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6.4.7

Why Did I Lie ?

Here I am, out there in the world of UFO and high strangeness, using my real name, blogging about UFOs and all my experiences, and encouraging others to do the same. Tell your stories, I say.

I write openly about my UFO experiences, including my two episodes of missing time. I write openly about theories and cases and what I think about the debilitating disease of debunkerism.

When it comes to “alien abductions,” I don’t know what to think. I’ve said that over and over on the web: on my blog, in forums, here on BOA. It’s not that I take alien abductions literally, and yet, all the “explanations” like sleep paralysis, strike me as ridiculous as well.

So to say I don’t believe in alien abductions isn’t quite correct. Maybe I’m nitpicking, I don’t know.

Anyway, the other day at work, during lunch in the staff room, it came up briefly that I had gone to McMinnville (here in Oregon) for the UFO Festival. (Great fun.) A co-worker joked that I didn’t get abducted; a few humorous comments were made, and then I said:

“For the record, I don’t believe in alien abductions.”

Now why did I say that? They already think I’m weird, (and that’s either good, or bad, depending on the personality of the person thinking it) so what difference does it make at this point if I “believe” in alien abductions or not?

To make me feel worse about my comment, someone said they knew someone who wrote their dissertation on abductions. Furthermore, the person believes they’re real. I wanted to ask more about that, but after all, we were at work.

Why did I feel the need to justify, or somehow put myself in some sort of “proper” context with this topic? And this is me, dahlings, who writes about UFOs all over the place.

I think much of the reason is simple: I am, like the rest of us, human. (No, really.) And the realm of UFOs is a tough one at times; it’s scary, it’s weird, but most of all, it’s often rudderless. You’re just out there, with not much to grab onto. (except each other, and that's why we need to be supportive and not act like big stupid babies.)

Despite what the cynics and chronic skeptics insist -- that we’re all out here to make money, or scam people, or are deluded -- we just want to find out what happened. They can’t understand the fixation, because it hasn’t happened to them. But for those of us who’ve experienced these things -- in my case, my entire life up to this point -- it’s not something we can let go of. Nor should we.

Still, there are times when those of us with these kinds of experiences feel silly, embarrassed, or just want the often glaring division between the mundane world and the UFO world to go away, and have it all become one simple, seamless thing.

Maybe that’s why I “lied.”

It’s why, in narratives of the strange, people’s stories of their UFO, ghost, Bigfoot, or fairy sighting begins with “Now, I’m not crazy,” or, “I wasn’t drunk, in fact, I don’t drink at all, and I don’t do drugs” and they say it again in the middle of the story, and usually end with it: “And I swear to you, I wasn’t high or drunk and I’m not crazy!” We want to assure not only the listener, but ourselves, that all is right with the world. At all times.

It’s a bit maddening to know that I’m not mad; I’d love to believe that I am crazy, that would explain things away in a rational manner. Instead, I’m left with the fact that really weird things really have happened. So, deal with it. Some days -- most days -- I do, some days I don’t.


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