I’m leaning towards inter-dimensional or time-travelling explanations. 1. Interstellar visitors staying under wraps to all except a handful of humans (a few military personnel and the odd, [as in “rare”] lone night rambler in the North American countryside); 2. allowing themselves to be captured/crash whilst possessing the advanced tech necessary to get here - c’mon…; and 3. being non-violent, all seem less probable. Also nicely fits with the use of “not of this world” instead of “not of this solar system/galaxy/etc”. Or, of course, there’s always my favourite and latest go-to: the simulation is faltering or glitchy.
Next thing you know, you’ll start advocating against closing libraries and banning books. Seriously, you’re asking the same questions most intelligent and educated people have been asking all my life, and way before.
As someone who as a teenager had an encounter with an anomalous aerial object many decades ago, I kept quiet over the years. I told my now-late mother when I got home, but no one else. I knew then that being labeled as a loser freak would serve no one. I get it. The taboo around such scares people.
Since 2017 I started to follow the sparse coverage of UAPs. Any introspection occurred on podcasts because it still had a pall of crazy on the subject. Mainstream scientists were showing a more serious interest than the media.
I remained on the DL though I did share with my best friend. As grandmothers, stuff like this is still difficult to discuss. She has never seen anything so why should she believe?
Today the leading media outlets still struggle to give this sunshine. The news waxes and wanes 24×7 on Trump, Hunter Biden, Kevin McCarthy, and JZ. I can't watch or listen. Even my NPR spends 70% of its time focusing on American political idiots. So I watch BBC, France24 or DW.
My country swirls down the toilet while credible sources under oath share what ultimately will be the most important story for humanity at this time. I swear I wish the "others" would take me away. If they are watching I can only imagine what they think.
You aren't weird or crazy or a loon. The writer who wrote you is an idiot.
I don't mind sharing now. Three years ago I wrote Dr. Garry Nolan at Stanford University to get his feedback. He kindly wrote me back. We occasionally have had touchpoints through email over the three years. He asked if I would permit him to share with Dr. Vallee. I said only if you don't share my name. At that point, I still had issues with my name attached to my anecdotal story. It's just my story. No witnesses, so when I share with the reader or listener they should know. It will never be in government records since there will never be anyway to study or verify it.
Now, it doesn't matter if my name is mentioned. I, as with millions, am alone in my experience. It's my trauma alone. Is this space the place to share? I am willing to answer your questions once you read it.
It's late in London. My story has been written in detail and shared with only two organizations, MUFON and Enigma. There's no name with it and it's buried among millions of anecdotal stories. I have no clue how to even search for it. My story is common and yet not. It's difficult to write about because of the "yet not."
Before most here were ever born I was a 16-year-old living in a NE Georgia town called Gainesville. A typical teenage girl. Crazy about guys, rock and roll, cheerleading, and my friends. That was me. Boring. I struggled with self-confidence, making grades to get into a major university, and staying on the fringes of the in-crowd. I want to set the stage for the fact that I was not outstanding. Not special except to my parents and a few close friends. What I am about to share doesn't make me special. It made me question who I was, what life is, and why I happened to be unlucky that day.
I left high school late in the afternoon of April 4, 1968. Cheerleading practice was in full swing for tryouts so sweaty me got in my early 1969s Kharmin Ghia (you can laugh now) to head home. My family lived outside of the city, which meant a longer drive than most. Our home was on the major lake in the area, Lake Lanier.
At that time the Cleveland Highway was a two-lane blacktop road and was sparsely populated at the point of my sighting. A large rural church was on my left and a local rural elementary school was ahead of me on the right. I was driving ENE so the sun was low in the sky behind me since it was about 4 pm EST.
After I took a sharp bend in the road I was parallel with the church, I saw a brilliant reflective shine in the air of the treeline at the next sharp bend in the highway. I had no clue how anything could reflect such a high sheen. I slowed down because the glare came through my front window and of course, I wanted to figure out what give off that level of brightness from the sun behind me. There about 1/4 mile in front of me was an object suspended in the sky. There was sound (except my AM radio was on an Atlanta rock station), no seams, no windows, no rivets, no wavering, no movement of any description.
I checked my rearview mirror in the hope another car was behind me so I could convince myself I wasn't seeing this by myself. The sun also reflected in the mirror, so I couldn't see if anyone was behind me. I felt ill because I knew what I saw wasn't anything I knew about. The reflection off the polished seamless surface was white. The color of the object wasn't aluminum like American Airlines passenger jets at the time. It was almost white silver, unlike anything I have seen since.
At the second I began to think stupid thoughts like what is it, what can I do, and why is this whatever hanging there in the atmosphere, I believe my radio stopped. I say that because I couldn't hear it, but there was modulated perfect English thought that permeated my entire body. I get it. That makes no sense. One statement, "Martin Luther King will die today." Then I became aware of the music from the radio again. What? I reached over to the radio dial and started turning hoping to find a news station. I found only static. I never took my eyes off the disc at the end of the road. I couldn't. I believe I shouted out loud, "What the hell?" Then blip. It was gone. No sound. No means of propulsion. It disappeared.
How I got home is a blur, but I did. Once I parked the car in my driveway, I walked into the house through the carport door into our eating area. Mom stood in the kitchen. She took one look at me and asked, "Honey, what's wrong?" She said I was white as a bleached sheet. My response was to ask her a question, "Have you heard anything today on the TV or radio about Martin Luther King?" My mother's face registered "What?" She couldn't imagine me asking such a question. Why would I? Then I told her what happened.
After stuttering, stammering, and deep panicked breaths to tell her, I asked her if she believed me. What's a mother going to say? She chose to say she did because I was not good at lying or creating stories. Did she? Probably not, but she was concerned about my mental and emotional health. That I am sure of. The rest of the afternoon and early evening is a blank. I do vaguely recall going to my room and again scanning stations on the radio on top of my bureau.
That evening Dad and I watched TV. I never told him about it because he was a typical Southern white bigoted male. If I told him, he would have had something awful to say. I couldn't handle that. I knew I had to be a very sick person. Martin Luther King was alive at the time Dad and I started watching a show that I don't recall. I am not sure I could process anything at that point, but I had to act normal.
At about 8:15 (?) pm EST, a news bulletin interrupted the regular programming. Again I don't recall what news broadcaster it was (Cronkite, Huntley, Brinkley?), but whoever was there at a desk sadly broke the news that Dr. King had been shot at around 6:30 pm CST and was pronounced dead at 7 something... My heart went into my gut. I told Dad I didn't feel well and I was headed to bed. I gave no memory of the rest of the evening. I suppose my shock became worse and my brain shut down.
The next morning I remember picking up my books and walking into the kitchen where my mother stood. We made eye contact. She knew. I mumbled about getting to school. She nodded. We never discussed it. I didn't tell anyone for eight years and only then to the man I would marry in 1976.
Over the many decades, I spoke of it to two couples who were friends of my husband and me but I didn't mention the MLK piece. It was too ridiculous. Beyond the pale. When my children reached their teens, I told them. Eye rolls. Sure, Mom. My son accused me of smoking weed at the time. Nope. I let it go.
To say that I didn't suffer over these decades would be a lie. Every Easter I would recall that day because Easter seemed to always be around the corner. In 2008, two years before my mother died, I went home around Easter. At try that time I was divorced and lived and worked as a contractor in the DC area. Mom was in the kitchen of another house of many that followed in 1968, and I asked if she remembered that day so many years ago. She turned and said, "I could never forget it. Not ever." Funny, I just nodded. We never mentioned it again. I never told Dad or my sisters. I told no one.
In 2017 after the NYT article, I felt as though I was let out of prison. I had written MUFON in 2009 about my encounter, but it couldn't determine if there had been other sightings in Gainesville that day because it didn't start keeping records on encounters until after Project Bluebook ceased in 1969. They logged my story in a data bank.
Over the last six years, I have told as few people, but one must be careful. There's such stigmatization of us who claim to have seen anomalies. We are branded as kooks, nutjobs, daydreamers, UFO freaks, and in some cases a pariah. But I am old now. Retired. I don't have a reputation to maintain. All the years I worked as a contractor in federal buildings, and dealt with officials who had they known my story, I likely would not have gotten my job or been in close working conditions I often found myself. I know I worked with a few officials both civilian and military who know something about UAPs and NHI. Everybody pretends.
So, I am one of those people others can murmur about in hushed tones. My sanity can be questionable. There's no reason anyone should ever believe me. I get it. But I know. So when politicians snicker, astronauts lie, bad actors tell their fabricated tales, news media ignores I know. I can't speak for anyone else. I don't have to believe anyone else. I am not them. To believe I have myself.
I carried this for a very long time. I often cry knowing I was given knowledge of something that had not yet happened. I was a kid. Whatever was behind the operation of that disk that day at that time, it didn't know or care who was in the car. It had its reasons which for the life of me, I will never know. PTSD not only happens in battle or seeing horrible accidents or crimes. It scars the psyche. You can't undo it.
You asked, you have it. I didn't edit so it's full of grammatical mistakes, but it's my truth.
Wow. That's an incredible story. Thank you so much for taking the time to share that, Kay. (Separately, it's also very well-written.) What makes the story so unique, as I know you're aware, is the precognition element - especially about something so momentous. Like a lot of people interested in UFOs, I'm also fascinated with psy events. My own mother had one, none UFO related, which I've written about before but will share with you since you were so open with me (and other readers).
My mother had been sick and in declining health for years. Towards the end of her life, doctors found a new tumor. After years of treatment for cancer and other associated maladies, her body had had it. The doctors told her this new tumor was almost certainly cancerous and, if that was the case, there would be little they could do for her. They scheduled a biopsy for the following week but she was told to "get her affairs in order," a phrase I didn't think doctors actually used, but apparently they do.
She spent the weekend in a state of despair. The morning of the biopsy, she and her partner drove to the hospital. On the way, my mom heard a Voice. She'd never experienced anything like it before: the Voice was "male," and told her not to worry, that the tumor was benign. My mother immediately relayed the message to her partner, who obviously didn't believe her. But my mother believed and she said her anxiety went almost entirely away.
When the results of the biopsy came back, the tumor was, of course, benign. The doctors were shocked. Not my mom. A funny follow-up to that anecdote. I asked if she ever heard the Voice again. She said, "Yes. Once." I asked what it said. She said she couldn't remember. Couldn't remember? How do you hear the voice of... God? And not remember what It said? But she didn't. Or at least that's what she told me.
Anyway, thank you again for sharing your story. It's incredible.
That guy used to write for the Nashville Scene, which I dutifully lined my birdcages with when I lived in middle Tennessee. He apparently also teaches at NYU now. I could write an article about how his piece was nothing more than a desperate attempt to entwine his own name with those of a few true NYU legends.
Maybe I will.
The men that testified yesterday showed bravery that for the first time in my life made me feel a little bit of pride in this country, and I've been here now for almost 42 years.
This guy couldn't even muster enough bravery to assert definitively whether or not he thought you were joking. He wavered back and forth on that a couple of times as if to give himself an out in case he felt like he needed it. I'd probably want to leave myself an out too, if I were taking peanuts from Uproxx to talk shit about a living legend that went to the school that employs me.
I've seen a UFO. I've never seen an article on Uproxx worth a damn, though.
Also — I know that you intended to shine light on the stigma surrounding UFO research and not on this absolute tool. But it's early morning for me and I woke up to my own inbox full of absolute tools. I am so fucking tired of people picking at others who are just trying to be good people and mind their own business.
I don't fault anybody's skepticism, nor do I fault anybody's instinct to tease and make fun. I mean, I do that for a living. I'm interested in how skepticism and ridicule dissuade well-intentioned people from making headway in serious work.
That's a good point, and you're right. I am bitter about what this Uproxx guy said because I've been such a huge fan for so long, and it got to my emotions. But the larger issue is what is potentially being lost to society on countless fronts as a result of the ridicule.
Excellent point. For some it dissuades, but for others like me, and I’m not in the UFO bidness, it empowers me. Professionally. But to relate this to a prior column, the difference is nowadays the personal and family nature of doxxing and personal threats and even more scary, taking those threats to fruition, wasn’t happening to this extent pre-internet.
I’m not a comedian for a living, but I do the same things in my conversations with others that you do professionally, i.e. tease and make fun. In Texas, now some folks pull guns when you tease and make fun, say of Trump.
The internet gives a voice to many who would better benefit from mental health treatment, by a psychiatrist rather than a psychologist, because an MD can write scripts for needed anti-psychotics.
Back on point, I’m sure the threat of death, disappearance or career obliteration is a very significant deterrent in this particular case.
I’m also not a government conspiracy person for the most part. However, all one needs do is google the MKULTRA program to see what lengths the cia will go to in testing drugs on unsuspecting government employees and hiding the truth. Or the Tuskegee experiment.
Everything you said about evidence being subject to bias and poor reasoning is correct. Skepticism should be the baseline for a subject like this. Personally, I'm convinced that we're dealing with something concrete.
...oh, we do.
Is it the most fascinating mystery...
...on earth???
Anyone who is still mocking this subject is either not paying attention or being willfully ignorant.
I’m leaning towards inter-dimensional or time-travelling explanations. 1. Interstellar visitors staying under wraps to all except a handful of humans (a few military personnel and the odd, [as in “rare”] lone night rambler in the North American countryside); 2. allowing themselves to be captured/crash whilst possessing the advanced tech necessary to get here - c’mon…; and 3. being non-violent, all seem less probable. Also nicely fits with the use of “not of this world” instead of “not of this solar system/galaxy/etc”. Or, of course, there’s always my favourite and latest go-to: the simulation is faltering or glitchy.
PS. I would’ve stopped reading your column if you had joked about the ufo hearings. It’s serious stuff.
Next thing you know, you’ll start advocating against closing libraries and banning books. Seriously, you’re asking the same questions most intelligent and educated people have been asking all my life, and way before.
As someone who as a teenager had an encounter with an anomalous aerial object many decades ago, I kept quiet over the years. I told my now-late mother when I got home, but no one else. I knew then that being labeled as a loser freak would serve no one. I get it. The taboo around such scares people.
Since 2017 I started to follow the sparse coverage of UAPs. Any introspection occurred on podcasts because it still had a pall of crazy on the subject. Mainstream scientists were showing a more serious interest than the media.
I remained on the DL though I did share with my best friend. As grandmothers, stuff like this is still difficult to discuss. She has never seen anything so why should she believe?
Today the leading media outlets still struggle to give this sunshine. The news waxes and wanes 24×7 on Trump, Hunter Biden, Kevin McCarthy, and JZ. I can't watch or listen. Even my NPR spends 70% of its time focusing on American political idiots. So I watch BBC, France24 or DW.
My country swirls down the toilet while credible sources under oath share what ultimately will be the most important story for humanity at this time. I swear I wish the "others" would take me away. If they are watching I can only imagine what they think.
You aren't weird or crazy or a loon. The writer who wrote you is an idiot.
Hang in there.
Would love to know more about your experience, if you feel comfortable sharing.
I don't mind sharing now. Three years ago I wrote Dr. Garry Nolan at Stanford University to get his feedback. He kindly wrote me back. We occasionally have had touchpoints through email over the three years. He asked if I would permit him to share with Dr. Vallee. I said only if you don't share my name. At that point, I still had issues with my name attached to my anecdotal story. It's just my story. No witnesses, so when I share with the reader or listener they should know. It will never be in government records since there will never be anyway to study or verify it.
Now, it doesn't matter if my name is mentioned. I, as with millions, am alone in my experience. It's my trauma alone. Is this space the place to share? I am willing to answer your questions once you read it.
Of course - would love to read! How can I find the story?
It's late in London. My story has been written in detail and shared with only two organizations, MUFON and Enigma. There's no name with it and it's buried among millions of anecdotal stories. I have no clue how to even search for it. My story is common and yet not. It's difficult to write about because of the "yet not."
Before most here were ever born I was a 16-year-old living in a NE Georgia town called Gainesville. A typical teenage girl. Crazy about guys, rock and roll, cheerleading, and my friends. That was me. Boring. I struggled with self-confidence, making grades to get into a major university, and staying on the fringes of the in-crowd. I want to set the stage for the fact that I was not outstanding. Not special except to my parents and a few close friends. What I am about to share doesn't make me special. It made me question who I was, what life is, and why I happened to be unlucky that day.
I left high school late in the afternoon of April 4, 1968. Cheerleading practice was in full swing for tryouts so sweaty me got in my early 1969s Kharmin Ghia (you can laugh now) to head home. My family lived outside of the city, which meant a longer drive than most. Our home was on the major lake in the area, Lake Lanier.
At that time the Cleveland Highway was a two-lane blacktop road and was sparsely populated at the point of my sighting. A large rural church was on my left and a local rural elementary school was ahead of me on the right. I was driving ENE so the sun was low in the sky behind me since it was about 4 pm EST.
After I took a sharp bend in the road I was parallel with the church, I saw a brilliant reflective shine in the air of the treeline at the next sharp bend in the highway. I had no clue how anything could reflect such a high sheen. I slowed down because the glare came through my front window and of course, I wanted to figure out what give off that level of brightness from the sun behind me. There about 1/4 mile in front of me was an object suspended in the sky. There was sound (except my AM radio was on an Atlanta rock station), no seams, no windows, no rivets, no wavering, no movement of any description.
I checked my rearview mirror in the hope another car was behind me so I could convince myself I wasn't seeing this by myself. The sun also reflected in the mirror, so I couldn't see if anyone was behind me. I felt ill because I knew what I saw wasn't anything I knew about. The reflection off the polished seamless surface was white. The color of the object wasn't aluminum like American Airlines passenger jets at the time. It was almost white silver, unlike anything I have seen since.
At the second I began to think stupid thoughts like what is it, what can I do, and why is this whatever hanging there in the atmosphere, I believe my radio stopped. I say that because I couldn't hear it, but there was modulated perfect English thought that permeated my entire body. I get it. That makes no sense. One statement, "Martin Luther King will die today." Then I became aware of the music from the radio again. What? I reached over to the radio dial and started turning hoping to find a news station. I found only static. I never took my eyes off the disc at the end of the road. I couldn't. I believe I shouted out loud, "What the hell?" Then blip. It was gone. No sound. No means of propulsion. It disappeared.
How I got home is a blur, but I did. Once I parked the car in my driveway, I walked into the house through the carport door into our eating area. Mom stood in the kitchen. She took one look at me and asked, "Honey, what's wrong?" She said I was white as a bleached sheet. My response was to ask her a question, "Have you heard anything today on the TV or radio about Martin Luther King?" My mother's face registered "What?" She couldn't imagine me asking such a question. Why would I? Then I told her what happened.
After stuttering, stammering, and deep panicked breaths to tell her, I asked her if she believed me. What's a mother going to say? She chose to say she did because I was not good at lying or creating stories. Did she? Probably not, but she was concerned about my mental and emotional health. That I am sure of. The rest of the afternoon and early evening is a blank. I do vaguely recall going to my room and again scanning stations on the radio on top of my bureau.
That evening Dad and I watched TV. I never told him about it because he was a typical Southern white bigoted male. If I told him, he would have had something awful to say. I couldn't handle that. I knew I had to be a very sick person. Martin Luther King was alive at the time Dad and I started watching a show that I don't recall. I am not sure I could process anything at that point, but I had to act normal.
At about 8:15 (?) pm EST, a news bulletin interrupted the regular programming. Again I don't recall what news broadcaster it was (Cronkite, Huntley, Brinkley?), but whoever was there at a desk sadly broke the news that Dr. King had been shot at around 6:30 pm CST and was pronounced dead at 7 something... My heart went into my gut. I told Dad I didn't feel well and I was headed to bed. I gave no memory of the rest of the evening. I suppose my shock became worse and my brain shut down.
The next morning I remember picking up my books and walking into the kitchen where my mother stood. We made eye contact. She knew. I mumbled about getting to school. She nodded. We never discussed it. I didn't tell anyone for eight years and only then to the man I would marry in 1976.
Over the many decades, I spoke of it to two couples who were friends of my husband and me but I didn't mention the MLK piece. It was too ridiculous. Beyond the pale. When my children reached their teens, I told them. Eye rolls. Sure, Mom. My son accused me of smoking weed at the time. Nope. I let it go.
To say that I didn't suffer over these decades would be a lie. Every Easter I would recall that day because Easter seemed to always be around the corner. In 2008, two years before my mother died, I went home around Easter. At try that time I was divorced and lived and worked as a contractor in the DC area. Mom was in the kitchen of another house of many that followed in 1968, and I asked if she remembered that day so many years ago. She turned and said, "I could never forget it. Not ever." Funny, I just nodded. We never mentioned it again. I never told Dad or my sisters. I told no one.
In 2017 after the NYT article, I felt as though I was let out of prison. I had written MUFON in 2009 about my encounter, but it couldn't determine if there had been other sightings in Gainesville that day because it didn't start keeping records on encounters until after Project Bluebook ceased in 1969. They logged my story in a data bank.
Over the last six years, I have told as few people, but one must be careful. There's such stigmatization of us who claim to have seen anomalies. We are branded as kooks, nutjobs, daydreamers, UFO freaks, and in some cases a pariah. But I am old now. Retired. I don't have a reputation to maintain. All the years I worked as a contractor in federal buildings, and dealt with officials who had they known my story, I likely would not have gotten my job or been in close working conditions I often found myself. I know I worked with a few officials both civilian and military who know something about UAPs and NHI. Everybody pretends.
So, I am one of those people others can murmur about in hushed tones. My sanity can be questionable. There's no reason anyone should ever believe me. I get it. But I know. So when politicians snicker, astronauts lie, bad actors tell their fabricated tales, news media ignores I know. I can't speak for anyone else. I don't have to believe anyone else. I am not them. To believe I have myself.
I carried this for a very long time. I often cry knowing I was given knowledge of something that had not yet happened. I was a kid. Whatever was behind the operation of that disk that day at that time, it didn't know or care who was in the car. It had its reasons which for the life of me, I will never know. PTSD not only happens in battle or seeing horrible accidents or crimes. It scars the psyche. You can't undo it.
You asked, you have it. I didn't edit so it's full of grammatical mistakes, but it's my truth.
Wow. That's an incredible story. Thank you so much for taking the time to share that, Kay. (Separately, it's also very well-written.) What makes the story so unique, as I know you're aware, is the precognition element - especially about something so momentous. Like a lot of people interested in UFOs, I'm also fascinated with psy events. My own mother had one, none UFO related, which I've written about before but will share with you since you were so open with me (and other readers).
My mother had been sick and in declining health for years. Towards the end of her life, doctors found a new tumor. After years of treatment for cancer and other associated maladies, her body had had it. The doctors told her this new tumor was almost certainly cancerous and, if that was the case, there would be little they could do for her. They scheduled a biopsy for the following week but she was told to "get her affairs in order," a phrase I didn't think doctors actually used, but apparently they do.
She spent the weekend in a state of despair. The morning of the biopsy, she and her partner drove to the hospital. On the way, my mom heard a Voice. She'd never experienced anything like it before: the Voice was "male," and told her not to worry, that the tumor was benign. My mother immediately relayed the message to her partner, who obviously didn't believe her. But my mother believed and she said her anxiety went almost entirely away.
When the results of the biopsy came back, the tumor was, of course, benign. The doctors were shocked. Not my mom. A funny follow-up to that anecdote. I asked if she ever heard the Voice again. She said, "Yes. Once." I asked what it said. She said she couldn't remember. Couldn't remember? How do you hear the voice of... God? And not remember what It said? But she didn't. Or at least that's what she told me.
Anyway, thank you again for sharing your story. It's incredible.
Beautiful. Grateful your mother had this affirming experience. Stories are so random. Mine. Hers. Life is a mystery that makes no sense. Go to sleep.
That guy used to write for the Nashville Scene, which I dutifully lined my birdcages with when I lived in middle Tennessee. He apparently also teaches at NYU now. I could write an article about how his piece was nothing more than a desperate attempt to entwine his own name with those of a few true NYU legends.
Maybe I will.
The men that testified yesterday showed bravery that for the first time in my life made me feel a little bit of pride in this country, and I've been here now for almost 42 years.
This guy couldn't even muster enough bravery to assert definitively whether or not he thought you were joking. He wavered back and forth on that a couple of times as if to give himself an out in case he felt like he needed it. I'd probably want to leave myself an out too, if I were taking peanuts from Uproxx to talk shit about a living legend that went to the school that employs me.
I've seen a UFO. I've never seen an article on Uproxx worth a damn, though.
Also — I know that you intended to shine light on the stigma surrounding UFO research and not on this absolute tool. But it's early morning for me and I woke up to my own inbox full of absolute tools. I am so fucking tired of people picking at others who are just trying to be good people and mind their own business.
May the ETs probe him first.
Alison, we are so outnumbered by fools in this world. The key to me is detecting and avoiding, which is hard when you have an inbox. Ditto on Uproxx.
I don't fault anybody's skepticism, nor do I fault anybody's instinct to tease and make fun. I mean, I do that for a living. I'm interested in how skepticism and ridicule dissuade well-intentioned people from making headway in serious work.
That's a good point, and you're right. I am bitter about what this Uproxx guy said because I've been such a huge fan for so long, and it got to my emotions. But the larger issue is what is potentially being lost to society on countless fronts as a result of the ridicule.
Excellent point. For some it dissuades, but for others like me, and I’m not in the UFO bidness, it empowers me. Professionally. But to relate this to a prior column, the difference is nowadays the personal and family nature of doxxing and personal threats and even more scary, taking those threats to fruition, wasn’t happening to this extent pre-internet.
I’m not a comedian for a living, but I do the same things in my conversations with others that you do professionally, i.e. tease and make fun. In Texas, now some folks pull guns when you tease and make fun, say of Trump.
The internet gives a voice to many who would better benefit from mental health treatment, by a psychiatrist rather than a psychologist, because an MD can write scripts for needed anti-psychotics.
Back on point, I’m sure the threat of death, disappearance or career obliteration is a very significant deterrent in this particular case.
I’m also not a government conspiracy person for the most part. However, all one needs do is google the MKULTRA program to see what lengths the cia will go to in testing drugs on unsuspecting government employees and hiding the truth. Or the Tuskegee experiment.
Everything you said about evidence being subject to bias and poor reasoning is correct. Skepticism should be the baseline for a subject like this. Personally, I'm convinced that we're dealing with something concrete.