“I want to believe”
If you’ve got a keen interest in UFOs or UAP, it’s imperative to also have a decent grasp of the “I want to believe” hindrance.
What’s ideally needed is an abundance of solid data to chew on that’s beyond reasonable dispute. This would focus attention on factuality, reducing, if not banishing, the likelihood of acting out of ignorance, and thereby considerably lessening the risk of making yourself look silly. But we’re not there yet. So, meanwhile, in its absence, there’s a void. And when there’s a scarcity of reliable facts, there’s a strong tendency to fill the gap with stories - quite a few of which are flimsy or implausible - and this leads to misinterpretations, dumb speculation, and belief.
At worst, the subject of belief is a minefield. Or it’s just not sufficiently engaging, especially for those who thrive on titillation. This is a complex topic riddled with pitfalls.
We were recently filming in the US. Keeping to our tight schedule, we were able to fit in six days of extra filming in and around Roswell towards the end of the trip. One of our locations was in front of a large mural, featuring a spaceship, with the following words above: “ROSWELL…we believe!”
Belief can sometimes be a good thing. It can genuinely provide hope, motivation, and higher values all rolled into one. A good example of this was a man we met in Roswell early one morning. An hour before sunrise, we discovered we had a flat tyre. We were taking it off, when a hotel employee arrived for work. He insisted on helping Becky (who was once a trainee mechanic, years back, so more than capable of changing a wheel) and took over the job. We learnt he’d been a drug addict for a lot of his life, badly influenced by his mother when growing up, eventually spending years in prison. Inside, he’d found God. And this belief in something higher was clearly instrumental in helping him turn his life around. He was lovely, and we wish him the very best for the future. Life often isn’t easy.
We’ve seen this beneficial effect many times, especially working in countries like South Africa (Christianity) and Sudan (Islam). Religious belief encourages adherence to a set of moral principles. Of course, that’s only part of the story. Inevitably, there are also contradictions and hypocrisy. And it should never be forgotten that religion has caused horrific armed conflict and persecution.
We’re based in the UK, a country that has seen a significant shift away from religious belief in recent decades. This should have been a good thing - and perhaps it will still turn out to be just that, in the longer term - but, meanwhile, where is that “something better” to replace the religious belief? On the surface, it looks like we’ve taken a step backwards and become more superficial. Money has become the new god - what it can buy - whether that’s material possessions, a never-ending selection of experiences, or influence over others. Instead of Jesus, people now look up to celebrities and other “influencers” - and that must be a seriously worrying sign that all’s not well.
In general terms, we view belief as something “lesser” - a leap of faith - a substitute for knowledge and the understanding that comes when linking established facts together. As a base or foundation, it can prove unreliable if subsequently shown to be untrue or merely speculative. When someone’s belief is challenged, a common response is defensiveness. Instead of being open to discussion, an alternative viewpoint can be seen as an attack or put-down. Most people lack sufficient self-awareness, especially when it comes to cognitive dissonance and the emotional/intellectual gratification of belief perseverance. They just selectively see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear, reinforcing their already fixed position or mindset.
There’s still one hell of a lot of superstition around, 50 years after Stevie Wonder started singing to us that “superstition ain’t the way”. Victoria was the Goddess of Precipitation in Rain Dance, which ended with us quoting Mr Wonder’s wise lyrics. If someone stopped watching just before our final words at the end of this short film, they might have failed to realise that our “rain dance” was actually tongue-in-cheek.
Stevie Wonder
Lazy mindedness and a dullness of everyday life doesn’t help, often encouraging superstition. And there’s a lot of it. For example, there are all kinds of “alternative health remedies” for this, that, and the other - with a price attached - when any “benefits” are caused by nothing other than the placebo effect. Many consider the number 13 to be “unlucky”; as a result, airports usually skip having a No. 13 boarding gate and high-rise hotels don’t have a 13th floor or a No. 13 room, immediately going from 12 to 14. The majority of people admit to being superstitious in some way. It’s “easier” to believe in one or more myths, rather than having to work hard to establish a more solid, logical, and factual foundation.
A belief in UFOs and extraterrestrial life is often cited as an example of irrational thinking leading to questionable judgement. If we’re honest, looking at the many examples on offer, this generalised characterisation is partly justified.
Individual interest in UFOs might be suddenly aroused when you see something in the skies above that you can’t explain. More likely, however, it begins with hearing about the experiences of others. The trigger might have been a genuine unknown or something that wasn’t immediately identifiable, such as a bunch of Starlink satellites in the night sky. If your curiosity has been stimulated, that’s it; you’re hooked and want to know more, regardless of the actual reality of what was seen.
As your interest grows, you’re surprised to find that there are many more sightings of UFOs than you previously realised, going back at least 75 years. Some of the witnesses seem credible, like commercial or military pilots. Unless you’re a police officer or court lawyer, you’re probably ignorant of the notorious unreliability of witness testimony. Then there’s the complex problem of cognitive bias and psychological avoidance. But you probably don’t know this, so you inevitably lap up some silliness along the way, in addition to the better cases.
Belief is alluring. Once you’re “in”, onboard, it can be a slippery slope - and you can end up with egg on your face (perhaps without even noticing it). Even the most intelligent of people can be made to look foolish.
Our tribal past doesn’t help. Whether it’s supporting a sports team, voting for a particular political party, or believing in a religion, there’s a strong tendency to “take sides”. You’re either “for” or “against”, and this is backed up with safety in numbers. It’s easier to fit in and join in, with the benefit of allegiances, rather than to be independently minded.
“Ufology” does itself no favours. Going along with obvious absurdities, irrationality, and drivel, produces a stench that pongs of bullshit. And if you’re exposed to something long enough, you’d be surprised how quickly normalisation kicks in. (“Pong? What pong?”) Human beings are far more self-obsessed and self-serving than is commonly realised, and those in “ufology” frequently demonstrate these unflattering behavioural characteristics.
Religions have their competing sects, which can get unpleasant and fierce, but at least they’ve got the higher values somewhere in the mix. Scientists and other academics likewise have their cliques and other dubious pressures, which do them no favours, but there’s nevertheless the aim of intellectual rigour to hold onto. However, “ufologists” - also plagued by cliques etc - have nothing similar of worth, making it a messy free-for-all. An onlooker might be forgiven for saying it’s little more than a cult of low-grade personalities vying for attention.
It would be all too easy to illustrate the above with individual examples. There’s no shortage of choice, sadly. Some are outright ridiculous. The bulk are tediously bland, leaking character deficiencies that should be immediately obvious to anyone with a reasonable EQ or appreciation of psychology. Unfortunately, they’ll carry on regardless, with their podcasts or UFO convention slots, with nothing better to do in life, until the smarter and better informed one day make them redundant. (There was a sniff of this “smarter and better informed” when Lue Elizondo burst onto the scene.)
If you’ve followed me this far, there’s a fighting chance that you aren’t a complete lost cause or nut job. So this article’s for you. However, the bad news continues. You won’t have escaped the curse of belief or hope. It affects us all, to some degree. Going back to an earlier example, we all hope that our sports team will do better this season or in the latest World Cup. (Can I quickly throw in, as an England fan, this message for our German friends: “Mein Beileid, dass Sie bei dieser Fußballweltmeisterschaft nicht über die Gruppenphase hinausgekommen sind” - which translates as: “My condolences that you didn’t get past the group stage in this current football World Cup.”) Leaving the excessively hurt and cynical aside, there’s also love. Going even deeper, many rightly search for a higher purpose or meaning. At any and every level, expectation makes us vulnerable.
Expectation or vision - which can be linked with and is similar to, but different from, belief or hope - is undoubtedly a worthy quality. It’s a necessary key factor for capability. It comes before the need to grasp opportunity and work hard - another key factor required to make a dream or goal become a reality. Nevertheless, to repeat, expectation brings with it exposure to vulnerability.
In “ufology”, there’s a lot of talk about “disclosure”. This raises expectation, often linked with low-level excitable emotion - and, like waiting for that next official UAP report, this can lead to disappointment and more bizarre conspiracy talk. More importantly, it distracts from more pressing matters, which thereby get overlooked.
The most basic area that’s commonly neglected is an understanding of how government departments work - all of the multi-layered bureaucracy and gross ineptitude etc that is, at very least, part of the answer to when people notice inconsistencies and then cry: “Conspiracy!” We touched on this within our “Something DEFINITELY crashed at Roswell” film, so there’s no need to repeat everything again here.
Getting sucked into reading about or watching the latest UFO sighting, that next report, or wondering about any forthcoming congressional hearings might partly satisfy curiosity - but it all achieves a total of nothing. The focus is wrong, shallow, and little more than yet another form of distraction, with the really important questions neglected. If these deeper matters are considered, the approach is invariably superficial, missing the big relevant elements. In the first of our recent mini-series of three films, we answered: “How do they think?”, “Are they friendly or hostile?”, and “What do they want?” Once you factor in and extrapolate from certain knowledge, it’s not difficult to get to a convincing and mature perspective on these issues. Yes, if you’re leaning towards “hostile”, you might first have to challenge a belief in “alien abductions”, instead rationally considering the known condition of sleep paralysis as a credible explanation. We answered the next big question - “What are they doing here?” - in our third and final film. And this genuinely changes the perspective and agenda - that’s our agenda, as well as revealing theirs. Sightings, reports, hearings, etc etc immediately become of considerably less importance. The game or focus has changed. The various bits and pieces of the great puzzle suddenly start to fall into place. The emphasis switches from them to us, away from the current self-orientated preoccupation to the need for self-transcendence.
Whilst there’s an obsession with “Need to waffle”, nothing will fundamentally change. There might well be a good intention to find out more and thereby “know”, but it gets drowned out. Dogs are more likely to be successful in their pursuit of chasing their own tails. Whilst those in “ufology” are waiting for “the next big thing”, the AMIGOs are waiting for us to wise up and grow up. Do you know that the “sapiens” bit of Homo sapiens means “wise”? So we are, theoretically, potentially, sufficiently, already wise enough or capable of evolving towards the beginning of maturity. But we need to apply the Nike principle, of course, and “just do it”.
“Please, please, please, stop chasing your own tail!”
We ultimately want to see humanity, every single individual, move forwards. This next evolutionary step of our journey is absolutely crucial - and the only way is up, not sideways or down. We think that the intellectual speculation of a Great Filter is just a clever concept, one that will eventually be proved to be incorrect. By comparison, there’s abundant evidence for a Great Hurdle. But, if we remain dumb and contradictory forever, they could become one and the same thing. In which case, we’re toast - as those proposing the concept of a Great Filter have already suggested. Curiosity might be our saviour.
One aspect of the route to a significantly better world might possibly involve UFOs and whoever’s behind them. If they’re here - and enough of us are concluding that, yes, it looks as if they are here - then the big questions that we listed above, and answered in our recent mini-series of films, become extremely relevant. What are they waiting for? Or, more pertinently, what are we waiting for?
Written by Iain Scott, 3rd December 2022