Tag Archives: aliens

Bermuda Triangle

So when I was a kid, uh, when I was like 4 or 5 probably, I first heard about this whole thing with the Bermuda Triangle? My brother told me about it, probably. And he told me that basically it’s this place in the Atlantic Ocean where if you fly over it you, like any of the planes that would fly over it would crash, they’d all crash, and like everyone would die. That’s like the 7 year old kid version, I guess. But . . . and then over the years I heard that it was more like there were mysterious disappearances and stuff, um. Wait, who was the famous pilot? There was a famous pilot, uh, uh, uh . . . um, Amelia Earheart, maybe? . . . There was a famous pilot who went down in the Bermuda Triangle. And there were a bunch of maybe World war 2 related things as well, where planes went down mysteriously, like, without any weather or anything, they would just go off radar, and then they would, the plane would disappear. Um, so a lot of people would dispute that it was like aliens or something. Some sort of mysterious energy, like magnetic energy over this triangular area of the ocean that made planes crash, and then the pilots were like abducted or something, or taken by, by the squid people of the Bermuda, I don—something like that.
It was kinda scary, cause we traveled a lot when I was younger. And we would fly over the Bermuda Triangle sometimes, and I would be like, “Uh, oh! We’re going to die! We’re gonna get captured by the squid people!”

The unexplained disappearances and technological failures of the Bermuda Triangle remain fascinating, because in a world where all seems explainable, all of us still feel helpless and ignorant in the face of the ocean, or when in an airplane flying across the globe. American explanations for the Bermuda Triangle tend to be exclusively scientific, or science fiction oriented. American is obsessed with science and the future, but when we were pushing the limits of technology during the time when circumnavigating the globe by airplane was becoming possible, planes, such as Amelia Earhart’s, would at times disappear without a trace. That mankind still did not possess the technology to fully explore the globe by air fascinated the nation. Even now the legend of the Bermuda Triangle is prevalent. My friend is particularly fascinated by it because he traveled as a child and was very frightened of their plane getting lost.
In this case his older brother, who did not believe the story, told him the story to scare him. When my friend grew older, however, he no longer believed the story either. Growing out of believing in stories like the Bermuda Triangle or the Loch Ness monster are signs one is maturing and entering adulthood.

UFO Sighting

Both my mother and sister claim to have witnessed a UFO several years ago while driving home from a Target store which is only about a mile from my house in Marietta, Georgia.  It was late and dark outside.  Through the front window, my mother saw a pair of white lights approaching the intersection outside of the Target.  She recalled that the object, which she definitely believed was a craft, was extremely low in the sky – she said maybe the height of a telephone pole.  She could make out a boomerang shape as it moved overhead, where to her amazement, it hovered in absolute silence.
While my mother will admit being uncertain as to the craft’s identity, she suggested that it was some form of secret military technology; in particular she indicated that the craft she saw resembled the stealth fighter she had seen in photographs.  This is one popular interpretation of unidentified flying objects, and it is a viable explanation for many such sightings, perhaps including this one.  Together with this idea of futuristic military (human) technology, it seems the idea of super-advanced alien technology forms the overwhelming majority of the public sentiment on the subject of UFO’s throughout the US and most of the free world.  Though many UFO witnesses (and many who hear second hand) ascribe a spiritual nature to their experience, these interpretations and others are far outnumbered by those that focus on the future and progress of the human race.  While my mother does not believe in aliens and simply gave an honest account of what she witnessed, people of other cultures would probably have provided vastly different explanations.

UFO Sighting

My grandfather still recalls an incident that occured on a flight to Washington D. C. approximately fifty years ago.  He remembered being in the aisle seat, while the plane was approaching the airport at twilight.  Looking out the window, he saw an object that he describes as having a “saucer-like bottom” and a smaller inverted saucer on top.  It was off in the distance, passing through the clouds on a parallel path to the airplane.  He said he could not estimate its size, as he could not tell how far away the object was.  Along the edge of the saucer, he mentioned what he called lighted windows or lights.  He was not the only witness of the incident; he recalled a man whose name I will abbreviate F. B., in the seat next to him, that also saw the object.  After the incident was over, my grandfather and F. B. separately sketched their own impression of what the craft looked like, and both the drawings matched.  My grandfather maintains an agnostic view toward the object he saw in the sky.  He indicated that if he were a skeptic, he would try to rationalize it by calling it a reflection of the airplane itself in the clouds; however, he does not hold to this theory.  Rather, he said it excited him, as it occurred in the era when UFO’s were a big cultural phenomenon.
Are these UFO’s still a cultural phenomenon, or have they faded out?  Certainly sightings still occur widely and the subject matter is still quite popular; consider that the paranormal-oriented radio show Coast to Coast AM is the most popular late night talk-radio show in the world.  Why do UFO’s excite people so much in the modern world?  I propose that in America and other developing nations that engage in free enterprise and capitalism, the opportunity of technological innovation promotes a forward outlook on society, civilization, and life in general.  As airplane flights were becoming available to the masses in the mid-twentieth century (when my grandfather’s sighting occurred), UFO’s foreshadowed futuristic technology in the minds of a forward-looking people.  In other nations, which have more monarchic or dictatorial governments, and in less-developed countries, past-oriented outlooks on unidentified flying objects are more common.  Explanations usually involve ancient times or spirituality.  As free trade and global business continue to spread, however, the idea of beings and craft from other parts of the universe or from other dimensions of reality will probably continue to evolve into a global concept.