Some of you wanted to believe so badly, but Douglas Kern (hat tip Alina) explains how the rise of the internet, the ability to rapidly transmit information, and other technological advances, like text messaging and cell/camera phones, shredded the tightly woven layers of the conspiracy:
The Internet showed this particular emperor to be lacking in clothes. If UFOs and alien visitations were genuine, tangible, objective realities, the Internet would be an unstoppable force for detecting them. How long could the vast government conspiracy last, when intrepid UFO investigators could post their prized pictures on the Internet seconds after taking them? How could the Men in Black shut down every website devoted to scans of secret government UFO documents? How could marauding alien kidnappers remain hidden in a nation with millions of webcams?
Just as our technology for finding and understanding UFOs improved dramatically, the manifestations of UFOs dwindled away. Despite forty-plus years of alleged alien abductions, not one scrap of physical evidence supports the claim that mysterious visitors are conducting unholy experiments on hapless victims. The technology for sophisticated photograph analysis can be found in every PC in America, and yet, oddly, recent UFO pictures are rare. Cell phones and instant messaging could summon throngs of people to witness a paranormal event, and yet such paranormal events don't seem to happen very often these days. For an allegedly real phenomenon, UFOs sure do a good job of acting like the imaginary friend of the true believers. How strange, that they should disappear just as we develop the ability to see them clearly. Or perhaps it isn't so strange.
Kern is right. Here's a personal anecdote: I was listening to the TV the other night while working. One of the many cable travel programs - this one on the 'world's most haunted places' - was playing in the background. One of the stories caught my ear. The segment detailed some European monastery where monks performed unspeakable acts of (cue music) evil on the local townsfolk in the fifteenth century. The scenario sounded implausible, like something out of a Wes Craven movie. Skeptical, I looked the place up online, used every serach engine I know of. Know what I found? The story wasn't true at all. The place existed, but it was cursed with no such history - though it is world-renowned for its rice production.
So long Scully. So long Mulder. We'll remember the 90's fondly.
people like you need more smart juice :p
I know alians are real and that Space Crafts are real I have seen them up close with my own two eyes when I was in 3rd grade. It was over my naighbors home.
and you can say oh oh oh its a frikin military Jet but what does the frikin military want with someone in my naborhood?
and how would it just sit there in mid air and not move?
you people are stupid if you think that the only creatures in this huge universe is us.. How selfish. Kinda like everything revolves around earth thing. when in fact it does not. You can be skeptic if you wan't...
once all you dumb ass people see one you all feel stupid. And then it will be you telling people and them not beleaving a damn thing you say. Thinking your crazy and you immagin it all up.
well.. OH and why wont alians let you know of them? would you want to get to know someone that would more than likely think the worst of them and try to take action on them or put them in institutions and sacrifice more than a few lives for our sciences...
Posted by: Jen | March 10, 2006 at 01:32 PM