"Real" UFOs: A New Meme?

I’ve been noticing the use of the phrase “real ufo” recently. It seems to mostly come from the skeptic milieu, which is surreally ironic, since they often don’t “believe” in ufos anyway, have strange ideas about the whole thing -- as in UFOlogy being some sort of “church” -- and are, overall, ignorant of the entire phenomena. Still they push on, rejecting a lot of theories and ideas out of hand, often insulting “believers,” with ad ad hominin comments and chiding us for spending time on the whole silly thing. All this framed by the idea that there are “real UFOs” which of course invokes the question: are there unreal UFOs?

This mangled perspective is bizarre, for sure, but not atypical in UFO or Fortean studies. (In fact, the whole idea that there is the need to promote the idea there are “real” UFOs, while charmingly frustrating, shouldn’t be surprising. It’s just one more dance from the Trickster that is an inherent part of UFOlogy, showing off.)

They can’t quite get there; not seeing the forest for the trees, and they push on. Already involved in pontificating on something spectacular, they at the same time ignore the spectacular. UFOs exist, they begrudgingly admit --er, real UFOs, that is -- but it’s nonsense to seriously consider ‘Daimonic Realities,’ or Trickster manifestations/presences, or even good old fashioned extraterrestrials.

By renaming something, we subtlety and covertly change the meaning of a thing. Prefacing UFO with “real” UFO sends the message that UFO sightings are to be treated with suspicion. Not the usual caution (is the witness lying or telling the truth, etc.) but suspect by its very definition. It’s similar to the attempts to switch UFO with UAP. (Unidentified Ariel Phenomena.)

Interpretations of that thing up there are another matter. If some witnesses insist that the giant Triangle-UFO is extraterrestrial, that’s their personal belief, and has nothing to do with the fact that they saw a huge Triangle-UFO. It’s “real” and that’s the end of that. Come to think of it, the personal interpretation of the experience by the witness can be useful in terms of adding further perspective. If the UFO was that dramatic, that unusual, that a witness will assume it’s other worldly, that tells us the UFO was certainly something extraordinary. Extraordinary enough to cause the witness to become overwhelmed by its appearance and behavior, and describe in their own terms, how it affected them. We can take clues from that without necessarily agreeing with the personal interpretation of the witness.

(Then too, there is the mind control issue. If some UFOs and UFO events are government black ops projects to mess with the population, religious or extraterrestrial interpretations are another clue as to the origin of the UFO.)

Regardless of interpretation, the UFOs -- all UFOs-- are “real.” Until, or unless, it’s shown the UFO was an airplane or a seagull and then shown to be an IFO (identified flying object) it remains a “real” UFO.

Notes

See Patrick Harupur: Daimonic Realities.