This Isn’t Happening - UFO sightings

by Sean Stubblefield

On January 17, CNN reported recent UFO sightings in Stephensville, Texas.
They actually investigated, then wrote and posted online an article about town folk seeing UFOs in the night sky. My first reaction was to wonder why.

Why report on UFOs? Why now, or ever?

And why CNN? What was their motivation?

Last I heard, UFOs were still a subject of ridicule… relegated to science fiction and the lunatic fringe in the mainstream opinion. Relatively few people believe these reports or take them seriously. At least publicly, and then maybe not without some embarrassment, and possibly self-defense.

Even those who accept the probability of alien life often receive these stories tentatively or skeptically. Although various polls in the last 10 years reveal that well over half the world’s population believes alien life is possible, if not actual (me among them).

The fact that CNN is reporting on UFO sightings appears to infer either legitimacy to the UFO report and sightings, or illegitimacy to CNN. This move either adds credibility to the sightings or diminishes the credibility of CNN.

Not to say that UFOs and aliens are not legitimate or newsworthy topics, per se. Only that most people within the mainstream— which CNN is-- don’t usually regard them as valid or serious. If the mainstream does accept them as topics of discussion or investigation, it is often as mere sideshow amusement, or hypothetical fiction.

But certainly, UFO sightings are nothing new, and the details of this report are consistent with numerous other similar reports over the last 60-ish years. My own UFO sighting many moons ago resembles what these people saw (or “allegedly” saw?). We’ve been hearing about UFOs, alien abductions and visitations for decades— even from what are generally considered credible and respectable sources bold enough to deal with the subject matter… and still the common conception is that such things are an illusion, a delusion, mistake, or fraud. (Despite the fact that, strictly speaking, a UFO is— by definition-- nothing more than an unidentified flying object.)

The reporters, themselves, frequently treat the phenomenon and the spectacle more seriously than its origins. Perhaps as a curiosity, tall tale or myth.

So what was the point? What could CNN hope to gain, accomplish or prove?

Did they want a fluff piece for our amusement, or were they really attempting to report legitimate news? Did they deem this genuinely newsworthy? Or is it just for entertainment value? In either case, it ultimately amounts to nothing. People are not going to now be suddenly persuaded to believe aliens exist. CNN hasn’t added anything to the dialogue on UFOs or aliens with their report. It’s a cliché of a cliché. A drop of water in an ocean.

And if all the many other evidence, reports, books and TV specials haven’t already convinced you, this post from CNN about this particular sighting surely won’t change your mind. In other words, there is no story here.

And why do so many people tend to assume that a logical or rational explanation for UFOs could not simply be that it was a UFO? Or that it was actually aliens?

Undermined either to discredit the claims or to comfort their own insecurities. Why must we be so intent or insistent that it be something else?

Anything but extra-terrestrial.

Why are we so afraid, absent the indication of any clear and present danger, of aliens?

In my mind, such an encounter--- to benignly meet and interact with alien intelligence-- would be an extra-ordinarily novel, welcome and appreciated experience.