I have had several people say to me, why is this even on your site? There is nothing really supernatural about UFOs at all. I would beg to differ. The possibilities of aliens is not that far fetched of an idea, no more so than vampires or werewolves. In fact in some ways, aliens are the modern day Boogie Man. References to extra terrestrials have been documented as far back as the 1500's. It appears that aliens have been scaring people for a long time.

Like anything else in this day and age of technology, some say that they have the proof to justify their side of the story. Either all of that evidence has gone away, or the government is covering it up. The stories over the years have been told in the droves. Probably thousands of people say they have come in contact with or have seen a UFO. By American Heritage Dictionary, supernatural is defined as "1. Of or relating to existence outside the natural world. 2. Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces." By using this definition, aliens definitely fit into the supernatural world.

I do believe that there is intelligent life besides us. The line in the movie "Contact" I think said it best, if there is no other life out there, it seems like an awful waste of space. Some people have spent their entire lives studying the phenomenon that surrounds sitings and the "proof" that is presented. Our culture and fiction is riddled with the implications that there is extraterrestrial life.

So what is some of this proof? What has been brought forth to be seen, even if it is not seen by everyone? One that comes to mind because of a recent movie is crop circles. For those of you who have never heard of crop circles, these are images and designs that are in fields of grass, wheat, barley, etc. The stalks have been laid down flat so that if you look at it from high above, from like an airplane for example, the contrast shows the designs that are drawn. Usually, for some reason that is unknown yet, the designs are a series of circular shapes, hence the name crop circles. This might not seem that unusual, strange maybe, but nothing to really associate it with aliens. Most farmers however describe that the stalks are not broken, just bent. If you have ever dealt with wheat, hay or straw, that is not exactly an easy thing to do on a broad scale. The other detail would be that it happens overnight. The farmer wakes up after going to bed late the night before, goes into the field to find large sections flattened.

It must be said that there have been fakes out there. They actually had a television show that had several kids demonstrating how they had made crop circles, very large even, overnight. I have said it before and I will say it again. An individual is intelligent and can handle most issues, people in large groups are dumb. So when people see that crop circles exist they think it is real. Great. Then they see that someone can create them and they think it is a scam and so they don't believe in it all anymore. Couldn't both be true? They had to get the idea of doing crop circles from somewhere. There have been documented cases where the circles were within a few inches of being perfect when the circles were hundreds of feet long. Lets give credit where credit is due, I personally don't think that kids, doing a prank, have that kid of precision.

Which then begs the question, if aliens are making these circles, what do they mean?? As you can imagine, the answers to that question are widely varied. There is everything from they are sending us their DNA structure to they are just a glorified happy faces or alien teenagers writing graffiti in our fields. I have heard that they are trying to send us answers on how the universe works and pieces that are missing in physics and science. Amazingly enough, I have also heard that the aliens are trying to send us their soap operas and that is the only way they can send them. (This individual said this with a straight face and I think, honestly believed it. I try very hard not to make statements that would judge people on their statements, but I think this individual is missing some insulation from the attic.) The point is, no one knows for certain. Until the extraterrestrials decide to come down and talk over some coffee and tell us what it is all about, no one will know.

The next issue that I am going to talk about is abductions. This is stuff that makes people uncomfortable usually for a couple of different reasons. One opinion is you don't believe in it at all and think that people as a whole are either gullible or a little crazy, or both (if that is the case, how did you get to this page to read this??) Another typical opinion is you believe in it, but most of the time forget about it as does not affect your life. When the Vulcans come down and want to work out some arrangements to pick up donuts on a regular basis, you think "Wow! That is great! I wonder if they will like jelly filled?" The last individual is the fanatic. He/She thinks about aliens all the time and there are many people who have devoted their lives to research, study, and some (and these are the weird ones) prayers and praise with shrines to the "Higher Beings"

Well all of that was nice, but what does that have to do with abductions you say? Well a lot actually. Say you hear a story about aliens from that guy. You know the one. The one that lives next door and has a shrine in his backyard made of tennis shoes, 2X4s and bubble gum. It looks like a perverted version of the "Close Encounter of the Third" mud Devils Tower that Richard Dreyfuss made in his living room. The same guy that told you that aliens mailed him schematics of their space ship last year for Christmas. This guy catches you while you getting your mail and tells you that he was abducted by aliens a few nights ago and they used probes. What do you do? You close your eyes really tight and try very hard to get that mental picture out of your head and forget about it. Do you even consider that he might have told the truth, as far fetched as it sounds. No, probably not, he has a bubble alien shrine in his backyard for goodness sake!

So lets repeat that story with a different type of person. Let's say it is your Uncle. The one that was in the military and is a hardass. His favorite saying is "There is no problem that can't be solved with a little common sense and some elbow grease." This is the same guy that thinks that E.T. was just a waste of time, that Star Wars is just a soap opera, and Starship Troopers was OK, because they finally showed us kicking some alien ass, which is exactly what would happen in his mind. This is the guy that comes and talks to you about something that happened several months ago, and the only reason he is talking to you is that you are into the supernatural kind of stuff. He tells you about getting taken out of his car, probed by "things" while he was strapped to a table and couldn't move. They did several "experiments" on him and dropped him off next to his car in the ditch. The whole experience has changed his life and he doesn't know what to do. This time, you stop to consider his story.

There are thousands of stories like this from all different kinds of people all over the world. They cover all personalities to include the crazy guy with the bubble gum shrine, to doctors, housewives, computer geeks, truck drivers, farmers, everything. There are documented stories and doctor reports of medical anomalies. The doctor would ask when they had their surgery done and the patient would be clueless what the doctor is talking about. The doctor is positive that the patient had had a surgery and it was done with great precision, but the individual is positive that they have not been into the doctors for any kind of surgery. Some of the evidence is compelling, but you have to dig and look if you want to see it.

This quickly turns into a social issue. What do I mean by that? Well, not very many people like to think that they, or their family, can be taken against their will at any time and there is nothing that anyone can do about it. Not your brother, father, bodyguard, police, military, no one can help you. Not only that, if it does happen, most people will not believe you anyway and see you as crazy, because they don't want to have deal with the fact that it could happen to them. This is a defense mechanism of the populous, don't believe it and it won't be true. There is a certain amout of validity in disbelieving in people's fears. The mind will create something fantastic in moments of stress. A rape turned into an abduction, that type of thing. There are enough stories to date however that show that this is not always the case. The biggest issue is the consistency, almost all of the stories have the same minor details. With people that have never met or may even live on opposite ends of the country and many of the recollections are the same.

Let's make sure we cover all sides here, some of the people that tell these stories are certifiably insane. However, our society is built on maintaining a certain belief structure. Our history is riddled with people whos beliefs went against everything that was taught at the time, only to find out later that what they said was true. How many individuals where laughed at that said the world was round? Nicholas Copernicus was ridiculed most of his life for his views of a spherical Earth in the early 1500s, a statement that was two centuries before its time. Any voiced idea that goes against what is the standard for the times may earn you a label of being "off" or a "crackpot" or just flat out fricking crazy. The more extravagent the idea, and the more devoted you are to that idea, the more a nut case you are.

Unfortunately this seems to be how our society functions. Once an idea has been documented for all to see with "proof", then it becomes acceptable and it is alright. "If man was meant to fly, God would have given us wings!", and then the Wright brothers invented the plane. All of a sudden, flying is alright. The horseless carriage was just a waste of money, until it became cheap and could go a mile a minute, on a good day that is. Then it wasn't so bad anymore and almost everyone owned a Model T. It has definitely not gotten to that stage yet with abuductions. So no matter if it is real or not, people will continue to beileve that these people are just crackpots. I would also suspect that many more people than we think have kept quiet about their experiences in the fear that they too will be ridiculed. Some day the truth will come out, either way.

I saved this topic for last as it is probably what started all of this, UFO sightings. If you were to walk outside right now, look around, come back inside and tell the first five people that you see that you just saw a UFO, you will more than likely get a great variety of looks. Even people who belive in UFOs may not believe that you just saw one. This same scenario has been going on for centuries. Many "experts" (I use term expert loosely as there is no degree to obtain or education in this field only a life dedicated to search out information) believe that aliens have been watching us for several millennia. Watching, waiting, and studying.

Sightings have been made all over the world, but two of the hot spots are Mexico and Chile. Why, no one knows, but more footage and calls have been in these areas than any where else on the planet. There are experts in video that examine this footage that is captured for its validity. Most of the films that are made are of poor quality, but even then, much of the footage is considered of "unknown natural phenomenon". Which in layman terms just means, we don't know exactly what it is, but it is following the laws of physics with everything that we know today. Which means it could be a plane, a kite, a big pratical joke, or any number of items. There are however some clips that can NOT be explained. The one that comes to mind was a sighting that was filmed by three different people at three different positions. Triangulating its position based on the footage, it was performing maneuvers that would be impossible with present day aircraft.

These are rare instances, very rare as a matter of fact. There just isn't much in the way of proof in this matter. How many people do you know carry around a camcorder so that they can film the UFO that is flying over head that they just happened to see while walking home. I would venture a guess and say not very many. Also, one of the more common details of close encounters is that the proximity of a UFO causes most anything that uses electricity to go haywire if they work at all. Of course many of the picture are from a distance, but some are not. Is all the footage that is a at close range fake? Maybe the eletrical jamming is something the aliens have to activate and the pilot was having a brain fart moment. Who knows, but there is no doubt the there is definitely footage that is not just easily explained away, that watching it is profound. I have seen one with a crop circle that appears as a ship flies over a field, making the circles in seconds. If it is a hoax, it is amazing, Pictures are very easy to fake with the current technology. A still picture is not worth near as much as actual footage.

Something that is this controversial as well as a fear factor in abductions makes for prime picking for movie production ideas. This is obvious in the literally hundreds of films about the topic. Probably two of the better abduction productions I have seen are "Fire in the Sky" with D.B. Sweeney and "Taken" which was a miniseries that aired on the SciFi Channel.

Of other story lines with aliens there are hundreds of thousands. Some of them are just that science has progressed in the story line. Space travel makes meeting aliens common place, such as Star Wars or Star Trek. There is probably an story about aliens in every genre. Horror with extra-terrestrials was really introduced with "Alien" in 1979 and set a whole new level to what could be done with aliens, with "The Thing" coming out a few years later which scared the crap out of me to be honest the first time I watched it. Granted I was 11 :) . Since then aliens have become great bad guys and too many movies to count have come out. Drama has almost as many as horror with some of the more memorable being "Contact" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" even a sitcom based on the crash site of a UFO that went down in Roswell, New Mexico called "Roswell". I don't really prefer the term 'chic flick', but it is descriptive enough that you know what I mean. "Meet Joe Black" was definitely a chic flick and it was good for guys too. We have all seen a few good comedies with some creature from another planet, "My Favorite Martian", "My Stepmother is an Alien", even some hoky ones like "Suburban Commando" with the Hulkster and a personal obscure favorite "Spaced Invaders". Action? No problem there at all, try "Species" or "Predator". Family movies got in on the fun with "Titan A.E." and "E.T.". Disney even jumped on the band wagon with "Lilo and Stitch" and "Treasure Planet." This is so few titles in comparison I haven't even scratched the surface yet. Books? Go to your local bookstore to the fantasy/Scifi section and probably well over half of the scifi will have aliens in it.

Our culture is saturated with the idea of extra-terrestrial life. If you look at all, it is not hard to find. Some are frightened by it and others are obssessed with it, a few are both, but in any situation the concept is here to stay. Recently there has been a surge for rea life adventure into space with the private sector now planning on putting a person into space, the government considering going to the moon again, and India and China having a one upmanship game with each other over space travel, all of this keeps this fresh in the mind of the populous. Not that I am complaining. I love this topic and the more that is given, fiction or otherwise, I am happy.