No true believer in UFOs as ET vehicles, inter-dimensional travelers, or psychic projections by higher beings, is ever going to be converted from the tenets of these theories by any exposé. No one gives up their religion easily. And modern UFOlogy is a religion. It’s a religion without liturgy. In this it is akin to the religion of the ancient Greeks— a mythology of epic tales and divine encounters for inspiration and moral stories for instruction in daily life.

     Of Greek mythology, Edith Hamilton wrote: “ . . .the real interest of the myths is that they lead us back to a time when the world was young and people had a connection with the earth, with trees and seas and flowers and hills, unlike anything we ourselves can feel. When the stories were being shaped, we are given to understand, little distinction had as yet been made between the real and the unreal, so that anyone in the woods might see through the trees a fleeting nymph, or bending over a clear pool to drink, behold in the depths a naiad’s face. . .The prospect of traveling back to this delightful state of things is held out by nearly every writer who touches upon classical mythology, above all the poets. In that infinite and remote time primitive man could have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.”

     The same can be said of modern UFOolgy. It provides us with the same primitive chance to hap upon a moment that frees us from our humdrum and rather blasé routines. In the remote deserts or high mountains or far flung seas, but most often treading into accessible rural night, an exciting moment is potentially to be had; we John Smith to become the recipient of a higher message, to scintillate with the thrill of brushing with life forms from another world; thrust from unimportance to feeling the privilege of having had a visitation from beings whose origins are as mythic as those of the ancient gods. Just the chance to feel the smooth drone of a silhouette overhead, then looking up to behold it turn into a speeding light and blend with the stars— this is as important as walking through the looking glass or gazing through the open wardrobe to behold a fairy tale land.

     The prospects of stumbling upon one of the gods on an otherwise boring journey to another village must have delighted the ancient Greeks. It’s a feeling that excited the otherwise mundane journey. So too today modern UFOlogy would have us to believe an average person can come across an otherworldly glow at night, gaze slack jaw as is passes overhead, and perhaps even find oneself teleported up in a divine beam to behold the infinite.

     No one is going to give up this potential. Surely, the Greeks never truly did. Turning to Christ, they could still entertain angels unaware or encounter and battle it out with demons. No one having tasted the sweet fruit of the potential of alien contact will ever give up the belief that aliens have visited us and may secretly live among us, some with a wonderful humanistic vision for us and others with wicked intent and impish desires.

     And it is for the UFOlogist to put it all into perspective just as it was for the ancient poets to give us the stories of the gods. The ancient Greeks did not value priests. They valued the interpreter and creator of stories of higher concepts and ideals. The gods spoke through the poets, and their plays were akin to our biblical prophecies and epistles. When a priest and a poet ran to Odysseus, begging that he spare their lives, “the hero kills the priest without a thought, but saves the poet,” writes Hamilton. “Homer says he felt awe to slay a man who had been taught his divine art by the gods. Not the priest, but the poet, had influence with heaven . . .”

     In like manner, the interpreter of flying saucer reports and other unexplained phenomena related to UFOs is venerated today. They are interlocutor. They are masters of this complex art. They explain for us otherwise ambiguous signs, each time reaffirming the nearness of these vast other worlds to us and the potential they hold to include us all either as heroes in a fight to expose the wicked aliens or as witnesses of the higher side and its emissaries.

     UFOlogy is, like the bulk of the Greek myths, a religion of rural haunts, long treks, and remote lands. By proving aliens are abducting people or mutilating cattle, they the UFOlogist become the messenger, having proved aliens are among us and with this they become the intercessor and guide in what we should do.

     It is not my intent to destroy the modern UFO experience, but to see what actual validity there is behind it. Behind every myth there is a kernel of truth, but few if any have sought this seriously because the myth is a seducing plant with its syrupy venom, enticing to the senses, sweet to the taste, but rotting in the stomach. Also, the subject is not always in the hands of gentle poets, but sometimes snake oil peddlers and vicious and judgmental humbugs, each in their way trying to profit or get their perks of self importance by being “experts” in a popular topic. Together they are a formidable impediment to those who want to dispassionately consider the evidence.

     UFO reports, even descriptions of flying saucers, were made before the advent of secret black ops and skunk works inventions. They aren’t as ancient as we are led to believe, but some very concise reports of oval discs flitting through the atmosphere were made in the early 20th century long before we could have been capable, as a collective human science, of their engineering. But after World War II come flaps and fads and mixed with the old reports of silver discs there is something remarkably human afoot . . .and it is now provable.

     If you read these pages carefully, as they unfold, the kernel of truth will become evident, and so will the tasty herbage of lies and its bright kaleidoscopic flowers that have pollinated and created a garden of intriguing and at times very pleasing modern mythology. It is not the mythology of careful fore-thinking Prometheus, but that of his scatterbrained brother Epimetheus (afterthought) who acted before he gave consideration, and the result was always chaos.

     Let us attempt here to bring a little order.

Gian J. Quasar

August 10, 2020.