There's increasing evidence that UFOs are not purely physical in nature; that they are something more than ‘nuts and bolts’ spacecraft, flown by almond-eyed aliens in shiny jumpsuits.
This was one of the key reasons for them being redesignated as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, instead of Unidentified Flying Objects. The term UAP invites us to open our minds to a wider range of possibilities, as opposed to the simplistic ‘Greys from Zeta Reticuli’ narrative that has dominated popular culture since the 1950s.
But I had my sightings when the world was a simpler place, and UFOs were still UFOs. So that’s what I will call them (in this article, at least).
Here are just three of the stranger explanations now under discussion...
First: instead of travelling here from nearby stars, UFOs come to us from parallel worlds or different dimensions, hidden within touching distance but (for us at least) always out of reach.
Second: UFOs belong to an ancient offshoot of the homo sapiens family, a race that survived some cataclysm deep in our pre-history and still lives alongside us (largely unseen), somewhere here on Earth. Or the Moon. Or...
Third: UFOs are piloted by time-travelling tourists, visiting us from the future, in the same way we pop to the coast for an ice cream.
Although some of these possibilities seem marginally more rational than others, it’s fair to say that none of them are mundane. Would it be more surprising to discover that refugees from the sinking of Atlantis made a new home beneath the ice of the Antarctic, and chill-out down there to this day, building UFOs with their permanently mitten-clad hands; or that you would have witnesses a UFO flown by your own descendants, from the year 2138, if you'd only turned right onto the M25 motorway last Friday, instead of left?
However, while these scenarios sound exotic, all three revolve around the basic assumption that UFOs are physical objects.
Admittedly, it's comparatively easy to imagine that UFOs are simply advanced versions of the types of aircraft that we can produce. We've witnessed an exponential growth in the power, scope and complexity of our own technologies, within the space of 200 years. What could an alien civilisation come up with, if it had been working on powered flight for 200,000 years?
If there are lots of extraterrestrial civilisations out there, all beavering away on their own interstellar technology for extended periods of time, what do you get?
The Mos Eisley cantina scene in Star Wars.
Who doesn't like Star Wars, or subconsciously accept that it's probably a fairly accurate representation of what we are likely to encounter, when we finally make it beyond our own galactic doorstep. It's such a tempting and easily disgestible route to go down.
But I think we need to be rather more adventurous.
Is it possible that UFOs only appear to us as physical objects because that’s what our senses, through natural selection and cultural conditioning, have trained us to see?
Are we are actually witnessing something that is partially, or even predominantly, non-physical? Something that is more a product of mind than of matter?
Idealism: framework for a non-physical universe
If you believe in Idealism, such a conclusion is inevitable.
Idealism argues that what we think of as physical reality is actually the product of enormously complex mental processes within a single, universal consciousness. Which means everything we experience is, by definition, a product of that consciousness.
We are not talking about UFO sightings being the result of some mental flaw or psychological instability, within the mind of an individual witness (as skeptics might argue). No, this is a case of UFOs being a kind of pattern or vibration within the mind of the entire universe.
As tiny, individualised parts of that overarching consciousness, humans have spent much of the past 50,000 years trying to make sense of its dominant patterns; what we ordinarily call the 'laws of nature'. After all, understanding patterns of behaviour is what keeps us alive.
This quest has resulted in philosophical frameworks as diverse as the Buddhist concept of dharma, which says physical matter is purely a figment of the imagination, and that reality is an impermanent dream in the mind of the beholder; and extreme materialism, which argues the exact reverse: that consciousness is the illusion, and that everything is composed of physical material.
Materialism goes on to conclude that there is an objective reality 'out there', fully independent of any observer, an idea known as 'local realism'. And that the behaviour (or patterns) of this reality can be explained by the core principles of Western science, such as Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
It's undeniable that science has proven itself to be an extraordinarily successful tool for identifying and utilising meaningful patterns. Performing a gravity slingshot, around Jupiter, to propel a spacecraft 7.5 billion kilometres from Earth to Pluto, is no mean feat. And our beloved gadgets would be rather less engaging, if it weren't for our understanding of electro-magnetic radiation and the wonders of miniaturised electronic components.
Consequently, materialism has come to totally dominate all areas of thinking, in cultures that rely on technology. Its influence is so strong that we no longer see Materialism as a set of ideas, open to criticism, but as the only rational explanation for our existence.
However, even the most entrenched, pro-materialism scientists are having to come to terms with the fact that what we see is not what’s really there.
This process reached a turning point last year, with the award of the Nobel Prize for experiments that comprehensively disproved local realism. If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one to hear it, not only does it not make a noise, but it’s also highly debatable whether the tree even exists, in any recognisable form.
If all this sounds incredibly Buddhist - and Idealist - that's because it is.
The UFO conundrum may well be the final push we need, to begin thinking of reality in a total new way. A way that attaches far more importance to the role of non-physical processes.
My own experiences provide tiny hints in this direction.
Sighting No.1 - the silver ‘V'
It’s a beautiful, warm summer’s evening, towards the end of July 1994.
The Prodigy’s No Good has, inexplicably, been replaced by Elton John’s Can You Feel the Love Tonight as the UK’s No.1 single, but I have other things on my mind. I’ve arrived at my girlfriend’s house, in the heart of my home town, and we will shortly head off to the local pub.
Once she's ready, which is taking longer than usual.
I head into the garden, to sit with her father, Lee. He’s nurturing a glass of beer and looking wisely into the distance. We have a brief chat. Something along the lines of me keeping my hands off his daughter.
An object in the sky catches my eye, off to the right. It looks like the tail of a commercial jet, only it isn’t attached to anything.
I turn around and instinctively scan the light, fluffy clouds, thinking that I will see the remnants of a disassembled aeroplane, hurtling towards the ground.
But there’s nothing. Except a big silver V-shaped thing, glinting in the sunshine.
Just as I conclude that I’m almost certainly looking at some kind of kite, or perhaps a large, metallic balloon, the object stops moving.
It’s now totally motionless, to a degree that no kite or balloon could possibly achieve.
By this stage Lee, who is a no-nonsense kind of guy with an East End upbringing, a love for rebuilding vintage cars and the nose of a boxer, has his arms folded. He grunts an ‘Hmmm’ noise when I ask him what we are looking at.
Perhaps another 10 seconds go by, with no movement whatsoever. It’s now clear that the object is considerably thicker than the tail of any aeroplane, but has a very similar, metallic composition.
I glance at Les again. He’s squinting, trying to gain a new perspective on the object.
“OK, it’s not a kite or a balloon,” I suggest. Before Les can respond, the truth in my statement is there for anyone to see: the V starts to rotate, around a central, horizontal axis. Flashes of sunlight now leap from the object at regular intervals, confirming the polished, steel-like qualities of its surface.
As the rotations climb to one every second, the object begins to slide (the only accurate word) away from us. We watch as it grows ever smaller, the rotations continuing at a regular pace. It takes only 10 seconds or so for it to fade completely.
“Well, that’s not something you see every day,” says Lee. He then points to the brand new Canon SLR camera, sitting on the table between us. “So why didn’t you take a picture?”
Doh.
I go inside and quickly sketch what I’ve just seen.
“What are you drawing?” Lucy asks, finally emerging from her bedroom.
“Oh nothing much, just a UFO,” I reply, putting my pencil down.
Sighting No.2 - the silver sphere
It’s summer 2005 and once again the sun is shining with admirable determination. I’m enjoying a busy barbecue, at the house of an old friend, Mark, who lives in deepest Essex. I go into the kitchen and Mark follows.
“Did I ever tell you about the UFO I saw with Lee?” I ask, taking a sip from a new can of cider. He shakes his head, in a slightly dismissive way, but I carry on regardless. He listens politely, without interrupting. But, at the conclusion of my story, his incredulity is obvious.
“So what was it?” He asks, assuming that my account cannot possibly be at an end… that I still have a rational explanation, hidden somewhere up my T-shirt sleeve.
“I have no idea,” I reply. “Neither did Lee, and he’s not the sort of bloke to believe in UFOs. We both just sat there, shaking our heads.”
Mark laughs. “Well, I’ve been into astronomy for quite a while now. I spend a lot more time staring at the sky than most people, and I've never seen anything unusual. Ever.”
Pulling the ring on his own can, Mark makes his way outside. I follow him, trying to concoct a half-decent reply. But I don’t need to bother. Mark is looking up, shielding his eyes with his hands.
He looks at me and says: “OK, so what’s that ?”
I follow his extended index finger and see a silver sphere, hovering high above the house. It’s impossible to tell how far away it is (and therefore how big it is) but, as with the ‘V’, the sun is glinting off its surface.
It’s my turn to laugh. “There you go. Now you’ve seen a UFO!”
“That’s definitely not a balloon or kite,” he replies, mirroring my words from a decade before. “It’s not moving in the wind… at all.”
Then the sphere just zips away, in a straight line. As if someone has finally remembered how to release the handbrake.
“Weird,” he concludes, with a nod of his head.
I turn around, expecting to see a crowd of people huddled together, excitedly pointing skywards. But no one is taking the slightest bit of notice.
“Did you see that?” I ask my fiancée, who is standing less than five or six feet away and must have sensed something strange was going on.
“See what?” She replies, before resuming her conversation with a woman I don’t recognise.
“Oh, nothing much… just a UFO,” I mutter to myself, noticing that the halloumi slices are now cooked to perfection.
If you don’t open your eyes, what can you expect to see?
Both of the UFOs I witnessed appeared to be physical ‘nuts and bolts’ objects, but both sightings were accompanied by non-physical processes.
The 1994 event offered a window into the minds of people who fail to document their experiences, despite having the ideal technology within easy grasp.
I sat staring at the silver V for thirty-plus seconds, without even thinking about the camera sitting on the table directly in front of me. It did not even cross my mind to photograph the phenomenon. And I can offer no explanation, except to say that trying to understand what I was seeing was evidently more than enough to fully occupy my mind.
Some events are witnessed by hundreds of people, yet not a single person reaches for their mobile phone. Which seems ridiculous, until it happens to you: I cannot speak for Lee, but I’m pretty sure that a bomb could have gone off 100 feet away, and I wouldn’t have noticed a thing, other than the object hovering directly in front of me.
Feeling like you have been transfixed, hypnotised or somehow numbed to the wider world is commonly reported in UFO sightings. As are unexplained gaps in memory, telepathic communication and total loss of control over the voluntary nervous system.
Collectively, these and similar experiences suggests that UFOs are interacting with our conscious minds, irrespective of whether they themselves are made of physical matter, conscious processes, or something else altogether.
The 2005 event is peculiar because of the immaculate timing, and the lack of other witnesses.
I had told the V story to quite a few people, over the years, but no one had ever challenged me in quite the same way that Mark did. He laid down a simple and logical challenge: why don’t I see these things, given that I spend so long looking at the sky?
It was clear that his mind would only be changed by a sighting of his own, and that’s precisely what happened, just 60 seconds later.
Neither of us has seen anything similar since, though a US military video recently appeared, following declassification by the Pentagon, showing an identical object zooming over Iraq in 2008.
The ability of the UFO phenomenon in manifesting to a small number of witnesses, despite the immediate presence of many, many more people, is also a common feature.
For instance, there are cases where individual cars, with three or four occupants, have stopped on busy highways, to sit and stare at huge daylight UFOs... while the drivers of hundreds of other cars just zoom on by, totally unaware of the 300-foot wide craft hovering above their heads.
Does this mean that UFOs are not really there in the physical, ‘real’ sense of the word? That they appear to some people and not others because of some key difference in consciousness between the minds of the fully-engaged witnesses, and the oblivious passers-by?
Would Mark have seen the sphere, had we not just been talking about UFOs? Even more speculatively, what if the UFO was only made an appearance because we had that conversation?
One good phenomenon deserves another
Peculiarities in the non-physical aspects of the phenomenon may indicate that you need to be primed in some way, or at least open to the possibility of UFOs, if you want to experience them.
In my experience, this 'opening up' is a process that (if you allow it to) quickly builds momentum, extending into all areas of the paranormal.
Previously, I've documented how I saw a glowing orb, not long after my tenth birthday.
Within months of the orb experience, I saw the spectral, disembodied head of my dead Alsatian dog, Sabre, moving towards me, while I sat upright (and wide awake) in bed. The apparition was so real that I tried to stroke his floppy ears, before he slowly faded away.
At this point I was learning to juggle, using four bright orange and luminous yellow tennis balls. I’d got the hang of three, but the last ball was proving a real challenge. A few days after seeing Sabre, I started thinking about his unexpected visit and totally lost concentration. One of the balls looped away, landing on the bed and dribbling over the edge, onto the floor. I walked around the bed, to pick it up… and it wasn’t there. I looked under the bed… nothing. I pulled back the bed covers… still nothing.
In the end, I must have spent two hours looking for that ball. But it never reappeared. Not even when I moved out to university and totally emptied the room of all my possessions.
Years later, I finally put two and two together. Sabre loved to steal my tennis balls, despite showing no interest in footballs, golf balls or anything else, except rabbits.
I put aside the frustration of losing the ball by blaming Sabre. My inititation into the world of the paranormal was almost complete.
The joy of vex
Glowing orb, closely followed by canine apparition, closely followed by vanishing object. This certainly set a pattern for me: one of regular encounters with unusual phenomena, interspersed with enthusiastic research into the strangeness of the things I’d just witnessed.
It’s a pattern that continues today, and still brings excitement and frustration in equal measure. Am I wasting my time? Quite possibly. As the greatest visionary of the Twentieth Century concluded:
'There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is
for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.'
(Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe)
Idealism might move us closer to the truth than Materialism, but I seems highly unlikely that we'll be getting definitive answers to life's biggest questions any time soon.
Which suits me fine. There’s nothing like the joy of knowing…
...that you really know nothing.
Further reading on Idealism:
The purely scientific view: Prof. Donald Hoffman
The partly scientific, partly philosophical view: Bernado Kastrup
The partly philosophical, partly spiritual view: Rupert Spira
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