Where the UFO Trail Winds

I have learned a few things from my interactions with members of the UFO community. Among those things is that the general public wants to believe one thing or another, and they want it to be fast, simple, complete and permanent.

Trouble is, that is not reality. Circumstances surrounding witnesses and researchers are frequently complex. Further complicating matters is the fact mistakes may be made any number of ways. People err in judgment, assessing circumstances, assessing other people and all kinds of ways.

Unfortunately, the public wants to read or hear about something and unquestionably count on it - forever, never to be changed or even expanded upon. Again, that is just not realistic, at least not if you want the truth of what takes place.

I have learned there are rarely conclusive white hats and black hats. Similarly, no one either lies all the time or is completely honest and never mistaken. Neither can you file witnesses and researchers away under such categories as honest or insincere without revisiting their status as time goes by and situations evolve. Tales of two cities and all that.

Also, the public wants to decide they either like or hate someone – forever and quickly. They want to believe or reject a story, and they want to either be angry or pleased with someone's actions. Reality is of course more complex than that, and people do and say various things for any number of reasons, sometimes good, sometimes bad and sometimes under duress, later wishing they had conducted themselves in a different way.

I learned people do not want to be told you don't have a conclusive answer, although often times you don't. They don't care and they will frequently create their own conclusive – and permanent – answer/assumption, sticking to it long after newly discovered facts might indicate otherwise.

People change their minds about what they believe and what they think happened to them. Sometimes they are willing to say so but most of the time they are not.

So-called ufologists particularly do not want to talk about changing their minds. They will almost never revise or update their work, and some of them will even outright tell you that if they change their minds, they won't publicly admit it. What's more, they will sometimes shamelessly continue promoting the old and incorrect perspective.

People, not just minds, change. The person you met years ago may not have the same ethics or values as they do today. People could be close at times, trust one another, work together and even wed, yet later completely distrust one another. The reverse applies as well; mutual ufology mudslingers of yesteryear may unite when confronted with common enemies and goals, particularly if public interest in their mudslinging has waned.

The actual emotional impact and details of circumstances you read about, if true, are deeper and more significant to people than can typically be adequately transferred in media. That is virtually always the case.

Understanding and being conscious of such circumstances when you read and hear about sagas spanning many years would assist in more accurately understanding those sagas. The UFO trail actually winds through lives, not spaceships.