UFOs Explained, Part 1

INTRODUCTION

UFOs and extra terrestrial seem to be all the craze these days. Every cable-TV channel from the history Channel to the military Seem to have a UFO program. My intention here is not to tell you exactly what UFOs are but maybe help people to understand the social phenomenon, that puzzles many people.

UFOs have seemed to enter the American psyche over the past few years and have grown exponentially. I have some ideas on why this might be so. In this introductory part one I want to explain the possibilities of why this might be, what people are seeing, whether real or not or whether they're just hallucinations or some other sociological phenomenon.

It is said that 95% of all UFO reports are explainable, either they are natural or man-made phenomenon, while 5% of all UFO reports cannot be explained. I intend to focus on the 5% that cannot be explained. What are the reasons that people report UFOs? Let us go through a short list of possibilities. You may have some of your own.

• People making stuff up.
• People hallucinating.
• People with active imaginations.
• People who saw something that they cannot explain

Why would people make stuff up? I put it in three categories, all of which overlap. One is notoriety, another is fame and the last will be money or financial reasons.

Let's go to hallucinations, because that's what many people believe people are seeing something that is not there. Let's look at the 17 different causes of hallucinations.

1. Dementia.
2. Alcohol withdrawal delirium.
3. Psychosis.
4. Epilepsy
5. Wernick Korsakoff syndrome
6. Schizophrenia
7. Partial seizures.
8. Delirium.
9. Low blood sugar
10. Caffeine overdose.
11. Narcolepsy.
12. Migraine with Aura
13. Marijuana dependence.
14. Mad cow disease.
15. Low blood sodium
16. Primary cerebral lymphoma.
17. Alzheimer's disease. 

Now let's look at the prescription drugs that can cause hallucinations.

1. Apomorphine
2. Aspirin and oxycodone.
3. Atenolol.
4. Enflurrane
5. Ertapenem
6. Eszopiclone
7. Lafutidine
8. Orphenadrine
9. Oxaprozin
10. Oxprenolol
11. Pamidronate
12. Pemoline
13. Pentazocine
14. Pramipexole
15. Procainamide
16. Procarbazine
17. Propoxyphene
18. Propranolol
19. Protriptyline Hydochloride
20. Pseudphedrine
21. Pyrimethamine-Sulfadoxine
22. Rasagiline
23. Ropinirole
24. Scopolamine
25. Secobarbital
26. Tolacapone
27. Toterodine
28. Voriconazole
29. Zaleplon
30. Zolpidem 

That's quite a list?

Now let's look at a few illegal drugs that can cause hallucinations.

1. LSD.
2. Peyote.
3. Psilcybin
4. PCP.
5. THC.
6. Methamphetamines.

Now as for people with active imaginations. Let's look at a profile of the average person that reports a UFO.

• They often believe they have psychic abilities.
• Most have had an out of body experience.
• They often believe they have healing powers.
• They are subject to hypnagogic experiences.
• They have vivid dreams.
• They have good memories.
• They receive messages from unknown sources.

Others, such as Steven Jay Lynn and Judith W. Rhue, expanded the research to other groups of people as well as confirmed the validity of the theory (Lynn 1988, Rhue 1987). They also found that them group of fantasy prone people is not a simple group but a rather complex combination of people

(Lynn 1988).

Discovery of the fantasy prone personality soon paved the way for ufologists still looking for some

commonality in the personality traits of UFO witnesses. Could this common denominator be this

"fantasy proneness"?

 

In this series of posts I'm going to concentrate on the 5% of people who see or experience things that were really there but cannot be explained. By the end of this series, I will give my best explanation of what is going on with the UFO phenomena.

To be continued...