Tag Archives: aliens

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Against A Unified Theory of Strangeness

There is a trend toward unified theories of strangeness. I recently mentioned The Vengeful Djinn, whose authors suggest: ‘the djinn could be the hidden source of the diversity of paranormal events everywhere’ (Guiley & Imbrogno, 2011: xxi). The Cryptoterrestrials by Mac Tonnies is another recent text in a similar vein: ‘Could “fairies” and “elves” – and all their mythical successors – be distorted representations of an actual species?’ (Tonnies, 2010: 18).

Cases of so-called ‘high strangeness’ provide a very good reason for the supposition of a single source for paranormal phenomena. In a high strangeness case we may confront phenomena that refuse the usual distinctions but manifest as an intimidating mixture of UFOs producing poltergeist-like phenomena, for instance, or saquatch-like animals, which behave as if they were ghosts by vanishing or impossibly flying away.

A recent case of high strangeness was the notorious Skinwalker Ranch (Kelleher & Knapp, 2005). The classic, of course, were the happenings of 1966-67 at Point Pleasance in Virginia, described by John Keel in The Mothman Prophecies (2002). Indeed, it is Keel who was perhaps the first to propose a unified theory of strangeness, accounting for the bewildering explosion of phenomena that confronted him. He mooted ‘ultraterrestrials’ as a possible cause – multi-dimensional beings whose reality intersects with ours in a way that enables them to produce effects wildly at variance from the ordinary.

mothman

Classic high strangeness: the mothman. Drawn by an artist from witnesses' accounts.

Yet the logic of these arguments leads to something perhaps unexpected. It’s clearest in Mac Tonnies’ text. He proposes the cryptoterrestrials are possibly a race of terrestrial beings with whom we have shared the planet for millennia. They are physical, like us. The way they manifest diversely as greys, reptilians, space brothers, man-beasts or fairies is simply a decision on their part, to lead us along whatever lines of supposition best suit their purposes. Tonnies suggests that, technologically, the cryptoterrestrials may not be that far in advance of us, but for the time being they certainly know how to hide from and mislead us, and this is perhaps all that they technologically require.

We arrive at a similar conclusion as we follow Guiley & Imbrogno’s musings on the djinn. The authors posit some theoretical ideas to support their view that the djinn may inhabit dimensions of space unavailable to three-dimensional human beings. But once we apprehend them behind this barrier, what do we find? The djinn are created male and female. Some are Muslims and some are not. Some are enlightened and some are not. Some wish us harm and some do not. They have free will just like us, so the choice is theirs.

Where there is a unified theory of strangeness, it starts to seem that once we peer behind whatever veil separates us from them (‘hidden dimensions’, ‘cloaking technology’) what we find is not very different from ourselves. Perhaps this is conveyed most vividly in the movie version of The Mothman Prophecies (2002), where ‘John Klein’ (Richard Gere) is walking down the street with paranormal expert ‘Alexander Leek’ (Alan Bates). Klein expresses the view that they must be dealing with something far more intelligent than themselves. ‘If there was a car crash ten blocks away,’ responds Leek, ‘then that window washer up there could probably see it. Now, that doesn’t mean he’s God, or even smarter than we are. But from where he’s sitting, he can see a little further down the road.’

'If you could see what I can see when I'm cleaning windows.' Gere and Bates in 'The Mothman Prophecies' (2002).

So, we have three unified theories of strangeness – cryptoterrestrials, ultraterrestrials and djinn. But in each case the logic of the argument implies that by bringing paranormal phenomena together, we also draw them down to earth. What is it about a unified theory of strangeness that transforms ‘the other’ into something not very different from ‘us’?

The nature of the other is to be other than us. But the troubling thing about the other is precisely its otherness. It offers no hooks onto which we can attach labels or identities, or guarantees. Even to label the other as ‘other’ is a step away from otherness; a means of trying to grasp a reassuring handle. Assuming the other is ‘one’ thing, or even that it is ‘anything’, is a step away from otherness. The problem we presume to solve with a unified theory of strangeness, therefore, is the problem of the otherness of the other.

A unified theory is an attempt to arrive at the other of the other. The problem with the other, as it stands, is that it’s a jumbled mess: UFOs, fairies, ghosts, monsters, etc. If we could only ‘get behind’ all of this, we reason, we could get a grip on what’s really happening. Yet the problem with the phenomenon at hand is precisely that it is ungrippable. The immediate problem is actually the temptation to regard ungrippability as a problem, rather than as a real characteristic of what is to hand.

Orthodox wisdom is represented by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, who regarded ‘the other of the other’ as a fiction that finds expression particularly in paranoia (Žižek, 1997). If we do not accept phenomena that arises for us as phenomena, but instead put trust in something that lies behind the scenes, then we entertain the fantasy of ‘the other of the other’ – the one who, despite the otherness of what appears, is secretly and masterfully in control of its appearance. The fact that this manoeuvre seeks to keep at bay the threatening otherness of the phenomena is betrayed in the way that the theory returns only another version of the self: the djinn, the ultra- or cryptoterrestrials, who are fundamentally, reassuringly, like us. By trying to attain the other of the other we reach instead only more of the self, displaced slightly into ‘another dimension’.

The Cryptoterrestrials

'The Cryptoterrestrials' by Mac Tonnies. Published by Anomalist Books.

There is an alternative that is not limited by dualistic thinking. Contrary to Lacan, there is an other of the other, which is circumscribed neither by narcissism nor paranoia. The other of the other is no-self. What arises in cases of high strangeness, far from bearing the traces of a reassuringly coherent agency, instead bears the traces of no-self, of non-existence. What we seem to be witnessing is not something working to hide from us, or existing elsewhere, but something struggling to reveal itself and exist here.

This logic, of the other of the other as no-self, is what I propose to continue to explore.

References

Rosemary Ellen Guiley & Philip J. Imbrogno (2011). The Vengeful Djinn: Unveiling the Hidden Agendas of Genies. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn.

John A. Keel (2002). The Mothman Prophecies. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

Colm A. Kelleher & George Knapp (2005). Hunt for the Skinwalker. New York: Paraview Pocket Books.

The Mothman Prophecies (2002). Dir. Mark Pellington. Lakeshore Entertainment. Film.

Mac Tonnies (2010). The Cryptoterrestrials. San Antonio, TX: Anomalist Books.

Slavoj Žižek (1997). ‘The other does not exist’. Journal of European Psychoanalysis. Spring-Fall.

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Shades of Greys: My Experience of Why Aliens Don’t Exist

A few nights ago I was woken by the hallucinatory sound of a barking dog. I’d been waiting almost two years for that yelp, ever since I’d performed a magical ritual to get myself abducted by aliens.

Now, this will all sound weird – but try to keep up with me, because what the bark of the dog revealed was something far odder than aliens…

The ritual I’d performed was a consequence of reading Whitley Strieber’s Communion. If the greys were really out there, I figured, then a bit of magick might persuade them to take me off on a trip. The full details I’ve written about elsewhere, but the upshot was that although I’d hoped for a full abduction experience, all I got was an odd set of dreams including the following:

I had put a dog in a certain place. Not a real dog, but a symbolic dog. Its function was to intercept information from a television. The dog was in place to filter information from the TV system, which it accomplished by repeating a soft movement that mitigated the harshness in the message. I was told by the senders of the signal that only later ‘when I heard the dog bark’ would I understand.

That was all – except that the aliens left a calling-card by my doorstep the next day, in the shape of a discarded packet of snacks emblazoned with their face. And also, over the next few days a wave of UFO sightings swept the county, to which I and a friend were witnesses, although the objects in the sky weren’t extraterrestrial craft at all but Chinese lanterns, as so many ‘UFOs’ are these days. So although my magical working seemed to have created a UFO flap it produced no sign of any aliens.

packet of crisps with an alien face on the front

The blatant calling card left by the 'aliens' on my doorstep.

I listened out nervously over succeeding days, in case the sound of dogs revived repressed memories of lost time aboard a flying saucer and a close encounter with an anal probe. But nothing happened and so I stopped thinking about it – that is, until a few days ago.

My girlfriend mentioned that the night before she had been woken by an hallucinatory alarm-clock. It worried her whether this experience might be a precognitive signal from her unconscious for something possibly bad. Probably not, I reassured her, and mentioned that in my experience auditory hallucinations are prone to arise on the threshold of the lucid dreaming state. ‘It’s just a natural state of consciousness and doesn’t mean anything,’ I said. For me these experiences usually took the form of a knock or a bang, or less often of a buzzer or someone shouting.

But that very night it was a dog’s bark that I heard. My girlfriend reported that she too had been woken again, this time by a phantom old-fashioned telephone. Something seemed to be going on…

The outcome of my ritual to summon aliens was that I would only understand what I’d been told when I heard the dog bark. That was clearly what I’d heard, so I was now duty-bound to accept it as a signal. The night before, I’d assured my girlfriend that these sounds were the product of a natural state of consciousness that arises as we approach the lucid dreaming state. The fact that both of us then went on to experience auditory hallucinations of this type, neither of which seemed an omen or presaged anything in particular, seemed to underscore my explanation at the time. So the message from the aliens seemed to be a simple affirmation of what I myself had suggested: alien abductions are the product of a natural state of consciousness that arises as we approach the lucid dreaming state. Just as the initial working gave rise to a wave of UFO sightings that were obviously Chinese lanterns, now I was being shown that alien abductions are obviously lucid dreams.

But this is not just a crude debunking I’m suggesting here, because the aim of my ritual was to communicate with the aliens themselves, so this message must have come from the aliens. Therefore, were the aliens telling me they didn’t exist? Suddenly everything became clear, even as it swallowed itself up its own arse in a delicious paradox.

It would seem there are forces in the universe far more impressive than a supposed bunch of grey-skinned bottom inspectors. What I’d communicated with had the power to show me it didn’t exist. Now, if I were capable of setting up a series of situations that showed you how I didn’t exist, that would be because I was describing myself from a place somehow outside existence. These ‘aliens’ that had communicated with me, then, seemed to be showing me how they transcend existence. They are also capable of interacting with the human mind directly (the ‘sounds’ we heard) and transpersonally (my girlfriend’s experience interacting with mine).

grey alien

They are not that.

After the original ritual and the UFO wave that followed, I’d supposed the outcome indicated simply that aliens didn’t exist. Yet it was true I hadn’t understood until the dog barked, at which point I realised that, yes, aliens don’t exist, but in the sense that the nature of these ‘aliens’ is that they don’t exist. The fact of their non-existence is what gave them the ability to communicate how they had, transcending time, individuality and existence. No dome-headed little freak in a tinpot flying-saucer could ever get anywhere close to that!

Why a barking dog? Well, some time ago I recorded a meditation experience where the sound of a dog barking in the park enabled me to see how reality is so filled with experiences there’s simply no room for a self that contains those experiences. In other words, I saw how ‘I’ (in the sense of a metaphysical agency that ‘possesses’ experience) doesn’t exist. The dog’s bark from the ‘aliens’ was pointing me back to this experience, saying in effect: What you experienced back then applies to us.

But I wouldn’t blame anyone who supposes instead that it’s simply me who’s barking.