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Jeffrey Kripal on how to think about the UFO phenomenon

“Such encounters, for example, can be of a deeply spiritual nature, by which I do not mean “good” or “nice.” People experience awe, fear, uncanniness and absolute terror; the Harvard psychiatrist John Mack rightly called this “ontological shock.” They experience, either within the event itself or later develop, new astonishing abilities — think telepathy and, yes, precognition. And they adopt new, much more cosmic worldviews.

Hence, in the film, Dr. Louise Banks develops the ability to precognize the future: She “remembers” the early and tragic death of her daughter, who is not yet born, as she gradually learns that time, like the grammar of the alien language she is deciphering, is circular, not linear. This is an idea about space-time, by the way, that is well known to humanists, from ancient Greek philosophy to Nietzsche.

My point? That we should be approaching the UFO phenomenon much more like “Arrival” and much less like “War of the Worlds.” But we can’t seem to do that. Instead, we go on and on about potential “threats” and enact endless security and secrecy measures. And then we wonder why no one understands this? As a result of these actions, the human witnesses, their sightings, their transformations and their traumas are arrogantly ignored and disdained as “anecdotal” and so unworthy of study.”

http://news.rice.edu/2021/06/30/jeffrey-kripal-on-how-to-think-about-the-ufo-phenomenon/