lockedupsafe
New Member
Hi all,
I made an account to post here as I've read some other posts in this section and they resonated.
Been on a bit of a rollercoaster over the last few weeks. Mid-July I started getting anxiety again after reading a really pessimistic article about the likely progression of climate change. It's that brand of anxiety that doesn't go away, it just lingers, affecting everything. My wife is due to give birth to our daughter in September, our first child, and whilst I was already lacking optimism that we could solve the climate crisis before the collapse of civilisation, as new headlines came out about melting sea ice, boiling oceans and huge chunks of Europe being on fire, I basically got overwhelmed by the thought of our baby having to grow up in a dying society.
A day later I decided to take a look at r/UFOs again for the first time in a year or two, and saw all the fuss about David Grusch and his recent interview and article in The Drive. Within another couple of days, the congressional hearing was scheduled. I was completely hooked in - my anxiety got masked with an ADHD-like period of hyperfocus on the subject. This was probably also fed by the fact that I was a little burned out from my attempts to start a creative business (a tabletop wargame). Basically, the resurgence in UFOlogy was perfectly timed to provide me with a distraction or coping mechanism from my own mental health crisis.
What's weird is that I was more-or-less aware that was happening as it happened. I knew it was a failure to confront my own anxiety, but also, there's no way to confront my anxiety, the climate and the world are still deteriorating - there's nothing I can take control of in that regard. I think the most illustrative point was when, thinking about aliens, and how we might communicate with aliens if they really were here, got me thinking about Arrival, and then the framing device around Arrival. I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it but suffice to say, just thinking about a film had me crying at my desk.
Over the next couple of weeks I basically got obsessed with UFOlogy in a way I haven't been before. I've always found the topic fascinating but I've always been at a bit of a distance from it emotionally, waiting for some actual conclusive evidence to turn up before I got invested (which of course, never did). I think the thought of non-human intelligences is fun, and it's optimistic, and the thought that contact with another sapient species might bring us new technology and a new sense of unity really gave me hope. Specifically, hope that my daughter might not have to learn how to fight for survival in some collapsing neo-fascist hellstate but might get to grow up in a world of near-infinite possibilities. Basically, David Grusch's testimony became my ontological coping mechanism.
In the last few days I've completely turned around on the subject.
As I started falling down the rabbit hole, I would see names like George Knapp and Jeremy Corbell*, who had fascinating accounts of things, but would almost immediately discredit themselves through association with the likes of Bob Lazar, John Lear and the Skinwalker Ranch thing. However, Ross Coulthart actually interviewed David Grusch and seemed like a serious journalist, but since the hearing is falling back to vague allusions and naming the thing, but not explaining it, so he gets to sound clued-in and authoritative. With his latest "I've been authorised to reveal that my source has a great-uncle who has seen a photo of a UAP at Area 51," thing, I've just completely lost faith in him altogether. Garry Nolan was absolutely fascinating, a really qualified, intelligent academic, but he too is going down the route of "I've seen some photos, they're really interesting, I can't share them yet, but I will, and they're amazing, but no you can't see them," which I just find obnoxious at this point.
* I actually watched Corbell's documentary on Bob Lazar a few years ago, and whilst I think Lazar is a wonderfully whacky character, I thought the documentary was terrible, so I was already primed to distrust Corbell.
Over the last three or four days, I've come to realise that there really is nothing beneath the surface of this whole thing. Every sighting is inconclusive, every promise of revelation is empty, nothing is substantiated. I think I had to reach this conclusion myself, since I think seeing something strange and not being curious about what it could be, is as bad as jumping to wild conclusions that it must be supernatural.
A lot of people are incredibly dismissive of UFOlogy in a way that I think is deeply unhelpful and condescending. Ultimately, there really are things that we see that defy explanation and are interesting to explore. My favourite example is the Green Triangles video. Learning about that, and what Bokeh is, and how optics work is really interesting. That's always been my position - UFOlogy is amazing because you get to learn stuff about the real world you'd never otherwise learn. You see something strange and in an attempt to understand it, you get to go on a deep dive into military aviation, or camera technology, or atmospherics, geology, all sorts of things.
The problem is, as I'm climbing out of this brief rabbit hole, I can feel my climate-anxiety returning. Our daughter is still on the way and, in the meantime, our prime minister has promised to build EVEN MORE oil-drilling sites in the North Sea. China is still building new coal power plants, the sea ice is still at its all-time low, and apparently July is the first ever month to see a +1.5C temperature deviation. Just this morning I realised that my obsession with UFOs had been replaced with frustration, but now that frustration was giving way to that sense of dread, and the only option I seem to have is to cling on for dear life and hope to give my daughter as happy a childhood as I can manage. I can already feel myself getting upset again.
On a closing note, I'm still interested in David Grusch's testimony, if only because it has an actual, possible conclusion. He's claimed that half-a-dozen or so witnesses involved in "UAP Crash Retrieval programs" have testified - which to me, means we can stop scrutinising his claims and just wait for those testimonies to be confirmed. If they are confirmed, then maybe there really is something to all of this. If they aren't, then... Grusch might be going to prison for lying under oath. There's a nice binary element to that which suits me, and for once it's not just stories told in a bar, there's actual testable data there - do those witnesses exist or not?
I think it's also fascinating that the NRO have apparently imaged tic tac-like craft, according to official FOIA documents, along with some kind of command-and-control vessel, with superficial similarities to the 2004 Nimitz incident. This seems, to me, to be the first time two of the many dots on the UFOlogy map might have a line between them, and I do at least find that compelling. Whether or not the Nimitz incident was actually a classified airship, or a misidentified F18, the fact that there's now another government agency with official records detailing a similar observation is yet again testable data - and I hope we at least get to test it eventually.
Sorry about the long post. I just needed to get it off my chest. I'm getting back into my usual routine now, getting back to game design and getting back to my usual level of anxiety. I will always daydream about aliens / NHI, because I really hope we one day get to meet some, but I do feel a bit annoyed and embarrassed about how much mental and emotional energy I've put into the topic over the last few weeks.
Cheers all,
Jon
I made an account to post here as I've read some other posts in this section and they resonated.
Been on a bit of a rollercoaster over the last few weeks. Mid-July I started getting anxiety again after reading a really pessimistic article about the likely progression of climate change. It's that brand of anxiety that doesn't go away, it just lingers, affecting everything. My wife is due to give birth to our daughter in September, our first child, and whilst I was already lacking optimism that we could solve the climate crisis before the collapse of civilisation, as new headlines came out about melting sea ice, boiling oceans and huge chunks of Europe being on fire, I basically got overwhelmed by the thought of our baby having to grow up in a dying society.
A day later I decided to take a look at r/UFOs again for the first time in a year or two, and saw all the fuss about David Grusch and his recent interview and article in The Drive. Within another couple of days, the congressional hearing was scheduled. I was completely hooked in - my anxiety got masked with an ADHD-like period of hyperfocus on the subject. This was probably also fed by the fact that I was a little burned out from my attempts to start a creative business (a tabletop wargame). Basically, the resurgence in UFOlogy was perfectly timed to provide me with a distraction or coping mechanism from my own mental health crisis.
What's weird is that I was more-or-less aware that was happening as it happened. I knew it was a failure to confront my own anxiety, but also, there's no way to confront my anxiety, the climate and the world are still deteriorating - there's nothing I can take control of in that regard. I think the most illustrative point was when, thinking about aliens, and how we might communicate with aliens if they really were here, got me thinking about Arrival, and then the framing device around Arrival. I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it but suffice to say, just thinking about a film had me crying at my desk.
Over the next couple of weeks I basically got obsessed with UFOlogy in a way I haven't been before. I've always found the topic fascinating but I've always been at a bit of a distance from it emotionally, waiting for some actual conclusive evidence to turn up before I got invested (which of course, never did). I think the thought of non-human intelligences is fun, and it's optimistic, and the thought that contact with another sapient species might bring us new technology and a new sense of unity really gave me hope. Specifically, hope that my daughter might not have to learn how to fight for survival in some collapsing neo-fascist hellstate but might get to grow up in a world of near-infinite possibilities. Basically, David Grusch's testimony became my ontological coping mechanism.
In the last few days I've completely turned around on the subject.
As I started falling down the rabbit hole, I would see names like George Knapp and Jeremy Corbell*, who had fascinating accounts of things, but would almost immediately discredit themselves through association with the likes of Bob Lazar, John Lear and the Skinwalker Ranch thing. However, Ross Coulthart actually interviewed David Grusch and seemed like a serious journalist, but since the hearing is falling back to vague allusions and naming the thing, but not explaining it, so he gets to sound clued-in and authoritative. With his latest "I've been authorised to reveal that my source has a great-uncle who has seen a photo of a UAP at Area 51," thing, I've just completely lost faith in him altogether. Garry Nolan was absolutely fascinating, a really qualified, intelligent academic, but he too is going down the route of "I've seen some photos, they're really interesting, I can't share them yet, but I will, and they're amazing, but no you can't see them," which I just find obnoxious at this point.
* I actually watched Corbell's documentary on Bob Lazar a few years ago, and whilst I think Lazar is a wonderfully whacky character, I thought the documentary was terrible, so I was already primed to distrust Corbell.
Over the last three or four days, I've come to realise that there really is nothing beneath the surface of this whole thing. Every sighting is inconclusive, every promise of revelation is empty, nothing is substantiated. I think I had to reach this conclusion myself, since I think seeing something strange and not being curious about what it could be, is as bad as jumping to wild conclusions that it must be supernatural.
A lot of people are incredibly dismissive of UFOlogy in a way that I think is deeply unhelpful and condescending. Ultimately, there really are things that we see that defy explanation and are interesting to explore. My favourite example is the Green Triangles video. Learning about that, and what Bokeh is, and how optics work is really interesting. That's always been my position - UFOlogy is amazing because you get to learn stuff about the real world you'd never otherwise learn. You see something strange and in an attempt to understand it, you get to go on a deep dive into military aviation, or camera technology, or atmospherics, geology, all sorts of things.
The problem is, as I'm climbing out of this brief rabbit hole, I can feel my climate-anxiety returning. Our daughter is still on the way and, in the meantime, our prime minister has promised to build EVEN MORE oil-drilling sites in the North Sea. China is still building new coal power plants, the sea ice is still at its all-time low, and apparently July is the first ever month to see a +1.5C temperature deviation. Just this morning I realised that my obsession with UFOs had been replaced with frustration, but now that frustration was giving way to that sense of dread, and the only option I seem to have is to cling on for dear life and hope to give my daughter as happy a childhood as I can manage. I can already feel myself getting upset again.
On a closing note, I'm still interested in David Grusch's testimony, if only because it has an actual, possible conclusion. He's claimed that half-a-dozen or so witnesses involved in "UAP Crash Retrieval programs" have testified - which to me, means we can stop scrutinising his claims and just wait for those testimonies to be confirmed. If they are confirmed, then maybe there really is something to all of this. If they aren't, then... Grusch might be going to prison for lying under oath. There's a nice binary element to that which suits me, and for once it's not just stories told in a bar, there's actual testable data there - do those witnesses exist or not?
I think it's also fascinating that the NRO have apparently imaged tic tac-like craft, according to official FOIA documents, along with some kind of command-and-control vessel, with superficial similarities to the 2004 Nimitz incident. This seems, to me, to be the first time two of the many dots on the UFOlogy map might have a line between them, and I do at least find that compelling. Whether or not the Nimitz incident was actually a classified airship, or a misidentified F18, the fact that there's now another government agency with official records detailing a similar observation is yet again testable data - and I hope we at least get to test it eventually.
Sorry about the long post. I just needed to get it off my chest. I'm getting back into my usual routine now, getting back to game design and getting back to my usual level of anxiety. I will always daydream about aliens / NHI, because I really hope we one day get to meet some, but I do feel a bit annoyed and embarrassed about how much mental and emotional energy I've put into the topic over the last few weeks.
Cheers all,
Jon
