Mr. C.G. Jung called flying saucers a mass rumor, which might irritate certain folks—those who would rather not hear UFOs described as merely rumored.  And far be it from me to challenge the word of the many good people—including whole fleets of military and commercial pilots, not to mention quite a few other salt-of-the-earth, hard-working Joes and Janes—who all swear up and down that they saw what they saw. But the darn things are always zipping around next to planes in flight, outside Air Force bases or alongside Navy cruisers, and on country roads in New Hampshire or Manitoba or Appalachia—never in downtown Chicago on a Friday afternoon, where a local TV crew can just run out and beam the proof to everyone, and settle the debate once and for all.

          Although, there was a sighting at O’Hare in 2006. True story, look it up. (No links—I can’t do everything for you). 

          But you see, folks, this is where yours truly gets stuck. I’m a reasonable type, and I think we’ve got to admit there is something going on here. Too many decent, credible people, whose word we’d accept at a trial, have seen strange things. Too many of those strange things have been caught on video and radar and even sonar, and can’t be explained away. So it’s not all misidentification and disinformation. And really, why shouldn’t there be something we don’t understand happening in the skies right above us? Who do we think we are, that we expect already to understand everything about this space in which we find ourselves, and are affronted when something outside our story is also here?

          Still, you gotta ask: though Joe X or Jane Y saw something in the sky, and whatever they saw was unknown—was it technology?

          Because folks go in different directions here. A lot of the pilots who’ve seen the things have no doubt: what they saw were craft. They were solid aircraft or drones, self-evidently under intelligent control, and exhibiting technological capabilities that no known human aircraft has ever achieved. And I hear rumors that there are scientists who study recovered craft materials, which is to say that the Roswell tale isn’t entirely tall — and to them, these are spaceships, and that’s the story. There are aliens out in space somewhere, who built these ships and flew them here. Or maybe they’re from another dimension.

          But then some of the philosophical types have a whole other idea about how UFOs work. These guys like C.G. Jung and Jacques Vallée and Terence McKenna, they say that UFOs might be both imaginary and real, because sometimes what starts in the collective imagination can travel into our reality through the common medium of consciousness. At least I think that’s what they think; I might have it backwards. 

          But everyone agrees that these UFOs are smart. (Everyone who agrees that they exist, at least). And maybe that’s why they don’t hover over Chicago on Friday afternoon: they don’t want to get caught. So they choose how much they’ll be seen. 

          Maybe they can turn invisible. Maybe they can shape-shift. Maybe they can self-replicate. Maybe they can time-travel. Maybe they are made of mind. Maybe they are material, but controlled telepathically.

          Where do they come from? Why do they come here? Are they friend or foe or something else?

          If they were our friends, how would they show it?

          Do they really contact us?

          Did one of them once crash in New Mexico? Did the government recover the crashed ship and give Lockheed or Boeing a secret contract to research and reverse-engineer the tech?

          Do they mutilate cattle?  Do they have a special interest in our nuclear technology?

          Can we become better at perceiving them?  Are they responsive to our thoughts about them? 

          Darned if I know.  But there is one thing I’ve noticed.