To quote one of my favourite comedy groups, “And now for something completely different.”
I have been watching a series on Sunday nights called The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, which is a ranch in Utah, well known for Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO), and other strange phenomena, where a team of scientists continually run experiments to see if they can elicit a “response” from the ranch.
It reminds me a little of poking a hornet’s nest just to see what will happen.
If they do figure out what is happening on this ranch, it could be monumental, or it could be a huge hoax.
Since the ancient Greeks and before, man has looked to the skies to try and understand what is out there, if anything. Over thousands of years, 88 constellations have been identified, although most folks are only familiar with those in the Zodiac.
While we vigilantly watch and explore the skies, unfamiliar objects continue to be reported. Everyone from the United States military, to everyday folks, report sightings.
Here in the Bulkley Valley we had a reported sighting last week, by Trout Creek, where a huge mysterious black craft hovered over a vehicle on the highway, with no reported sound, and then disappeared in a blink. The folks reporting the incident were unsettled to say the very least.
My entire life I have heard of such occurrences and wondered about the possibilities. When I was young, if and when people did report UFOs, others would laugh, roll their eyes, and say the person was crazy, or worse. Now, the TV has a full lineup of shows ranging from strange disappearances in Alaska, to Bigfoot hunters, to Ancient Alien Theorists.
Some of those shows make me think, others just drive me crazy and I end up yelling at the “experts” on the TV. My husband laughs at how riled up I get.
While I was in university in Washington, I used to drive up Mount Rainier to a favourite mountaintop spot to write. This mountain is famous for unusual flying objects, although I never saw one, darn it. There was a decidedly strange vibe there on the mountain, which kept me on my toes looking around, but no UFOs for me.
It seems now with the popularity of shows, books and movies, that people actually want to see one of these anomalies and go to great lengths (and expense), to find them. Some shows are actually hilarious, others more scientific. But now if you were to declare you have seen a UFO, Bigfoot, etc., you might find your 15 minutes of fame, instead of a looney bin.
What I do know is if we continue to probe, send out messages of welcome, and experiment, we had best be prepared one way or the other for a message back that we may not like or benefit from.
As I told my children years before Jodi Foster made the phrase popular in the movie Contact, “If there’s not something out there, it would be an awful waste of space.”