Which Came First: Aliens or Sci-Fi?

What is the relationship between UFO sightings and UFOs in fiction, stories, and film?

Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers, courtesy XRay Delta @ Flickr

You might think that imaginative sci-fi comes first, spawning subsequent actual 'sightings' and experiences as people unconsciously amend their memories to include sexy aliens.

In 1974 Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer conducted research into the development of 'false memories', that is, real memories accompanied by strong emotion and certainty of things that never actually happened. They found that it was possible to implant 'memories' into people, and that some people were more suggestible and easily influenced than others.

By the mid-90's Loftus's research created a firestorm in the psychological community. Some therapists had been uncovering sensational 'repressed memories' in a number of patients.

As a result, lawsuits were filed, talk show hosts were happy and busy, and people seeking help for emotional problems found themselves in the middle of a heated insider battle that was not overly helpful to them. 

Believe it or not, 'repressed memory', 'recovered memory', and 'false memory syndrome' are nowhere to be found in the DSM-IV, the standard diagnostic manual used by psychologists and psychiatrists today. False memory syndrome is as controversial today as the controversial 'recovered memories' it was popularized to fight.

Whenever I see this kind of polarized, heated, go-nowhere debate I think, "What is being obscured by all this arguing over two and only two outcomes?"

In other words, what is getting lost in the messy middle, where most of us actually live?

Much the same argument goes on with the question of which came first: aliens or sci fi stories about them?

The relationship between experience and imagination is complex. On the one hand, if you can't even imagine something you aren't likely to see it or experience it in the material world. On the other, if an experience is toxic, 'hot', or confusing, you may well invoke a more structured fiction to make it understandable.

Extremely unwelcome information can also be screened by memories more palatable to society at large. (I've often thought that people would much rather hear about an alien abduction, for example, than a violent real rape involving all-too-real human beings.)

Some people are also sensitive to the extent that they can tune in to 'big stories', emerging cultural myths, and shepherd them into material reality as an organizing or healing principle. Although we do not recognize such people as legitimate in our modern technological society, every other society that has even existed on this earth does.

None of this answers the question posed by this post. Or, it does.

We never consider than answers to questions can be multiple, that reality can be so disorganized and confusing as to seem alien all on its own, that to get to the heart of a matter you sometimes have to tolerate not having a pat answer for a very long time indeed.

That's what a scientist would do anyway:

Tolerate the confusion. Stand in the center. Watch. Take notes.

The Thing From Another World

Yesterday TCM ran The Thing From Another World (1951), one of the very best of the 1950s alien invasion flicks. I hadn't seen it in awhile and noticed the following threads for the first time:

1. The alien was kind of a cross between a prototypical 'Grey' and Frankenstein. Stockier than a grey but bald, tall, and emotionless with huge creepy eyes and a keen interest in breeding, he was supposedly way smarter than us but spent most of his time staggering around making 'grrrrr' noises whilst looking for blood. 
2. The snowy, arctic setting was a great visual Cold War metaphor. 
3. It struck me that when you get megalomaniacal scientist types together with bumbling military types nothing good ever comes of it, and that has not changed in 59 years. 
4. The tall reporter guy could be Jeff Goldblum's dad. I don't think he is, but he could be.
5. That woo woo background music during the scene where everybody pokes at the severed alien hand is classic. I can't get enough of that music. I wish I could make that sound here but you can't really even spell it in a blog so I guess you'll have to watch the flick to hear what I'm talking about. 'Woo woo' is as close as I can come to it. 

I get frustrated by alien talk today. It always sorts into the True Believers versus the Skeptical Debunkers and that whole kabuki argument is so boring.

I think a LOT is going on with ufos and alien abduction reports, but no one ever is the slightest bit interested in my alien perspective on it. I figure I have enough material, thoughts, links, and news items for a blog on specifically that complaint, so here it is.

Stay tuned. If you get bored while wating for the next post, go watch The Thing From Another World. 

It's still awesome.