Do You Believe in Aliens?

I was abducted by aliens. Not literally. Literally, no one has been abducted by aliens. At least, no one I know. Not counting my brother, Marty, who has also described in detail vast hierarchies of angelic beings occupying higher dimensions. (These beings, though, have never abducted him so far as I can tell, although he did miss a couple of family reunions.)

I was abducted a few years ago when I decided to chase people like David Wilcock, Corey Goode, and Michael Salla down the rabbit hole. It was a wild ride, cruising through a number of secret space programs operated jealously and separately by the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, the military-industrial complex, and other groups allied to both malicious and beneficent extraterrestrial species, and ending recently in Antarctica. Stop me if you’ve heard all this before.

As I hope you’ve guessed, for me it was a figurative abduction, motivated completely by curiosity and a certain intellectual ennui. In fact, I was looking for adventure and ruled out more risky endeavors, such as having an affair or hiring out to Blackwater. Unfortunately, the only alien I discovered from this foray was the well-known Cyberspace Time-Sucker. I did, however, elude the more expensive journeys to live events and conferences, a beast that consumed many gullible explorers who perhaps found solace in some lovely scenery at resort areas around the country or the world.

Mulder and Scully: And those FBI agents who don’t want to believe always seem to end up as grisly corpses, often having the consistency of oatmeal.

As obsessions go, it was way more interesting than Ozzie Osbourne’s obsession with cereal, for example. But, when I finally broke free, I was left staring at the Fermi paradox. As its originator, physicist Enrico Fermi, once said, if indeed there are aliens, “Where is everybody?”

Although I’m not a scientist, I do share a characteristic with most scientists: that is, a buttoned-down insistence on evidence, as one might seek who establishes the likelihood of a soft landing before leaping off a cliff. The Fermi paradox is based on conflicts between the scale of the universe, the significant probability that intelligent life has evolved elsewhere, and the total lack of evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence.

There are plenty of explanations as to why humankind hasn’t been seen publicly shaking hands with nonhumankind (see Fermi paradox link, above). At least two of those explanations may encourage others like me who hope there is someone or something out there who not only won’t squash us like bugs but who might save us from ourselves or from an unseen asteroid hurtling our way or from any of many possible developments that could spell the end of our species prior to my paying off the mortgage: (1) They are here undetected; or (2) They are here unacknowledged.

So while I haven’t literally been abducted by aliens, I’m quite sure aliens exist. And indeed, there is a nonzero probability that aliens are here and we don’t know about them, or that they are here and have yet to form a viable third party.

Beyond simply being more interesting than the Ozzie Osbourne obsession, the people populating the aliens-among-us group — the aforementioned David Wilcock, Corey Goode, Michael Salla, etc. — combine to paint a truly compelling picture, replete with internal consistencies and an almost poetic spirituality. They lead a larger community than most ordinary people realize. They have squabbles and intrigues like every community. And they have a dangerously superficial understanding of many scientific fields, especially quantum physics.

So, like Fox Mulder of The X-Files, I want to believe. Which isn’t easy when there are rational people around making podcasts like this one from Skeptic Magazine, featuring Don Prothero and Timothy Callahan, authors of the book UFOs, Chemtrails, and Aliens: What Science Says. Those guys would ruin Bigfoot if they thought they could get away with it.

Maybe I have a little PTSD remaining from my figurative abduction. On days when I develop a tic from too much rational thinking, it helps to listen to this former United Airlines pilot, who encountered a UFO at 37,000 feet on a flight path between Albany and Boston. A more sober, believable witness cannot be found.

Unlike my brother, Marty. Literally.

Originally published at kcroes.wordpress.com on December 13, 2017.