Blog Post 1: The Aliens in my life

The idea that aliens walk among us or abduct us humans is rather fascinating. Growing up I certainty was drawn to the pseudoscientific belief that aliens did have a presence here on this planet. As an adult I realized I have developed into a far more skeptical man than the boy I once was. Therefore, I am not so keen on believing that aliens, as  actual organisms, have made an impact on this planet at all. However, this is not to say that "aliens" don't exist as a form of pop culture and have make a mark on the minds of many by invoking a sense of wonder and fascination about their existence. What I find to be interesting topic of self-reflection after taking this course is how I became to be enthralled with aliens and accepted their reality as a child in the first place. 

One of the most prominent influences of me accepting the ideas of that aliens were real as a child was my father. My father to this day, without a doubt, accepts that extraterrestrial lifeforms are real. This may be striking for some to believe but there is a bit of rational to why he as an adult still believes. Quite simply he was diagnosed with a severe schizophrenia years ago. At the time of his diagnoses, I was beyond the notion of aliens as was an adult myself. Never the less, my father before he was engulfed with his mental illness, he certainly was prone to various fantasies and other eccentric beliefs.  Growing up I first hand witnessed his sleep deprivation in my teen years, as this was a man who was working two full time jobs to support his family. All of these factors all correlate to a person whom may potentially believe in the existence of aliens. Now back to how this all affected my beliefs. Simply put, he bought a lot of alien related products. My childhood bedroom had stuffed alien toys, movies about aliens, and even an alien dissection kit. As a wonder susceptible child surrounded with alien goods and a father whom would entertain my fantasy about aliens, it is not surprising looking back how I came to believe that alien entities were a part of my every day world. 

 

(This was the alien dissection kit I used to own growing up. Ironic how the anatomy of an "alien" was so strikingly similar to that of a human i.e it had a heart, brain, stomach, kidney, ect. I didn't catch on to this as a 10 year old.) 

My family will attest that I was a child that was glued to the television set. The 90s was an amazing time for cartoons and movies and I loved growing up in those times. Not surprisingly, aliens were all over the media at this time. We had movies like Men In Black, The Fifth Element,  and Star Wars. Even the Men in Black had a cartoon series as well. It goes without saying but, I ate this media content up after I would finish my elementary school homework. I noticed my early teen theory (which I will discuss shortly) about aliens was highly influenced on these forms of media and I began to form my own pseudoscientific view on aliens. 

(This was the intro song to the Men In Black cartoon series hat I loved so much growing up.)

As mentioned before my views on aliens changed during my early childhood days to my early teen years. As a child I accepted the "traditional" form of extraterrestrial life being the short little green or grey organisms with rather large eyes (essentially the alien depicted in my dissection kit seen earlier). My view on extraterrestrial life changed as I started to believe that it was possible for these extraterrestrial entities not to be humanoid in nature at all but, rather a parasitic insect-like organism. I used to believe these highly intelligent insect-like creatures from space would find a host (usually a human or other mammal) and borrow its body into the host organism's central nervous system and "hijack" the body of the host. In essence, the aliens were surrounding us humans at all time and were always conducting research on us. Why did I believe this? I was simply a victim of my on imagination at the time. Using biology and fantasy I "filled in the gaps" of want I wanted to believe about aliens. My theory is easily debunked by the sheer fact that no alien organisms have shown up in any autopsy of humans or mammals throughout medical history. Without any evidence of their presence, one can not conclude that  the alien organisms exist. However, it is still fun to watch movies about alien xenomorphs. 

(A Xenomorph as portrayed in the movie Alien)

In the modern day, I do not believe that aliens have visited us as there is no current credible evidence of their existence that I deem tangible. It there a possibility that they may be out there in this vast galaxy? There is potential for a debate their but unless their is physical evidence backed by true science, we can not assume that their existence is definite.  What is definite, is aliens act as a popular form of sci-fi entertainment and that much is true. The aliens may not affect us directly in terms of actually existing but their effects are in the minds of the wonderers. I can say that I have been affected in this medium as I had a childhood full of fantasy and fun because of the worldly "existence" of aliens as a factious form of entertainment. Others may have had a much more negative experience with aliens as they may believe their abduction stories has caused them quite a bit of duress. Never the less, I believe their situations can be explained by psychology and scientific rationalizations.  It is vital to understand, that many people can be caught up into believing these pseudoscientific beliefs like alien abductions and understanding how they becoming captivated with these fantasies may reflect how our human society  has failed some of us how to rationalize mystical items scientifically. I can determine my absorption into the alien world was mostly due to sociological factors of pop culture and my own father's beliefs about extra terrestrials. Maybe understanding the cause of the aliens in my own life may explain how others may have found themselves in similar situations. 

Above is a video posted The Morning on YouTube in which Calvin Parker discusses his alien abduction. What do you think about his story?