Legacy

All my life I’ve had a strange fascination with unidentified flying objects and the possibility of aliens. I guess any interest in them could be considered strange. Steven Hawking, world-renowned physicist, discounts reports of UFOs saying, “We don’t appear to have been visited by aliens. Why would they only appear to cranks and weirdos?”

My intrigue surged a few years ago. I was showing my uncle some pictures when he blindsided me with a simple question: “What difference does it make?”

I didn’t have an answer. This bewilderment typifies the empty-handed search for proof of the origin and even existence of UFOs. After a couple of years, I still don’t know, but I can finally respond to him. The representation of extraterrestrial objects throughout history, in any medium, makes an argument about their potential culture and in doing so puts ours in its place, regardless of whether or not you’re a believer. And so, the relative nature of our planet and the life it contains can teach us a great deal.

Aboriginal lore talked of “Sky Beings,” and while it’s debatable that they were observing UFOs, it’s worth noting that aberrations in the sky have long been documented by man.

These curiosities are illustrated in cave drawings and hieroglyphics throughout history. Otherwise normal landscapes of man and beast are marked with anomalous figures, completely out of context with the rest of the pictures. Much has changed since they were fresh works of art, but such figures remain no more consistent with our currently constructed reality.

The only modern day pictures of “UFOs” are often inopportunely filmed. They’re out of focus, smeared all over the frame or appearing as just a blip. With today’s technology, why does the best available device always seem to be a low grade cell phone camera?

The ethereal candor of UFOs in so many instances is what makes people question their existence. Say just one of these thousands of images in circulation is authentic. Is it not fitting these airships would be just evasive enough to elude such a relatively primitive mode of photography? Would it make sense that after eons of ambiguity, they are suddenly so readily able to be observed?

For many, seeing is believing. But if you haven’t seen one, how do you know what it’s not? How would you know what to look for? In this case, the real paradox seems to be the pragmatics of continually identifying something as “unidentified.” When does it become something more? Our refusal to consider a transition is a digression of man’s lexicon.

Billions of dollars in brainpower and technology have gazed deep into the universe. What have we learned? Earth is unique. It’s been described as one of the galaxy’s finest, ripest zoological gardens. This analogy casts us as only animals, but do we have the humility to accept that label? If not, we’ve reached a point of complacency wherein we think we’re exempt from our own definitions. And so, the cosmic zookeepers remain hung in the skies, passively waiting, while we turn the other cheek and swim about our fishbowl.

Religions are based on written and oral testimony of seemingly supernatural events, resting solely on the credibility of their authors. Sound familiar? I would argue in this regard, memes of any spiritual dogma can be similar to those of UFOlogical nature. Curiously, the two are not always mutually exclusive, sometimes blatantly overlapping. The following are just a few of the many Christian artworks to contain UFO types: “The Madonna with Saint Giovannino,” 15th Century; “The Baptism of Christ,” painted in 1710; “Annales Laurissenses,” 12th century manuscript.

Like the atheist who bases his godless convictions against only the religious theodicies he rejects, why should a man limit his understanding of UFOs to earthly constructs? We still use rocket fuel to plod through our solar system. There has to be a better way.

Wired magazine’s Jonah Lehrer brilliantly makes this sentiment: “The fundamental point is that modern science has made little progress toward any unified understanding of everything. Our unknowns have not dramatically receded. It’s not that we don’t have all the answers. It’s that we don’t even know the question. Together, physics and neuroscience seek to solve the most ancient and epic of unknowns: What is everything? And who are we?”

Until we give serious thought to the implications of UFO presence throughout history, providing ourselves a celestial point of reference, we might be grasping at straws to answer those questions.

Truth be told, UFOs have been depicted imperfectly. We can’t get a clear shot, and their sandy presence narrowly slips through our fingers as we struggle to place them within the scope of our intellect. If they wanted us gone, we’d have been gone long ago. Instead, they observe us like we might an ant farm. Only we’re not ants. We realize our own existence. We can achieve the abstract.

This planet is the greatest gift we’ve inherited. Like toddlers, we’ve hardly begun to walk, and we’re running out of reasons not to. That’s why this is important. It’s much more than an image or belief. It’s a philosophy. Man needs a reason to unite — that is, take the first leap of faith to acknowledge every life in the universe as part of the same cosmic tapestry.

In his last interview, Robert Dean, retired USAF Sergeant Major, left us with this:

“None of this is an accident. The human species — the human race — in spite of its orneriness, is a beautiful race. And it has a future. I have a deep, deep belief that in time, we’re going to go out there and take our rightful place. Where we began, our home in the stars …”