Eye View 

by David Charbonneau

Extraterrestrial visits reported centuries ago

 

May 27, 2010



I believe Arthur I. Barrett of Kamloops when he says that he saw a flying saucer. I just don't know what it means.

In his letter to the Daily News, Mr. Barrett describes seeing the space ship hovering above his car as he returned from Ashcroft. After trying to outrun it, the saucer "turned red with sparks flying off its outer shell." He realizes how incredible his experience sounds but he is willing to undergo tests to verify his account.

Mr. Barrett is understandably reluctant to share is astonishing experience but he was encouraged to do so after the famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking warned against contact with extraterrestrial life. Hawking said a visit by extraterrestrials to Earth would be like Christopher Columbus arriving in the Americas, "which didn't turn out very well for the native Americans."

I have never seen space craft but I have never been to the moon either. I can't discount someone else's experiences just because they are not my own. Too many reputable witnesses such as professional observers, police officers, airplane pilots, and ordinary honest people have risked ridicule by sharing their experiences.

If these reputable observers are to be believed, Hawking's warnings are too late. They're already here. No sense closing heaven's gateways now.

Not just a few observers but billions of earthlings believe that extraterrestrials are already living in their communities, disguised as humans, according to a survey. The percentage of believers is highest in India and China lowest in Europe with North America in the middle.

The results of the survey were met with the expected guffaws from skeptics. "Were the respondents drunk?" said Susan Clancy, a psychology professor at Harvard University and the author of Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped By Aliens. Her explanation is that we are manipulated by popular stories, what she calls "cultural scripts," in movies and TV. Indeed, the aliens-among-us story in the popular TV series called "V" proposes that seemingly ordinary people are actually lizard-like aliens in disguise.

 
I think it's the other way around. Popular stories are influenced by culture rather than gullible people being persuaded by stories. Anand Mahadevan, a Toronto-based novelist who grew up in India, explains: "The notion that a being with the great powers of a godhead can move in the guise of humans or animals is already available in the mythology and religion of the region." He adds that there is nothing irrational about Indian physicists who compute lunar eclipses but pray that the demons Rahu and Ketu will stop swallowing the moon.

The reason why few Europeans report that aliens walk among us may be because they believe in elves, gnomes, trolls, fairies, and other "hidden people" instead. Laugh if you want to but in Iceland it's a serious business as Aloca found out when they planned to build an aluminum smelter there. First they had to employ a government expert to scour the building site for any hidden people who might be on or under the land. If the land hadn't been declared elf-free, all sorts of bad things could have happened on the job including broken limbs and wrecked equipment.

Although fewer Americans and Canadians believe in aliens walking the streets than Asians, a large number believe in extraterrestrial spiritual beings. A Gallup poll revealed that 78 per cent of Americans believe in angels and 70 per cent in the devil.

The survey didn't reveal whether respondents think angels and aliens are the same. I suspect not. Belief in alien visitors is more aligned with a scientific view of technology and space ships whereas angels and religion seem to go together.

Extraterrestrials have been visiting the earth for thousands of years and often they were both spiritual and flesh and blood. The Bible reports that Jacob wrestled with a being described as a man in one place (Genesis 32:24), God in another (Genesis 32:28) and angel in yet another place (Hosea 12:4). The two wrestled all night but Jacob was not overcome. It seems that aliens of Jacob's day did not possess superhuman strength.

I wrestle with the meaning of alien encounters and the inexplicable supernatural world. Do we share our world with angels, elves, aliens and demons? Is the curtain of everyday existence occasionally pulled aside so that a chosen few catch a glimpse of other beings who are all around us? I wish I knew.



 David Charbonneau is the owner of Trio Technical.
He can be reached at dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca
 





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