When people allow their minds to wander without the reigns of reason, UFO stories can crop up and proliferate like crazy – especially if investigators take them seriously. While the weirdest UFO information ever gathered would require a mountain of additional evidence to be professionally accepted, it can for now be used to provide anecdotal information about past and present-day cultures.
UFOs in Ancient History
Some of the weirdest tales in documented history took place long before the popular flying saucer trend of the last sixty or seventy years. Even before humans did much documenting, their weird evidence suggested alien contact: an Italian cave painting, dated 10,000 BCE, depicts two apparently floating humanoid figures. The figures don what look like domed helmets, and appear to be holding strange implements. Could UFOs have visited earth long before humans even learned to write?
What look like UFOs have appeared in art rather regularly, in fact. From religious paintings of Jesus to old English tapestries, to Egyptian, Roman and Mayan art, discs, apparent astronauts, and lasers show up again and again. Some say Ezekiel of the Bible witnessed UFOs, as he claimed to see a great vehicle in the sky with chimera-like occupants – although a drug trip is a much more likely explanation for this one.
Egyptian hieroglyphs show images resembling helicopters, flying saucers, battleships and submarines. Many people claimed to have witnessed spinning, glowing wheels in the sky one night in Germany, in 1647. In England, awed citizens have reported sightings of strange glowing orbs, some of which turned out to be ball lighting. Is all of this evidence hoaxed – or just most of it?
Sex and the ET-City
It all gets weirder. Not only are aliens fetishised, as is exemplified by the she-alien blow-up dolls available for purchase online (no kidding) – some alien encounterers claim to have had, or to even be regularly having, out-of-this-world sex.
In 1956, an American named Howard Menger came clean with the press: he had been involved in semi-regular, voluntary exploits with two voluptuous space women for some time. His first close encounter was also his first sexual experience, taking place when he was ten. The first woman to attract him was of a Venusian species determined to rescue humankind from itself; later, Howard became involved with her sister.
In 1957, a Brazilian man named Antonio Villas-Boas reported that he had been kidnapped from his tractor and taken aboard an alien ship. The aliens took off his clothes, sponged a strange goo all over him, took a blood sample, and left him to engage in intercourse with an alien, but human-like, woman. His partner had white-blond hair, slanted eyes, and a pointed chin. She indicated by pointing at her belly, and then at the sky, that their child would be born far away.
Cases like these were echoed again and again in following years by men and women alike, in which the sex was sometimes voluntary, sometimes involuntary. The beings aren’t always human-like, either: in some reports, the aliens look more like chewbacca, or like giant lizards.
The Bermuda Triangle
Drawn most often between the three corners of Miami, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda, the Bermuda Triangle is popularly known as the location of frequent violations of physics, as well as aircraft and ship disappearances, in strikingly high numbers. Since UFO sightings have also been reported in the area, UFOs are commonly blamed for such atypical events.
In 1495, Chris Columbus was the first to report strange activity – he and his crew witnessed “dancing lights” on the horizon, which may have actually been native campfires. Since then, ships and airplanes have reported strange lights and compass malfunctions (in which the needle spun), before finally losing contact with the shore, their radios cut off. Most vessels were never seen again.
Hurricanes, natural magnetic anomalies, rising methane deposits, and freakishly large waves have been cited by investigators, as well as possible piracy and deliberate destruction. Even the confirmation bias, the tendency we have to accept only those facts which confirm a pattern (and not those which disconfirm it) can be blamed for the apparently anomalous Bermuda Triangle disappearance frequency. Still, few members of the common citizenry would be completely unnerved when taking a cruise through Bermuda Triangle waters.
The Weekly World News
Considered the psychotic pathological liar of the news industry, this tabloid caters to the paranoid and dangerously open minded. It is a parent to many of the strangest and most unbelievable UFO stories ever made up and posited as news. The stories are often printed with accompanying poorly-faked photographs.
According to the Weekly World News, Hillary Clinton has recently adopted a cute little alien baby; researchers have translated an alien bible; and alien telemarketers bother human folk on a regular basis.
Reptilian Humanoids
The Reptilian Humanoid conspiracy is one to trump them all: according to a handful of theorists, green, human-shaped reptiles from the Alpha Draconis star system are everywhere, running our entertainment industries, our governments, and our local fast-food joints. Some of them are even married to humans – but no humans know about it, aside from a select few. Why can’t we see them? Because our brains, functioning like radios, have been tuned into an alternate, and inaccurate, “reality” by the aliens, in order to stay hidden. That, or the aliens can shape-shift. The details are fuzzy.
So then, how do the theorists know they’re there, if they can’t even trust any of their own senses? How can they claim to know anything at all? Some say they’ve had dreams. Some say they’ve been abducted and spoken to by the reptiles, who for some reason showed their true form. Some found the reptiles in spirit-worlds. At this point, the whole thing gets rather insane and new-agey. For more information, read the writings of David Icke and John Rhodes.
