I have not really spent much time exploring, but I would like to change that a little moving forwards. However, this is also an area of the paranormal that I have little experience in and if I’m honest feel a little overwhelmed by. The subject area itself is huge and by all accounts has a dedicated following not unlike the ghost hunting community that has grown so popular over recent years.

Of course when we talk about UFO’s we quickly begin to think about great films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET: The Extra-Terrestrial, and Paul. Yes, Paul; Pegg and Frost deliver an awesome little film with an annoying bad mouthed grey called Paul. Well I liked it, but then I am a Sean of the Dead fan too. Beyond the films, the adventures of Mulder and Scully in the hit TV show X-Files were probably one of the hugest influences for me when I was growing up in the 90’s.

Whilst popular TV shows and films provide some understanding of what me mean by UFO, they are still quite a bit off the reality of the subject. For example, a UFO is exactly what it says it is, an unidentified flying object! Years ago I had a conversation, I think with Nick Pope, in which it was said that about 95% of UFO sightings have a logical explanation. That is they can be identified as a commercial or military plane. I know what you thinking now, that still leaves 5% that could be flying saucers. That is still not quite right either though, of that remaining 5% explanation is usually there, but difficult prove by the person investigating. For example, the unidentified flying object could be a military plane from another country unwilling to reveal the flight paths of jets, hence without solid identification we can not prove it to be the case. This is equally so when the witness provides little within their statement to allow the investigators to identify the probable aircraft, hence we have a UFO report.

So, similarly to our investigations of ghosts and apparitions we are often reliant on the quality of the witness statement and its contents to guide our understanding of UFO’s.

There are of course many cases of UFO encounters that have made for compelling evidence for the subject or at least generated a great deal of discussion on the topic; the Roswell case, Aurora TX case, UFOs over Washington, the Travis Walton abduction, Rendlesham Forest, and Phoenix lights; to name a few. These cases and more drive the past interest, not only from the public, but from the governments too; right through into the future. As I am sure this will be a subject that will continue to evolve over time.

Other ideas for UFO’s

Whilst our standard understanding of the extra-terrestrial UFO remains one of the most popular understandings of the subject, there has been many other ideas that have been slightly different from little green men (people) or greys, depending on your alien viewpoint I guess. Like many things in our world I think UFO’s have become subject to a stereotype over time, so many of us relate UFO’s directly to beings from another world from across the stars. However, this is only one possibility to explain that tiny percentage of strange UFO’s, there are several other probable explanations for UFO’s.

Two of the more popular ideas regarding UFO’s suggest that they are dimensional beings, slipping from their own dimension into ours to visit. Whilst the other is based more around time travel, from what I understand. The advent of greater scientific theories, especially within quantum mechanics, such as multiverse theory help to bring these ideas together in science. At least it helps to provide a real science link to the idea, giving a real world cross-over.

I remember reading some of John Keel’s work not too long ago that also appeared to back the possibility of UFO’s and their pilots travelling to our world from another dimension. Keel wrote extensively on UFO’s and brought us a detailed coverage of the Mothman case, which occurred during the Point Pleasant disaster in 1967.

There is also the very important point that for an alien spacecraft to travel to Earth through space would take light years. So, perhaps some kind of dimensional travel is more probable? That said if our alien visitors could warp space-time perhaps the great expanse of space becomes easier to cross. Without doubt there are still many options we could look into regarding explanations for UFO’s, many of which often have crossovers with ideas related to ghosts too.

UFO Contacts and other phenomena

Often when we tackle subjects like UFO’s or even Ghosts for that matter, we may have a tendency to keep those subjects in their pigeon hole, but in reality there are strange relationships that crop up on a regular basis that simply make that subject more fascinating. As we have already mentioned the Mothman case above I thought that would be an excellent example here. Keel reported that whilst he investigated the Mothman case and the UFO frap around Point Pleasant in the late 60’s one thing that came up was other paranormal activity that was experienced by those that had also had encounters with UFO’s. A particular example being cases of poltergeist activity within the homes of some UFO witnesses. Which is something that I had not previously considered until I read it in Keels book on the Mothman.

However, once I had read about this link I also recognised more of them in other paranormal literature I read. One in particular was by Guy Lyon Playfair in his book on the Enfield Poltergeist case where he mentions briefly about a small UFO frap over London occurring at the same time as the case.

This for me presented some additional understanding around aspects of the paranormal, including UFO’s, which pushed us back towards aspects of psi.

Physical or Information Interpretation

When it comes to UFO’s the common interpretation is that the witness has seen a physical flying object such as a saucer or maybe a cigar shaped craft. However, why should this be the only interpretation of the events that occur? The event could be the result of our minds processing information we acquire, either locally from our environment or possibly by other means like telepathy.

Whilst there has been a few reported cases that have included physical evidence to back up the witness statement, that has even been extremely circumstantial and far from proven. Sound familiar? Something we have seen before in ghost hunting too.

So, as I have suggested before in regards to ghosts, perhaps UFO’s are also something our minds are interpreting, when presented with various local environmental information or perhaps even acquired by telepathy. Are UFO’s physical craft from another world or even dimension; or are they simply tricks of the mind? If we take into consideration that such things as UFO’s may have been interpreted as more supernatural creatures hundreds of years ago, like dragons or similar; then we begin to see how our understanding of the world around us could be very different through time. Something worth considering.

Even great UFOlogists like Keel questioned what UFO’s really were and he investigated a huge amount of cases, capturing loads of information on the subject. So, we should certainly do the same in our own investigations I believe.

Well thats my take on UFO’s

Whilst I am sure there is still a huge amount to cover in regards to UFO’s, that is my initial take on UFO’s and some quick ideas to help provide some probable explanations for their existence. I am still very new to everything UFO, but since reading some of Keels material amongst other articles about UFO’s recently, I do have to admit the subject is very fascinating. It is certainly an area that I will be looking in to more in the future, so hopefully I will bring you more posts on them soon.

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