Contents
The Storming of Area 51, the Roswell Incident and the US Accounts Chamber Investigation – How Stories of Contact with Aliens Appear
The progress of science and technology does not exclude the conspiracy picture of the world. On the contrary, the more complex the world becomes, the higher the demand for simplified models of its explanation. The theme of space is no exception. Much of what has to do with it is shrouded in rumors, speculation and myths.
We have selected the most tempting conspiracy theories about space since its exploration. They work on the same principles as any other conspiracy theory – they exploit the imperfections of human thinking. How exactly this happens, we briefly analyze for each of the theories. Read also:
- Who was the first to fly into space.
- Why do many people not believe in the landing of Americans on the moon.
- Who and why believes in a flat earth.
How a UFO helped declassify a military base
Our ideas about extraterrestrial civilizations and contact with them depend on the development of science and technology. For example, the first reports of flying alien ships fall just at the beginning of the development of aviation – the end of the XNUMXth century.
The specific content of stories about contact with aliens depends only on the imagination of their authors. Some talk about crop circles. Others, referring to NASA images, say that one of the moons of Saturn is naturally the “Death Star”. Still others claim that the Tunguska meteorite that fell in the Siberian taiga at the beginning of the XNUMXth century was actually an alien ship. For special connoisseurs there is a story about the Kyshtym dwarf Aleshenka.
The classic plot is UFO sightings that are continually being reported from around the world (usually with low quality video attached).
The most famous of them is the so-called Roswell Incident, which eventually turned into a full-fledged conspiracy theory. In July 1947, fragments of a mysterious flying object fell from the sky on a ranch near the city of Roswell in the US state of New Mexico. Rancher Mac Brazel was unable to identify them, and employees at a nearby military base rushed to confiscate the wreckage and later gave conflicting information about its origin.
The incident was quickly rumored to be the remains of an alien ship that the government had confiscated for further study. But interest in history quickly subsided and was revived again only 30 years later. There were interviews with the surviving participants of those events, and in the 1980s the whole country learned about the Roswell incident.
Versions appeared that the seized materials were transported to the secret military base “Area 51” in the state of Nevada. Someone even claimed that in addition to the wreckage, there were bodies of aliens on which experiments were being carried out in Area 51. In the mid-1990s, a sensational video emerged of an alleged autopsy of an alien in 1947. Ten years later, its author admitted that it was a fake.
It got to the point that in 1994, at the request of the US Congressman from New Mexico, the US Accountability Office conducted an investigation to find references to the Roswell incident in the archives. No secret materials about aliens were found. But it became known about another secret project called “Mogul”: the US military planned to monitor Soviet tests of nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles. To do this, weather balloons were launched in New Mexico, which were supposed to capture acoustic waves coming from the USSR at high altitudes. One of these probes, apparently, fell on a ranch near Roswell.
In 2013, the CIA officially acknowledged the existence of Area 51, a testing ground for top-secret military aircraft. But, apparently, not everyone was satisfied that the CIA did not say a word about aliens. In 2019, the “Storm of Area 51” event appeared on Facebook. The participants were asked to enter the territory of the base to look at the aliens.
The wording in the description of the meeting was obviously in jest: “If we run like [anime and manga character] Naruto, we can move faster than their bullets. Let’s look at aliens.” The meeting went viral and soon attracted more than 3 million participants. As a result, several thousand people gathered near the base for an impromptu festival in the spirit of Burning Man. Only about a hundred people reached the base itself, two of whom were detained.
So the conspiracy theory of the middle of the XNUMXth century was postironically revived in the form of an Internet meme a few decades later.
Why do they believe it
- The Social Brain and the Threat of Intrusion
To the eternal question of whether we are alone in this universe, science cannot answer unambiguously. The social brain instinctively prompts: since we are, then somewhere there must be “Them”. Moreover, “They” can carry a threat. Hundreds of years ago, people saw angels and demons, now they want to believe that rational beings live somewhere.
- Unique explanations for unique events
Sometimes people really see something inexplicable in the sky. Most often, UFOs are mistaken for rocket launches and other military tests, airplanes, Venus, hot air balloons, and unusual atmospheric phenomena. All this sounds too boring to explain something that a person has never seen before.
How conspiracy theory works
The conspiracy theory, also known as a conspiracy theory, presents the events in the world as the result of the action of certain forces, usually mysterious and very influential. Conspiracies explain both simply resonant events, such as terrorist attacks, and global processes such as managing the world. In the conspiracy picture of the world, everything is filled with intent (usually unkind) and there is a certain puppeteer who pulls the strings for his own benefit. Why this happens, we analyzed in detail in the material “Why do people believe in conspiracy theories.”
Conspiracy theorists are increasingly calling themselves not conspiracy theorists, but skeptics. Their philosophy is to doubt everything. In everything except their own mental attitudes.