Alien abductions, the truth is out there etc.

[Lark]

I'm watching an old movie called Fire In The Sky about an alien abduction, to be honest being a little familiar with the story behind this I think the guy was beaten, brutalised and abandoned and possibly had some kind of psychological episode.

Anyway, alien abductions, flying saucers, all that schtick, I dont hear much about it anymore and it seems to have dropped off the map a little.

There isnt even anything like the amount of pop TV shows with alien or extra terrestrial themes anymore, the ninties seemed to be a high point for that with new installments of old serials, new ones like The X Files, Babylon 5 etc. At the moment its vampires and werewolves which are the mainstay but they are even experiencing some drop off in interest too.

Can anyone think of why this all would be? Is there some kind of deep seated unconscious or cultural undercurrent determining this? Jung wrote a book about UFOs and thought it was significant psychologically, I wonder is its disappearence from media, pop culture and its incidence, in terms of sightings, has any significance too.

Is there a possibility that there's been a drop off in interest in the more generally labelled "unexplained" altogether? Or are they all treated as fanciful and imaginary anyway? If that's the case does it signify a closing of the popular mind or an enlightenment?

 

[INTP]

impossible to say if they are real or not, but it seems like its some short term psychosis. as far as i know Jungs book was about UFO and not about alien abductions. i havent read the book, but my understanding is that Jung thought UFOs to be an powerful projection of what is the unknown aspect of the self, i.e. the unconscious and that when there is some strong forces in the unconscious, it might get projected in far off stuff like UFO. if i understood Jungs stance on this, it seems quite plausible.

 

[Lark]

impossible to say if they are real or not, but it seems like its some short term psychosis. as far as i know Jungs book was about UFO and not about alien abductions. i havent read the book, but my understanding is that Jung thought UFOs to be an powerful projection of what is the unknown aspect of the self, i.e. the unconscious and that when there is some strong forces in the unconscious, it might get projected in far off stuff like UFO. if i understood Jungs stance on this, it seems quite plausible.

Yeah, manifestations of the collective unconscious, I think he thought that the star of bethlehem could have been one of these or looked at medieval artwork depicting the same which looked very similar to the later day drawings of UFOs.

It was their existence rather than abductions you're right about that.

 

[Ene]

Aw, man, I miss the aliens.

 

[RaptorWizard]

Well if you take the biblical accounts literally, it seems there may have been instances where the angels take people into the presence of God, and if so, perhaps such cases could qualify. Still, this kind of thing is pure speculation, and is very far away from being a hard scientific fact. At least it's good to be open-minded and explore the possibilities on these sorts of things.

 

[Typh0n]

I think fads like these come and go. Not quiet sure what causes interest in something like alien abductions to rise or drop, though whether its the media that spark interest in these things hoping to get ratings when the time is ripe, or if its people that have interest in these things, and marketing analysts study these interests and mediatize them. In any case its more or less the same thing; interest in these things come and go, depending on what the media sees as profitable at the time.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

There is far less about it in the media, but I'm not sure how that relates to individual experience. When something is hyped in the media it is true that more people get on the bandwagon, but I suspect there are people who experience abductions. I don't consider alien abductions a fact, but I don't completely discount "extreme possibilities". [aka Fox Mulder] Most of the physiological aspects of abduction fit with what can happen during hypnogogic state between the conscious and unconscious, so that is the most likely explanation.

I live in alien abduction country - Southwest U.S.

 

[Magic Poriferan]

In the past 20 years there have been some pretty impressive leaps not only in our ability to explore space, but in the already existing information's exposure to the general public. I think it has made UFOs somewhat harder to believe and the mysteries of space slightly less enticing (to the non-philosophical types). The funny thing is that at the same time, doubts about aliens existing somewhere have also sharply diminished. People are increasingly settling into the notion that other lifeforms must exist but none of them have contacted earth.

 

[Lark]

In the past 20 years there have been some pretty impressive leaps not only in our ability to explore space, but in the already existing information's exposure to the general public. I think it has made UFOs somewhat harder to believe and the mysteries of space slightly less enticing (to the non-philosophical types). The funny thing is that at the same time, doubts about aliens existing somewhere have also sharply diminished. People are increasingly settling into the notion that other lifeforms must exist but none of them have contacted earth.

There is of course the other "Goldilocks" theory, life in the sentient humanoid form only exists on earth and only the earth is right for it, its mainly a religious idea but HG Wells took it up in War of The Worlds too.

The interest in subjects of this kind I think has waned, even though modern communications technology and reporting would have the opposite effect I'd have thought, part of the problem I think is that for every genuine attempt at cataloging the truly unexplained through mediums like the internet in order to spread the findings there's dozens more which are trolling, lying, sensationalising, all kinds of popularity or social interaction games as opposed to wanting to progress any real findings in knowledge.

I like to look at youtube sightings of ghosts for instance but the amount of times amateur special effects or screamers or junk like that is waiting among some intriguing material I really cant count.

Reading stuff like Jung's books on flying saucers and other sources these things did captivate and they were also treated with a measure of seriousness too.

 

[roman67]

There is a long list of these kinds of stories in the Hollywood cinema but my favorite is latest alien movie called Paul.