What's Out There?

I sometimes muse on people. People in general, that is. Not individuals (though I do that too) but the vague, average, person. You know, the "man on the street" that various reporters interview for late night talk shows and local news shows.

I am talking about the people with the blank stare when asked about history or current events. I am also talking about those people who see vast government conspiracies in play or who draw a blank when asked to name the current president. I simply cannot believe the "average person" is that oblivious to things going on around him or her.

Ok... yes, I can. I have to. After all, I see them all the time. On TV. I very rarely meet them in real life. And, when I do, I tend to smile and try to walk away as quickly as possible.

i came across an article about some bursts of radio signals  that appear to be from a a point some 11 billion light years away. The article talks about what the astronomers think of the origin but that seems to get lost on the commenting public. Or maybe not. The people commenting may be just having a little fun... or they could be serious. I hope it's the former.  Here's an example:

Well the title made me think the story would be about signals from an alien civilization, and it's starting to seem a little strange that we are still not getting any kind of signals like that. It seems that we should be picking up radio chatter from long gone civilizations that peaked thousands or millions of years ago. The Rare Earth Theory is beginning to actually sound like reality, and if that's the case, then other theories become more believable like the poster before who says there could be some sort of "anti-space" between the galaxies, and the universe is actually much smaller than we thought. I can grasp the concept of humans on Earth being the only intelligent beings in the universe right now. But the only intelligent beings EVER to live in this universe? And what about all the high level UFO sightings in the past 50 years? What becomes the truth in those stories?

Buried in the story are things which reveal the true nature of what the astronomers think. But also buried is the fact that sometimes nearby, human activities or natural phenomena, can interfere and be misconstrued by scientists to be from far away. That was something new... to me anyway. I hadn't realized such "leakage" could occur. I assumed (silly me) that this would be filtered out by the programs involved. After all, these are radio telescopes, not optical ones, and everything they receive are now pored over by computers... not individuals. The results of the computer's analysis is then given to the eggheadsscientists for further study.

I was surprised to learn that my father had seen a UFO. Of course, it was told to me by my mother so I have no idea what he actually thought it might have been. My father would never have told me what he saw. My mother had told me this in connection to a light discussion about the possibility of aliens from outer space. My mother had a vivid imagination and believed in fortune tellers and seers of all types so it came as no surprise to me that she also thought space aliens had visited us now and then.

My father always seemed, to me, to be quite cynical about such things. My immediate, though not voiced, reaction was that my father had mentioned he saw something, some light or lights, in the sky as he drove the rural highways of Florida on his sales route. I figured he had tossed off this sighting as nothing quite so mysterious and wonderful as craft driven by extraterrestrial beings but maybe a helicopter or small plane. He probably even told her what he thought they or it might be but she conveniently forgot that part. It did not fit with her child-like imagination about such things.

I was watching some show the other evening on one of the more obscure cable channels when an ad appeared touting something called Celebrity Ghost Stories wherein famous people talk about their eerie encounters with spirits and poltergeists.

As I said, I am cynical. I do not believe in ghosts. I believe in the mind being able to take some optical illusion and turn it into something else that the owner of said mind wants to believe in. I have met many a young woman who fiercely believed in astrology. One, a young busty wench, even developed astrological charts to show how we (her and I, casually mentioned here) were meant to get together.

I have a saying that goes:
People see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear, and believe what they want to believe.

And I am stuck, mired, in mundane reality.