My father in-law told me a story once about how he used to own horses and how sometimes it was necessary to train horses and what it takes to train one. He said the first thing you have to do before you even touch the horse is get it used to you being around. You do that by making yourself visible nearby or by working around the area where you keep your horse so they can see you on a regular basis. After a while the horse becomes more comfortable with your presence and they are less afraid of you. The next step is what he called gentle touches, and by that he meant stuff like gently combing and touching the animal(you can also talk to them quietly)so they become comfortable with you physically and don't feel threatened. The next step is to try the blanket on the back, if it goes well you put on the bit and then if nothing bad has happened then you can try the saddle and then try to ride.
Now you may ask-what the hell does this have to do with the price of tea in china?-well specifically nothing but it could be used as an analogy to explain the advent of UFO related media in the last twenty years or so. In the fifties it was not a subject to be taken seriously because thats how the media has presented UFO sightings, as not serious events(in part you can thank roswell for that). Then there was an investigation by the air force which produced no advancement into the field whatso ever. Or did it? Think about the fact that while they did dismiss literally hundreds of interesting reports as mistakes, fakes or foolery there was still a small fraction that they admit remains unexplainable. The fact that they concluded there is nothing there is irrelevant, instead focus on the fact that they left the door part ways open. That is the first soft touch. Since then it has been a steady build up toward taking this phenomenon more seriously. At first the only shows about ufos were either puff pieces or cheesy movies or tv. But gradually a more serious approach has been seen(excluding peter jennings) now its more common to see a well produced documentary type show on this subject. And the volume and frequency has increased markedly
Now I ask, is it for strictly commercial reasons or is it an attempt to climatize the general none believing population to a new reality?
I mean this subject has gone from taboo to news in the last fifty years. And the project if there is one seems to be a success, I don't have to tell you people how the ratio of believers to non-believers has flipped itself in the last few years

I doubt it very much if the issue about UFO's has softened.

Like all humans it is in their nature to be scared of what they don't understand

I highly agree with what your saying that its just slowly being fed to the public to as you say soften the approach on it. They will eventually just say they found small life forms on another planet then build from there etc. Nasa now states that mars has alot more methane gas then it should if it did not have life on it, making the possibility of life on mars at one point in time a greater possibility.


I have always belived even if nasa did find life on another planet they would hide it from the public for a long enough time till the general public understands its nature, meaning they would slowly give us information like (We have found microbes) and build up from there.

Otherwise i think that if Ufos feel like comming out , one day they will and just reveal to all, and the government wouldnt have any control over it. Problem is the possibility is very small since they seem to spy on us so to speak, and stay hidden most of the time.

The earth is flat, humans cant fly, what the hell are you doing with that mould, telephone, electric light, teleportation? you've been watching too much star trek.
Same broken record. Throw another witch on the barbie

Well, the media doesn't seem so quick to toss stories to the side as 'garbage.'



On a side note, yay for me, 10 posts in about 2 years!

i personally think this is a great subject. I remember having a similiar convo with my mom back in the 90's when deep space nine (star trek) made its debut. I am thinking that until most of racial hatred is extinct on the planet, we wont see any ships landing on the front lawn of any govt. too bad, i would really like to take a ride past the moon...

talking about the moon.... maybe it is an artificial satalite from somewhere else...... maybe i am just a little crazy, conspiracy theory is my game. well hey, history is written by the victors right?

and what redeeming factor has shown its face throughout history........ control.......control over the people underneath you. what do govt heads, kings, dictators, etc. like the most? i dont see them giving up any big secrets soon.

So needless to say, but I am a firm believer that they are here, have been for quit some time, but it will take the person who replies to this post calling me a fool to be shown proof before they believe.

Sorry, got on a tangent. But I believe you are correct.

Unlike the horse however we are not paranoid that another horse hides the truth about humans...

I think we all have been slightly "softened." Through television shows, stories and movies.

It seems as if its some sort of plan to soften the blow when they become mainstream.

I agree. Media does try to kill the fact of UFOs at times

I really like your analogy on this, very good read. I do believe that it is a possibility. Humans fear the unknown, therefore we would fear another life form. So if it's introduced slowly into society it will make it easier for the majority of the population to deal with.

Somehow I agree with both positions. (The fallacy of the excluded middle is in the middle of the muddle.)

While it is true that Ufology is still a forbidden science (not found in the universities, alas), many TV shows on the History channel, or TLC, or the Science channel, have presented reasonably unbiased accounts of UFOs. Peter Jenning's much hyped report was a great disappointment. It is odd that none of these reports present the best scientific evidence, and that is the "landed occupant" cases. Scientific method is a matter of ruling out the alternatives, and it is clear that if a mountain hiker comes across a bright red flying saucer stuck in the mountain side, with smallish, greenish humanoids with bright colored overalls nearby (this is the Villa Santini case, summer of 1947), one can easily rule out secret military aircraft, Venus, swamp gas, and all the other silly things that are hard to rule out, if the sighting is just a light in the sky.

Generally people do not walk around with cameras on them, much less video cameras, though that may change now in the age of cell phones, so we have few if any photos of landed occupants. TV shows need visuals, but visuals are not always best evidence.

The early Ufologists, like Charles Bowen and Gordon Creighton, found it puzzling that our visitors do not land on the White House lawn, but it is not surprising to anthropologists. Anthropologists know that contact between primitive (that's us) and advanced cultures usually lead to the disappearance of the primitives. They lose their will to live, as their entire worldview crumbles. People will do anything to avoid changing their worldview, and that is the essential reason why Ufology and Psi research are forbidden sciences, and likely to remain that way for centuries.

I too am straddling the fence on this topic and I agree with you. The only thing I would have said differently than you is: The analogy was very clear and conscise. Well thought out and very articulate.

However, on the other hand, I have an analogy: In 1492, There was this guy named Colombus. He had these three ships called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria (actual spellings unknown), oh no no no, Sorry. Maybe I'm Thinking about that Cortez guy that went on vacation to a place currently known as South America...

Maybe a little thick on the scarcasm, however: If you can rope the horse and force it into submission, what's the point of prancing around it with cotton on your feet.

Now on the other hand, If your trying to cut a work horse from the herd...

Or if your sneaking up on a fish with a spear in hand...