Driver Lifestyles

UFOs: Why Do We Like Them?

The very concept that Earth has been visited by otherworldly beings is a common thread through human history, but in the United States, it’s something that seems to hearken back to the 1950’s--the era of the “Nuclear family,” a vision of the future that included flying cars, and the not-so-distant memory of an alleged alien crash site in the small town of Roswell, New Mexico.  Whether you think an alien ship crashed there or whether you see that as a silly, conspiracy theorist notion that ignores what facts actually exist about what happened in Roswell in 1947 is immaterial; it’s just not about that.  It’s about the fact that UFOs and their presumed pilots exist as an idea, as a real possibility.  At their center, that’s what’s so interesting about them, and that’s why, at least partially, we keep our eyes to the night skies--the mere hope that we’ll one day see a UFO is something that many of us have dreamt about for decades.  

Too, and perhaps more importantly, there’s quite a vibrant connection between truckers and UFOs--as well as the community surrounding them.  It’s not much of a stretch to come to an understanding of what’s at the center of that connection; truckers are often on the roads late at night, alone or with very few others.  They’re out and about more than just about anyone else, and the fact that the night sky along the highway makes odd things more visible certainly isn’t a secret.  So, it stands to reason that truckers might actually get a chance to see more objects in the sky, alien or otherwise, than most people.  

Another thing that feeds into this idea is that truckers, perhaps more than most, are keen to communicate with others.  Old CB radio culture has certainly fed into this to some degree, as well as the oral histories and tales told prior to their advent.  Of course, this isn’t entirely unlike Internet bulletin board forums, chat rooms, blogs, and the like; UFO sightings, whether they turn out to be “real” or not, are actually pretty common and, despite their being generally easy to “explain away,” so to speak, that doesn’t--and shouldn’t--necessarily discount their entertainment value.  

There is a point, though, where talk about UFOs, like ghost stories, stops being entertaining and starts to feed into more serious, and at times less realistic avenues.  If you haven’t picked up on it yet, I’m referring to conspiracy theories and notions that “The Government” is “covering up” alien visitation because “they” don’t want us to know about it.  While, like UFO stories and ghost stories, conspiracy theories can be great fun, and there’s certainly no shortage of fun to be had to that end, they can tend to be a bit time-consuming, full of logical fallacy, and sometimes just plain crazy.  You might argue that that’s exactly why they’re so much fun, but I’d say that it really depends upon how it’s being framed, and who’s framing it.  

On top of it all, it’s difficult to know what’s what, who’s who, and how to categorize all the UFO talk.  There are stories, way-out-there conspiracy theorists, legitimate conspiracy theorists, earnest researchers looking for life elsewhere, and the whole thing can get kind of confusing reasonably quickly.  One thing’s for sure, though: UFOs are a very real part of the trucker culture.

Just look at www.ufocasebook.com, a website where readers are encouraged to send their stories and photos of objects in the sky they can’t identify.  Often, the contents of photo submissions are explained in a clear, concise way, which ends up being a tutorial of sorts on how optical illusions are achieved in photography--which can be helpful, but not for the purposes of those searching for legitimate UFOs, of course.  The excitement and earnestness of the submissions, along with their wonderment (not to mention the content of the stories themselves), is what makes the stories interesting, to be totally honest.  

So are aliens and UFOs real?  There isn’t necessarily a black-and-white answer to that.  The SETI Institute, an organization actively looking for life and its explanation outside the confines of Earth in a solidly scientific and promising way, hopes to be able to make that happen in the future.  For now, though, we can only say, “Maybe, probably, hopefully,” when we talk about UFOs and alien life as a possibility.  

The mere possibility, though, of something that seems so impossible (i.e., alien visitors) opens up new and presumably interesting doors to our minds; that’s what the draw of the stories we love actually is.  It’s the same reason we love the idea of long-distance space travel, Bigfoot and chupacabra: it’s unknown.  UFOs represent an opportunity to learn something entirely new, something

Related Links, entertainment, etc.:
http://www.ufocasebook.com/truckdrivers1989.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twe7uLkRayY
http://www.tuforc.com/
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread406829/pg1
http://www.ufocasebook.com/2008/ciscotexasphoto.html
http://www.seti.org