Transformational Times

UFO revelations by the New York Times over the last three years are changing public discourse.

This week's article 'No Longer in Shadows, Pentagon’s U.F.O. Unit...' has well and truly moved the public conversation on from: "Are UFOs real?" We are no longer assuming all UFO reports are about  imagination, strange weather phenomenon, psychological projections or tin-hat conspiracy theories.

These are real objects with extraordinary flight paths. For some this is seen as a potential threat as it becomes clear that some 'intelligence' possesses unknown technologies with unheard of capabilities.

For many others it may challenge their dominant worldview - particularly if it has little room for even the possibility of off-world intelligence let alone any visiting our planet.

This week's NYT article takes things a step further in reporting that members of the US Congress and staffers, high level Pentagon officials and high level Department of Defence personnel have been briefed on UFO craft retrieval. 

The New York Times has a reputation for publishing iron-clad bullet-proof stories that inform national conversations and decision making. 

The idea that the Pentagon has off-world vehicles not made on Earth may not be news to some but it's significant news for the general public.

2020 has a reputation for events that challenge societal notions of what is 'normal' and what is 'real'.

Public confirmation of the reality of off-world craft is quickly becoming another unexpected dimension of our global 2020 experience.

Hopefully it's one that doesn't take too many people into denial or fear. 

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See also Do We Believe in UFOs? That's the Wrong Question

UFOs and Consensus Reality

Today is World UFO Day.

Why is this noteworthy? Because UFOs are challenging consensus reality now more than at anytime in the last 300 years. The dominant positivistic reductionistic world-views which have blinded particularly westernised societies to a narrow objective reality are being challenged.

In today's 'post-truth' world people are questioning consensus reality.

Climate change, the pandemic and UFOs are forcing many people to compare corporate and social media stories against their own lived experience and beliefs.

The UFO disclosures over the last decade from governments, organisations and individuals have led those who have had direct experiences suggesting the existence of extraterrestrial intelligences to question what is real.

Many have written about the significant shifts in thinking, beliefs and actions that are occurring this century across a range of domains.

Joanna Macy refers to the 'Great Turning' in her writings.
"... the Great Turning arises from shifts taking place in our hearts, our minds, and our views of reality."
Others have written about current radical shifts in technologies, paradigms and world-views.

Deeper questions about what exists or is real are questions of ontology.

The Great Turning may now include an 'Ontological Turning'. An ontological turn "suggests that there are alternate realities and other ways of being that exist in parallel with our own."

What  some are seeing as a dystopian post-truth 'fake news' era full of wild conspiracy theories held by 'others' who have lost touch with reality may be the result of cracks in consensus reality.

When "too many credible people are saying incredible things" it may be time to move beyond a polarised objective view of the REAL vs the UNREAL. It's too limiting and not very useful to assume that what can't be clearly perceived with the five senses is nonsense or unreal.

Sean Esbjörn-Hargens in a paper The Wild Kosmos! An Exo Studies Exploration of the Ontological Status of Non-Human Intelligences suggests it's time to embrace ontological indeterminacy.

Sean presents an Ontological Matrix that moves beyond the real-unreal binary.

Click graphic to enlarge

This ontological matrix helps us to make sense of UFOs and related phenomena as well as interpret rather than deny the direct experiences of a significant proportion of the population. 

With UFO disclosures on the increase we need post-material/post-positivist approaches that make room for the weird and wild that are challenging consensual reality.

In the current pandemic and in the light of climate change and social justice issues many are questioning the desire to return to  'business as usual'. Some are working towards the deeper transformative systemic changes of Joanna Macy's Great Turning. 

An 'ontological turning' that opens up new perspectives and possibilities through integrative and even galactic world-views may be exactly what we need. We are unlikely to solve problems from within the same thinking that created them.

World UFO Day is a reminder that things aren't quite as we were led to believe.