UFOs: Silly Flying Saucer Whirring Noises

While in the waiting room yesterday with family members, the following took place:

Conversation today about UFOs that went like this; I mention I?ve been writing a lot about UFOs. Person makes silly flying saucer whirring noises while rolling eyes and says, laughing, ?UFOs, huh?? I say, ?yes.? Person says, ?Space ships.? I say, ?Who said anything about space ships?? He says, ?You did; you just said UFOs.? I say, ?Right, UFOs. Unidentified Flying Objects. Unidentified.?

sigh.

He says: ?How do you know they?re flying?? I say, ?Flying, zipping, moving, whatever they?re doing up there. They?re moving, that?s for sure.? He says; ?How do you know?? I say, ?Huh? Because they?re seen, uh, moving. Hence, second part of UFO . . . ?flying.? ?

(I realized of course -- before I made my opening comment -- this couldn?t, possibly go anywhere. Couldn?t help myself though; maybe it was my way of injecting some distraction into a stressful day.)

He says: ?No one knows what a UFO looks like. What are they?? I say: ?Um, I don?t know what you mean exactly by ?no one knows what they look like,? but if we knew what they were, they wouldn?t be unidentified.? More laughing rolling of eyes whirring noises.

I say: ?I?m fascinated by your response so far; you?ve decided it?s derisive yet you?ve admitted you assumed they?re space ships, yet also ask what they are, yet don?t know what they look like. Doesn?t that sound strange to you??

He says; ?No, I didn?t assume anything. I didn?t say that.?

sigh.

He then says: ?I?m only going by what the majority of people assume; that they?re aliens.? I say: ?Really? What majority, where?? He says ?Oh come on, everybody.? I say ?Wow, okay. So you know all about studies and statistics and things that show this for a fact.? He says ?Well, yeah. Everyone knows that.?

I say ?Forget about what you think others believe or don?t about UFOs, what do you think?? He says ?What UFOs? There are no UFOs.? I say, ?There?re no unidentified things in the sky?? He says ?They?re not UFOs.?

okkkkkaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy . . .

sigh.

Then I say, ?I?m also fascinated by your response, and UFOs themselves, -- the folklore of all this.? He leaps on this and says ?YES! Folklore, exactly!? I say, ?Clearly you don?t understand the concepts behind folklore; you?re using it as synomonous with ?fantasy.? ? He repeats:, ?Yeah, UFOs, folklore, exactly.?

I say, ?Okay, let?s be sure I get this straight. You don?t know what UFOs are, don?t know what they look like, don?t think they move, don?t believe there even are any UFOs, assume at the same time they?re spaceships, and, that?s it?s all folklore. And I?m the superstitious one.?

He laughs, and more of that incredibly irritating eye rolling whirring stuff.

End of the, er, ?discussion.?

I can understand the ridiculous opinion that one doesn?t ?believe? in UFOs, (although that?s of course the entirely wrong question.) I understand not ?believing? that there are extraterrestrials. I simply cannot, however, get my head around someone who immediately giggles in a Pavlovian response to the word ?UFO? and equates UFO with little green men from Mars.(For some reason, this is response is all the more disconcerting, coming from a grown man. You'd think we were two six year olds talking about sex, given this giggle reaction.) And I really can?t get beyond the surreal neural brain workings that tell the mind ?We don?t know what UFOs look like but anyway it doesn't matter because there aren?t any.?

There may not be aliens,there may not be non-human entities, there may not be extraterrestrials, there may not be flying saucers, space - ships, or whirring things, but there are certainly UFOs.

If you can?t even get past the starting point of understanding the basic concept within the term UFO, it is, of course, ridiculous to expect to proceed with any kind of authentic discussion.

I knew better, as I said, and knew the ?discussion? would plummet into nothingness. The distraction factor aside; ( waiting for a scheduled procedure in a ?holding area? for six hours with condescending nurses behaving as if it?s all your fault will do funny things to your mind) I just had to poke the anti-UFO beast and see what would happen.

I dislike falling back on the ?what are you afraid of?? ploy. That?s what religious zealots ask you when you tell them you?re not religious or don?t believe in their god, or what ?Randi-bots? (skeptics) tell you when you refuse to engage in circular, nonproductive rounds of ?oh yeah, prove it? with them.

But in this case, that whole rolling of eyes giggle factor whirring noise routine, combined with the utter shambles of misunderstanding -- and not caring about getting it right -- from the instant the topic of UFOs was raised, does make me want to say; ?Why are you so defensive, in this space, among family, no one else is around, no boss or friends, just us??

In this case, this person, who heads up a huge division and oversees all kinds of employees and travels around the country meeting with all kinds of Really Important People, reacts in a sharp contrast to the subject of UFOs. If someone in his business presented something to him with this kind of sloppy knee jerk thinking, that person would be fired. Proposing something without being sure first everyone is clear on definitions, (which is not the same as agreement on the topic) or making sure they darn well get clear before moving on, would be irresponsible for any project leader.

I?ve been fortunate; usually when discussing UFOs I find that people have had some very interesting experiences, often ones they?ve not shared with others. Or I find that they may not be all that familiar with the topic but are interested; even if they don?t ?believe? in ETs, they can have a give and take discussion. Once in a awhile I come across the blunt ?UFOs, oh, they?re all military planes,? or the disconcerting Christian who ?believes? in UFOs, but doesn?t want to discuss it, because it?s all Satanic. (Really.) I rarely come up against this type of reaction.

I realize I?ll never know what makes this person tick in that regard, or any of the others who respond in this particular way. But encounters like the one I had yesterday remind me of how some people in the mundane world view the subject of UFOs.