UFOs And The Young, Part 2: The Young Respond

So here's where I write from...A place of respect for those honest people who came before, so that I may learn from the past, believing this knowledge will help me in forging a understanding of the UFO experiencer and the UFO researcher, alike.
Joe Capp UFOMM

Quinn writes:
I saw my first UFO when I was nine years old. I was coming home from a Broadway show with my best friend and her family, and we were driving home on I-684 Northbound. There was a huge white light in the sky, stationary. It resembled a massive star, but it was far too large to even conceivably be one. After about ten minutes of the light just hovering in the skies above us, I watched as it split in two and began a slow descent toward the earth. What happened after that I don't remember, but I do recall my friend’s parents pointing at the same light and asking each other what it could be.

Since then, I have been fascinated by UFOs and the very real possibility of other intelligent life in our universe.

When I told this story to my 8th grade Earth Science class, my fellow students mocked me and told me I was crazy. Since then, I haven't told that story to anyone-- until today.

My fascination with UFOs was always a quiet one. I read Night Siege: The Hudson Valley UFO Sightings in high school, and was amazed to see that some of the pictures were taken by my neighbor, in my hometown.

But I never shared my findings with anyone. In that same science class, I used an FM radio and an oscilloscope to listen for objects entering our atmosphere. I told the science fair officials I was looking for meteorites, but I was really hoping to catch some sort of UFO. In high school I wanted to work for SETI, but was deterred by my parents…"It's not a real science". "That's hogwash – there's nothing out there". The internet proved to be my only resource and outlet. On the internet I could find hundreds of like-minded individuals where I would be taken seriously, and not ridiculed...There are people that I can go UFO 'hunting' with. I can be taken seriously, for the first time.

James writes:
I'm a 23 year-old extraterrestrial enthusiast. I've been really into making contact with extraterrestrials since I was a little kid. I would never miss an episode of “Sightings” and would check out every book from the library on supernatural, anything, no matter how much it was polluting my mind.

At this point it would be nice to extend what amateur research I have acquired in meditations on this subject with other like-minded people or not like-minded --those willing to listen and build a network of communication on the subject of extraterrestrials and establishing contact with them. Meditation may be a very practical means of communication…to extend yourself beyond this space into another, further, distant one...beyond our solar system, into worlds beyond our stars, bypassing all of our physical limits in the vessel of the imagination…

I know the very nature of the UFO phenomenon in all of its hyped commercialism has been attached undeservedly to New Age or esoteric interests, but this is only because the mind of the explorer and the spirit of wonder are akin, with the energy of creating dreams …the energy that fuels the research. I think if it were possible, any means....everything ...should be looked at closely…I think that it's important to attract young people to the subject of general extraterrestrial investigations. I believe shows like “Sightings” and “Unsolved Mysteries” worked like a portal, directing the mind to that tunnel, and the minds eager to learn more would do so. It could be possible to be open about the reason a function is happening, but maybe add a few elements that would attract younger people…
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So, where is the UFO community going? The future of any group has always been the young. The UFO community is close to becoming barren. If all the older UFO researchers and conferences attendees were to die tomorrow --God help us-- all the conferences would end and MUFON would close its doors. And that would also mean all good, detailed UFO reports would be left to the media to interpret…

Do you see where I’m going with this? How dangerous our failure to attract young people to Ufology really is? Not only do we need young people to keep us going, we need them because they think differently than we do.

James Carrion, MUFON Director, speaking at the 27th Society Of Scientific Exploration Conference, mentioned specifically the importance of the Skinwalker-type phenomenon. This is a breakthrough! In the early days of NICAP, this mention of apparent paranormal phenomena would have not been taken seriously.
And this breakthrough brings our old school ufologists’ generation closer to the same realization that many youth involved reading and researching more on the paranormal side have already made.

Anti-establishment thinkers have always been needed in our world, so many of them have been geniuses in disguise! And we need the young to bring in these new ideas.

But for someone going to college or with a first job, $500 or $200 hundred dollars can be impossibility. Yet most UFO conferences range in this amount.

As UFOMM reader Bob Koford commented about Part One of this series:
I have been invited to several UFO Conferences, but have never been able to make one. It is amazing to me how all of these other people can afford to travel around so much, and attend all of these events. When you add up the air fare, the hotel stay, the food, etc., it becomes exorbitant. I have a family to support, and have never had enough time, or capital on hand to attend, though I wish that I could. There's just no substitute for being in a one-on-one discussion, with those you respect, when the subject matter is so deep.
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Of course many of us are retired. Few can go to most conferences. Many attendees have had good careers, in the military, in big corporations and government. By the way, this is the big secret of UFO conferences: many attendees have sharp minds and never saw a tin foil hat.

Meanwhile, the UFO phenomenon is still out there defying anyone to explain it.

Vidoe Clip Dedicated Young UFO Researchers:



We have an obligation to the young to be honest about what information we have and what we speculate about. Young people can usually tell BS a mile away.

Another plus young people bring to our community: we don’t have to shy away from the ET controversy that obsesses old school ufologists. We can say that UFOs exhibit all the characteristic of a far advanced technology. We can say they seem to be piloted by beings which are not human. And we can show reports prepared by trained individuals and the photographic and digital imagery made by everyday people, the proof we have right here, right now: intelligent entities taking off and landing on our planet with technology that we haven’t dreamt of.

Young people may ask “But what chance do I have to prove they are real? What chance do I have if UFOs are so advanced?” We can tell young people that their best chances will come from the foundation of those meticulously researched cases put together by old school UFO researchers, world-wide. Why? Because these foundational reports prove over and over that whoever they are, the Entities associated with UFOs are not perfect, and no matter how advanced, they make profound mistakes. Those mistakes made by the Entities --along with the variety of phenomena-- leave plenty of room for every kind of question, and demand a bright, new generation of Ufologists!

So, my young friends, you have every chance to discover the most important news on Planet Earth --the news that we are not alone.
Joseph Capp
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