Ancient alien fictions.
The New York Times Sunday Styles section is usually an escape from hard news, the place we go to read stinging etiquette advice or learn about celebrities-turned-lifestyle-entrepreneurs.
The section’s Sunday cover story, though, was disturbing enough to qualify as hard news. As in hard-to-take. The story “E.T., We’re Here,” is about the television show “Ancient Aliens,” its fans, and a giant convention they attended in Pasadena, which may all sound harmless enough. It’s a nice piece of reporting, written in that breezy, sardonic tone that goes well with eggs and coffee. Look at this subculture! It has wacky stars! And grown-ups in costume!
But here’s the thing: It’s not entertaining when a celebrity or a hit show discredits science and pushes lies and speculation as fact. A public lack of trust in science leads directly to disease outbreaks, misplaced fear of life-saving technology, and humans’ inability (thus far) to stop man-made global warming. Gwyneth Paltrow peddling pseudo-science may seem hilarious. But it is very unfunny every time she convinces someone that “they”—doctors, scientists, rational people—are withholding the true secrets of healing out of stupidity or malevolence. AlienCon may look like a lark, but it is unfunny testimony to the disintegration of public trust in science.
I was alarmed to learn that:
-Ten thousand people paid to attend AlienCon, the Pasadena convention for people who “believe that aliens visited Earth before recorded history.”
-“Ancient Aliens” airs on the “History” Channel, where it is billed as a “documentary series.”
-This “documentary series” on the “History” Channel devoted a whole episode to how alien technology may have helped Hitler.
-The show, which is about to enter its 13thseason, was originally conceived of as a marketing tool for the entirely fictional 2008 film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Yet no one interviewed in the story seems to think “AlienCon” is short for “we made up some aliens to con you out of your money.”
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Dear Elizabeth, not everything is as it seems or as we have been told it is.
In the coming months and years there will be many many more hard pills to swallow. Red pills.
The most basic red pill I will leave you with is this: NASA is currently a PR firm, not a space program. This is why they cut the feeds (their live space cameras) almost every time something interesting and unexplained shows up.
Most of the actual space programs are either privately owned, or owned by the military.
I probably won't be able to open your eyes, but hopefully I can move discourse in a positive direction.
In the earliest days of science, observation counted for something. Now a days, the scientific method (experimentation) and by extension reproducibility of experiments has become the dominant lens through which science is viewed.
Sadly as humans, psychologically, its easier to disbelief hundreds of thousands of observations, if the implications of those observations do not fit with our belief system.
If I were to treat photographic evidence of an apple with the same attitude as people scrutinize UFO or alien sightings it would look something like this:
"I have a picture of a real life apple."
"Do you really? I don't believe it. Show me!"
"Okay, here it is."
"That looks photoshopped. And why is it low-res?"
"Well I am not a photographer, I just saw something interesting and took a pic on my phone. I don't own photoshop because that is expensive and I don't know how to use it either."
"It still looks fake. I mean aren't apples supposed to be Red? This one is totally green, there's no way its a real apple. And just because you say you saw the apple doesn't prove the apple is real. "
If you offer someone a photo they claim it is fake or too low res to mean anything. If you over them an HD photo they will still claim its fake and get super nitpicky. The often also say 1 picture doesn't prove anything. If you offer a video, they will claim it's CGI.
Sadly though, I find it harder to believe that a common person can afford to create realistic CGI. If you have seen a movie with a lot of CGI and watched the credits, there are TONS of people involved. Usually 3-7 different CGI firms each with several different roles and departments. Literally hundreds of people are involved.
Ultimately if you don't want to believe you will find a way to disqualify any piece of evidence that you do not like.
Stuart Chase nailed the dynamic in his quote:
“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.”
Though the clearest and by far the largest UFO pictures have been taken by Billy Meier in Switzerland. All of those photos were taken before personal computers were even a thing.
The other problem is the echo chamber effect of the internet. It's kind of like light. If we try observe it as a wave, we will find evidence of a it as a wave. If we try to observe it as a particle, we find evidence of it as a particle. If you search for evidence that aliens are fake, you will find it. If you search for evidence aliens are real, you will find it. We may find ourselves in Schrodinger's reality (a quantum reality). If we really are in a quantum reality, then ask yourself what reality sounds more interesting? Which reality do you want to live in?
Believing that we may have been visited by advanced civilizations before recorded history isn’t really that far fetched. You do know how vast our universe is, right? Do you really believe that we’re the only “special” planet in the entire universe? You are aware that enough time has elapsed for our species to be thousands, if not millions of years behind another potential intelligent species in terms of technological advancements?
I just got my ticket for Aliencon 2023 and I’m super excited. This will be my first time attending.
for the sake of argument, I’m gonna “Isaac Asimov “there are two possibilities in the universe either we are alone or we are not, and both possibilities are equally terrifying”