...that I think that there is really something to the UFO phenomenon. It's a question of numbers. Since the 1940's (actually for centuries before, hel-lo, Old Testament?) there have been many thousands of reports of inexplicable craft, and extraterrestrial...extraterrestrials. Let's assume that 99% of those events can be explained by natural phenomena, by mistakes, or by crackpots and liars. I think that is beyond generous to the skeptics, but, for the sake of argument, let's say 99%. That leaves, if there have been 10,000 sightings (there were more than 12,000 recorded by the United States government by the 1960's), 100 not dispensed. 100 of them are...are what? Real? Probably, you feckwads! 

That is just the basic law-of-numbers argument. For my money, it works just fine. I'm a believer. But let's trudge on for the rest of you who are still making that stupid face right now like you think maybe one of your swamp "friends" has lost it. Maybe. Maybe not. When it comes to individual accounts of close encounters of any kind, what the keen observer will look for first is credibility. Am I right or am I right? We're not going to give as much credence to the story our 6 year-old tells us, or to the ones given by the criminally insane, as we might to the one told to us by someone who is a trained observer, someone we recognize for rational thought or precision. Someone like, I don't know, an astronaut? A cop? The President of the United States? Guess what you didn't know? Jimmy Carter saw a UFO in 1969, and he wasn't alone 

Let's first take the hundreds of reports by the airmen of WWII. Hundreds. There may have been thousands. American, British, German and Japanese pilots alike reported seeing unidentifiable craft in the air with them on their missions. The Allied pilots called them "Foo Fighters". They flew at impossible speeds in impossible ways. They scared the shit out of a lot of people. I will not go on record saying those brave men were liars.

Let's take the Russian cosmonauts of the Salyut 6 mission, 1980. These poor schmucks were stuck in a space station orbiting earth, minding their own space business, eating floating pieces of space ice cream, when what happens? Another goddamn spaceship appears outside their window. They communicated with the guys inside it for four days. FOUR DAYS. As far as I have read, these men are national heros, they still believe what they reported, and neither the Soviet nor the Russian governments have ever denied it happening. 

Don't trust those sneaky Russians, eh? Well, fear not Uncle Sam. One of our own brave astronauts has gone on the record about this whole hullaballoo. Edgar Mitchell. Dr. Edgar Mitchell. This motherfecker walked on the moon. He has a PhD from MIT. Do you? I don't. Are we seriously going to question his chops? I think not. Dr. Mitchell has made it quite clear to the public that we have been and are being visited by otherworldly beings. Are we listening? I am, Doc! I am listening!

And finally--since I could honestly do this for days--let's take the residents of Stephenville, TX, January 19, 2008. Several dozen people, including a law enforcement officer, business owners, and even a pilot saw an object moving in the sky that was a mile long. A mile. One guy said, in perfect American, "it was bigger than a Wal-Mart". What do you do with that information? You sure as shit can't just say it's from Jupiter, but what CAN you say? Do we earthlings build things that fly that are a mile long? If we do, I want to know. But we don't, do we? Do the Russians? Those pinkos couldn't make a road that long! Are you familiar with Occam's Razor? It's the principle that, all things being equal, the simplest solution is the best. Well which is more simple, I ask you, that those Texans saw a spaceship or that we finally taught a Wal-Mart to fly? I think Occam's Razor says that this is a fucking spaceship from outer space. Simple!

I think most people just shrug and disbelieve all of these credible people who are without motivation to lie, who actually put their reputations on the line to relate an experience they had, because it is easier than analyzing what actual evidence exists and making an informed judgment. Maybe though, maybe it is something else. Maybe those people don't want it to be true as much as I want it to be true, because if it were, they wouldn't be the smartest or most important species around anymore. Only humans could have that sort of puerile arrogance. Maybe people are really afraid of something else--getting lasered to death or eaten or enslaved by them? I don't know. I can't speak for the nonbelievers. I can say to them though, that if I am right, and you are wrong, we have yet to see the most amazing thing that has ever happened to us. I for one, look forward to it with an open mind and my eyes on the skies.

And of course some people just don't care. How can you NOT care? You'll care when they are eating your face off, bucko.

While you still have your face, happy running. 

So, what race are you tweaking for?

Well on 5 hour drive from Sunday River to Providence--after getting up at 4 that morning the morning, driving to Maine, skiing all day, drinking a few apres ski beers, dropping a bunch of no-doze and heading home, I had some fairly vivid hallucinations of blue streaks shooting along side of my car and over the roof an all around us.  So I'd be surprised if the airmen in WWII didn't see some crazy shit up there.  Does't make them liars or witnesses to UFOs.

Not saying yea or nay, just sayin'.