Loren Eisely, original author of “the Star Thrower” once wrote a bit of prose talking about “the Great Silence” this impenetrable void of loneliness experienced by human kind, and how we desperately seek to discover a non-human intelligence that is as deep and profound as ourselves. In this prose, he proposed dolphins being the closest in rival intelligence that might break through the barrier, propelling us out of the Great Silence into an era of heighten interconnectedness, connecting souls like stars, and I am being absurdly liberal and poetic with what I think he was attempting communicate.

But as I write this, I am not feeling poetic, but rather pessimistic. Not that Other isn’t out there, or that humanity might not discover it in my life time, but that I fear we are so perversely locked into ourselves that we can’t access anything outside of the filters we have installed, even if it was staring us right in the face. Evidence for this goes beyond the ‘Gorilla’ experiment, where a gorilla could prance across a live street or a stage and no one on the street or in the audience would see the gorilla. This is a real phenomenon that you can google if you don’t believe me. There are lots of examples of that sort of thing, and I am not even describing misdirection, but a magician can certain fool our eyes, even when we know it’s a trick! But another example, for me, is the Mars Rock mystery. A while back someone found a Mars rock which seemed to have fossilized evidence of Martian life. Notice, I am not saying they found actual Martian life. They could have just found something that occurs in nature that resembles evidence of life. If you don’t know about this rock, that would add weight to my theory we hear what we want hear. But I include the Mars rock for a different reason. For those paying attention to these sorts of things, a very peculiar incident happened. President Clinton gave an impromptu speech on the White House Lawn to a dozen or so reporters, and spoke about the possibility of non-terrestrial, non-Earthly, biological life in outer space, and that maybe we were not alone, and what a significant impact this would be in history and on us. You don’t have to take my word on it. Google President Clinton, alien life speech, Mars rock, and you will find a youtube video on it. Here’s what I find perverse. The President of the United State basically said we might not be alone in the Universe on prime time television. Do you know what the first question was? The reporter who chimed in asked about Clinton opinions about the senate debate on abortion rights. Excuse me? Were you so caught up in your personal agenda that you didn’t hear what the President just said?

Since Roswell, a growing segment of society as woven conspiracy theories into her dialectic, and in recent years that has been incredible pressure on the government to come clean about aliens. Again, not arguing that there are aliens, right? Just noting that a large majority of people claim they believe and that the government knows something, and given Scifi what it is today, I bet the world’s population is not going to run in panic. I mean, really, where are you going to run to? Every President since Ford has tried to talk about aliens, but it was either shut down, or just laughed off. I almost imagine Clinton being advised not to do the speech, not because the men in black would take him out or prevent it, but because, “No one will hear you.” Ronald Reagan spoke to the United Nations saying, and I am again paraphrasing, “Maybe humanity needs an alien presence to get us on the same page and cooperating with each other.” Both Clinton and Obama have been interviewed on television and have discussed the possibility of aliens, and the conversations seem bizarre to me, playful like they are joking, and at the same time, not joking, as if allowing for plausible deniability.

Okay, so, what’s the point? Why I am writing about this. Well, because I witnessed something. I am not saying its aliens. I was not alone in witnessing said event and there was no alcohol involved. When one says they witnessed something, one tends to have to put it in context, as if I were expecting to hit a wall. So far, I haven’t hit a wall; I have hit a void! There are all sorts of UFO advocates you can google, and none seem interested in responding to what we witnessed. The local news didn’t pick it up. And I am iterating here, I am not arguing for aliens. It’s probably human and mundane, but out of the ordinary for me and my friends. In terms of intensity, length of time, proximity, and the potential for this being as big a sighting as the Phoenix lights were, I don’t understand why this isn’t like viral. But, life goes on. I know the others neighbors saw me and my next door neighbors out watching the event. The continued on with their life, not even curious about what we were watching. It’s almost as if in order to be heard you have to shout, and by the time you’re shouting loud enough to draw attention, people think you’re mad, crazy mad and angry mad, and for me it’s certainly not worth that sort of drama.

It’s not what men see that drive us mad, it’s the lack of ability to effectively communicate our experiences to others and remain connected. It’s the lack of an intelligent response. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised we can’t find Others out there; most the time, we can’t even find each other right here.