Alienation

This, I'm afraid, is what many people think of when they hear the word "extraterrestrial." Thank you Hollywood, Philip Klass, Gary Tuchman and all corporate media drones. — This, I’m afraid, is what many people think of when they hear the word “extraterrestrial.” Thank you Hollywood, Philip Klass, Gary Tuchman and all corporate media drones.

Been thinking lately about the much-debated ET hypothesis (ETH) and remembering how I came to be so invested in the debate. My first exposure to what I’d call serious ufology, albeit the questionable fringe of it, occurred in the mid-90’s when I read Whitley Strieber’s Communion.

A decade later, I flew to NY to attend two Intruders Foundation seminars, one in October of 2004 and another in May of 2005. Socializing at these events with the likes of Budd Hopkins, Leslie Kean, Stanton Friedman and Bruce Maccabee humanized the phenomenon for this casual bystander, as did discussing abduction stories with Linda Cortille on Hopkin’s rooftop terrace in Soho after the 2004 seminar.

I became convinced of the sincerity of the researchers and, a year later, listening to the very sober eye-witness accounts offered by members of the pilots’ panel at the 2005 X-Conference, I became more convinced than not of the the reality of the phenomenon itself. Discerning spurious information has been a challenge all along the way, but my natural cynicism serves me well. Or maybe not.

While I no longer believe in one god, the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, neither do I discount stories about little green men. Bless me, father, for I have sinned.