Flim Flam, Fables, and the Phenomenon

 

The study and pursuit of something so nebulous as UFO phenomena, especially when you are open enough to include tangential phenomena as part of what is often now referred to simply as "The Phenomenon", can feel like a maddening and foolish endeavor. One can investigate UFOs in any number of ways, or some combination of various ways. UFOs have been looked as a sociological phenomenon, and from a psychological perspective. They have been studied in varying types of scientific methodologies, from the astronomical to the statistical. They can be fodder for B-movies and tabloid headlines, or they can be viewed through mystical and occult perspectives. All of these combine in a view of UFOs as modern folklore and myth-making, where the stories themselves are the important part and proof of their veracity or physical reality is secondary. After all, physical evidence is in short supply; it could be that the paradigms we have for determining "reality" of something so strange as UFOs is ill-equipped to contend with how malleable reality really is, that the physical realm isn't the only one, and that the truth tends to be found in unexpected places beyond the grasp of measurable data. 

Even when we consider the folkloric, mythic narratives of high strangeness, we are forced to contend with the old chestnut of reliability of the witness. I have tackled this subject before here on this blog, but for our purposes now I want to explore how witness testimony tends to be handled. A lot of the classic UFO stories were heralded by researchers because of the supposed reliability of the witness to the event; for instance, the Lonnie Zamora encounter- as a policeman he was thought to be trustworthy and a "trained observer". Many other incidents reported by law enforcement are held up as more reliable, and the same treatment gets applied to those serving in the armed forces or to those in academia. We gravitate towards authority when facing the unknown, even if the unknown by definition has no attendant authority figure. It seems that some amount of UFO enthusiasts have turned away from this mindset, and are more likely to consider cases like that of Joe Simonton and his flying saucer flapjacks. Of course, old Joe did have some physical evidence in the form of the pancake, which was tested and found to be composed of mundane, earthly elements- which would seem to discredit his story. It would seem that way, perhaps, but the story still persists, even though Simonton was not a "trained observer". 

Using too many specific examples may bog down the point being made here, but as a general rule most well-known UFO encounter stories, and personalities attached to them, become controversial in one way or another. Retellings of events, attempts at debunking (up to and including character assassination), profiteering, and sensationalism all play a part in weakening the credibility of a story. Sometimes the tales buckle under the weight of a little bit of scrutiny, only to be bolstered by further scrutiny of the sources scrutinizing them. Ultimately, they may fall down completely, or stand tall as a tale of mystery. If my way of writing about this seems absurdly repetitive, that's intentional- the idiosyncratic use of language here illustrates well the distortions caused by the feedback loop in looking closely at the highly strange. The caution here would be not to throw out the proverbial babies with the tubs of proverbial bath water. When scrutiny reveals inconsistencies, it may simply mean that the story is too weird to be related any other way.

UFOlogists have classically hated a hoaxer. Anyone caught in a lie (as a witness, at least) is subject to being written off entirely by some amount of what can loosely be called "the field" of UFOlogy. The major investigation groups abhorred "repeaters" back in the day; it was thought that the odds were against even a singular sighting, and that anyone with multiple such stories was likely to be a liar or mentally ill. If such a person also dabbled in magic, or lived in a haunted house, or once saw Bigfoot, the credibility meter would drop much further. Sometimes you would have what sounded like a "normal" UFO sighting, and the attendant other phenomena would be omitted from the report for fear that it would undermine the legitimacy of the primary story. In the service of presenting a palatable truth, only a half-truth was presented- and lies of omission are still lies, which then undermines the investigator... resulting in more proverbial babies being lost in the flood of discarded bath water.

We all know that lying is wrong, even though all of us do it all of the time in small ways. Even back in the days of Aesop tales were told about the dangers of lies, and the boy who cried "wolf" served as a cautionary tale. On the other hand, as noted by Aristotle, the liar can tell the truth without having to worry about being taken at his word. Maybe the UFOs, whatever they may actually be, understand this aspect of narrative and choose to visit liars simply because no one will believe them. We can extrapolate from this that they might be more likely to appear in front of someone who is under the influence of drugs, or to a comedian who no-one would take seriously. To mix fables here, perhaps the wolf is really a UFO in wolf's clothing, and no matter how much the shepherd boy cries it won't prove a thing about the reality of wolves or UFOs.

In the interest of reinforcing this unconventional idea, by way of truth-finding via unlikely source material in our own peculiar idiosyncratic fashion, let us look at the Phenomenon as Flim Flam and Fable through two obscure sources from the 1960s. 

A 1960 Mexican movie, La Nave de los Monstruos (Ship of Monsters) becomes an unlikely candidate for illustrating the nature of the Phenomenon. It stars a popular actor, comedian, and singer / songwriter of Mexico during that era named Eulalio González, often called "Piporro". He is a singing cowboy who tells all manner of fish tales to his friends, all of whom rightly dismiss his stories. It's only natural that when a pair of buxom space ladies from Venus land the titular ship of monsters in search of a male earth specimen, they find Piporro's character Lauriano.

It would be easy to dismiss the movie as B-movie balderdash, even if, like your humble writer you are a fan of the genre. La nave de monstruos has in spades everything one could want from a B-movie; monsters, a cheesy robot, pin-up beauties, and even a vampire and some musical numbers. It also does not take itself too seriously, and its the very playfulness of the movie that makes it so profoundly appropriate in relation to the Phenomenon. When no one believes Lauriano about his experiences at the end of the movie, he is able to laugh about it and go on living his best singing cowboy life. And although the assemblage of elements in the story are absurd, they all have corollaries in the annals of UFO testimony. The creature on the poster, for instance, bears a passing resemblance to the humanoids reported in the Pascagoula abduction event, which occurred over a decade after the movie's release. The Venusian woman aren't very different from the alleged flying saucer occupants contactees like Truman Bethurum or Orfeo Angelucci wrote about. The movie also has a scene in which a cow is reduced to a skeleton in an instant, at a time well before cattle mutilation became associated with UFOs. 

The purpose for the Venusian mission is to find specimens to help repopulate Venus, hence the monsters which range from a cyclopean named Uk to a Martian prince, vaguely in the form of a grey alien, named Tagual. This fits in with the famous Antonio Villas-Boas case, in which he is forced to copulate with an alien, and also later narratives about genetic and reproductive motives behind abductions that became popular in the 1980s. It's worth mentioning as well that Villas-Boas was often characterized as a farmer, less reliable and respectable than one might prefer in a witness, but this is not true. He went on to lead a normal life, and became a successful lawyer. 

Ultimately, the movie is a fun romp and well worthy of a viewing. It may interest those who are interested in UFO lore, as it were, to look at it as an allegory for the Phenomenon more broadly.

Similarly, we see this kind of narrative play out in an episode of Twilight Zone called "Hocus Pocus and Frisby". It's certainly one of the sillier episodes of the Zone, and doesn't often rate on most lists of episodes that defined the series. However, the silliness of it mirrors the absurdity of UFO stories, replete with an unreliable narrator and an incredulous audience for his recounting of events. Rod Serling introduces Frisby in his inimitable way thusly:

He has all the drive of a broken camshaft and the aggressive vinegar of a corpse. As you've no doubt gathered, his big stock in trade is the tall tale. Now, what he doesn't know is that the visitors out front are a very special breed, destined to change his life beyond anything even his fertile imagination could manufacture.

Frisby is a shopkeeper, regaling his customers with whoppers so big Abe Simpson would blush at the telling. He is played by Andy Devine, known for his work in westerns and his whistling, wavering voice. The townsfolk balk at Frisby's grandiose lies of valor and genius, but he is unperturbed and keeps telling them. No one believes him, but, as we come to learn, they love hearing his stories even if they are visibly unconvinced.

As he is closing up for the day, a pair of well dressed men in a black car pull up outside looking for fuel. Frisby can't resist his impulses, and tells them all about his inventions in automotive history and his ingenious innovations in science. The two men are impressed, and say they will see him again very soon. The Men in Black phenomenon has a very obvious resonance here. The men act strangely, seem unfamiliar with very mundane things, and cryptically tell Frisby they will see him again soon. 

It turns out that these MiB are aliens, who have landed their craft somewhere nearby. They act unfamiliar with mundane things because they are visitors from another planet, and such mundane things are exotic to them. Also alien to their perspective is the concept of dishonesty. They take Frisby at his word, and decide he is an exemplary specimen to collect and bring back to their home planet. They selected him purely because of his lies, and when he tells the truth- that he is full of hot air and just enjoys spinning a yarn, it has no effect against their decision. He manages to escape by playing his harmonica badly. For some reason the sound of the musical instrument is incredibly painful to the aliens and messes up their technology. Naturally, the teller of insane tales finds himself in an insane situation, escaping because of an unbelievable weakness these extraterrestrial visitors have.

He arrives back at his shop to find his friends have set up a surprise 63rd birthday party for him, and they present him with a trophy for The World's Greatest Liar. Of course they don't believe their old pal, and never will- but they love the stories and celebrate him specifically for his tremendous yarns. Tell us another one, Frisby, we all want to hear it... Going from one group who wants him because they believe his lies to be true, back to the safety of those who feel a sense of truth to the certainty of his lies, we have an approximation of the way the lore in UFO history goes. 

Perhaps we also have an idea about the inherent mechanisms in the behaviors and motivations of these crafts and their reported occupants. At the very least, I am led to believe we have a rough guide on the best way to proceed- with a laugh, a song and dance, or a tall tale with good cheer and friendship. After all, that's really what it's all about.

In a Gotham State of Mind

 

"How Gotham city conquered was

And how the folk turn'd apes- because."

-Linkum Fidelius, as portrayed by Washington Irving

"This town needs an enema!"

-The Joker, as portrayed by Jack Nicholson

When the world feels too large, it can be tempting to shrink it down. The onslaught of dispatches from its every corner can be overwhelming, and the enormity of the chaos unbearable. It's tempting to retreat into a city, especially a fictional one. Whether in a comic book, or a movie or TV series, these fictional landscapes have a familiarity that comforts us while simultaneously operating by different rules, being both home and a land far, far away at the same time. These places can be visited, regardless of their material reality. Cities like Gotham have their own spirit, being almost a character themselves in the tales set within them. These locales can act as a twisted funhouse mirror of our own hometowns, and while we might enjoy spending time watching a Caped Crusader win the day there, we are glad to be safe from the Rogue's Gallery on our respective couches. They stay in Gotham, in the fictional world, where they are Batman's problem. 

I had heard once, from a local historian, that my hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts, helped inspire the city of Gotham in the comics. I have never been able to verify this in any way, but it hasn't stopped me imagining a Bat Signal over downtown. Most would associate the DC Comics setting with New York City, as it is sometimes referred to as "Gotham". The name was first applied to New York by Washington Irving, under a pseudonym in his a satirical periodical called Salmagundi. It was his way of making fun of the city and its citizens, in reference to an English town of that same name. Dating back to the 1500s, stories were spun about the town and its eccentric residents culminating in The Merry Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham. There are several variations on the title; as madness is merely a matter of perspective, the folk of Gotham are also called "Wise Men". Accounts of their foolish activities include trying to drown an eel or send rent checks via hare to their landlords. They tried to build a hedge around a cuckoo, whose presence signified springtime, with the idea that keeping the bird captive would ensure endless warmth. When the bird escaped by flight from its roofless confines, they resolved to just build higher walls on their next attempt.

The motivation behind these apparent acts of lunacy is a strategic one. The tales were borne out of the same time period and location as those of Robin Hood, when everyone in England was taxed into poverty to subsidize wars elsewhere. A road had been planned, going through Gotham, for the King's use. At the time, the townsfolk would be responsible for the maintenance and financial burden of such a road, and feigned madness to make their home a less attractive choice. Madness was considered contagious at the time, and the wisdom of being "mad men" granted them some amount of sovereignty. It is interesting to consider how the social and political challenges of the era informed the tales of a resident vigilante and hero to the people, as well as an assortment of apparently deviant people within the greater Nottingham area. We can see also the corollary to the Gotham of the comics, its hero and its villains.

After the Mad or Wise Men, but prior to Batman, Chester Gould's Dick Tracy comics introduced outlandish outlaws and established the concept of a "Rogue's Gallery" working against the hero. Often the particular villains were distinguished and identified with some physical abnormality, like Pruneface with his dramatic wrinkles and Flat Top, who- you guessed it- had a flat top to his head. The memorable gangsters Dick Tracy fought undoubtedly influenced Bob Kane and Bill Finger as they developed their own Rogue's Gallery; Batman's antagonists upped the ante and became full-fledged supervillains, with flamboyant personalities and fantastical means of accomplishing their grandiose goals. Additionally, this creative admixture of influences probably had some element of true crime included, as well as depictions of organized crime in cinema. The drama was balanced with absurdity, though; villains like the Joker, the Riddler, and the Penguin were so weird and quirky that no one could reasonably worry we'd see anything like them in real life. The nonsensical elements kept the monsters trapped within the panels and pages of a comic book.

The feedback loop between what we think of as reality and our fiction, though, is more complicated in its effects and manifestations. In writing about the Joker in the past, I had referred to Richard Widmark's role as Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death as being tied to both the character of the Joker and that of the Riddler. It seems Widmark was at least in part inspired by the Joker character, and the unhinged Udo inspired Frank Gorshin in his portrayal of the Riddler in the 1960s Batman TV show. Meanwhile, in real life, a young mobster was similarly inspired in both his dress and sadistic tendencies after seeing the film noir classic. "Crazy Joe" Gallo is said to have started mimicking Udo early in his career as a mobster in New York, ultimately culminating in his demise violently at age 43. In the TV series Gotham, the infamous murder scene in which Udo, laughing maniacally, pushes a woman in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs is recreated with the Riddler as the murderer. More recently, the Riddler is depicted in The Batman (2022) as having shades of both the Zodiac Killer and the Unabomber to him. 

Meanwhile, since the writing of the aforementioned Joker post, the character has bizarrely been served up in the form of Arthur Fleck in Joker (2019) and Joker: Folie a Deux (2024). Having nothing to do with the Joker we know from the comics, TV shows, and movies, Fleck lives in a liminal Gotham between the one we know and 1970s NYC. The first movie seemed derivative of The King of Comedy (1982), even to the point of having a late night TV personality character, played by Robert De Niro. The second one, a jukebox musical with Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, was trounced at the box office by Terrifier 3. The prevalence of clowns in an election year is worth noting, and Art the Clown and Fleck aren't the only examples- a documentary called From Darkness to Light was shown at festivals, examining Jerry Lewis's long lost movie The Day the Clown Cried- which involves a clown named Helmut, played by Lewis (who incidentally also starred in the aforementioned The King of Comedy) at a concentration camp. 

The proximity to evil, and politics with the clown energy is a running theme, and exemplified well by the fact that then-candidate Donald trump was facing trial not far from where the court scenes of Joker: Folie a Deux were being filmed. In one event, throngs of protesters, really just actors for the movie scene , nearly came into conflict with real life ones. Law enforcement was reasonably concerned such a protest might manifest in support of the felon who would later secure the election, and the confluence behind fake-Joker Fleck's mob and the hordes who blindly support trump is almost too obvious a point to belabor. An egregore of toxic cult mentality and discord existed in both the liminal Fleck Gotham and the New York of the present day simultaneously. By the end of the election cycle, the Insane Clown Posse were endorsing Harris for President.

Incidentally, if you want to hear me discuss the Joker sequel I do so here on John and Alexx Hate Stuff

Folie a Deux ends with (spoiler alert) what we presume to be the "real" Joker murdering Fleck, and carving a Glasgow smile into his face a la the Heath Ledger Joker from The Dark Knight. This reenforces the idea that the Joker exists as a mind virus more than as a singular personage. One might note Ledger's method acting in the movie was reportedly difficult for him to shake, leading some to speculate that it led to his death from prescription medication. Jared Leto, in his minor Joker role for the movie Suicide Squad, annoyed his fellow cast members by playing terrible pranks in the interest of "method". In 2012, during a showing of The Dark Knight Rises at a Colorado movie theater, a mentally ill gunman -reportedly inspired by the Joker- committed mass murder.  This "mind virus Joker" is explored in the series Gotham as well, which keeps you guessing about who the real Joker will turn out to be. In addition, it shows how this ephemeral Clown Prince inspired other killers. 

Gotham did perhaps the best job of amplifying the multifaceted villains of the eponymous city of any interpretation other than the comics themselves. The show managed to give audiences a little bit of all the different permutations of familiar characters, relying on every wacky trope from evil twins to literally raising killed-off characters from the dead. Far from the expected formula of origin stories leading to the hero or villain in action, we see the interactions and the effects they have on each person metamorphose over time. As the series progresses, we see Edward Nigma go through every variation on the Riddler, from the campy Gorshin-esque one to the Udo-esque killer. The series balances well the stakes of a drama with the absurd concatenations of comic book logic. It leaves up walls and dams of unreality between the micro world of Gotham City and the macro world in which we live, while more recent attempts detonate them- not unlike the Riddler in The Batman, flooding the streets with uncertainty and incredibly strange new challenges. 

The series also explored the Penguin more than virtually any other character. We see him as a young lackey to mobster Fish Mooney (invented for the show) working his way up through an increasingly bizarre series of misadventures, double crosses and incarnations. The trademark umbrella of the character is present, and part of his evolution into super villainy. Penguin, aka Oswald Cobblepot, traces his origins back to one of Dick Tracy's rogues- a character called Broadway Bates. The character was also partially inspired by a literal penguin in a Kool cigarette advertisement, which makes sense if you consider the traditional cigarette in a long-stemmed holder he is often portrayed having. The series touches on one told several ways in the character's long history- that of him running for mayor, which again adds to the political correlations. Versions of this were done in the 1960s series and in Batman Returns, where Danny DeVito's monstrous, sewer-dwelling version of the character is propped up through internecine city corruption and campaigning. Considering Gotham to be a small world mirror, the correlations to our world are again fairly obvious.

 The Penguin of The Batman, though, who got his own spin-off miniseries for HBO, is a different animal altogether. Colin Farrell's physical transformation for the role, from good looking actor to scarred and portly tough guy, deviates strongly from the rotund and goofy Penguin we're accustomed to. His Penguin seems like he would be more at home in an episode of The Sopranos than in Gotham. It's worth noting that Joachim Phoenix lost a lot of weight for Joker, undergoing perhaps a more extreme transformation. Whether either form of physical alteration was necessary is up for debate, but its interesting that the choices were made. Instead of finding actors who looked the part, the actors molded themselves into a strange new version of familiar characters. One might see it as a weird version of the well-loved "origin story" or "Joker moment" these villains are known for. It can also be seen as a strange way of humanizing them, bringing them ever-closer to our world which is bereft of Batmobiles and Bat Signals, and anything else with a "bat" prefix. Batman is even noticeably absent from The Penguin, and is in fact never even spoken about. The titular character's name is "Oz Cobb", getting away from the Golden Age goofiness of the traditional, longer alternate identity. He is kind of a middleman in Gotham's underworld, and his business is largely the drug trade. Gone are the poison tipped umbrellas that turn into helicopters somehow; no large rubber ducks or actual penguins equipped with rocket launchers are to be found. Entertaining though the series is, in the way that "binge-worthy" dramas are designed these days, it's eerily bereft of whimsy and most importantly, heroes. In the end, Oz / Penguin gets everything he wants through one important lesson- empathy is weakness, and having people you care about is a liability. Sound familiar?

What are we to take away from this melding of realities? Why is the fictional Gotham getting harder-edged, more dangerous, as the real world gets so cartoonishly stupid and hellish? Where are our heroes? If we shine a signal into the sky, who will come to our aid?

The Mad Men of Gotham were wise in knowing that madness isn't actually contagious, but using the fact that this was widely believed played the part. Madness is only contagious if you agree that it is, and allow yourself to contract it. The characters that fall prey to the Joker's mind virus were already inclined toward murder, and were just looking for an excuse- similarly the mobs aligned with trump, Musk, and their ilk long had hate in their hearts and are overjoyed to have permission to express it fully. The appointees being forced on us in this administration are like the super villains of the comics, more than the ones of the current media- they are singularly minded, obsessed with their own pet issues to rant about. The difference is, we've enabled and normalized these weird hills that these ghouls are willing to die on. Most of them are very, very dumb- or just crazy, and sadistic. Their only strength is having a ton of financial backing and an imperviousness to consequences because they refuse to play by the rules. You can't outsmart crazy and dumb, and, as Alfred Pennyworth said in The Dark Knight, some men just want to watch the world burn.

Such burning may be inevitable. It seems likely that it will get much worse before it gets better, but I for one am confident that the Rogue's Gallery hasn't won completely. Perhaps the burning will be purifying, all-encompassing; maybe we'll rise from the ashes and rebuild. I'll be watching the Worcester skyline for any signals, but I'm not holding my breath.

   

A Very Contactee Christmas

 

Children the world over spend Christmas Eve dreaming of gifts delivered by air, of a man landing from on high spreading joy and mirth. Some even scan the skies, hoping to catch a glimpse of a flying sleigh or reindeer traversing the clouds. Gift giving involving aerial beings is not a foreign concept for the holiday season, but flying saucer occupants receiving gifts from earthlings is alien to our expectations.

Such was the case, however, one Christmas Day in 1955. At the home of contactee Buck Nelson, a special guest was among the celebrants- Buck’s flying saucer friend Bucky the Spaceman. Bucky had taken Buck on a round-trip space journey a few months prior, to Mars, the Moon, and Venus, the story of which can be found in Buck’s appropriately titled book “My Trip to Mars, the Moon and Venus”. Buck was even allowed to drive the saucer at one point. He learned much about our brothers from space, and their pets- notably, a 385 lb dog called Bo had accompanied Bucky and the landing party. It was also revealed that Bucky was actually an expatriate earthling, who was in fact related to Buck- and this Christmas, he came to visit his terrestrial cousin and then his parents before heading back to Venus.

A friend of Buck's, Fanny Lowery, had anticipated Bucky’s return. In the hope that he'd visit for the holidays, Fannie had mailed a special gift to Buck's ranch, to be delivered to Bucky.  At 1:30 a.m., we're told, on Christmas Day of 1955, Bucky arrived and was presented with an envelope which contained Mrs. Lowery’s gift: an advertisement for Prestone antifreeze.

“Bucky laughed like an eight-year-old kid when he saw the picture on his card.” Reports Buck Nelson, “...it had a picture of 8 or 9 monkeys doing all sorts of wrong things to a car… beneath the picture, it said, “Don't Let Anyone Monkey Around Your Car.” Written between the lines of advertising was the question “Does anyone monkey around Saucers like this?””

According to Bucky, this funny little card was “The first gift which had ever been knowingly sent by mail to a person from another planet from a person on earth.” Quite the distinction!

Bucky then proceeded to record a Christmas Message to the World on tape. He began by thanking Fanny for the gift, and answering her question. “Yes, it has happened to our ships, torn apart for souvenirs.”

His Christmas Message continued with a wish for peace on earth, as only a Space Brother could deliver it- he implored humanity to give up atomic weapons, and forecast certain doom for civilization if the warning went unheeded. He then hung around and mingled with Buck's other guests throughout the day, one of whom tried to sell him insurance. Later he pontificated aloud about canned pork and beans, before finally departing to visit his folks.

This charming vignette is an example of the wonderful ephemera to be found in the history of UFOlogy; these silly little moments in the stories of contactees, these slices of life are almost too mundane, too human, while are the same time too fantastic and absurd for their context to be forgotten about. So this Christmas season, know that somewhere in a museum on Venus there is probably a glass case where sits that historic “first gift” which Bucky treasured so much. As you put out cookies and milk for Santa, think about clipping an ad for a Spaceman; and for goodness sake, give up those nukes!

*** This article was originally published in 2022 on a website that no longer exists

Plantoids!

 

Back in the 1950s, when Flying Saucers were all the rage, people began claiming communications from the occupants of these otherworldly craft- and one commonality between the alleged messages to these so-called "contactees" was a message of environmentalism. The abandonment of nuclear weapons, and care for the lifeforms on planet Earth seemed to have been a top priority for these planet-hopping Space Brothers. One wonders what difference it made to those living on Venus, Saturn, or Mars? Was it a message of fraternity and altruism, or did it benefit them in some way? There have been a variety of answers, ranging from Theosophically informed New Age explanations about balancing life energies to more mundane but equally fantastical ones seemingly culled from the pages of pulp sci-fi mags. 

It may seem a strange question to even pose, as most people don't consider the claims of the contactees to be worthy of consideration. UFOlogy has long had a large schism between the more esoteric types of sky watchers and the "nuts and bolts" ET hunters, but either school of thought tends toward the idea that these craft (and by extension, the entities controlling them) come from another planet. There has always been some amount of thinkers who are inclined toward the idea that the source of these strange visitors might be much more terrestrial indeed. Still others have long contended that there were more metaphysical sources for these phenomena; Meade Layne, for instance, and others in the Borderland Sciences Research Associates, promoted the idea of Etherships from neighboring dimensions of reality. When we entertain the less-than-physical theories of UFOs, we open the door for everything from hallucinations to thought projections, from the unsatisfying mundane to the extremity of psychical weirdness. We always assume, however, that these entities are here for us or extensions of us; us humans, the top lifeforms of Planet Earth. We sometimes consider the mutilated cow or the scared dog, but rarely do we think about the variety of flora in the world. 

 Forteana more broadly has classically approached plants more skeptically, as evidenced by this clipping from a December 1950 issue of FATE Magazine. It's not all too often that the stories in their pages contains a disclaimer, but the tale of the Man-Eating Trees appears to have been too tall even for the editors there. Carnivorous plants are well-documented, and though somewhat exotic aren't necessarily weird. Something about the idea of a meat-eating plant, though, seems to spark a connection and allow us to anthropomorphize plant life, to imbue it with some level of sentience that we understand. We see it in fiction, albeit in a tongue-in-cheek way, in films such as Roger Corman's Little Shop of Horrors and variations thereof. The carnivorous plant in the movie is actually an alien, which can talk, and demand blood. The vampiric plant being has precedent as well in The Thing From Another World, in which a frozen plant-based humanoid is thawed out from its apparent icy grave and sustains itself on plasma.

There aren't very many UFOlogical examples of this sort of thing, but one was recorded by Gray Barker in the 1960s- the case of Jennings Frederick, whose "Veggie Man" encounter culminated in the entity apparently latching on with suction cup fingers to draw blood. The creature, whatever it was, telepathically conveyed its need for medical assistance to the terrified Frederick, and it was implied that the being was an extraterrestrial. 

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Plant beings from outer space is a fun concept to consider, but it still relies on the idea of interplanetary or interstellar travel. It also implies the very human idea that the most superior forms of sentient being would be technologically adept and probably humanoid in appearance. The more magically inclined among us have, for centuries, accepted that plants have intendant spirit forms. Nature spirits and fairy entities from cultures around the world are intimately connected with plants, or are spiritual emanations from them in some cases. We tend also to anthropomorphize these, as in practices with plants such as the mandrake.

Less magical but still on the fringe, there has long been an argument that plants have a type of sentience- and, one imagines, such sentience would be nearly inconceivable to our monkey brains. The 1973 book The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird popularized the idea, relying heavily on the "Backster Effect"- a series of findings by a man named Cleve Backster, who used a polygraph machine to test plant responses to stimuli. An episode of the popular TV series In Search of...  also focused on these ideas in the 70s, and L. Ron Hubbard claimed to confirm some of these results through the use of the same "E-Meter" he used in auditing members of his Church of Scientology. (Hubbard claimed that tomatoes "screamed" when sliced or pierced. One imagines he grinned ghoulishly while saying this.) Needless to say, the jury is still way out and plant intelligence is far from proven. Most, if not all of the ideas posed in the aforementioned media has been lambasted by scientists and disregarded as fiction. Fiction, however, provides a useful means of conjecture. Further, "sentience", "consciousness", and "intelligence" are ill-defined abstract terms using only the human mind as a baseline. Hungarian born botanist Raoul H. Francé argued for "True Botany" in his 1905 book Germs of Mind in Plants, saying that the endless categorization and study of dried plant "mummies" neglected the life, the important part of plant studies. Though useful, he felt that focusing on the minutiae of plant parts ignored the fact that humanity and plants of all types had a common bond; a will to live, that they had sensation, and a purpose. Through our animal eyes, we view other forms of sentience- if we see them at all- as either inferior or equivalent in some way to our own. It seems more likely that a non-human sentience and indeed a non-animal one would be so different from ours we may never see it at all.

There are quite a few unknowns in regard to human consciousness, and much controversy involved in investigating them. We don't quite know what happens to consciousness after the death of the body, for instance- nor do we really know the limits of the perceptions our minds can obtain. Extrasensory Perception has been studied for ages, and still unproven in the minds of many. It's worth noting that J. B. Rhine, who started the parapsychology lab at Duke University with his wife Louisa, had a degree in botany. If there are unknown borders to confine what we experience as human consciousness, who is to say whether there are overlapping borders with the neighboring lifeforms, those that sustain us through exchanges of oxygen and carbon dioxide? Further, can we really discount the mystics, the folk tales, and the magical history of nature spirits? And, if we entertain discarnate entities as emanations from the flora, how is that different from the parapsychological apport or the mystical tulpa? Can plants manifest psychic apparitions, or solid objects? Can we?

This may seem to be an insane line of inquiry, but to the mind of this writer it all sounds more plausible than flesh and blood visitors from another planet on a nuts and bolts craft. It has a degree of unreality to it which is so weird it just might be true. Bringing us back to the contactees, it resolves the ecological mission of the Space Brothers. If Orthon or Aura Rhanes were actually plantmind phantasms, it would make a lot of sense. It was jokingly suggested before on this blog that Nessie might be a sentient blob of peat moss, and as the years have gone by I have warmed up to the idea as a real possibility.  As we consider the muck monster form, it is perhaps advisable to refer once again the our fictions as a basis for speculation...

The fictional character Swamp Thing first appeared in 1971, created by Len Wein for the DC Comic House of Secrets. The story of a scientist through misadventure transforming into a monstrous version of his former self saw several changes over the years, culminating in a movie version and a sequel, and several television shows. The "muck monster" idea had precedent in the Theodore Sturgeon story "It! The Thing that Couldn't Die!" and in a comic book called Air Fighters from the 1940s, featuring a monster called The Heap. In "It!", the monster seems to be an animated human skeleton at its core, killing purely out of curiosity; its sentience is unformed and basic. The Heap was animated through the indomitable will to live of a crashed pilot. For our purposes here, we'll stick with Swamp Thing, and more specifically the Saga of the Swamp Thing series written by Alan Moore.

In Moore's story, a lesser DC villain Jason Woodrue is given conditional release from prison to examine the corpse of Swamp Thing. He discovers that all of the organs one might expect to find in a human are there, but none of them fulfill the function they would in a human body- they are replicas, approximations of what human anatomy looks like. They are flora assuming the form of man, and there is actually nothing left of the scientist Alec Holland. So what consciousness drives the Thing? Woodrue's villain persona, the Fluoronic Man, manages to tap into plant consciousness and discovers a worldwide network that operates as one functional mind. He and Swamp Thing refer to it simply as "The Green", a cosmic life force that permeates all of the non-animal life on the planet. So foreign is this manner of sentience, it drives Woodrue mad and he becomes megalomaniacal. 

Our diversion into comic book reality may bear some relevance to a reality we all fail to recognize, though it surrounds us every day. Our houseplant, the denizens of our crisper drawer, or even the Christmas tree we cut down and plant in our living room may have a mind all its own- or, it may be tapped into a network of mind, a cosmic and ethereal energy inextricable from our habitable material realm. Perhaps Plantoids can manifest, as UFOs or lake monsters, as phantoms or fairies; perhaps they can use organic material to build a form or can solidify purely psychic ones. Perhaps the reader assumes that these are the idle thoughts of a human mind under the influence of particular kinds of plants. But maybe, just maybe, the reader is afraid to know that they are not the authority on sentience.

Manifesting Our Cultural Superman: Truth, Justice, and the American Way

 

In 1978, Hollywood not only asked us to believe a man could fly- they gave audiences a directive. You will believe a man can fly. Superman came to movie screens across the United States and inspired viewers, young and old, with a character who at that point had been emblematic of our cultural values for 40 years. 

Belief is a tricky thing, though. Superman himself had trouble breaking into the pages of comic books because he seemed too unbelievable; leaping tall buildings in a single bound or traveling faster than a speeding bullet was considered too far of a stretch by the men at the top. Believing in the impossible requires a level of intellectual bravery, or, paradoxically, childish credulity. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote about this as a type of "poetic faith"- that the "semblance of truth" could be conveyed through supernatural or otherwise fantastical means by simply enjoying the impossible narrative for its own sake. When we willingly suspend disbelief, we become privy to ephemeral truths about human nature, about society, and about the world in which we live. All of the best speculative fiction, even if it's considered low brow by literary standards, illustrates the usefulness of actively letting go of critical faculty- taking a leap, into the air, and flying, as an act of faith- and thus being rewarded not only through the power of entertainment and novelty but by the inherent meaning and truth conveyed.

Truth, however, is another sticky concept. Christopher Reeve, in his role as Superman in the aforementioned movie, uses the hero's old motto of "Truth, Justice, and the American Way". We see here how intimately Superman is tied to ideas about the U.S., what it stands for, or perhaps what it should aspire to. Veering away from suspension of disbelief for a moment, this motto traces its roots to the second World War, for Superman's radio show in an effort to support American troops overseas. It again became used by George Reeves in the 1950s TV series, this time as Cold War rhetoric. These are true statements, and the more cynical among us bristle at the hokeyness the tagline embodies while simultaneously being tangential to propaganda. If we employ our willingness to believe, without any umbrage or analysis, we may find that the simplicity of these basic values as stated have a kind of beauty that is often absent in popular discourse. 

Truth is not only sticky, it's very difficult to face. It's not terribly surprising that Superman has been increasingly considered corny in recent decades, or that belief in American ideals has become such a quagmire. People often rightly point out that the men who founded our nation, and spoke of freedom, largely owned human beings for the purpose of forced labor. Many examples from history directly contradict the ideals expressed in the founding documents, and it feels increasingly childish or naive to equate "the American Way" with Truth or Justice. Perhaps, however, a childlike view - or a suspension of disbelief, cynicism, and anger - is helpful in believing we can get there. In recent years, Superman has been instead saying "Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow"- and one could argue that the sentiment is precisely the same. The Truth that the founding fathers were promoting was held by them to be self-evident. One might say even a child could tell you what freedom is, what equality looks like, and what's fair. For reasons seem to be intrinsically part of human nature, the basic values of human dignity and equality are reasoned away as flights of fancy. 

There's nothing controversial or even political about Truth. If we accept for our purposes that by "men" the founders used an archaic form of "human", we see by these self-evident truths that we are all equal, and each of us has the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. There are no qualifiers in this vision of what it means to be American. It should be obvious, this Truth, or self-evident as we interact with others in the world- and yet for so many, the premise seems laughably alien. This is, perhaps, where Justice comes in. Prior to, during, and after the founding of these United States the original ideals have consistently failed to manifest in a multitude of ways. In other ways, though, this grand titanic experiment has gradually arced toward its goal. If we are to exercise our muscles in disbelief suspension, through intellectual honesty or childish optimism, we can get to a place where despite all evidence to the contrary such lofty ambitions are achievable. We can believe in a Better Tomorrow, we can believe that it's the same as the American Way, just as we can believe a man can fly.

The ugly truths and injustices of our modern world may lead us to ennui, despair, and hopelessness. It must not, however, lead us to concede defeat prematurely. There is still goodness in the world, and even if it seems less self-evident when one looks at the news or scrolls through social media, we are all equal parts of the equation and in the same boat. Xenophobia, dehumanization, and bigotry seems so obviously anathema to the very specific principles set forth in the Constitution, and yet many wave American flags while spewing such rhetoric. There's something to be said for the fact that Superman stood for these ideals even though he was not only an immigrant from another nation, but from another planet. We seem to be stuck in a binary mindset, one rife with contradiction and logical fallacies. Whether we consider the America of the idea space to be just as corny and fictional as Superman, or whether we believe in an alternate factual interpretation of traditionalism from the founders, we are becoming increasingly at odds not only with each other but also with our humanity. If we don't want the Earth to go the way of Krypton, we should do everything in our power to bring these founding principles to bear.

   As a character, Superman was born out of what became known as the Golden Age of comic books. In a literary sense, the concept of the Golden Age relates to a time before humanity suffered, a paradise that once existed and was lost. Occasionally, examples of this literary device depict a Utopian future. Myriad dimensions of this kind of idea manifest in our discourse regularly; people may speak of the "good old days", or become nostalgic for simpler times. If we are to concern ourselves with Truth, however, we realize that this nostalgia relates to a past that never was. The above image seems like a bittersweet relic of a bygone era, but worse than that, it's a message of hope from nearly three-quarters of a century ago that seems to have burned out instead. The 1950s were a complicated time, and there are plenty of reasons Superman's message here didn't match reality then- but our Man of Tomorrow was forward thinking, and many of the inequalities present at that time gradually met with Justice. Now, a quarter of the way through the 21st century, this golden utopian America seems just as fictional, cornball, and archaic as Superman himself. But Superman never dies, even despite stories in the comics and the movies; similarly, the defiant and indomitable spirit of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness can never be crushed.

The point here is that we should not discard our ideals simply because they are impossible. Real Truth exists despite our inborn need to dissect it and twist it and ultimately cast it aside. The America that is analogous to Truth and Justice, that truly embodies such values, exists in the imaginal realm and is still worthy of our aspiration. It also lives in our symbols- the flag, the bald eagle, and Superman- and can be manifested with these forms. There are stories about real-life encounters with Superman, and other comic characters, existing as a sort of tulpa to the writers and artists who bring him to life on the page. Alvin Schwartz, who wrote Superman comic strips for nearly 20 years, writes about his encounters with such manifestations in his book An Unlikely Prophet- and ultimately realizes that Superman is only one half of the character. The other half is Clark Kent, the mild-mannered reporter. While none of us can claim to fly, bend steel or have x-ray vision we can all relate to Kent. Whether we choose to believe claims such as those made by Schwartz in his book, we can nevertheless extrapolate from the idea of thought forms becoming real that the impossible may not be as far away as we think. In spite of the fact that we've never quite seen the kind of Golden Age or self-evident truths in action the way we would wish to, we must nevertheless hold space for them. We keep them close to our hearts, the way Clark wore his costume under his shirt.

Perhaps some symbols, archetypes, and forms outlive their usefulness eventually. Perhaps there are ages and epochs where the gods reign supreme and others where humanity lifts itself up. We can't wait for the deus ex machina, the blue and red bullet from the sky to come and rescue us all from the horrors we've created. But if we believe a man can fly, if we believe that a better tomorrow can be today, if we can suspend our disbelief enough to make room for such naive sounding things as Truth or Justice or the American Way, then maybe we can manifest our cultural Superman as we live our Clark Kent lives. As we look up in the sky, we can channel hope. The fight is not over, and likely it never will be. We fight in spite of it all in the hopes of that impossible future which rests entirely on poetic faith, that there will come a time when fighting is no longer necessary.

Who cares if it's corny? Believe.

On Cultivating a Weird Library

There was a time when my collection of Weird Books was only enough to fill a shelf or two of my bookcase. In that time, visitors to my abode would notice curious titles including words like "UFOs" or "Mysteries" on the spine and inquire about them. For most of my life, my interest in weird subjects was more or less one of quiet, solitary thought experimentation. People who knew me recognized my interest in such things as lake monsters or ghosts, but rarely did I ever find that they wanted to talk about it at any length. Still, when such subjects present themselves prominently on the spines of books, the curious get curiouser; this curiosity is the first thing one must cultivate when setting out to build a Weird Library.

"Weird" is subjective, of course. For the reader who might want to build a collection of their own, it's worthwhile to consider the definition and the parameters of such a term for themselves. To my mind, it covers quite a bit of ground. I have a broad range of interests, but hyper-specificity might be a wonderful way for someone else to plan a collection. For instance, one might start a shelf of specifically UFO books; but then, one might limit that to UFO books from the 1950s. Further still, the focus could be just on contactees of the 1950s, and could be focused even more on just one or some of them. UFOs are also an obvious example of Weird, and one could argue that any such granular focus on a particular subject is weird by virtue of its singular theme. Pop culture obsessions often engender this kind of weird collection, and its really that kind of enthusiasm that is a cornerstone to a well cultivated collection. For myself, such focuses are rare. My bookshelves buckle these days because rather than focusing on one or another Weird Thing, I have opened the aperture of my strange lenses to include a wide variety of subjects into my frame of Weird.

Labels and strict categories have classically been anathema to my understanding of how Things work. As a pattern seeking species, humans love to label and define and delineate, and thus become masters of reality by "knowing" an awful lot about phenomena simply because they've assigned a name to it. This isn't a criticism, really; of course we need some rubric, some system to work with to build a consensus knowledge base from which we can both teach and learn. When the phenomena in question is purely anomalous, it becomes even more difficult to assign labels since by definition, no one can really claim to "know" much of anything for certain about it. We can, however, draw from a wealth of writings and form our own ideas about what can broadly be described as Mysteries. Tangential to these are a myriad of other subjects which are less mysterious but no less fascinating. 

This is all to say that my own attempt at building a Weird Library contains volumes that in themselves aren't weird per se, but rather have relevance to others that are. There is a broad range in what one might describe as quality, or verisimilitude, or reliability. Some are incredibly problematic, while others are harmless or neutral. Broad categories included, which often intersect and overlap in ways that make shelf organization nearly impossible, span the gap from fringe to outer fringe. While many of the selections are wacky and amusingly absurd, that's not true of all of them- and inclusion in the library should not be read as an insinuation that they are.

Alongside subjects such as cryptozoology, UFOlogy, parapsychology and mysticism, we can venture toward more widely accepted fields of study and their relationship to it. For instance, books like The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks might help shed some light on how malleable human perception is, and how easily it can be altered by neurological affects. It's a popular book, written by a respected doctor, but when one considers the implications of just how fragile our grasp on phenomenal reality is one is forced to contend with that in reports of anomalous encounters. Similarly, when we look at magical traditions, we might include religious texts that informed them. It would be offensive and disrespectful to describe religious literature as "weird",  but books like The Bhagavad Gita or tracts from the contemplative Christian tradition such as The Cloud of Unknowing are instructive when considering the roots of our modern systems of magic. There are so many tangents one might follow from the above fringe subjects that might lead to including hard science books, books by hobbyists, art books, biographies, folklore, history, anthropology, and popular fiction- there is quite literally no real limit. Engage your curiosity, feed it, and let it grow.

To those interested in cultivating such a library, I would suggest, as Charles Fort did, that they begin as one might when measuring a circle- start anywhere! I might further and perhaps more helpfully suggest that the best way to grow such a collection is to do so organically. Once you've begun with a handful of books, pull on the threads and sources of the ones most interesting to you. Look at bibliographies and footnotes, and track down books cited there as potential additions to your library. Find criticisms online of these books, and track down books that have the opposing view of whatever subject it is you are interested in. Biographies are particularly good as examples of texts which will cover the same subject but be wildly different in their appraisals- and sometimes even in the "facts"! Sometimes, passing mentions in books can open up a whole new avenue of discovery, for which the Inquiring Student of the Weird may prove an opportunity to treasure-hunt more Weird volumes. Further, if you find a stumbling block in the form of references you don't understand, that may be an indicator that you need to expand your library in that direction to find out for yourself what they mean. To quote the wonderful occultist and researcher Maevius Lynn in a recent video , use your lack of knowledge on a subject as an invitation to learn more. As an example from my experience, Theosophy is a very influential and pervasive current in all manner of fringe books. I found a copy of Madame Helena Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine years ago, and it sat on my shelf like the Sword of Damocles as something that I knew I'd someday have to read in order to understand the tradition more fully. These days, it is something I have read- and I feel much more informed and better for it.

Now that we have some direction, a few recommendations for sourcing these books might be appropriate. For those fortunate enough to have used book stores around them, I would recommend regularly checking in to see what offerings they have. I am fortunate to be within reasonable driving distance of some very good ones, such as Grey Matter Books, which has a section called "Books of the Weird". 

A "Weird Books" section, I've found, tends to be tucked away in the back of the store where it won't embarrass the shop keeper... but that's not always the case. Grey Matter's section is prominent in the front room; I was thrown for a loop in Maine once when I scoured the store for more than half an hour only to discover the weird books were directly in front of the register, near the entrance!

A great deal of booksellers do not cater so easily to us weirdos, though, so hunting for strange titles becomes a little more of a task. Think of it as a treasure hunting expedition or Easter egg hunt. Sometimes odd volumes are miscategorized; I have found classic UFO books in the Science Fiction section before. Sometimes arcane books of magic and occultism are tucked away in the Religion or Spirituality section. Categories like Folklore, or Local History are often worth glancing at- often there's at least something a little odd there. If used bookstores aren't so prevalent in your area, or if you lack really good ones, most established shops with such books have a presence online. Support your independent bookshops!

Beyond the bookshops, check out thrift shops, antique stores, and yard sales. Estate sales sometimes yield great treasures, especially if you are lucky enough to find one with its own Weird Library. I once scored a box filled with dozens of UFO related paperbacks, relatively cheaply, from the estate of a man who had been a MUFON investigator!

If all else fails, you could try magic. I have, astoundingly enough, conjured rare books out of the ether using my own idiosyncratic methods...

For those who share my enthusiasm for such things, this can be a very fulfilling hobby. It can also take over your life and your living space- there never seem to be enough bookshelves or places to put them. Be mindful of your family or cohabitants, and establish boundaries so that it doesn't drive a wedge in personal relationships. Also, be safe! Modern bookshelves should be secured so they can't tip over, and rogue stacks of books can present tripping hazards or fire hazards. Every once in a while I'll watch an episode of Hoarders to keep things in perspective. Don't let it get that bad!

It is my hope that the particular kind of weirdo that really enjoys these things, who has a genuine interest and curiosity about the out-of-the-ordinary, will benefit from my ramblings here. There are a great many barriers to having such a collection, first among them the fact that even if interested most people simply wouldn't want that many books cluttering up their home. This is absolutely reasonable! If you are among those people, or are simply curious about the books I've collected, I have started a YouTube series in which I showcase them called "Selections from the Weird Library". I hope you enjoy seeing some of the books and hearing about what they mean to me.

 
 

Until next time, stay weird and keep reading!