When it comes to diving into the ultimum mysterium that is the UFO Phenomenon, someone new to the endeavor is likely to quickly find themselves surprised, and likely overwhelmed, by just how many directions this topic can quickly diverge into. In the simpler time of the early to mid 20th century, sightings of strange objects in the sky inspired earthlings to imagine the dawn of an era of visitation from other-planetary civilizations. Were these Martians or Venusians? The collective imagination of the time didn’t go much beyond that.

Of course, the nature of the conversation about the UFO Phenomenon today is in a very different place. A plain question with a few apparent options on the table – in terms of answers – has burgeoned into a much larger, multifaceted discussion not just about alien visitors traversing the immense distances of interstellar space (and we are talking interstellar at this point, because we now understand, unlike those in the early to mid 20th century, that the neighboring planets of our own solar system are decidedly lifeless and barren), but also one about parallel dimensions of reality, perhaps existing right alongside us, and – even more bewilderingly – perhaps consisting of entities that can hop back and forth between our and some of these other dimensions with the ease and regularity upon which we move from one room of a house to another.

As if that added complexity wasn’t already enough to juggle, in-depth investigations into the nature of the apparent contact experiences between these alien visitors and human beings suggest these Others, many of them anyway, are capable of manipulating human perception – and perhaps even human consciousness itself – somewhat like how we might control a puppet on a string – to the point where even the data we gather to examine the objective nature of our interactions with these Others is called into question. After all, if they can not only control what we see, taste, smell, feel and hear, but also apparently implant false memories that are indistinguishable from real events of our past, how much confidence can we have in any analysis of the data we do?

It does seem fair to say that whatever conclusions we do come to after combing through and collating this data is precisely the conclusions these Others are comfortable with us coming to. While some human beings who look into this Phenomenon find themselves feeling frustrated and helpless after having understood the degree of superiority these Others wield over us, other people are less concerned, and are perhaps even inspired and hopeful that a more advanced intelligence in our midst, perhaps here to help prevent us from rushing off the precipice of doom we’ve arrived at after centuries of self-inflicted violence and aggression.

Now, while this is undoubtedly a lot to take in, when we look at the amalgam of experiences of people who’ve had supposed contact with these Others, certain patterns do emerge – albeit with the caveat of perception control we mentioned earlier. In fact, common data points have become apparent to the point where some people have endeavored to catalog whole species of alien intelligences, resulting in so-called “almanacs of extraterrestrial species”. Of course, with such books we’re right back where we started, with a bold-faced assumption that the nature of these non-human intelligences is simply and solely extraterrestrial. A questionable conclusion, to be sure.

That said, it can be helpful to pause the process of examining new cases in order to look back at the data we’ve gathered thus far, peering over the information in its totality, to see what overarching perspectives may emerge – using both the tools of steel-toothed analysis and inspirational insight. And that ambition endeavor is exactly what we’ll embark upon in this, the 40th episode of the Point of Convergence Podcast.