UFOs: Flying Mandalas and Cultural Transformation

2007 marks the 10^th anniversary of an inarguably loaded ufological year. The constantly visible comet, Hale-Bopp, was purportedly being trailed by a metal spaceship four times the size of the earth and filled with extraterrestrials, and the UFO cult Heaven's Gate collectively commits suicide in full hopes of ascending to that same passing ship. There was a mad flurry of mainstream network alien and UFO oriented shows and specials, and the so-called 'alien interview' is touted by controversial ufologist and 'intuitive' Sean David Morton on the Art Bell radio program, and subsequently released. Heated UFO conspiracy discussions and rumours abound within the internet environment, and the sacred geometric style, complex crop circles find full realization. A wave of mass UFO sightings positively rounds out that year of high strangeness.

That 1997 was also the 50^th anniversary of what is commonly viewed as the official birth of the modern UFO mythos may be somewhat signifigant. Two events, only a month apart-pilot Kenneth Arnold's June 1947 sighting of nine unidentified crescent-shaped objects over Mount Rainier, Washington, and the now-infamous Roswell incident in July-ushered in the UFO as a powerful, iconic force of our metanarrative.

What about the timing? In 1947, World War II had just ended, but the Cold War was just beginning. Conversely, in 1997, the Cold War had ended, and so had the Gulf War. The ways in which a society collectively and socially expresses it grief, fears, spiritual aspirations, hopes of renewal, etc. are myriad. Poignant tell-tale motifs can be found laced through art movements, literature, film and television genres and styles, fashion, technological innovations, political endorsements and sentiments, and all manner of other outlets.

The 50 years in between the two pivotal UFO years saw all kinds of odd manifestations using the new UFO backdrop, that can be construed as a response to the climate of the Cold War. One of the strangest was the contactee phenomenon, with grand, eccentric, and specific assertions of contact with benevolent 'space brothers,' who were nicely and conveniently free of humanity's scourges of war, disease, and discord of any kind.

One of the space brother's main, recurrent messages was a call for the elimination of nuclear testing, in an effort to save humanity and the World As We Know It. That the space brothers were essentially human-looking lends much weight to the idea of projection. There is even now a prevelant theory that asserts the current fashionable aliens, the 'greys' are actually us--our distantly evolved human selves, time traveling, from the future--with some great but stil unrealized purpose that requires the intervention that is taking place in abduction and other common scenarios. In the same way that puppets are used in therapy with traumatized children, the space brothers (and perhaps now, the greys) were a safe, non-committal way to bring out unconscious and loaded discourses and revolutionary, revealatory ideas that were not immediately or formerly acceptable, largely present, or 'correct.'

It is interesting to note too, the decidedly male language involved within the entirety of the UFO mythos, in juxtaposition with the decidedly feminine imagery associated with it. Looking deeper, one also finds aspects of racial ideas. Space brothers, not sisters, offer the tangible visions of utopia. It is not until a few decades later, in concurrence with the particular brand of second and third waves of feminism came about, that scenes mirroring women's issues began occurring within a UFO context. The latter reports of alien hybrid induced pregnancies, the collection of sperm, cattle (note that all cows are female) mutilation, the oft-reported needle pricking that occurs routinely in abduction scenarios can be linked to feminist ideas both old and new, from the witchcraft trials to political, heated, contemporary reproductive issues.

Importantly, too, the actual alien bodies have morphed from distinctly human and usually male, into childlike, asexual beings, with irrelevant bodies from the neck down. Huge heads with apparent gigantic brains and large eyes, but insignifigant ears, mouths, and noses, seem to convey a symbolic message of "see and think." Their very name "The greys" alludes to the symbolic integration of black and white, and is somewhat encapsulating with the notion of racial inclusion within one being. That these alien body changes occured within the feminist and civil rights timeframe is thought provoking. Even the first widely reported 'official' abduction experience fits into this racial frame. The famous 1961 case of Betty and Barney Hill ushered the idea of the so-called 'close encounter' into the public mindset. It's interesting that this initial narrative included a biracial couple (Barney was black, Betty was white) actively involved within the changing social and racial climates. Betty was a social worker, and Barney sat on the board of the US CIvil Rights Commision, and both were members of the NAACP.

If UFO occupants are psychic manifestations of the collective unconscious, and mirror societal change, then what of the UFO spacecraft in which the characters arrive? Famously, Carl Jung took on this very subject in his work, Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies. He asserted that the appearance of UFOs is a collective, archetypal projection, specifically, that their round, circular shape being a mandala, an ancient, feminine and pervasive symbol of the unconscious self, representing wholeness and completeness. If this is true, and the UFO phenomenon is Jung's 'living myth', then it stands to reason that as the world, culture, and conciousness progresses, that the symbology will match the changes.

In the early loaded UFO year, 1997, two mass sightings (just one month apart) ushered in a new era in ufology. Perhaps quite tellingly, and in context with the Cold War connection, St. Petersburg, Russia, and the United States, in Phoenix, Arizona, had highly publicized and widely hailed UFO occurrences. The so-called 'Phoenix Lights' are still the subject of swirling controversies. Very recently, former Arizona governor Fife Symington announced he himself witnessed the event, saying "it was enormous and inexplicable." However, just 3 months after the incident, on June 19, 1997, in a press conference, he downplayed the incident greatly, proclaiming the mystery lights solved. And, in sophomoric, elbow-nudging form, a guy in an alien suit made an appearance during the Governor's press conference.

Is this comical? How serious and tangible does a sighting have to be, and how much empirical evidence does one have to have in order to take this phenomenon seriously? What is the psychic or emotional mechanism that keeps us from collectively or individually addressing the possibility of the 'reality' of the UFO phenomenon? I can only speculate that there is something to work out first--that, aside from their reality or non-reality, UFOs may hold some meaning. These sighting were not abstractions or hype. Both of these sightings were documented by many in detailed accounts, photographs, and video, and they were visible and available to an entire city. Perhaps the most important aspect to these sightings were the triangular shape of the craft. The departure from a circular craft to a triangle one, especially within the framework of such a symbolic sighting, is important in deciphering meaning.

The symbology of the triangle is powerful, epic, and ancient. In many esoteric and mainstream philosophies, the triangle form 'ranks' after and immediately follows the circle. Circle, triangle, square. The triangle represents all forms of trinities: mind-spirit-body, the known, obvious three-dimensional world, the godhead. It further represents and embodies the magical number 3, is associated with the pyramids, western mystery tradition symbology, including the Golden Dawn, and freemasonry. It's ubiquitous, found on currency, was used in marking perceived identities within Nazism (the pink triangle, etc.) It is also an intregal part of the geometery of mandalas. The triangle shaped UFO has a long history dating back as far as 1871, but officially became a part of the mainstream UFO legend 10 years ago. And the triangle UFO has since then become somewhat of a standard, although the circle is by no means lost. The triangle has simply integrated into the story, in its place as the next phase. Indeed, when one looks closely at the images of the triangle shaped UFO's, the original circles are still present as lights, usually four. The similarity to actual mandalas and kabbalistic, alchemical, and magical imagery is striking. The traingle UFOs are almost universally reported to be black, which is another departure from traditional saucer-shaped silver/metallic accounts.

Recently, on the Coast to Coast AM with George Noory website, there was a viewer's diagram/map featured which depicted a 4-day span (2-19-07 through 2-22-07) of triangle UFO sightings. Out of 28 total sightings, 6 were black triangles, and 4 were rectangles. Rectangles? According to many systems, the square is 3^rd in the sequential geometrical story, representing full self realization and integration on all levels. How would this translate within the UFO schema? Think Star Trek: that flying square, the Borg ship. Interesting in that the Borg episodes are always cited as fan favorites, but that technazombified Borg evoke such an extreme and primal response of fear, both within the fictions and viewership. They seem to be the ultimate enemy, and completely opposite from what We Are Now. But, on a more deconstuctive, objective, and fearless level, isn't their absolute social, communal, integration, physical perfection, quest for universal unification the stuff to what we aspire?

Surely, the Borg experience is a threat to everything we value: individuality, choice, uniqueness, and capitalist notions. Perhaps the Borg are an expression of fears in reaching true or final human potential, however that relates to spiritual and social total unification. It's easy to babble about love and light inspired ideas like "everything is connected", and promote ideas that "we all are one", but when faced with the reality of what that may actually mean in the long run, whether within a future-earth-civilization scenario, or one that involves around our ultimate, evolving role and spiritual place in the universe, it's easy to slam the brakes on suddenly. And of course, the new UFOs aren't actually squares, but rectangles. Perhaps we just are not ready to tell the story the square will require of us. The Borg may rather be viewed more honestly then, not as the ultimate enemy, but the ultimate self confrontation.

UFOs, their occupants, and the stories attached to them, from the beginning, have mirrored societal issues, and whether one is inclined to 'believe' in the nuts and bolts of it or not, it is shortsighted to dismiss the overwhelming apparitions, and pertinent narratives that arise in conjunction. Aside from the reality question, it is possible to read the modern UFO phenomenon with an open eye toward the idea that it could be a manisfestation of our 'shadow', what Jung defined as the repressed, unclaimed parts of our collective self.