The UFOs: myth versus truth

Are we alone in the universe? Are there intelligent beings like us in the wide cosmos, and if so, do they visit us frequently? What is the existing evidence regarding UFOs, those mysterious flying objects that appear in the sky and cause stirring public debates, from societal to political and philosophical?

By: Uri Aviv 
 
Fire, lightning and religion, mythology, dragons and UFOs Since time immemorial man has looked up to the dark night sky and wondered about his place in the infinitely large cosmos. Man saw different phenomena on the earth itself, and interpreted them in different ways. The various phenomena intrigued him, as he realized that they are extremely interesting, can be very dangerous and have a decisive effect on his life (the fire, the lightning and the storm, etc...). For this reason he feared them, revered them and finally worshiped them.
This was the beginning of religion, and with the development of modern man's culture, the various religions appeared like mushrooms after the rain. At first man believed in a pantheon of various omnipotent gods, each with the ability to influence and direct the nature around man (by using fire, lightning, storms, etc...).
This world view explained the solution to all the inexplicable phenomena, clearly clarified the position of man in his world and infused meaning into his life and his world. Then, with the development of culture, the accepted approach adapted itself to a monotheistic religious concept, when the unexplained phenomena became the messengers of God and his signs. Alongside that religion arose a diverse mythology of dozens and hundreds of creatures (dragons, fairies, trolls and so on) which once again gave a convincing explanation for all the inexplicable phenomena in our world.
With the realization of the process of secularization in the 19th-20th century and the "murder of God"
By modern man, his life has been emptied of meaning and his place in the world has become unclear. Now, in modern man's efforts to search for meaning and find his place in the universe, before he is lost in the terrible fatness of cosmic loneliness, he turned to a new force that came up alongside the process of secularization and gave a "logical" answer to religion? Science and technology.
In order to provide an explanation for all the things he did not understand in his world and were a mystery, he turned to science and technology, and the messengers of God and the dragons of the past became UFOs today.

A new religion

The UFOs? A sociological phenomenon first and foremost (before the discussion of whether they are real or not), and extremely interesting, they are on the verge of becoming a new religion at the end of the 20th century. This is a myth, a modern mythology, and since its birth about 50 years ago, it has gained momentum and is now unstoppable . She created a professional jargon for herself (Roswell; Area ;-51 "Aurora"; "Blue Berets" unit; Aquarius, MJ-12 and more and more...) and amassed a large audience of believers, to the extent that it would not embarrass any religion at the beginning of its journey.
However, is there any truth in the UFO myth, solid facts that underlie the blind belief in "unidentified objects" carrying a message from the sky? In order to find out, we will first turn to the modern tool for sampling the essence of reality? The science…
And science, known precisely for its conservatism among the general public, provides completely non-conformist answers, and some would say really exciting.

The science…
There is almost no debate among the scientific community? The possibility of intelligent life outside the universe is enormous, so much so that to say that we are the only ones in the cosmos is a completely absurd statement. According to the Drake formula developed in the 60's which calculates the chances of the formation of intelligent life in our galaxy only, it was found that the chances are good to very good for the presence of 1-10 civilizations other than ours. Considering that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies, multiplies the odds by hundreds of billions.
The only scientists who raise the possibility that we are the only ones in the universe, say so on the assumption that the process of the development of life in the universe is a gradual and extremely long process, and if we are now the only ones in the entire cosmos, this means very simply: we are the first...
However, as for "UFOs" as alien spaceships from distant planets, that is, the question of the arrival of those living and intelligent beings from those distant planets to us, this question is more divided in the departments of the scientific world. More conservative scientists stick to the limitations of Einstein's special theory of relativity, which places a practical limit on possible speed in our universe — c — at roughly 300,000 kilometers per second. This is the speed of light, nothing can reach this speed except light. Although this speed seems enormous (light is capable of circling Earth about 7 times in one second), it is nothing compared to the even vaster expanses of the universe. With current technology, a journey to the closest star to the Sun, which is Proxima Centauri, 4.2 light years from the Sun, would take about 40,000 years. For this reason, these scientists claim that the possibility of making contact (since all contact signals also travel at the speed of light, which is still extremely slow - a light beam travels the distance between Proxima Centauri and the Sun in about 4.2 years...) or the possibility of aliens arriving in the Earth, is low Infinitely, until it does not exist.
Compared to those scientists, physicists with more innovative ideas, more original and more "encouraging" to "believers" are emerging. Einstein's theory of general relativity allows the creation of "shortcuts" in the space-time space, and without specifying them technically, they make the distance between two points in the universe, extremely long? to zero, by linking them in some tunnel. These scientists admit that the human race does not have the technological ability to do such a thing, but they do not rule out the possibility that an alien species has developed enough technology to create such propulsion technologies (which, by the way, were quickly hijacked by science fiction books, movies and series and given They have different names such as wormholes, superspace and space warp speed), and they can visit us as they please.
There is one more tiny scientific detail before we go beyond the truth to the truth and turn to the myth, and this is an anonymous scientific program called SETI, which was run for episodes by the American space agency NASA in collaboration with several other parties.
SETI stands for Terrestrial ntelligence
Search for Extra or the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life. The scientists who worked and are working in this program have a very unique capacity for patience, perseverance and vision, since the essence of this program is simply listening. Dozens and hundreds of radio dishes and radio telescopes are pointed into space, and the scientists of the program are listening and watching the observations, hoping to discover a radio message from aliens elsewhere in the universe. It will of course be one of the greatest moments in the history of history, perhaps the greatest of all - but in a program that has existed for about 35 years - and nothing!
Some argue about SETI that due to the enormous interstellar distances and the unlimited possibility of frequencies, SETI scientists are looking for a needle in a haystack the size of Mount Everest, and therefore it is a colossal waste of tax dollars and nothing more. Visionaries, unlike economists, support the plan and see it as one of the most ambitious and important projects in human history.
The scientists themselves disagree about the program's effectiveness, for the reason I mentioned earlier. In the context of UFOs, it should be noted an event from 1978, which is deeply embedded in the UFO myth. In this year, a broadcast was received that has no meaning to this day, and some speculate that this is the best piece of evidence for an alien broadcast from outer space. However, we are unable to identify it as such. This is the "wow signal" Signal. The WOW (the scientist who came across the signal was so excited that he wrote in the margin of the output page, WOW and hence the name of the transmitter...).

The first UFO
Well, after the discussion of the scientific and concrete facts, we can continue into the depths of the myth itself, which is partially based on them. The same myth was born about 50 years ago. Unsettled period in human history from the point of view of mass psychology (and as I will prove later, there is a close connection between UFOs and mass psychology, like any other religion...). The world witnessed "the war to end all wars" and the deception of that promise with the start of the Cold War. There was a growing fear of Communism, of the "Reds" in the Western world. The world witnessed the making of military and human history with the dropping of the first atomic bombs and the opening of the nuclear age, an age of looking at the end of days face to face and an age of world peace or apocalypse now.
On June 24, 1947, a pilot named Kenneth Arnold while flying over the mountains of Washington State, near Mount Rainier, experienced a strange event. To the newspapers, who immediately jumped on him, he described a blinding flash of light and then nine bright-white spherical objects, making impossible maneuvers at enormous speed some distance away, until they disappeared over the horizon. The media celebrated this, as is the custom of the media, and there were many theories - test planes of the American HA, special intelligence planes of the USSR, Nazi technology being confiscated under test, and the first buds of the UFO theory, people claiming that these must have been visitors from other worlds others (the term "flying saucer" was coined for the first time following this incident). The story died down, but less than a week passed and an event occurred that would change the belief in UFOs and aliens for generations, and ignite the hearts of those advocating various government denial and world conspiracy theories.

Roswell
On the night of July 2, 1947, lightning struck "something" flying over a farm in Roswell, New Mexico. The object (indeed, was it a UFO? After all, it really is an "unidentified object", and even falls under the better definition UFO, being an unidentified flying object Unidentified Flying Object), left pieces of debris along 400 meters in a field outside the farm and crashed 250 km From west, southwest of Socorro New Mexico. In the following days, military personnel from the HA base near Roswell (which, by the way, is where the bombers that carried the atomic bombs were launched to drop on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some attribute this to be of crucial importance...) arrived at both sites, collected all the remains near the farm and cleared the ruins quickly and efficiently , while closing the areas to civilians and there are those who claim threats in the farm for silence. Roswell newspapers and local radio stations met with senior officials from the HA base and they revealed the army's rescue of a "flying saucer". A day later, the story was suddenly changed, claiming that the object was discovered to be an "unplanned" weather balloon...
This is the best and most respected crash story received up to this day, but it is a story, and the facts contained in it are 50 years old, some may be hidden by the American government and some have been lost forever with the passage of time, and again are unknown. A sane and "logical" theory that also confirms the "government denial" is that it was a top-secret plane that crashed on a test flight (in the 50th year of the incident, the US Army released material regarding Roswell that confirms this explanation, but the believers, who advocate the denial theories, still claim that This is again only a smoke screen in front of the real conspiracy...). The "true" meaning of the bone has never been revealed, and the myth has grown ever since.

The myth evolves
The myth about UFOs grew and went. During the 50s, literally thousands and tens of thousands of reports of evidence of the identification of unidentified objects were collected, especially in the skies of the USA, but did the phenomenon already exist on a small scale in other countries, especially in the Western world? North America and Europe.
However, the more a story is heard time and time again, the more boring it is for the general public, the more the media stimulus repeats itself, the more the excitement from it diminishes and it is necessary to strengthen and refresh it. It seems as if humanity "understood" this, and saw the need for innovation, for intensifying the stimulus...
Throughout the 60s, the eyewitness accounts did not stop, but more and more people reported the landing of UFOs, and later even the identification of figures coming out of these spaceships. The stories multiplied and became more and more interesting throughout the 60s and 70s. These were the years of the flowering of belief in UFOs, the years in which the myth spread throughout the entire world, creating a glossary, research and support associations, and even researchers called UFOlogists. One of the best-known UFOlogists, Dr. G. Alan Heinke, categorized the types of descriptions of encounters with UFOs into three. An encounter of the first type is eyewitness testimony, the second type includes leaving some kind of physical mark? Impact on the environment, on plants or animals, signs of landing, etc. Encounters of the third kind were the most dramatic in the 70s (on which Spielberg's famous film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" is based) and these included seeing aliens coming out of their spaceships and some kind of connection, interaction with them. Heinke died in the mid-80s, but since his death the threshold of irritation has risen again, and now, in addition to all the others, evidence of entering the spaceship, usually not voluntarily but under duress, as part of an abduction process, during which experiments were performed on the human being and implants began to arrive In it any implants for monitoring and supervision. These are meetings of the fourth type. The evidence is so ridiculous that the 90s created encounters of the fifth kind, which include sex with aliens... (?!)

the period
Interesting are the stages in which the UFO myth developed, but another criterion is the period in which each stage of the myth takes place. During the 50s, the myth of UFOs was still on the margins of the headlines (relatively), and was an issue for the social fringes and not a central occupation (also, the yellow press was not developed enough...). The space race between the two superpowers that began at the end of the 50s gave a morale boost to the development of the UFO myth, as the great media interest in space also drew attention to this fringe phenomenon, and brought it to center stage.
In the 60s, the height of the inter-power conflict (Vietnam War; Cuban Missile Crisis), and the fear of nuclear war and global holocaust, the world saw the arrival of benevolent aliens. These made contact with certain BNAs according to their own choice (at this time they were mainly contactees and not abductees, this did not usually include a negative experience), and came to Israel to help the human race develop and reach peace, mainly by Supervision of the nuclear weapons and their non-use.
Compared to these "beautiful soul" aliens, there are the aliens of the 80s and especially the 90s, whose mindset among the audience of potential believers in them is much more anti-establishment, and in fact anti-everything (the famous Generation X). Following the computers, the information revolution and the knowledge highway, and the great power of the media in our lives, which caused the concepts of truth, lie, fact and interpretation to blur, the myth of UFOs took on a completely different character. Now the aliens are not so good and beautiful. Their intentions are not clear, but it is clear that they are not positive and are not aimed at the benefit of the human race at least. They kidnap hundreds of thousands and maybe even tens of millions of people, do obscure experiments on them and plant implants in them. The government usually knows about this and is silent, and it is even possible that this is a forced silence or even silence of consent. Furthermore, it is even possible that the aliens made contact with scheming, anti-democratic elements in the government itself, and with their help apply some kind of plan, project, to the entire human population, the nature of which only they know. The same elements work from the shadows and deny everything (Deny Everything).
With the end of the 90s, the end of the century and the end of the millennium, there is no doubt that just as the space race and the moon landing pushed the myth to an inflationary development, these events will be critical for the myth, and will probably only strengthen the determination of the audience of its believers and expand this audience.

Not only the greatest moment in the history of mankind, also popular culture the interest in aliens at the end of the century and the millennium is expressed in the flow of popular culture on the subject, as well as in the success of TV series and films on the subject. The "script" I described above is not very different from that of "Bags in the Dark" - The X-Files, a thriller series that deals with unexplained phenomena and has a super plot about aliens?
In it the anti-establishment factor is expressed as well as the preoccupation with truth and lies and the blurring between them also finds its place, while the heroes of the series grope through all the piles of lies thrown at them and look for the only truth buried deep down. The truth is out there, indeed, as the hero of the series claims, a now famous poster in his office says everything about UFOs and, in fact, about humanity: I Want to Believe is the slogan.
The biggest blockbuster of the 90s is a science fiction film called Independence Day, which describes the invasion of hostile aliens on Earth. In the film, the anti-establishment mindset can be felt very well, since as an example, the film documents in one of the scenes the complete destruction of the US capital, Washington DC, when the scene opens with the explosion of the White House - the symbol of the American government.

Secularism and faith
Finally, I will conclude that the UFO myth replaced the previous mythologies, replaced the dragons and nymphs, the gods of Greece and the angels of God for the "secular" man, but without noticing, the "secular" replaced one belief with another. Although, there is a solid scientific-factual basis, but the dragons also had such a basis.
As for Didi, the dragons and the UFOs were - you are - an attempt to understand the world around us and to give it and our place in the universe a solution. Different periods produce different myths, according to the socio-economic-political reality - local and global, as the explanation as a whole has changed, I demonstrated that even the UFO myth itself changed according to the same criteria, between the 60s and the 90s each generation builds for itself the myth according to the existing reality of that generation. The truth about UFOs is most likely indeed somewhere, but between it and the myth there is a great distance of conjecture and a great deal of faith.
To this extent, the myth of the UFOs is no different from Rabbi Kadori's Kabbalah and amulets - the desire to give meaning to life and revolve around us and confirm our place in the endlessly wide-eyed sea of ​​the cosmos. Do we want something very simple? Not to feel the infinite loneliness that science commands us, being such a small point in an infinitely large cosmos. We want to believe, we want to feel that we are not alone.