TWO STRANDS OF EXPERIENCE: CONTACTEES AND WITNESSES

I have been doing some additional reading and study into this sub-set of the 'flying saucer' era. The more I read in philosophy, sociology, psychology and history the more I agree that those the strands may mingle on occasion, what is at work are two separate rivers of human experience.

One is what might be termed METAPHYSICAL and one is SCIENTIFIC/TECHNICAL.

The METAPHSYICALS have been around for centuries and are reflected in those who saw fairies, angels, demons, saints, gods and the like.

Swedenborg in about 1751 wrote of encountering life forms on earthlike planets via psychic communication. By the late 1800's spiritualism was growing wildly and influencing many. At the same time fictional works were exploring through fantasy and early science fiction trips to the moon, to Mars, through time. As the new century dawned work of Perceival Lowell Mars and the approach of Halley's Comet influenced people as well.

There were also social stressors in the growth of the industrial revolution and the diminishment of the rural agriculture social model, the influx of new machines and methods that threatened livelihoods, global conflicts over short time, loss of life, loss of trust, loss of familiar social values or structures.

Even in to the 1920 and 1930 the concept of space travel was still the field of fantasy for most and firmly within the contact spirit or seance matrix.

It has been noted that before 1947 all such other worldly and out of this world communications or visits were all done via psychic communications, seances, and the like.

After 1947 and Kenneth Arnold's sighting, a new wrinkle emerges with the idea of flying saucers as ships from other worlds.

At the post WW2 era there is post war trauma, want, collapse of social structures once familar and common, new demands as technologies threatened jobs, and global fears of atomic war and other tensions began to emerge. These social stressors would be enough to once more send the metaphysical strand in motion and as it grows it evolves to envelop this new flying saucer phenomena.

In additional, numerous researchers have noted that the group we label "contactees" shared that spiritualism motif of finding and using "special messengers", of spreading a message of peace and positivism, and a warning to change ways and see the higher road as individuals and societies.

The motivations and goals of this group - as is clear - are different than those who witnessed objects seem performing in ways that they knew were unfamiliar or beyond current technology or science.