The translation for the title (above) is “Every man for himself” from a Jean-Luc Godard film (referenced in The New Yorker, April 7th, Page 61) and pretty much sums up what is the prevalent characteristic of the UFO community nowadays.
Joe Harvat’s Department 47 web-site currently has a forum topic asking the question "Where are the UFO personalities taking us?” which addresses the cult of personality within UFO circles, show- ing that it’s every man and woman for himself or herself and has little or nothing to do with the essence of the UFO phenomenon.
And a check of the comments at UFO UpDates shows that it’s all about hubris and self-glorification, not the UFO enigma.
A perusal of the many UFO web-sites and blogs confirms that the flying saucer mystery comes in second to the bluster that writers hope will enhance their standing in the pantheon of UFO mavens.
Early on, flying saucers became a doorway to fame – a perverse kind of fame, but fame nonetheless.
A few UFO researchers – Donald Keyhoe, James McDonald, John Mack (to name a few) – didn’t give a damn about how they came off in the public/media eye just so long as the phenomenon got top billing.
Today, top billing for ufologists is what passes for UFO investigation and research.
The UFO arena is used by many to best their opponents, and even to nail their “friends.”
It’s not congenial combat, but out-and-out warfare.
Scoring points is the ne plus ultra for so-called UFO “experts.”
Determining what UFOs are (or were) has been put on the back-burners of those who follow the sightings of strange things in the skies.
The front-burners are used for self-aggrandizing rhetoric and self-promotion.
UFOs remain mired in an inconclusive milieu, where not one UFO sighting or event – not a single one -- has the clarification of finality.
UFOs are as much up-in-the-air as hey are in reality; the things remain elusive and unexplained, and this after sixty years of rumination and scrutiny.
Scientists are just as ego-bound as ufologist (maybe even more so), but the things they deal with do often come to a denouement.
UFOs, on the other hand, have not come to denouement, because those who deal with the phenomenon are more obsessed with making a mark – not with the media or public but among themselves – among their UFO peer group.
Will this change? Can it change?
We don’t think so. One’s place in society has become paramount, so even the tackiest or tawdriest behavior and thought has taken place at the head of humanity’s table.
And at the UFO table, getting one’s ego crowned – in a good or bad sense – has become what the UFO game is all about.
Meanwhile, UFOs continue to flit around the world, unencumbered by real inquiry and investigation.
UFO blogs, conferences, books, and films prefer to salute, not the phenomenon itself but those who need the phenomenon to make them look good or seem important.
It started with the 1950s contactees but has now afflicted almost everyone else in the UFO panoply.
And that’s where ufology stands today.
It would be tragic if it wasn’t so farcical.
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