UFO's Are Real (But Not Quite Physical)

UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds

So man, who here seems principal alone,

Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown.

Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal,

‘Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

—Alexander Pope

Anomalous sightings of various strange phenomena have been reported from time immemorial. Some of them fly, some float, some walk. Some have a recognizable form, but many seem abstract, fleeting, and hard to pin down. We all know the legends that were built up around them—BigFoot and the Monster from Loch Ness are good examples. Since all that defies categorization and repeatable observation in our material age is considered superstitious nonsense, most of us tend to scoff at these stories. 

Nonetheless, the steady stream of UFO sightings over centuries seems to have been given a boost by some insider whistle-blowers within the US government. What might they know, and will we ever be given clear proof? 

Just a few years back, Ivan Vagner, a Russian Cosmonaut on the ISS, filmed what appeared to be five spherical objects in a tight line formation. He called them “space guests,” but what are they? An optical illusion? Meteors? Camera artifacts? Or maybe something else entirely. 

Passport to Magonia

If you’ve seen Stephen Spielberg’s classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you may recall a French UFO researcher named Claude Lacombe. His character was inspired by a real UFO investigator named Jacques Vallee. Dr. Vallee published a controversial book back in 1969 called Passport to Magonia: On UFOs, Folklore, and Parallel Worlds. Based on over 900 credible cases of unexplained “landings” over the course of one century, Vallee concluded that UFO sightings are simply one variant of a much broader phenomenon—one that includes strange creatures, apparitions, conscious lights, and so on. As he explains:

If we take a wide sample of this historical material, we find that it is organized around one central theme: visitation by an aerial people from one or more remote, legendary countries. The names and attributes vary, but the main idea clearly does not. Magonia, heaven, hell, Elfland—all such places have in common one characteristic: we are unable to reach them alive, except—as we shall see—on very special occasions. Emissaries from these supernatural abodes come to earth, sometimes under human form and sometimes as monsters. They perform wonders. They serve man or fight him. 

At the climax of Close Encounters, after a wild symphonic exchange between humans and the alien craft, the now familiar little green aliens with big black eyes emerge. They conduct a brief communication in a kind of sign language and return to the mothership. The weird thing is that descriptions of encounters like these are not new. For instance, during Japan’s “Jomon Era” (3000 BCE) odd statues were carved with something resembling sunglasses on the figures. One of them, excavated from ruins at Amadaki “show details of “huge eyes with an insect-like horizontal slit.” 

Image: Alien from Close Encounters, Pinterest.com

Each culture has a different term for these beings. The Irish called them Leprechauns, multiple European countries called them Fairies, Islamic cultures called them Djinns and we moderns call them Aliens. Strangely, they are often reported as appearing in psychedelic experiences. Are these actual, physical beings, or is it conceivable that they are inhabitants of entirely different dimensions and that the way they appear to us is at least somewhat colored by cultural biases and a basic lack of context as to what is being seen. 

Saucer Full of Secrets

In 1878 a Texas farmer described a dark object flying through the sky as a “large saucer.” Ancient Japanese records from 1180 describe a luminous “earthenware vessel.” Other objects of unusual brilliance have been chronicled that resembled a full moon, a drum, or a red wheel. Oddly (considering the ISS report from above), in 1458 five stars appeared, circling the moon. They changed color three times and vanished suddenly. In 1577 in Tubingen Germany, it was reported that:

About the sun many dark clouds appeared, such as we are wont to see during great storms: and soon afterward have come from the sun other clouds, all fiery are bloody, and others, yellow as saffron. Out of these clouds have come forth reverberations resembling large, tall and wide hats…which appeared in various colors such as red, blue, green, and most of them black.

Compare this with the Sinaitic Revelation:

On the third day, as morning dawned, there was thunder, and lightning, and a dense cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud blast of the horn; and all the people who were in the camp trembled. Moses led the people out of the camp toward God, and they took their places at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke, for God had come down upon it in fire; the smoke rose like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled violently.

Or Ezikiel’s description of the Cherubim:

Their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures, and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning…Wherever the spirit impelled them to go, they went—wherever the spirit impelled them—and the wheels were borne alongside them; for the spirit of the creatures was in the wheels.

Sphere of Influence

Dr. Paul Marshall wrote an entire book on the connection between spirituality and sphericity called “The Shape of the Soul.” In it, he comprehensively details the copious examples of the shape of a circle with countless mystical depictions. It’s fascinating. In discussing the UFO phenomenon, he suggests that there is a correlation between sightings and states of consciousness, implying that a certain shift has to occur before becoming privy to the vision.

Quoting Dr. Jeffrey Kripal of Rice University he explains that:

While many UFO sightings have an objective “out there” feel and may indeed have involved meteorological phenomena or actual flying craft (if not extraterrestrial in origin), others look very much as if they depended on a shift of consciousness on the part of the observer, exhibiting characteristics reminiscent of altered states, including special lights and changes to time perception.

All of this could tidily explain both why UFO sightings, abductions, and alien encounters have been so frequent and consistent over time as well as why they are ultimately so elusive. It would appear that they are indeed real but not in the temporal sense that we are most familiar with. What we may be seeing is our own interpretation of what it looks like to encounter a spiritual (or quasi-spiritual) entity when it interfaces with our plane of existence. 

For a very detailed explanation of this idea please see this video by philosopher Bernardo Kastrup. (48:00-1:03)