Believers
By Bumsita
BELIEVERS
Pt 2: You Cannot Go Around, You Must Go Through
Disclaimer
What follows is the second edition of BELIEVERS. In this ongoing essay series, an anonymous PhD student—dwelling in the greased chutes of “the system”—urges readers to re-consider the paranormal. The essays do not follow a traditional linear structure; they poke at the lipid bi-layer separating fiction from non-fiction. They are comprised of distinct sections that combine to make a “patchwork” essay, as the individual sections are not capable of standing on their own.
BELIEVERS Part 1 covered ghosts and the people who hunt them. Using a series of well-timed non sequiturs, the author attempted to humanize the modern ghost hunter while sheepishly chastising those who call them crazy. Readers endured cascading diatribes and beheld the perils facing those who apply the scientific method to the paranormal. Bigfoot also received considerable airtime in Part 1, though in the form of a short story that doesn’t lend itself towards useful thematic analysis. Indeed, scholars view the story as “the misguided fruit of pure folly—deep, deep nonsense” (Rodgers et al., 2023).
In BELIEVERS Part 2, we are offered a dissection of American Alien Phenomena (AAP). We are told that this term—created by the author—is meant to reflect the core elements of alien lore that proliferated in the wake of the atomic bomb’s creation. Predictably, the essay makes brief and uncomfortable forays into other areas of the paranormal spectrum, and offers some potentially career-ending opinions on the use of empirical methodology in matters of the mind and spirit.
We hope that you enjoy the second edition of BELIEVERS. Remember that we all believe in something.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION / LIVE FROM THE KINGDOM OF NYE
GEORGE NOORY PRESENTS: BEYOND BELIEF
LITTLE GREEN ATOMIC GUILT
THE BLONDE SPACE HIPPIES AND YOU
PSYCHOLOGY IS A WEIRD SCIENCE
UNIFIED THEORY OF THE PARANORMAL
SO YOU’VE SEEN A GHOST
THANK GOD FOR BELIEVERS
1. INTRODUCTION / LIVE FROM THE KINGDOM OF NYE
Pahrump is a knot of squat, sunbaked buildings in a desert that is angry to have it. Like so many towns across the West, it is a place that intrudes crudely on an otherwise well-evolved ecosystem. Inhabitants of Pahrump drive between white lines on pavement that stores the sun’s heat at twice the efficiency of soil; water from the Grand Basin aquifer is extracted to feed Pahrump’s sinks, showers, and swimming pools at the rate of 12,000 acre-feet annually. It is situated—high lonesome—between the gaseous raunch of Las Vegas and the weeping ranges of Death Valley, in the shank-tip deserts of Nevada. Though known to few outside the region, Pahrump is an essential site in the history of our nation’s most endearing weirdos, losers, and creeps—it’s paranormal enthusiasts.
Radio host Art Bell began broadcasting the now legendary Coast to Coast AM from his studio in Pahrump in 1988. Deep in the heart of night, Bell and his guests would discuss every shade of weird—angels, gnomes, poltergeists, dog-men, telekinesis, occult Nazism, psychic communication with dolphins, Nostradamus, and organic foods. Coast to Coast was famous for not screening listener calls, which added an intoxicating touch of unpredictability to the already dynamite subject matter. As a host, Bell deftly walked the line between belief and skepticism, making space for stories without running with them wholeheartedly. Yet what made Coast to Coast special was how it was also—somehow—very slow, and presented with a vague banality that made it all seem plausible.
By the time Bell made his last broadcast from “the kingdom of Nye” in 2003, Coast to Coast AM had become one of the most successful talk radio programs of its time. Across his tenure Bell interviewed hundreds of weird icons, offering them hard-earned exposure in exchange for questioning by the public at-large. Recordings of these programs catalog a robust assortment of what some consider modern American mythologies and folktales—and what I consider “weird data”. King among these mythologies is that of American Alien Phenomena (AAP), which seems to be our nation’s prevailing contribution to the global paranormal mythos.
AAP herein refers to the vein of post-Roswellian alien lore that has its origins in the southwestern deserts of the United States. This includes, but is not limited to: UFOs/UAPs, alien abduction, the men in black, flying saucers, and of course, “visitors” (i.e. extraterrestrial biological entities, ETs). AAP’s pop culture mascot is the sanitized, saucer-based little green man, and though this image has been embraced chiefly as a means of selling kitschy magnets at truck stops, the underlying alien legend has permeated each layer of our crumbling social strata. To the average American, Area 51 conjures imagery of crash debris in secret hangars or nefarious government cover-ups—and even communists appreciate a well-placed jab about extraterrestrial anal probes.
Art Bell always gave these themes serious airtime. He was, in fact, openly sweet on aliens. Bell had himself witnessed a UFO—a large, silent, triangular craft—when he was a young man, and his home Pahrump is deep in alien country. It is unlikely that Coast to Coast would exist without the creepy catalyst of AAP, which would have kept a lot of people from ever finding their weird tribe. We all crave a safe space to air out our wackiest bits, an assurance that we aren’t alone. Yet in the kingdom of crazy, safety is illusory, and attacks come from all sides.
While in-fighting is par for the course in any paranormal community, the AAP nut is a notably touchy specimen. Some, I’m certain, would take umbrage at my very labelling of the phenomena as “paranormal”—which I can understand. Many reports of UFOs seem to be based—at least partially—in the presence of a cold, hard physical object. However, many people who witness AAP recall the experience as a mixture of physical and psychic components that transcend mere observation. Yet compared with ghosts, which are almost entirely described as non-physical entities, AAP do seem to have a more literal form—though not so literal as, say, Bigfoot. This is but one semantic example in a sea of potential controversy. It seems that each key player has a pet theory, and seldom do they play well with others.
The AAP enthusiast walks a cursed and lonely road—even within the ranks of paranormal researchers. It seems that the very subject matter has a unilateral stupefying effect, such that nobody can seriously discuss it at length without devolving into a sputtering maniac. I posit this to be the product of two factors: first, the sheer scope and diversity of AAP, and second, the heavy psychic implications of alien life. Both these components are compounded by the fact that these are the only paranormal phenomenon to be even partially recognized by national governing bodies. The truth really is out there.
Only the bold attempt to sail these troubled waters. Where I take you now, dear reader, is a place where reality is limited not by sensation, but by cognition. You may think me crazy at times—and I’ll likely agree with you. But in our collective universe comprised of individual viewpoints there is never a clear path to meaning. And so, from his heavenly kingdom of Nye, I invoke the spirit of Art Bell: he who knew that when you cannot go around, you must go through.
2. GEORGE NOORY PRESENTS: BEYOND BELIEF
In 2003 George Noory replaced Art Bell as the host of Coast to Coast AM. A native Michigander and world-class yes man, Noory brought fresh air to Coast to Coast that cleansed some of Bell’s darker, conspiratorial notes. In addition to his work in radio, Noory is the host of the talkshow Beyond Belief, which airs on the terminally weird Gaia network. Beyond Belief follows a similar format to Coast to Coast. Each episode centers around an interview with a special guest who fields questions from Noory and members of the studio audience.
Noory interviewed paranormal researcher Deborah Overlook on Beyond Belief in 2014, though for reasons unknown, the episode is no longer available. Overlook herself went missing in 2019, having been last seen at the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky. After much searching, inquiring minds were able to secure a transcript of her lost Beyond Belief interview, which is presented below.
Transcript of BEYOND BELIEF, Season 3, Episode 17
Recorded: May 21, 2014
Guest: Deborah Overlook
Camera pans across a dark studio, the only illumination coming from the dim glow of sacred geometry in the Gaia network logo. Camera centers and we see the shadow outline of Noory. Studio lights intensify. Noory wears a black suit and yellow tie, is standing with one hand in his pocket and the other poised at his hip. The audience begins to clap. Noory’s hair and mustache appear to have been freshly dyed black. He smiles without teeth and begins to speak into the camera.
GEORGE: Across time, people have reported seeing things they can’t explain. Cryptozoological creatures, ghostly apparitions—just to name a few. These things make us question: could there be other dimensions? Is there more to the world than what is “normal”? (Noory makes air quotes with his free hand) Today on Beyond Belief I am joined by Deborah Overlook, a paranormal researcher who has spent years trying to answer these questions. Welcome, Deborah.
Noory pulls his hand from his pocket and joins the audience in applause as Deborah enters from stage right. She is short, wearing a blue dress and smart cardigan. Her hair is close-cropped and entirely white. She approaches George and the two shake hands. Both take their seats, and Deborah adjusts her round-frame glasses.
GEORGE: Just wonderful to have you with us, Deborah.
DEBORAH: It’s great to be here, George. Thank you for having me.
Audience applause ends.
GEORGE: Now, Deborah, you’ve been involved in so many investigations it’s hard to know where to start. You’ve given yourself the title of Paranormal Investigator, maybe you could tell our audience what you mean by that?
DEBORAH: (Laughs) Well it’s true, I’ve seen it all. Sometimes I have a hard time keeping it straight, and even I have to remind myself. I’ve gone hunting for Bigfoot, I’ve interviewed UFO abductees and witnesses, I’ve visited many haunted locations as a part of various ghost investigation teams…I’ve spent a lot time with other experts in the community. I was part of the team that documented that recent poltergeist case out of Utah—
GEORGE: Ah, yes, the Robertson case.
DEBORAH: Exactly.
GEORGE: And what a fascinating case that was!
DEBORAH: Oh absolutely, George. Truly compelling, in fact I think that could be the modern Bell Witch…but yes, I’ve been deeply involved in many areas of the paranormal investigation community, and I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about each of these areas. You know as well as me George that it can be hard to gain access to these communities, and I feel fortunate that I’ve been able to do as much as I have.
GEORGE: But your interest in these topics goes beyond just ghosts and UFOs. You’ve also been investigating the more metaphysical aspects of these phenomena, is that correct?
DEBORAH: Yes it is. After I had been investigating paranormal phenomena for a few years I began to notice a lot of similarities between these supposedly distinct categories of phenomena. For example, the people I talked to who reported seeing ghosts would say they felt these electrifying physical sensations across their extremities (Deborah holds one arm out and runs the opposite hand up and down its length) and the people who saw UFOs would say the same thing. Well, it got me thinking, but I wasn’t able to put words to it. Then I was talking to a friend about their experience taking LSD—acid—and they started describing an experience that had many of the key characteristics of the, uh, altered states that alien abductees report. They said that they felt these entities in the room with them, these two entities who were able to communicate with them telepathically. These entities told them about universal oneness and showed them that reality is an unstable illusion.
GEORGE: Oh, wow.
DEBORAH: Well, this got me thinking that maybe there was something in this psychedelic drug that gave the individual access to a kind of paranormal dimension, inhabited by all of these strange phenomena that humans have reported for all history. Now of course not everybody who takes LSD is going to see entities, but my thought at the time was that the drug could just crack open the door. My research into this possibility took me from literature on psychedelic drugs to literature on enlightenment experiences.
GEORGE: Now what are these “enlightenment experiences”?
DEBORAH: Well, George, that’s when someone achieves a state of internal or mental nirvana, or higher knowing, while still being grounded in our physical reality. And this was a big thing in ancient cultures across the world, a kind of mastery of the mental domain through meditation or other practices. The people who were enlightened would walk through both dimensions—the conscious one that you and me are in right now, and another spiritual dimension. Now this is an important point I want people to understand, George. When I was researching these things I came to believe that the “spiritual dimension” was the “paranormal dimension”.
GEORGE: That’s quite an idea, isn’t it?
DEBORAH: It sure is, and it’s an idea that’s given me a lot of backlash. But when you listen to the way people describe their paranormal experiences, it sounds just incredibly similar to the way people talk about their significant spiritual experiences. I think the main difference is that paranormal experiences are usually wound up in a different type of, um, mythology, and that people use a different framework for understanding them, but the core is the same.
GEORGE: So are we to understand that Bigfoot is a spiritual entity?
DEBORAH: (Laughs with audience) Well to the ancient peoples of this land, he was actually viewed that way. It’s only in our current scientific climate that he’s seen as a biological entity. I have come to believe that there is another paranormal dimension that is kind of overlaying our own (Deborah weaves her fingers together and holds them in front of her chest) and that people sometimes slip in-and-out of it, or get a kind of peek across. Sometimes people get there with the help of psychedelics or meditation, and sometimes it happens totally randomly. Sometimes things like sleep paralysis or epilepsy can be the mechanism. But ultimately all of these experiences are caused by these totally random skips between our familiar waking dimension and a paranormal dimension.
GEORGE: That sure would explain a lot of the experiences people report. I’ve often wondered about the possibilities of other dimensions myself, and many of my guests here on Beyond Belief have brought it up as well. Now the thing that makes your work unique, Deborah, is that you believe a person can completely, as you say, “skip” in to this paranormal dimension, is that correct?
DEBORAH: Yes George I do. In alien abduction scenarios where people lose time or go missing, I believe that they have temporarily skipped into the paranormal dimension. There are reports of mediation masters being able to bend space-time, and I believe they can move fully into that dimension too, but less of them can today than in the past. I also believe that it’s possible for someone to skip into the paranormal dimension and not return. There are bizarre disappearances that happen all across the world, George, where someone will be there one minute and gone the next. Obviously not each of these people are skipping but I feel that some of them are.
GEORGE: And what do you think lies in that paranormal dimension? What is it like to be there?
Deborah inhales, takes a beat to respond.
DEBORAH: I can only speculate, George. I think that most people who have been there weren’t aware what was happening so their reports are very tied to their ego and experiences in this dimension. I think that the people who get there through meditation are also going into it with this spiritual lens that also colors the experience, that they may see the signs but not think to apply them to, say, ghosts. If I had to guess it would be a place where every moment in time is happening at once. You would be able to see how each thing is made up of smaller things that are all made up of the same thing, that emotions are energies and so are thoughts. The paranormal does not follow an A-then-B structure so I don’t think that you would get any real answers, or at lest not in the way we think about them in this dimension. It would probably be like a dimension where mystery replaces the laws of physics, which is hard to think about.
GEORGE: So no Yeti at the grocery store? Or ghosts at the DMV?
DEBORAH: (Laughs) No, not quite.
GEORGE: Well this is truly fascinating stuff, Deborah. Let’s take a question from the audience—yes, you (Noory points) what is your question for Deborah Overlook?
Camera cuts to show a young man holding a microphone.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello, George—Deborah. My question is about what someone who wants to view this paranormal dimension can do to, as you said, crack the door?
Camera cuts back to Deborah.
DEBORAH: This is a question that I get a lot. First, I always want to warn people that the most important thing about this dimension is that it is mysterious, and it operates in a very, very random way. It’s not like our dimension where we can do X and Y and expect them to be followed by Z. That’s the frustrating reality. But the one thing I can recommend to people is that they expand their relationship with mystery, and listen to their intuition. One thing I like to do is spend a few hours just going exactly where my subconscious directs me, not in a way that is unaware of my surroundings necessarily, but one that kinda feels like following cosmic marching orders. Sometimes this takes me to totally random locations where I’ll find something that is meaningful, or inspiring, or the thing I didn’t know I needed. I think that gives you a good idea of what it’s like to be in the paranormal dimension where cause-effect are replaced by intuition. Another thing you can do is spend time finding a meditation practice that works for you. Gaining mastery over your mind will certainly help if there is an instance where you skip dimensions. Some alien abductees are able to guide their experiences with the help of meditation. These things won’t necessarily open the door themselves, but they will help you be prepared if or when it happens.
GEORGE: Just incredible. Let’s have one more question. (Noory points offscreen) Yes, hello, what is your question for Deborah?
PAGES 4-26 OF THE TRANSCRIPT WERE, LAMENTABLY, CORRUPTED.
TRANSCRIPT PICKS UP ON PAGE 27.
GEORGE: Now I’m afraid that’s all the time we have for today, what a truly fascinating topic. It’s been great to have you here, Deborah.
DEBORAH: Thank you so much, George.
GEORGE: We’ll be back next week with more Beyond Belief, and until then, be careful or you might just find yourself slipping in to a new dimension: the paranormal dimension. I’m your host George Noory, wishing you a good night.
Studio lights fade as audience applauds.
Preface to sections III and IV
The United States, 2023. The tree of alien belief stands tall and healthy. The past three years have seen large-scale government disclosure of the existence of Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAPs)—which, outside of a few good memes, has done little to slow the engines of our capitalist death march. Tied up in this system is a thriving New Age industry that uses extraterrestrial hippies to promote the sale of crystals and meditation workshops. I believe both the traditional AAP (e.g. UFOs, “little green men”) and the more psychedelic space beings (e.g. Reptilians, Pleiadians) constitute modern lore, and ought be considered living mythologies.
The subsequent sections explore these two areas. The first offers an overview of the familiar, flying-saucer-flavored alien stories that, in my opinion, are directly fueled by the psychic scars of the atomic bomb. Aspects of this mythology that are historical fact are also discussed (e.g. Project Bluebook and other documented government investigations into AAP).
Second, a brief rundown of the kombucha-powered systems of thought that posit an evil race of reptiles are calcifying our third eyes, and that humanity’s only hope lies in channeling the good vibes of benevolent white people living in a nearby star system. Also briefly covered is our potential genetic seeding by said space hippies and the notion that aliens and dolphins share a common ancestor. Lord, have mercy.
While the UFO and alien encounters are in no way a uniquely American thing (compelling evidence comes from Brazil and Zimbabwe), the United States is a mass proliferator of media and, for better or for worse, has a large say in the way these phenomena are processed and cataloged. Simultaneously, the United States considers itself the global powerhouse of information, science, and technology, and is likely to force itself into whatever discussion may be occurring elsewhere—irrespective of topic.
Operating from the understanding that mythology represents those aspects of our collective experience that are too weird to hide neatly behind science, it is likely that alien lore tells us more about ourselves than it does anything else.
3. LITTLE GREEN ATOMIC GUILT
In the 1940s, lights in the New Mexican sky pushed an aching world across the threshold of true fear and loathing. The Trinity atom bomb test of 1945 was the world’s first large-scale atomic explosion, burning an outline of before and after on our collective human psyche. Not a soul born since has lived in a world that’s more than a few loose screws away from armageddon. There was—is—no going back. Twenty one days later the atom bomb was used to kill over 200,000 Japanese civilians, and America has spent the subsequent eighty years trying to decide how we feel about it.
The deserts of New Mexico were prime for atomic testing, inhabited mainly by the poor indigenous peoples our government likes to leave off their who’s who of valid human life. Whether out of paranoia, callousness, or spine-tingling U.S. government “curiosity”, the families living near Trinity were not warned of what was about to occur. One boy remembered his mother being blinded by the flash as she washed dishes at the kitchen sink. It would not be until news of Hiroshima reached them that these citizens were aware that the technology had been tested in their own back yard.
Before the irradiated dust had settled, another specter was born. The AAP—though not as overtly vile as total nuclear holocaust—also crawled away from ground zero, and has since broken bread with conspiracy theorists, presidents, movie stars, and all manner of American beasts. In the weeks that followed the Trinity test, a young boy—the same boy whose mother was blinded—reported coming across a downed extraterrestrial craft while out rambling with a friend. The children saw a charred crash path leading to an avocado-shaped ship, around which small entities bumbled anxiously and made squealing noises. The witnesses reported a type of telepathic emotional connection with the entities that would become part-and-parcel in these sightings. They knew them to be not only in distress, but in pain. Not sure what to do, they figured they ought go back home for supper. The next day they returned and observed the site a second time, this time getting a smidge closer before throwing in the towel.
Then the government, as it does, caught wind. It has been proposed that the powerful radar systems being used in the New Mexican airspace—known to be quite dangerous for terrestrial aircraft—had meddled with alien spaceship technology, causing the crash. The thought here is that the government knew something was out there, but it took a while to pinpoint it’s exact location. At any rate, the feds pulled their favorite trick of showing up, shutting it down, and packing it out. Yet one of the children, acting on a Speilbergian lark, was able to sneak on to the crash site and recover a piece of the ship before it was hauled away. The strange metal bracket he recovered has been tested and shown to be made of a rare alloy that was not able to be produced at the time of its reported discovery—but one that could have certainly been made prior to its actual testing in the 2000’s.
While the 1945 crash remains relatively unknown outside of us true basket cases, the story of Roswell is a cultural touchstone. In 1947, a rancher came upon a downed craft in the deserts outside of Corona, New Mexico. He went to the nearest incorporated town of Roswell to report what he had seen, though not before spending considerable time poking around in the wreckage and getting a sense that it was truly strange. The sheriffs office came and checked it out, agreed it was odd indeed, and called the Air Force. Lieutenant colonel Jesse Marcel was sent to investigate the crash site. Marcel was a well-respected and high ranking military man, who had the year prior been entrusted with overseeing the atomic testings at Bikini Atoll. In other words, he was no nut.
Marcel collected some smaller pieces of debris in a box and returned home where he woke his son, Jesse Marcel Jr., to show him what he had found. Marcel Jr. recalls playing with a light, malleable, and incredibly strong alloy material, that did not behave like any metal he had seen before or since. In the morning Marcel made his report and the daily Roswell newspaper was printed with the now legendary headline, “RAAF [Airforce] Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell”. The news rapidly made its way across the nation, and the government, sensing an ensuing panic, squirmed in to action.
Later in his life, Marcel reported that he was extensively debriefed by government officials, who told him that the infamous downed weather balloon narrative was—or had better be—his new story. The newspaper published a follow-up to the flying saucer story—headline: “It’s a Balloon!”—detailing how the wreckage recovered was actually the remains of an experimental weather balloon. But the government was in a pickle. In the multi-day process of identifying, packing, and relocating the crash debris, dozens of Roswell citizens had seen or heard something that didn’t align with the weather balloon narrative. Years later many of these witnesses reported having been visited by government agents who “strongly encouraged” their cooperation. Though it was not the first alien crash in New Mexico, the Roswell Incident was certainly the one that has stuck in our cultural mud. From this distance it seems unlikely we will ever get a straight story on those weird days in 1947.
But worry not—Biden is on the case. In early 2023, congress passed an $858 billion dollar defense budget that allocated funds to the investigation of UFO phenomenon in the United States since the 1945 crash. This summer we were offered a lukewarm summary of their findings, which basically confirmed the existence of UFOs (or “unidentified aerial phenomenon”, UAPs) but did little to address the burning questions of the AAP enthusiast. In general, nobody really cared…though living as we are in a post-truth hell scape, I imagine it would take some pretty meaty disclosure to get our feathers ruffling.
It may surprise the well-adjusted to know that this is just the most recent in a long line of government inquiry into AAP. Following the events of Roswell, the government launched Project Blue Book, a decade-long investigation into reports of UFO activity. After examining over 12,000 cases—and burning billions of taxpayer dollars on red Solo cups and carryout—Project Blue Book arrived at essentially the same conclusion as the recent investigation: these things do exist, but there’s no hard evidence that they’re aliens. Yet whistleblowers within the government tell a different story. Bob Lazar famously states he worked as part of a team at Area 51 tasked with reverse engineering alien technology from recovered crash debris, and military scientific advisor Dr. J. Allen Hyneck—who was heavily involved in Project Blue Book—claims there is more to the story than the government is willing to share.
Stanton Friedman, unbridled weirdo.
Cue the march of the UFO investigator. The story of the Roswell Incident, while compelling, was quickly dropped from the American psyche to make space for the more pressing concerns of communism, Coca Cola, and Marilyn Monroe. If it weren’t for the hard work of a few chronic nerds, we would likely not know Roswell from a hole in the ground. In the 1978s, nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman—national treasure and unbridled weirdo—sensed something fishy had gone down in Roswell and intended get to the bottom of it. He tracked down Jesse Marcel, who told him that the weather balloon narrative was the product of government cover-up. Friedman boldly shared his findings with the world, reintroducing the case to the national stage, and inspiring a wave of UFO researchers.
These individuals go into the field, interviewing witnesses and collecting stories to bring back home and share in the form of documentaries or self-published books. They often do so on their own dime and face extreme ridicule from entities both professional and personal. Yet, true artists, they return to the work, because they believe in the power of the individual story. If you have ever bought a hokey alien keychain or enjoyed a movie about creatures from space, you owe these people some respect. They are single-handedly responsible for categorizing an important vein of our weird identity—and one that we all seem to get a kick out of, even as we laugh at it.
What I have just outlined is an admittedly bare-boned representation of the AAP story—I do have some pity for my brave readers. Yet, interestingly, there is one angle to these phenomena that I have not seen discussed by UFO researchers. As previously outlined, I am of the opinion that AAP are at their core paranormal, and as such, are deeply related to the human psyche. While the running narrative is that the aliens were interested in us because of the atom bomb, I feel that the opposite may be more theoretically viable. I believe that the rise of AAP may be a symptom of the fear, guilt, and paranoia caused by the atom bomb. Stated differently, I believe that the utter horror of the bomb primed our collective psyche to perceive the millennia-old phenomenon of “lights in the sky” as a species from a distant galaxy coming to perform a wellness check. Moreover, I believe the myth of AAP to be inexorably tied to myth of the atom bomb.
I suppose I ought address what I mean by the “myth” of the atom bomb. Five generations of Americans have been raised with the framework that the bomb was a “necessary evil”. I find “necessary evil” to be a wretched, oxymoronic phrase, and one that should be abolished. There are many factors that contributed to the decision to drop the atom bomb on Hiroshima, and few have anything to do with the reasons we are taught as children. There is little evidence that it was necessary for closing the Pacific theater of war, and historians believe that estimates of American lives needed to do so by other means were greatly inflated to support a narrative the government had already begun to spin. What is more likely is that years of global carnage—including the horrific Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor—had made the option of atomic warfare seem viable, even humane; the US had gone to extreme lengths (i.e. had spent extreme amounts of money) to create the bomb, and already had one eye fixed on the upcoming tensions with Russia. All of this explains Hiroshima, though the bombing of Nagasaki two days later is another matter entirely. President Truman wasn’t even informed of the plan to bomb Nagasaki, and thereafter legislation was passed which required the military to inform the president of planned nuclear attacks. It was a terrible, terrible time.
I should leave further discussion to those more well-informed than I. Ultimately, it is a decision that none of us alive today will ever truly understand, as we cannot ever comprehend the horrors of that reality. Placing blame on those long dead is a fruitless pursuit, though the time has come to put the easy myth of “necessary evil” to bed. I feel that the specter of the atom bomb has cast a shadow over each generation of Americans born since 1945. It’s something we don’t like to spend time thinking about, that we have relegated to those dusty corners of our subconscious where we store all the uncomfortable things our nation has done in cardboard boxes. Yet history cannot be so easily contained.
Frequently, the uncomfortable parts of our individual histories surface in the form of neuroses—addictions, maladaptive relationship patterns and the like. The same could be said of our collective histories. Post-bomb America is a deeply paranoid place. It seems to me no coincidence that we view lights in the sky—a phenomenon as old as recorded history— as aliens coming to scope us out, and that we find it so easy to believe the government knows the truth but is lying about it. Even outside of the AAP community, there is an odd tendency for the atom bomb and alien phenomena to hang together. The most recent example is this summer’s Oppenheimer being released within two weeks of the government press conference on UAPs.
It is likely that on some hungry, subconscious level I have used this essay as a tool for probing my own beliefs on AAP. A similar pattern to that regarding my thoughts on ghosts has emerged, such that I find claims hard physical evidence a tough ticket to buy. It seems unlikely that an actual biological entity from another galaxy pilots a craft to earth to hang out and probe the unfortunate. Yet I believe in the reports themselves—particularly those of UFO’s, inexplicable lights in the sky, and abduction-like experiences. I view these as raw stimuli that require the application of structure for interpretation. For most people raised in our culture and era, the touchstone of AAP will offer a framework for digesting those brushes with the paranormal that seem celestial in nature. In other words, the phenomena is the phenomena, the rest is what we bring to the table.
4. THE BLONDE SPACE HIPPIES AND YOU
Enter the weird. Alongside the familiar, nuts-and-bolts UFO story bumps another vein of alien lore as complex as it is groovy. It is tied up in self help, quartz crystals, and dolphins; it deals in cosmic vibes. Loosely, it posits that there is a galactic federation made up of twelve unique alien species who have varying vested interests in our earthly goings on. Some are nefarious, others are benevolent, and all are hiding in plain sight. This batch of New Age space myth has vague roots in Roswell but continues to peel off in increasingly unpredictable angles, with no apparent consensus unifying the literal dozens of independent pockets of believers. Attempting to summarize is, without doubt, fruitless…yet here we are.
The notion of otherworldly interveners has existed for as long as the idea of aliens has. In the 20th century, this concept took on a bold new life. Various whistleblowers—most famous among them the former Canadian defense minister John Hellyer—have publicly stated that global governments are in contact with at least twelve alien species. A few oddballs within New Age circles have taken the possibility of a galactic rolodex and run with it. Through the contributions of “contactees”—individuals who use meditation techniques to communicate directly with these far-out cosmic entities—we are afforded fascinating insight on a mythology as it grows in real time. I feel that, as with ancient mythologies and the people they belonged to, these stories provide a glimpse into the fears, insecurities, and general neuroses of the modern human.
A key player in both New Age lore and the general AAP cannon are the Grays. A precursor to the little green man image, the Grays are the most commonly described as humanoids with enlarged heads and glossy, almond-shaped eyes. They are nearly always described as being cold and computer-like. In boilerplate alien fashion, they communicate telepathically with their contactees. They are the beings implicated in the majority of classic abduction scenarios—our dreaded probers. But, unlike the alien races I’ll discuss later, nobody can seem to get a good read on these guys. In some circles they’re described as a mere worker class following marching orders, to others they are sinister players with some vaguely evil agenda (that, naturally, nobody really understands). Some contactees posit they aren’t even alive, merely biomechanic skin suits operated by AI.
The Grays are unique, in that they seem to be among the only aliens who show up to party with or without meditation. Though their first official appearance in the American zeitgeist was the 1961 abduction case of Betty and Barney Hill, it has been retrospectively hypothesized that the Grays have been around much longer. In the 1800’s, cryptic party boy and infamous occultist Aleister Crowley reported contact with a Gray-like entity named Lam. Believers say Grays are depicted in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in Incan stone carvings. A factor of their historical popularity, the Grays are at the center of some truly fun theories—my personal favorite posits Grays share a common ancestor with dolphins, which seems to be supported chiefly by the fact that they are both gray.
The next alien species is well-known to us folks hanging out above the 75th percentile in weirdness. The conspiratorial Reptilians are a race of nine-foot lizards who aim to destroy humanity by subtly rotting it from the inside out. They have weaseled their way into positions of global power, and are rumored to have invaded the minds of politicians, businesspeople, and Kris Kristofferson. There are factions within the Reptilian race, such that some are earth-bound and dwelling in our planet’s core while others (the “Draco” Reptilians) are evil from the far reaches of outer space. They feed on our negativity, and manipulate our energies to keep us from forming drum circles.
Fighting the nefarious Reptilian agenda are a band of cosmic Norwegians who just want everyone to take it easy, man. The Pleiadians are a race of tall, beautiful blonde people who communicate with humanity primarily via middle-aged women with YouTube channels. They preach the message of universal oneness and can be channeled through meditation with or without crystals. Some believe that the Pleiadians seeded humanity and, like a benevolent parent figure, they are here to support us, even though they cannot directly intervene. Believers say that you can drop in to the Pleiadian healing energy as-needed through internal dialog. In general, the Pleiadian message is one familiar to those of us who have frequented yoga studios: within us all is the capacity for eternal peace and love.
I believe that each of these figures reflect, for good or ill, the psychic landscape of a deeply weird culture. From what I can tell, the people perpetuating this mythology are overwhelmingly white and operate in capitalist societies. Aspects of the Gray, Reptilian, and Pleiadian mythos speak to the crises, hang-ups, and biases of this genre of human.
The Grays are the most challenging to dissect—their mythologies are terribly varied. If we are to run with the lore that posits they are the galactic do-ers, working at the behest of the Reptilians, then their cold, biomechanic nature captures that empty feeling one gets after 8 hours of making someone else’s goals a reality. The Reptilians openly and directly reflect the capitalist godheads of the modern world, those forces whose gluttony is actively contributing to our mass extinction. It is hardly a stretch to view these real-world menaces as monsters.
Clearly, we need saving. The Pleiadians answer the call, and the question: “if normal white people aren’t able to save the world, perhaps super white people from space will?” At its best, this notion is uncreative—and at its worst, kinda racist. Indeed, the Pleiadian mythology hangs a little too well with some of Hitler’s kookier occult beliefs for me to feel comfortable with it. That said, you will be hard-pressed to find a Pleiadian channeler who has anything overtly negative to share. These folks seem to be doing their admittedly weird thing without hurting anyone, though they wobble on a brink of a slippery slope.
That’s about as far as I’m able to take us, for now…I’m brushing elbows with insanity on an increasingly regular basis, and I fear the total social implosion that may occur should I steep myself further. Out of all the topics in this essay, this is the one in which the aforementioned “unilateral stupefying effect” is most overt. I have attempted to curb mad ramblings, though resistance is futile. The weird deals in waves. You have the most fun when you ride with them.
5. PSYCHOLOGY IS A WEIRD SCIENCE
Psychology is a field dominated by constructs that can only be observed obliquely, that you can see signs of but that you cannot touch. It is truly a science of the people, in the sense that one does not need training to understand core research findings; it is innately interesting in that it is the science of us. In recent decades the field has become a catch-all for would-be philosophers, smart and good natured people who want to help, and students who enjoy science but flunked organic chemistry. I am thankful to be a member of the community. It is a rewarding pursuit and a damned good place to spend my life.
Yet if science were a family, psychology would be the tagalong kid brother. He trails behind the more developed siblings of physics and biology, left to squeeze in to last year’s hand-me-down funding. Though psychology is by no means a dying science—indeed, clinical psychology PhDs are the most competitive graduate programs in the country—the field is reaching a critical threshold imposed by the limits of a cold, materialistic world view.
William James, the founder of American psychology, read this in our cards from the very outset of the discipline. Alarmed by growing the polarization between religiosity and scientism, he urged the scientist to not pit themselves against the mysterious components of human life. Mystery, he posited, is not a thing that can ever be dominated, and in denying the mystical we deny thousands of years of global wisdom. He pointed out how many of the leading scientists of his time were not dissimilar from the religious zealots they claimed to loathe—they had merely exchanged one dogma for another. James, though immensely respected, struggled to convince others to incorporate his ideas. At the end of the day, dogma is a real time-saver.
Over one hundred years have passed and it remains a strange time to be a psychologist. Increasingly complicated technology has not brought us the answers we thought it would. Foundational research findings do not replicate; our measures may not fit our data but we use them anyway. The demands placed on individual researchers—particularly those early in their careers—are severe, which contributes to a general sense that what matters most is to publish and get grants. And to be fair, this does matter most for career success—but not necessarily for science.*
I sense that we are so busy trying to make it that we have lost touch with the heart of science: sitting around and thinking. We are expected to be well-rounded experts in every aspect of the scientific process, which leaves little time to become a true expert in anything. We are trained to concretize the abstract, innermost spaces of the mind using using a scale of 1-5, with 1 being “not at all” and 5 being “very much”. We add these numeric values to statistical models that are altered, whether consciously or not, to support a specific, publishable narrative. Covariates are included in models at best out of theory, though frequently out of habit. Dominating each of these processes is a prevailing notion that the trends that matter most are the trends that hold up across groups of people—and, ideally, all people. I understand why, of course: we want to be able to actually do something with our findings. Yet there is a growing concern—even outside of nuts like myself—that these and other structural standards make it likely that we are not moving forward as much as treading water.
Make no mistake—there are incredibly creative and innovative people working every day to expand upon these standards (and they certainly have). There is a trend towards using hypothetically unbiased physiological markers in-tandem with other types of data, and an increase in cross-discipline collaboration efforts. Moreover, any psychologist who is up to snuff will freely admit to the limitations of their work. There are statisticians who lay out these problems in mathematical terms, and large-scale methodological critiques authored by minds greater than mine. The central issue is that, most of the time, our findings are upheld by the public as reflecting inalienable truths about the human experience.
I am in no way arguing for the complete abandonment of empiricism, and do not wish to imply that all of this work is hogwash. Only the uncreative deal in absolutes. It is undeniable that empirical work has been used to make changes that greatly benefit individuals across our society. What I am arguing, instead, is that our current field-wide apathy towards the parts of psychology that make it a weird science may be hamstringing us. My concern is on a decidedly metaphysical level.
I fear that in its efforts to play ball with the big brother sciences, psychology has lost touch with the inherent magic of its subject matter. A side effect of the scientific-materialistic revolution was the de-mystification of the human mind. As the soul was moved to the prefrontal cortex, imagination was snuffed. The modern psychologist finds themselves in an unending cycle of beginning a project with questions and ending a project with doubts. Questions and doubts cannot—and should not—be abolished from the scientific repertoire, but they are best supported by philosophical digestion. We have spent so long alchemizing feelings to numbers that we have lost touch with the very nature of feeling.
We have been forced to submit to the tyranny of material empiricism—which has taken us far, but cannot answer the questions to which we claim we want answers. If we are interested in knowing how 5-items relate statistically to a separate 10-items, then empiricism is a great tool. Yet what we are actually interested in is how one amorphous knot of sensation is tied to another. We feel pretty confident that that these 5-items and 10-items do a good job of assessing the knots, because other people have cited them. Yet there are no building blocks here, no standardized units of measurement.
It is for this general reason that I feel psychology ought loosen its screws and embrace the aspects that make it similar to a paranormal science. The future, I believe, lies in an integration of empirical methodology with a person-centered approach that puts an emphasis on wholistic stories.** A paranormal researcher—be they ghost hunter, alien investigator, or Bigfoot enthusiast—targets the phenomenon of interest by spending serious time with the people who report witnessing it. They seem to understand—most likely by accident—that applying a 5-point scale to UFO encounters would limit the range of possibility. Why do we not feel this way about the mind and soul? About depression, trauma, and personality?
It is unlikely that this approach will gain traction any time soon. The bodies that sustain psychological research are oil-eating and rusted. They are Eurocentric, classist, and embody a values system that is actively killing life on our planet. Science is just another sellable product. In order to get funding one must deal in numbers, with stories affixed as slogans. We are trained to sacrifice the meaningful individual story in exchange for the more powerful masses. We do this because we want to make a living; we do this because the system requires it of us.
The good news, however, is that paradigms are built to fall. Whether or not we will live to see it is another matter entirely. The most I can do is keep firing off these mad thoughts, keep alienating my colleagues, keep hoping, and keep believing.
*Of course, without funding, there is no study, and without manuscripts, there is no scientific community. Yet if science is the progression of knowledge, the actual most important thing is understanding your subject and collecting good data. You can publish forever on weak data, and swill can get funding.
**I am not the first, nor most talented, person to have this opinion. There are many qualitative experts in psychology who pioneer methodologies that afford the individual a voice. Other disciplines—anthropology, for example—have been using this type of data collection for years.
6. UNIFIED THEORY OF THE PARANORMAL
In BELIEVERS Part 1 I had intended to include a section outlining my belief in the theory that “ghosts, UFOs, and cryptids are all crumbs stuck in the same psychic mustache”. I instead opted for a short story about two men who fake a Bigfoot video together, and find their individual and collective identities forever altered.
I have spent the subsequent season sitting with “weird data”, and I feel the time for elaboration is upon us. The thoughts I am about to express may raise the hackles of those who know me personally. Though it does me no good, I’d like to assure you that I am not crazy. I simply believe in the existence of phenomena that cannot be empirically studied. I believe that there are aspects of our universe that operate in an a-causal fashion, that are not able to be neatly tucked in to statistical models. I reject the notion that folk knowledge is worthless, and that for something to be real one must touch it. I believe these things not in spite of my scientific training, but because of it.
What I offer you now are my thoughts on a Unified Theory of the Paranormal. Versions of this theory have been around for decades, championed mainly by other academics who dabble in the strange. Astrophysicist Dr. Percy Seymour coined the term in his successful book outlining potential underpinnings of paranormal phenomena from the perspective of physical sciences. Seeing as I am ill-equipped to offer insight in this area, my explanation will lean more towards the “soft science” conceptual framework.
The overarching notion of the Unified Theory is that all paranormal phenomena—be they ghostly apparitions, alien abductions, or fairies—behave in a similar fashion and are offshoots of a singular, grandfather phenomenon. This phenomenon has been with mankind for our entire existence. You could call it mystery, or the unknown, but essentially it refers to the subtle forces of our world that transcend known cause-effect standards. You likely have experienced them in the form of extreme coincidence—when you are thinking of a friend you have not talked to in years and unexpectedly run in to them moments later, when something so weird and unlikely happens that it causes you to laugh. For most of human history these moments of strangeness were read as signals of an interactive and mysterious universe.
A paranormal experience is a concentrated dosage of such universal mystery. Just as with our powerful coincidences, paranormal encounters are often very personal and accompanied by a full-body sensation that “well, that was weird”. As with coincidences, they cannot be reliably reproduced, because there is no inherent reason that they are happening. All meaning is assigned post-hoc.
Paranormal phenomena can occur on both physical and psychic levels, but they all require some degree of “participation” with the perceiver. This is not to say that the perceiver must actively conjure or contribute to the phenomena, but rather, that the phenomena interacts with the perceiver. Indeed, it is the perceiver that offers the mystery structure. In some phenomena—such as poltergeist hauntings—it is thought that the mystery is activated by psychophysiological contexts that “prime” the environment for such haunting. We see this concept demonstrated clearly in horror movies, where the ghost almost always torments an individual already struggling with loss, grief, or transition.
On a related note, paranormal phenomena seem to be directly reflecting some of the ultimate mysteries of mankind. Aliens represent the question of “are we alone in the universe”, and ghosts represent “does consciousness persist in some form after death”.* Naturally, the phenomena don’t work towards answering these concerns—they are more projections of these worries on our minds. They are simply reading the room.
This Unified Theory is supported in part by observations that there are areas of “high strangeness” across the globe, where paranormal phenomena of all categories seem to be concentrated. For example, it is frequently observed that in areas where people report Bigfoot sightings, UFO sightings are also common (note: different witnesses, unknown to one another). Conceptually, this means that some areas have a concentration of raw universal mystery, which is then perceived in a variety of ways by a variety of different people. This seems to play well with the characterization of these phenomenon as personal and a-causal.
The alternative to this theory is the similarly dubious notion that everyone is a liar. That everyone who has seen something they can’t explain is gullible, irrational, or crazy. That ancient peoples were stupid and unsophisticated, that the mysteries of the universe are relegated in outer space. I reject this idea. We have grown far too comfortable with the vision of ourselves as masters of our domain. It’s bold of to assume we understand other people’s experiences when most of us aren’t self-reflective enough to break a bad habit.
I can sense the wheels about to come off…much more of this and I may never roll again. Paranormal analysis is a tricky thing. I have long heard wisecracks that paranormal investigators wind up divorced, deceased, or otherwise ostracized. I know this now to be true. I am lucky to have encountered a few likeminded academics recently who have helped me to feel less alone, who have afforded me the courtesy of an interested audience. May you, reader, find your people as well.
*Cryptids do not so easily fit under a central question, but maybe this is because I do not understand the phenomena. I truly struggle with believing stories of Bigfoot or Chupacabra…I do have my limits. Maybe I’ll tackle this in a Part 3.
7. SO YOU’VE SEEN A GHOST
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that no amount of precognition can offset the utter awe of seeing something you cannot explain. I have written elsewhere of how there are two types of people interested in the paranormal: those whose fascination is driven by a personal brush with the weird, and those whose creepy leanings came pre-baked. Belonging to the second camp, I have since childhood thought about what it is like to see something paranormal. I now know that you can spend an entire lifetime immersed other people’s stories—forming hypotheses, making assumptions—only to have it completely scramble your code when it happens to you.
My paranormal experience occurred on September 19th, 2023. It was a group encounter with what we believed to be a specific spirit. I am not interested in defending the validity of what we saw as I know this to be a pointless pursuit. For many people raised under a materialistic paradigm—especially those who are white, have a little cash, and a diploma—there will never be proof of the paranormal, for merely in saying I saw something I have destroyed the possibility that I am a reliable witness. I have not noticed this trend among people raised in the pockets of society where individuals rely greatly on one another, or in cultures where the wisdom of elders is actually respected.
I digress. What we witnessed both made sense and was stupefying. Paranormal phenomena is truly best described as “high strangeness”, in that it is interactive on a plane that does not seem standard, physical. It is unlike any sensation I have ever had—yet was familiar. It is not dissimilar from the feeling of standing barefoot beneath a huge tree and looking up into its branches, watching the choreography of its leaves, and understanding with no words a system so perfect and complex that it feels impossible. After seeing something like this you cannot help but view the world as magical.
The days following our experience were wrapped in new light. My friend and I sent ten-minute voice memos back and forth, together digesting the implications. The world has opened and I feel connected to the more cosmic side of our human legacy, one that my ancestors worked with and not against. I understand the importance of ritual and remembrance of people who’ve passed. I know that there are essential parts of consciousness that will never be able to be studied, I know that the deities we pray to are within and without us, that most realities of our existence lack inherent causes.
I am lucky to have had a positive encounter with an entity that told me I should loosen up a bit—and keep writing. I get the sense that things like this don’t happen more than a handful of times in a person’s life. But, this experience also made me aware that magic is present everywhere in small doses. It has taken a lot of strife out of my daily existence. I see the world as a place that interacts with me—not a place that I am walking through, but one that I am dancing with.
With this section I originally intended to offer some guidelines for how to incorporate a paranormal experience into your life in a way that maximizes the joy of mystery. I abandoned this goal rapidly. The core of the paranormal is within the individual; it is the type of thing that can only be assimilated via personal process. All I can really offer those who have witnessed high strangeness is reassurance—what you have seen, what you have felt, is something that has walked beside us for millennia, and it is only in recent history that its existence has been denied. This does not invalidate the realities of the material world, but rather, expands upon them.
Welcome to the jump.
8. THANK GOD FOR BELIEVERS
I met Seth on the same day I met his daughter, at the red-brick history museum on Massachusetts street. He was a gentle-voiced, slow-talking man who had the familiar air of late 90’s single fatherhood that I observed in my own dad. His daughter, Jordan, was six years old and so was I. We effortlessly became best friends and remain so to this day. A few years later Seth was my elementary school music teacher. In his classroom I felt I had an “in”—some personal connection that validated my contributions, that made participating less scary. Adolescence marched onward and though I saw Seth on occasion, I was too busy worrying about literally everything to share much more than hello. When we talked a few weeks ago it was for the first time in over ten years.
Seth called me on a Saturday afternoon. I was sitting in a parked car on Figueroa, windows cracked, with a pad of paper on my right thigh. I had jotted some notes to help guide our discussion, which would concern a UFO sighting that Seth had when he was a young man.
As part of my research for the first edition of Believers I interviewed Rick, a ghost hunter in my area who I had met through Craigslist. The community of alien belief is decidedly more varied than that of ghosts—some believers also walk the scorched grounds of serious conspiracy thought—and I had some doubts about using Craigslist a second time. I asked around to see if my friends knew anyone with UFO experiences who may be open to talking, and was pleased when Jordan told me to reach out to him.
It is hard to find an adequate salutation when you haven’t spoken to someone in a decade, even harder when you are trying to talk to them about aliens. However my trepidations abated when the voice on the other end of the line still felt familiar, the same one I remember from childhood. I briefly explained what I was planning to do with this essay and we stumbled in to Seth’s story.
Seth was raised in Salina, Kansas, a rural city in the center of the great US bread basket. His sighting occurred when he was a sophomore in high school. He and a buddy were out one evening cruising—an activity that the uninitiated city dweller can never truly comprehend—and though Seth admitted that a few beers were involved, it was not enough to produce a hallucinogenic effect. Suddenly, out of the darkness shone a light—incredibly bright, so bright that it almost produced heat. Seth’s friend navigated the car closer until the light was directly adjacent to the road. It hovered over a field in complete and total silence. The light was technically white, though it seemed to contain a rainbow of all other possible colors. The boys could not make out any specific details, could not determine if the light was coming from a craft or whether it had any shape at all. Seth’s friend got out of the car for a closer look but did not get far. Roughly five minutes after it first appeared, the light rose swiftly and silently into the night sky.
The boys were rattled. Seth went to his public library and looked up information on UFOs, trying to gain some frame of reference for this experience. He read about alien abduction scenarios, which interested but frightened him. To this day Seth does not know what they witnessed in the field. If he had to guess, it would either be an experimental aircraft, or some type of mysterious celestial entity—though not necessarily aliens.
This fascinated me. I had been forming my own hypotheses about alien phenomena, which included a more mysterious, quasi-soulful aspect of these reports that extends beyond that of actual, physical alien beings. Seth and I seemed to agree that there is a deeply weird aspect to the phenomena that brushes up against that of spiritual experiences. He pointed out how there are passages of the Bible that seem to describe these phenomena.
A few days prior I had been flipping through my childhood Bible and read the passage where Jesus multiples fish and bread to feed hungry masses. After witnessing this miracle, the people go up to Jesus and ask him for a sign, or proof from heaven that what they’ve seen is real. Jesus “sighed deeply and said, ‘Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it.’”
Admittedly, this was the first time in my adult life that I had read from the Bible, and I find it interesting that this was the passage that found me. I love the image of a frustrated Jesus, rolling his eyes as the people demand proof. He knew that proof is antithetical to the mystery. In many ways we are still members of that generation.
I have been seriously sitting with these topics for six months. In this time I have come to accept that proof will never, ever arrive. And nor should it. Belief is the very heart of mystery. I have also learned that believers deeply need one another. There is a tactile energetic shift when someone telling a ghost story realizes that a believer is listening; a wall silently crumbles when the UFO witness is met with enthusiasm and not antagonism. As much as these experiences are personal, their primary function is to bind us to one another, one weird team in this game of cosmic chance. It is for that reason that now say: thank God for the phenomena, thank God for the mystery, and above all else, and thank God for believers.
Dedicated to the one who I know will read to the end. Gracias por todo.
