What’s the Deal with the Name, Anyway?

Ok, so maybe some of you have seen the name of this site (Absurd by Design) and are currently scratching your heads thinking ‘whaaaa?’

The name came to me a few years ago, when thinking about some of my favorite UFO/Close Encounter cases that rank at the very top of the high strangeness charts, like for example the famous Hopkinsville goblins case of the 1950’s. These are the type of cases which make both the true believers and the so-called skeptics show their true colors: While the believers will try to quietly sweep them under the rug and forget they never happened –because they don’t give any help in trying to attain the ‘legitimacy’ they’ve always dreamed of,–‘skeptics’ (or people who like to promote themselves as such) on the other hand love to point out at them as an example of how the UFO phenomenon is utter nonsense. Why? Because it doesn’t conform to the logical standards of how an alleged alien form of intelligence will conduct itself when interacting with more primitive beings.

“It is absurd, ergo it isn’t real.”

But what if both the skeptics and the true believers have it all ass-backwards? What if there’s an actual method to the apparent madness manifested in the myriad of UFO reports clogging the file cabinets of research organizations like MUFON and countless predecessors which went up in flames trying to prove we were indeed being visited by interlopers from other worlds, even though said visitors wouldn’t conform to our EXPECTATIONS on how such a first contact was supposed to take place? (“Take me to your leader” and all that crap).

Those are the kind of heretical ideas proposed by visionaries like Jacques Vallee and John Keel, who have become personal heroes of mine. Their theories have greatly influenced my personal evolution in my way of viewing this phenomenon; which is why I suspect that YES, the apparent absurdity reported in UFO cases is there BY DESIGN.

‘But why?’ might you ask, and in truth it is more than fair question. I suspect –and here in this page you will find how I’ll abstain to use terms sch as ‘know’ and ‘believe’ as much as possible, since they tend to hinder the search for truth when dealing with topics as controversial as confounding as the UFO mystery– the alleged intelligence or intelligences operating behind the UFO curtain might have concluded that theatricality and nonsensical scenarios are the most effective way to render deep knowledge in a way that bypasses the logical centers of our minds, taking root in the deep, fertile soul of the subconscious, where ideas can blosom and grow so big and potent they can eventually change the shape of the whole world.

…Or maybe I am the one who have it all wrong, and the absurdity is the product of a miscomunication between two diametrically opposite forms of sentience. Our pathetically slow attempts to teach dolphins or other animals our language may be a testament to that; if it is such an insurmountable task to communicate with a different species which was evolved in our own biosphere, imagine how that exponentially translates when dealing with beings which may come from other worlds, time lines, dimensions, or even planes of existence!

–INTERMISSION: If you haven’t seen the movie Arrival yet, shut down your computer and do it NOW!!!–

Absurdity is a potent tool. Any comedian knows that. The moment a stand-up comic manages to land a gag in its audience and they crack up, even the slightest, the comic knows they have ‘lowered’ their intellectual defenses and are now more receptive to all kinds of new information, no matter how outrageous. A similar thing happens with fear, in fact. Fear has a way of tearing down the layers of our psyche we hold dearest, and it leaves us bare and defenseless, oblivious to the typical social conventions yammered in our heads since childhood. All of the sudden we are once again children lost in the woods, afraid of the Big Bad Wolf which is coming to get us…

I suspect the UFO phenomenon either takes advantages of these characteristics of the human mind, or that being face-to-face with an undeniable Other inherently tears apart our reassuring models about how the world is supposed to be. That in fact, maybe the most important and valuable aspect to the whole UFO phenomenon: How it mercilessly shakes up and tears down our flimsy models of the Universe.

Because if we dare to accept statement (1): UFOs are real, sooner or later we will be forced to also accept statement (2): Ergo, we do not know what Reality actually is.

It’s a slippery, intellectual slope for sure. But nobody said the search for the Truth would be either easy, nor SAFE…