A few days ago, I wrote a Top 10-themed post at my World of Whatever blog on what I personally see as some of the biggest faults of Ufology. It was a post with which many agreed, others found amusing, and some hated (the latter, probably, because they recognized dubious character traits and flaws that were too close to home, and, as a result, got all moody and defensive. Whatever.). But, regardless of what people thought of the article, it prompted one emailer to ask me: “What do you think of the future for Ufology?” Well, that’s a very good question. Here’s my thoughts…

First and foremost, I don’t fear, worry or care about Ufology not existing in – let’s say, hypothetically – 100 years from now. Or even 200 years. In some format, I think that as a movement, it will still exist. I guess my biggest concern is that nothing will have changed by then, aside from the field having become even more dinosaur-like and stuck in its ways than it is today, still filled with influential souls who loudly demand we adhere to the Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis and nothing else, still droning on about Roswell, still obsessed with what might be going on at Area 51, still debating on what Kenneth Arnold saw, and still pondering on what really happened at Rendlesham.

Ufology’s biggest problem also happens to be what made the Ramones the greatest band that ever existed: never-changing. For the latter, it worked perfectly. If, like me, you liked the mop-topped, super-fast punks in the beginning, then you still like them when they disbanded in 1996. Throughout their career, they looked the same, sounded the same, and were the same. For them, it worked very well. For Ufology, not so well. Not at all.

The reality is that 65 years after our Holy Lord and Master (Sir Kenneth of Arnoldshire) saw whatever it was that he saw on that fateful June 24, 1947 day, Ufology has been static and unchanging. It has endorsed and firmly embraced the ETH not as the belief-system which it actually is, but as a likely fact. And Ufology insists on doing so in stubborn, mule-like fashion. In that sense, Ufology has become a religion. And organized religion is all about upholding unproved old belief-systems and presenting them as hard fact, despite deep, ongoing changes in society, trends and culture. Just like Ufology.

If Ufology is to play a meaningful role in the future, then it needs to focus far less on personal beliefs and wanting UFOs to be extraterrestrial, and far more on admitting that the ETH is just one theory of many – and, while not discarding the ETH, at least moving onwards, upwards and outwards. Can you imagine if the major UFO conference of the year in the United States had a group of speakers where the presentations were on alien-abductions and DMT; the Aleister Crowley-Lam controversy; Ufological synchronicities; and the UFO-occult connection? And Roswell, Area 51, and Flying Triangles weren’t even in sight at all?

Well, imagine is just about all you’ll be able to do, as it ain’t gonna happen anytime soon!

While such matters do, of course, occasionally get mentioned on the UFO-themed lecture circuit today, the fact is that mainstream Ufology (and specifically mainstream ufological organizations, where more time is spent on deciding what utterly ridiculous title everyone will have than on doing investigations) will largely not touch such matters, or even consider them ripe for debate at their conferences. Why? Simple: they want everything to be as it was in the “Good Old Days” of the past. Well, tough: the past is gone, and no-one has succeeded in proving the ETH. So, give the highly alternative theories – and theorists – a chance for a change.

“Nooooo!” cries the old brigade. For them, that won’t work at all, because they don’t want to see the ETH-themed domain that has been so carefully nurtured for decades infected and infiltrated by matters ignorantly perceived as being of a “Hocus Pocus” nature. What they do want is crashed UFOs; aliens taking soil samples; landing traces; abductions undertaken to steal our DNA, etc, etc, blah, blah. Or, as it is scientifically and technically called: Outdated Old School Shit. They don’t want talk of altered states; mind-expanding and entity-invoking drugs; conjured-up beings from other realms; or rites, rituals and manifested Tulpas.

What this stubborn attitude demonstrates is: (A) a fear of change; (B) a fear of having been on the wrong track for decades; and (C) a fear of the unknown. Yes: mainstream, old-time Ufology lives in fear. It should be living in a state of strength. And it should be a strength born of a willingness to address everything, not just the stuff that some conference organizer thinks will attract the biggest audience. But Ufology commits the biggest crime of all: being weak and unsure in the face of new concepts and making like an ostrich when it encounters sand. Actually, I’m wrong. Ufology commits an even bigger crime as it coasts aimlessly along like an empty ship on the ocean waves: it avoids the alternative theories knowingly and fully aware of the long-term, and potentially disastrous, consequences that a one-sided, biased approach may very well provoke for the field.

If Ufology is to move ahead,  find answers, and actually have some meaningful future, it needs to totally do away with belief systems and recognize that every belief is just a theory, an hypothesis, an idea. And that’s all. Ufologists need to embrace alternative ideas and paradigms, since many suggest far easier, and more successful, ways of understanding the various phenomena that comprise the UFO enigma than endlessly studying radar-blips, gun-camera footage, FOIA documentation, and blurry photos.

Should Ufology fail to seize the growing challenge it already faces, then will it die or fade away? Nope, it will still be here and here, popping up now and again. Not unlike a nasty, itchy rash picked up in the “private room” at the local strip-joint on a Friday night that never quite goes away. Probably even 100 or 200 years from now. But, it will be a Ufological Tyrannosaurus Rex: its sell-by date long gone, clinging on to an era also long gone, and perceived by the public of that era as we, today, perceive those nutcases who hold on to centuries-old beliefs that if you sail far enough you’ll fall off the edge of the planet. Or, the deluded souls who think the women on those terrible “Reality TV” shows that sit around arguing over lunch are really arguing.

Ufology can have a future. It can even have a great future. But, to achieve that, it needs change, progression and radical thinking. It needs to expand its collective mind. It needs to be revamped. Other than collecting reports in massive amounts, nothing tangible and provable (in terms of nailing – to the wall – the true nature of the phenomenon) has been achieved. Nothing! Bulging filing cabinets, and endless data-saturated thumb-drives, do not mean we have proved our case. It means we simply have lots of reports and nothing else. We need proof and undeniable evidence, not more reports. Ufology – as it has existed for decades – has consistently failed to provide that proof as a result of largely only following in the wake of the ETH and nothing else. Yes: UFOLOGY HAS FAILED.

There is still time for Ufology to break out of its total failure to have ever achieved anything solid, however. It does not have to become an even bigger, stagnant caricature of itself than it is already. And it can approach the subject in a new, fresh fashion that will ensure it a vital, healthy, long and vibrant life in the future, instead of what it is today. And what might that be today? I’ll tell you: A steady, mind-numbing 55 MPH drive on a never-ending highway where each and every exit-road is marked: “The ETH And Nothing Else: This Way. Forever.”

I really do hope I’m wrong, but I have a horrible suspicion that one hundred years from now, the big topic at the annual, and equally big, UFO conference will be: Roswell: Why Mogul Isn’t The Answer, followed by: Area 51: Latest Revelations of Crashed Saucers. And if that is the case, Ufology is screwed. Officially.

One of those longstanding questions relative to UFOs that consistently and constantly pops up is: If aliens and UFOs are indeed visiting us, then why don’t they land on the White House lawn and announce their presence to one and all?

Okay, I know it’s a question that is often asked in a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek, or skeptical fashion. But, for some, it’s a question posed with utter and deadly seriousness. And so, keeping that in mind, just why might it be that “the aliens” – if they are among us - don’t land in full view of the President and his staff? Let’s take a look…

For many, the aliens should land on that green and pleasant piece of grass for one specific, and massively important, reason: To say “Hello” to the great Human Race. Pleeeez! The sheer level of never-ending human arrogance and ego-driven nonsense that populates our world never ceases to amaze me. In the bigger scheme of things, and as a species that has actually achieved anything significant (aside from finding better and bigger ways to destroy each other), we have been around for barely a millisecond.

Even compared to the dinosaurs, we are still definitive non-starters. Those beasts reigned for millions of years. The way things are going, we will be lucky to make it through the next couple of centuries! So, why should E.T. even bother to land and finally hang out in wide open fashion with a bunch of screw-ups like us who are likely not to last anyway? So, if we are being visited, announcing themselves to whoever might be hanging out in the Oval Office on the fateful day is probably the last thing ‘they” will have on their minds.

What about landing for Obama, right now, and warning us of our warlike ways, in the fashion that the Space-Brothers supposedly did back in the 1950s – albeit largely in the desert and just to a few handfuls of Contactees, back then? I say: Why bother even warning us? If, pretty soon, we’re likely to become the cosmic equivalent of the school-bully, why not just wipe us out? Ah, but, Ufology has an answer to this matter.

Such a question inevitably provokes a certain response from whole swathes of the UFO research community who chime in that the desire of the aliens to try and help us onto a better path – rather than exterminate us – demonstrates their kindness and benevolence. And, that rather than land at the presidential office, they prefer to work and weave their magic from afar. Really? Seriously? What, exactly, has E.T. ever done for us? Cured cancer? Saved the rain-forests? Found a solution to over-population, obesity, and our reliance on oil? Prevented a few Tsunamis, earthquakes and hurricanes here and there? The answer to all those questions is: NOPE!

Maybe, then, the visitors from beyond are just waiting for the right time to set down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. And when, exactly, might the right time be? Hell, with everything going belly-up, now would surely be as good a time as ever! They failed to show their strength and curb our warlike instincts after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As far as I’m aware, no alien took a worried and concerned walk into the White House on the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis. And where were they when 9-11 went down? Certainly not offering wise words to the administration about how to respond, and what the ramifications might be more than a decade later, that’s for certain.

The fact of the matter is that if our world is experiencing visitations from other-world entities, then hanging out with us, curing our ills, and making the future cool and fun – and doing so by making that historic landing at the White House – is simply not a part of their agenda. Let’s look at the evidence: if there is one thing we know for sure about the UFO phenomenon, it’s that it acts in distinct stealth. And, seemingly, always has done.

Alien Abductions, face-to-face encounters with long-haired characters in the deserts of California, cattle-mutilations, Crop Circles – all of them, in various ways, and in varying degrees of credibility, have been linked to the presumed presence of extraterrestrials on our world. But all of these phenomena have one thing in common: A distinctly clandestine approach. The collective body of UFO-themed data in-hand clearly shows that if E.T. is here, then it most definitely prefers to distance itself from the masses.

If certain factions of the UFO research community are correct, E.T. roams the skies in the dead of night, in search of the next poor soul to prod, poke and steal their DNA. It does likewise with our cows in darkened fields. And, even if there is a degree of positive alien-human contact, ensuring it often occurs to a solitary, and often already-eccentric, character in the desert, serves no major, meaningful purpose whatsoever.

So, with that all said, why don’t the aliens land on the White House lawn and finally, once and for all, announce themselves?

My answer – if aliens really are coming here - is very simple: E.T. is as self-serving, selfish, and as “in it for Number One” as we are. For so long, we have been assured that the aliens are going to make things right for us, that there’s a bigger picture we just aren’t quite seeing yet, that Disclosure is on the way (maybe even with the aliens’ help), and that one day, soon, that historic landing really will happen.

The reality, however, is that the White House has been standing for plenty enough years for the aliens to come and hang out in D.C. for a few days. But they don’t – ever. When it comes to the matter of that always-present and pesky question that is the subject of this article, what we find is that asking the question tells us far more about ourselves than it does about E.T. We assume the aliens want to hang and chat. After all, we’re the great Human Race, right? No, actually.

If life exists elsewhere in the Universe – and there’s probably a very good chance it does – then those races that have managed to steer themselves away from the extinction or collapse that threatens to engulf us may well have a distinct “seen it all before” attitude towards us. To us, we are Numero Uno. To them, we’re no big deal. A White House, a Blue House, a Purple-With-Yellow-Spots House, they evidently could not care less.

It can be argued with a high degree of credibility and solid data that there certainly is a genuine UFO presence among us, but it cannot be argued in the slightest that the phenomenon is anything but secretive, crafty, stealthy, manipulative, guarded, indifferent and unapproachable – unless it’s on their terms and their terms alone. And their terms clearly don’t involve dropping in for a bit of friendly, hostile, or indifferent chit-chat with the Prez.