Friday, August 01, 2008

Ministry of Pie Plates

(Anyone know Latin? heh, heh...)

I've been offered the position of Minister of UFOs in DivaJood's administration, and I intend to do a heckuva job. I was born in the Air Force, the organization which was in charge of keeping UFO files for many years (known as Project Blue Book). Here's an actual UFO Detector which you can purchase here. If you are traveling with it, just tell the nice Homeland Security folks it's a UFO Detector, and you should be all clear for boarding.

I'm watching "They Came From Beyond Space" as I write this. Part of the research. I have also seen a UFO. More on that later. There are a couple of topics that I got very interested in when I was a lot younger, read a stack of books on the topic, just trying to find some truth, and came away with some background on the subjects but no answers - only a few loosely-formed opinions and lots of speculation. One subject is the JFK assassination and the other is UFOs. They are deep dark mysteries that will never be solved.

The X-Files was a great show partly because Chris Carter and the other writers were so versed in both the popular and obscure UFO mythology that they were able able to weave their own conglomerate out of it... which is just what happens in non-TV-land. I can see a lot of myself in Mulder, Scully, and the Lone Gunmen too. It's good to be able to laugh at yourself, isn't it? Unlike Mulder, I don't want to believe (or disbelieve either), and unlike Scully I no longer have beliefs I cannot leave behind.

I can hardly begin to scratch the surface of all the different UFO topics, but here's some great old historical stuff from my collection.

It starts with Roswell:

Maj. Donald Keyhoe was an Annapolis grad who became an aviator in the Marine Corp. After retirement he became a writer of articles for "True" magazine, and was appointed Chief of Information for the organization that became the FAA. He was one of the first UFO investigators. The first so-called flying saucers were reported in June of 1947 (with the fabled UFO crashes at Roswell NM), and he wrote an article called "Flying Saucers are Real", which was so popular it was expanded into this very book you see here, published in 1950. I believe it's the first book ever written about flying saucers. In 1957, Keyhoe became the first director of NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena), and ultimately became convinced that the CIA was covering up information. [Keyhoe bio]

The Harvest Has Begun:

This book, "The Interrupted Journey," (1966) as far as I know, was the first book that dealt with alien abduction. It's about Betty and Barney Hill, who experienced missing time and other phenomena while traveling on an isolated road in 1961. Eventually they went through hypnosis, and they recorded those sessions. I listened to them on cassette. It's fascinating. There was evidence, including eyewitnesses and a police report. There was even speculation that the aliens selected the Hills because they were a bi-racial couple, very rare in the year this happened, and that the aliens were wanting to examine 2 races and genders at the same time. I'll bet that the human population was a lot more concerned about what used to be called a "mixed marriage" than the space people would have been. It all still remains a mystery. Of course, after this there were more abduction stories than you can shake a stick at. Another author, Whitley Strieber, wrote about his own perceived abduction experiences in the book "Communion" (1987), and that's the book that really caught the public eye because of the popularity of UFO topics in the 1980s.

Was God an astronaut? Did space aliens help build the pyramids? What's up with Easter Island anyway?

Another popular UFO mythology has to do with "ancient astronauts" and feeding the flames of that was this work of Erich von Daniken, "The Chariots of the Gods." (1968) Lots of questions and no answers. Even the book's title is a question. I gotta respect that. This series of books will really give you a lot of stuff to think about. Did man become so advanced in the future that he could go back in time and help early man? Were there really an Atlantis? Did man spring from Martian seed? Some stuff to discuss over the campfire. Far out. No... really!

Space aliens can't exist so they must be demons or angels (bad ones):

This article in the Conservative Voice, UFOs, Aliens, and Christianity, written by someone whose name is Babu, (cool name) is a commentary on former Apollo 14 astronaut, Dr. Edgar Mitchell, who claims that aliens exist and that NASA officials have had contact with them. It goes on to debunk the idea of alien species existing because because the evolution needed to be able to live "out there" would have been too lengthy and drastic to have happened. (The writer accepts evolution as only possible on the scale that makes one dog breed different from another). It goes on to say that even though God could have created these beings, it's much more likely that they are fallen angels or demons of Satan. It's a much more logical and believable explanation because it's in the Bible, which doesn't mention space aliens. [graphic is a t-shirt of mine]

Well we didn't even get going on the alien bodies from Roswell, Magestic 12, the Bermuda Triangle, cattle mutilations, Area 51, black helicopters, crop circles, the UFO in the Mona Lisa, all the admitted hoaxes created with pie plates and such, and my own UFO sighting which will have to wait for another post.

That's it for this installment of The Ministry of UFOs fireside chat. Here's my favorite alien hybrid, David Bowie, with Starman to play us out.


As for the Latin on the patch, it says "tastes like chicken." More about those patches here. Always remember and don't be fooled, "To Serve Man" is a cookbook.

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5 comments:

DivaJood said...

Oh, you done good! I am proud of ya!

Randal Graves said...

An X-Files fan? Diva, you sure can pick your cabinet! Well, off to go look for Scully. I mean, UFOs.

Ingrid said...

oive..I'm such a slacker (I'm her speechwriter, ehem)..the heat's been zapping me plus my two bickering kids..and did I mention husband dearest was at a silent retreat for the last 4 days?? pa! Sorry oh great candidate..we have some rain due courtesty of nature's hurricane edouard..it ought to put some spring in my brain...
ufo...oooh..love that!!

Ingrid

Blueberry said...

The rain will be nice, even though it may only cools things down to about 97.

Ingrid said...

'only 97'?? It'll be time to take out the long pants!! {g]
ok, slight exageration.. trust me..the few degrees difference will be felt by me at the neighbourhood pool..if it gets but a wee bit colder, I get goosebumply...
Ingrid