The human mind is a bizarre thing. Now, this alone isn't an insight of any shock or depth...one need only look at the news to see strange people, or normal people doing strange things. As an anthropologist I don't study the bizarre...we like the mundane, the normal. Everything that we find we have to assume is normal...simply because it's easier. I suppose it's rooted in statistics at some point, the odds of finding the abnormal is much less than finding the normal. In 5000 years it's far more likely that an archaeologist will find a Honda than one of the concept cars unveiled every year (and promptly forgotten). Psychologists and sociologists are the ones who really deal with the bizarre...at most an anthropologist will study how society, the normies, deal with the bizarre (like burning them in the case of Medieval Europe). Still, it's fascinating to us all (or at least to me...and I'll speak for you all. So there). We also all love parenthetical statements. (right?)
The conspiracy freak is a particularly unique breed of the bizarre. In this case I'm not referring to truthers, people who think the CIA puts transmitters in our fillings, the water fluoride mind control, or the real nutjobs. Instead the people who 1) perpetuate hoaxes regarding UFOs, and 2) those who are taken in. A quick caveat: I want to believe. I was raised on the X-files, of course I want to believe. But what's running through the minds of those who say that they are former employees of area 51, working with extraterrestrials to reverse engineer spacecraft? The Russians had difficulty reverse engineering the B-29, a single step above their engineering levels, and somehow we can bridge thousands of steps? Or this other nutjob, who claimed to work with the man who invented the famous totally impractical flaying saucer in the 50's (could hover ~ 8 feet off the ground)...a man who claimed to be Nikolai Tesla's secret apprentice. He claimed to have secret information regarding resonance (something Tesla was interested in, to the point of quackery) to essentially warp between points. So, naturally, he was contacted by a secret corporation to help work on said machine, not just work on...but use. *insert highly captivating vivid imagery here*
On one hand...who the hell believes this kind of story? No one to corroborate, totally ridiculous scientific "facts" that fly in the face of physics, and a fantastical string of events and gnostic-esque circles of enlightenment. No matter how much I want to believe, you're going to have to do better than that.
On the other, these people have an, apparent, fanatical devotion to their story. They really believe that they were able to circumvent the rules of physics, able to send avatars across the country under the eyes of a super secret super powerful corporation. Well that or they are amazing liars. And certainly some of this breed are liars, desperate for attention...amused and their ability to fool others, whatever their motive. But others clearly believe this...this man really thinks that Tesla passed on the means of using electronic resonance to teleport, and he teleported. In all other aspects of life, the man seemed normal...able to form normal relationships with other humans, hold a job, all the things a crazy person can't do. Where is the source of this disconnect with reality?
I believe in Bigfoot, Sasquatch or the Yeti (kinda, I want to, and think it possible...after all Jane Goodall does, so who am I to argue with the most preeminent primatologist in the world?). But I admit there's not much to it, more the possibility (due to largely unexplored terrain in the Yukon or the Himalayas...intelligence and secretive nature of the other great apes (after all the gorilla was undiscovered until the early part of the 20th century), oral histories of the indigenous peoples, and so on). That said, the story of the man who was captured by Bigfoot...taken back to his den "used" sexually...yeah, not so much.
Am I insane or deluded? Scientifically speaking there is no hard evidence, and I am supposed to be a scientist, right? How do I balance my gut and my brain? Am I the same freak as this guy on TV talking about warping in a brilliant flash of aquamarine? Feel free to answer...that isn't rhetorical.
This is just brain vomit, not well organized or thought through...but oh well, it happens.
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