Surging Belief in Alien Visitors Is Becoming a Serious Problem For Our Society
This belief is slightly paradoxical as we have zero evidence that aliens even exist.
The belief is now rising to the extent that politicians, at least in the US, feel they have to respond. The disclosure of information about claimed Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs rather than UFOs) from the Pentagon has got a lot of bi-partisan attention in the country.
Much of it plays upon familiar anti-elite tropes that both parties have been ready to use, such as the idea that the military and a secretive cabal of private commercial interests are keeping the deep truth about alien visitation hidden. That truth is believed to involve sightings, abductions and reverse-engineered alien technology.
Pentagon disclosure finally began during the early stages of Joe Biden's term of office, but so far there has been nothing to see. Nothing looks like an encounter. Nothing looks close.
Still, the background noise does not go away.
All this is ultimately encouraging conspiracy theories, which could undermine trust in democratic institutions. There have been humorous calls to storm Area 51. And after the storming of the Capitol in 2021, this now looks like an increasingly dangerous possibility.
Actual science finds itself badly outnumbered by entertainment repackaged as factual.
Alien visitation narratives have also repeatedly tried to hijack and overwrite the history and mythology of indigenous people.
The modern alien visitation narrative has not, after all, emerged out of indigenous communities. Quite the opposite. It emerged in part as a way for conspiracy-minded thinkers in a Europe torn apart by racism to "explain" how complex urban civilisations in places like South America could have existed prior to European settlement.
It is increasingly clear that belief in alien visitation is no longer just a fun speculation, but something that has real and damaging consequences.
https://www.sciencealert.com/surging-bel...ur-society
This belief is slightly paradoxical as we have zero evidence that aliens even exist.
The belief is now rising to the extent that politicians, at least in the US, feel they have to respond. The disclosure of information about claimed Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs rather than UFOs) from the Pentagon has got a lot of bi-partisan attention in the country.
Much of it plays upon familiar anti-elite tropes that both parties have been ready to use, such as the idea that the military and a secretive cabal of private commercial interests are keeping the deep truth about alien visitation hidden. That truth is believed to involve sightings, abductions and reverse-engineered alien technology.
Pentagon disclosure finally began during the early stages of Joe Biden's term of office, but so far there has been nothing to see. Nothing looks like an encounter. Nothing looks close.
Still, the background noise does not go away.
All this is ultimately encouraging conspiracy theories, which could undermine trust in democratic institutions. There have been humorous calls to storm Area 51. And after the storming of the Capitol in 2021, this now looks like an increasingly dangerous possibility.
Actual science finds itself badly outnumbered by entertainment repackaged as factual.
Alien visitation narratives have also repeatedly tried to hijack and overwrite the history and mythology of indigenous people.
The modern alien visitation narrative has not, after all, emerged out of indigenous communities. Quite the opposite. It emerged in part as a way for conspiracy-minded thinkers in a Europe torn apart by racism to "explain" how complex urban civilisations in places like South America could have existed prior to European settlement.
It is increasingly clear that belief in alien visitation is no longer just a fun speculation, but something that has real and damaging consequences.
https://www.sciencealert.com/surging-bel...ur-society
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"