THE PARANORMAL
I have to admit that I find supposedly true tales of the paranormal fascinating, from ghosts to alien abductions to sasquatch. BUT . . . as you might have guessed, I am indeed a skeptic. While it’s obvious due to the amount of evidence that continues to pile up that unusual events are indeed taking place, I take issue with many of the explanations of these phenomena. I try desperately to remain open-minded, mainly because I have had a couple of strange experiences in my own life, but it becomes increasingly difficult after watching a pseudo-documentary on telepathic communication hosted by a darwinian reject who has a tinfoil replica of the USS Constitution stapled to his head. These kinds of people are the main reason subjects worthy of serious scientific investigation are dismissed out of hand. I can only hope tinfoil-lad is struck by lightning and reduced to a pile of psychic ashes by a cranky, hung over Norse God of Thunder, pissed off at having his TV reception fucked with.
The UFO phenomenon is probably the best documented of the paranormal subjects. There are mountains of photos, videos, bizarre physical evidence, audio recordings and an endless string of seemingly honest, reliable witnesses including scientists, law officers, doctors and even two former Presidents of the United States. Not that these people couldn’t possibly be duplicitous, of course, especially the Presidents, but they simply did not have anything to gain by admitting their experiences. Something is definitely going on. But what?
If any of you reading this say that those lights in the sky are either angels or demons, please stop reading immediately. You are in danger of suffocating because your head has been placed in an anaerobic environment, your colon, and you need to find a friend or family member to help you remove it.
I’m not convinced that UFOs are alien in origin either. Perhaps they are, I don’t know. If they are, why have they basically been doing the same things for the past sixty years or so? They pop up over military installations, which I suppose is understandable given humankind’s tendency towards genocide, but why have they been mutilating farm animals for so long? For that matter, haven’t they had enough time to discover whatever is up our butts that they were hoping to find? In all these alien abduction reports, they’re constantly giving us the old rectal rooter, which seems to me to be for one of three reasons: 1. They’re implanting something there. 2. They’re looking for something specific. 3. They’re pervs (Wouldn’t that be a bitch? After all the speculation, it turns out that they’re just a bunch of intergalactic perverts probing their way across the Universe.) You’d think that at some point one particularly sensitive alien would say:
“You know, they really seem to get upset when we shove things up their butts. Maybe we should come up with a new way to do this.”
To which the head alien would say, “Shut up, Zort, you fuckin’ bleeding heart. Just perform the experiment.”
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Evidence of ghosts, on the other hand, is extremely sparse. There are a few photos and videos that will certainly raise the hair on the back of your neck, but they just aren’t convincing enough for those of us that require solid information. The sound recordings are interesting, but can be doctored so easily they just can’t be trusted. Personal accounts are fascinating, but again, as with UFOs, anyone can seem honest when they really aren’t. I had an uncle who claimed that he and his wife were chased around their house by a floating, flaming cross. What the hell do I do with that information? Would my uncle lie? Were they heavily into LSD at the time? I have no idea. After seeing the way uncle Larry dressed in the 70′s, I’m leaning toward the LSD explanation.
I guess my point here is that I always try to keep one little corner of my mind open just in case any of these things might be true. Believe it or not, I also do this (or at least I try) with other topics that I come down on pretty hard, like religion. Hey, it’s possible that Fundamentalist Christians are correct in their literal interpretation of the Bible. I’m not a big enough jerk to say that I know anything for certain. Ghosts might be real. Aliens might be real. Maybe I am going to burn for eternity because I don’t go to church every Sunday. Maybe the Cubs will finally win the Series one day. I’m just happy that we have these wonderful mysteries to contemplate, because life without them would be as boring as C-span on Thorazine.