Magonia 9, 1982
Despite frustrating investigators and researchers throughout the past 35 years in their search for the meaning of the UFO phenomenon the occurrence of ‘strange’ incidents has had one beneficial result. If nothing else has been achieved, at least these different manifestations have widened mankind’s field of possible perception and caused some people to think deeply about more than just what UFOs might be or from where they originate. The process of these manifestations and the particular contents of them have caused some people, both in ufology and out of it, to question not only the UFO phenomenon itself but also reality.
Reviewing a number of close-encounter cases, especially of the third and fourth kinds, one can’t help but notice a most unusual aspect in many of these events. On the surface we appear to have a straightforward observation of a physical aerial craft with apparently real entities who make contact with the witness and give every indication that they are just what they appear to be. The percipient fully accepts all that is occurring as being a real objective happening, just as he would accept any other in everyday life.
But there is so often in reports of this type a varying degree of distortion which would seem to somewhat negate the general appearance of what the percipients are supposed to be observing. We note that much of what the entities who are associated with UFOs tell the percipients is out of place, contradictory or just ridiculous and does not seem to make sense. It sometimes almost appears as if whatever intelligence is behind these manifestations wants us to doubt the extraterrestrial theory of their origin and not believe these appearances. In effect it would seem to be deliberately negating itself.
It is of interest that there appears to be some relationship in the amount of distortion involved and the close proximity of the observer. The amount of distortion in the observers’ accounts of theirexperiences varies in accordance with the degree of strangeness of the contents of their encounters with, it appears, the most distortion occurring through the percipient being in close contact with the phenomenon, whereas with reports that involve contents of a low strangeness value there appears to be very little or no distortion. This would appear to suggest that the closer the witness is to the manifestations the greater will be the amount of distortion.
During the encounter the observer usually still accepts
the element of distortion involved in the content
of the experience as being totally acceptable and
perfectly logical at the time it is occurring.
One thing which must be emphasized here is that during the encounter the observer usually still accepts the element of distortion involved in the content of the experience as being totally acceptable and perfectly logical at the time it is occurring. Certain aspects may not make sense afterwards when looking back at what has happened but generally the experience is taken at face value and appears to be very much an objective event. However, the paradoxical cornerstone that casts so much doubt on the orthodox, physical-objective reality of these manifestations may help to cast light on the possible subjectiveness of these experiences and by a twist of true irony may still show that these encounters have an objective existence.
Let us look at another type of human mental functioning and see if we can find some similarities to the close-encounter experiences. For this we wish to turn to a kind of experience that is common to everyone – dream states. These are series of mentally created situations through which the dreamer passes blissfully unaware of their true nature, accepting them fully at face value just as he would any other situation in waking objective reality. In these nightly dramas of the mind he encounters an apparent world of objectivity, with real people, places and events. It is a reality at the time it is happening; to all intents it is the only reality for the dreamer’s mental functioning. It is fully accepted as such and is only questioned when the dreamer wakes up.
In the course of dreaming one becomes aware of a very strong element of distortion and symbolism which seems strange, bizarre and often totally ridiculous when seen in the light of objective consciousness. During the course of the dream state it is seen usually that the dreamer fully accepts all of this distortion, symbolism and illogicality as being a part of the dream reality state. It is usually taken to be perfectly real and objective no matter how contradictory it may be. In dreams the contents appear to negate the reality of the dream experiences but not to the dreamer at the time of the dream.
What is the importance here for ufology and how are these two kinds of experience related? There are two levels of awareness involved here; one is the waking state of awareness; the other is the dream state of awareness. The waking state is said to be conscious while that of the dream state is said to be a subjective state of consciousness.
It is usually held that waking consciousness is more important than dream consciousness and that the contents of the latter are of less importance and value than the former state of consciousness, with the dream state taking over control when the waking state is absent. But what if both states were equal and of equal value? Suppose it was coexistent with waking consciousness? Or what if the dream state was an alternative objective reality in itself?
Is it possible that the contents of both close-encounter experiences and dream states are from this alternative objective reality? And are they either transposed in dream states or superimposed in closeencounter experiences through and on to waking consciousness? Both dream states and close-encounter experiences appear to occur owing to a change in the consciousness level of the percipients.
It would seem from the contents of at least some of the close-encounter cases that they belong to a level of mental functioning other than that of the objective selfconscious level Distortion in these states could occur because of the attempt by the level of objective-perceptive consciousness to interpret them in accordance with the beliefs, views and rules of objective consciousness, when they are originating from another level of consciousness which has its own system of beliefs, views and rules. Perhaps if these contents were to be judged in accordance with their true level of function then the element of distortion would cease to occur.
Similarly, the distortion and ‘oddness’ that occur in the dream state may well arise owing to the waking level of consciousness trying to interpret the events of the dream state in accordance with events, beliefs, views and rules from the waking state instead of understanding them to be contents from another level of consciousness. It would appear that the deeper these contents lie in the human psyche the more liable they are to distortion and symbolism.
One may postulate that close encounter experiences and dream states originate from the subjective part of human consciousness, that they are created by intelligence and objectified through the channel of human consciousness to become an objective manifestation in the case of the close-encounter experiences and an objectified subjective manifestation in the case of the dream state.
Do these kinds of manifestations have any relevance for our understanding of objective reality? What is reality? Does this mean the perception of solid structures in the objective world and our interaction with them? What we call objective reality is very different to what most people would think.
Finally the question we must now ask is: Are the accepted objective states of reality that we all experience when awake and the objectively created dream states one and the same thing in both origin and in their manifestations?