Showing posts with label aliens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aliens. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Close Encounters of Every Kind



I was recently interviewed about a subject that's quite a favorite of mine because it's so hard to come to conclusions about. It's a topic that requires and open mind, but one that won't be easily filled up with garbage...

UFOs.

This article on the How Stuff Works website (and you can listen to its podcast version as well) details the complex classification system of alleged UFO encounters, everything from strange lights in the sky to encounters with otherworldly beings and all the way to purported human/alien hybrids walking among us. The classification system was originally devised by the legendary astronomer J. Allen Hynek, and it would eventually provide the title for Steven Spielberg's iconic science fiction film, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Hynek's system only had three kinds of close encounters. As the article details, at least seven more have been added, including complex subheadings of encounters.

But Hynek's involvement in UFOs I find very intriguing since the eminent astronomer who had originally worked for the Air Force's research projects into the phenomenon was originally a skeptic. He changed his mind while working on the infamous Project Blue Book.

I'm quite open minded about the topic of UFOs myself, but I guess I would consider myself an open-minded skeptic. The recent Pentagon report on UFOs (or UAVs as they like to call it), I thought, made an intriguing case for the consideration of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. There is something flying around in the skies, physical objects of some kind, aircraft that could not have been built by any known technology on Earth today. So where does that leave us about this issue...?

I don't know.

I kind of like the Sherlock Holmes approach to UFOs: once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, has to be the answer. So far the Pentagon report made a pretty good case for the elimination on Earthly technology behind the phenomenon.

So does that leave aliens?

I don't know. 

So my mind is open about the issue, but just as long as we don't get into the territory of absurdly complicated government conspiracies about back-engineered UFOs, demonic UFOnauts, and U.S. presidents having made deals with aliens in abduction/technology-exchange deals.

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

“Debris” is a fairly intriguing sci fi thriller



So here's a change of pace and a recommendation of a pretty good new science fiction/mystery series that just debuted on NBC.

In the vein of the X-Files, the story involves CIA agents Bryan Beneventi and MI6 agent Finola Jones working together to track down various pieces of debris that had rained down upon the Earth from a wrecked, derelict alien space ship. The bits of debris are scattered all over the world—thus the multinational effort sending agents around the globe to track down the pieces—and each of these bits of alien scrap metal appears to have a variety of paranormal effects on people that come in contact with it.

I always liked these kinds of ongoing supernatural/sci-fi/thriller shows built around an ongoing mythology and a vast, complex mystery that will take several seasons to unravel. The X-Files used to be this combination of the continuous mythology mixed in with the occasional standalone episode, or, as the X-Files used to call it, the “monster of the week” episode. Then, when Lost came along to zeitgeist-defining, smash hit ratings in 2004, the series eschewed any stand-alone episodes in order to focus its storyline on the labyrinthine mystery behind the true nature of a mysterious island in the Pacific. I enjoy this sort of a format—kind of like a soap-operaesque storytelling style adapted to a science fiction show—because they respect the attention span of their audiences and they always give me that feeling of rewarding the loyal and attentive fans who are willing to stick around and enjoy the slow-burn of a complicated mystery that will take a long time to completely unravel. Upon Lost’s success, a number of other shows jumped on this same stylistic bandwagon, but, unfortunately, most TV viewers did not have the patience to stick around for several years to see where all these other complicated mysteries were bound to go.

So this time Debris is taking a shot at the mythology-building story format and I’m intrigued by where the story could go. Although one slight flaw I’m finding in the first episode is that it doesn’t reflect at all on what the confirmation of the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life does to the psyche of the rest of the world. Unlike other investigation-of-the-uncanny shows, in Debris the entire world knows about the fact that the strange metal that came from the skies is from an alien spacecraft. So it would be interesting to see the show examine how this sudden knowledge alien life impacts the psychology and the sociology or the rest of the world. What would undeniable proof like this do to belief systems, to religious systems? How would the mere knowledge of life beyond the stars effect people’s everyday outlook on life? Hopefully the show will deal with these questions at one point. 

I’m also somewhat intrigued to see that our heroes are government agents who are not butting heads with any kind of a deep mysterious conspiracy. Or at least not yet and not too obviously. There are a few hints that Bryan and Finola are not entire straight with each other about what each other’s government knows about and wants to do with the debris. And then the episode’s final scene also hints that Bryan might also not be aware of a deeper and darker agenda in the U.S. government. But at least so far the creaky old conspiracy tropes have not been pulled out of the mothballs and reused yet again, just as they have been used in decades’ worth of movies and TV shows. 

In the age of QAnon and Alex Jones, it would really be nice to leave the heroic conspiracy theorists back in the mothballs where they belong.



Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Looking at conspiracy cinema

This may be a belated start to a new year of blogging, but I am just able to put a new link in to the amazon.com page for my forthcoming book, CONSPIRACY FILMS.

Due this June 30th from McFarland publishers, the book will be one of the most comprehensive histories of conspiracy theory films ever written. Tracing a decade-by-decade chronicle of some of the most pervasive conspiracy theories in modern American culture, the book will then look at the films they helped inspire.

From JFK to Roswell, alien abductions, men in black, secret societies like the Masons and the Illuminati, I document our culture's most colorful fears and the movies they turn up in.