Hippies and UFOs
The last issue of Fortean Times has a terrific article by Andy Roberts about the hippies' fascination with UFOs and how the bridge formed between flower children in the UK and UFO buffs energized popular interest in strange phenomena. The fire was ignited by a confluence of factors, including the emergence of LSD and the publication of influential books on forteana by John Michell and my friend Jacques Vallee, a computer scientist and lifelong UFO researcher. The Fortean Times article reproduces some magnificent psychedelic artwork of the time, including this poster for London's underground nightclub UFO, illustrated by Hapshash & The Coloured Coat. From Fortean Times:
LinkIf music was one way of spreading the flying saucer message through the Underground, then poster art was another powerful method. Artists created lavish posters for even the smallest-scale event, incorporating the myths, signs and symbols of the era with visual images of the music and musicians. Barry Miles recalled: “The symbol of the flying saucer on the posters of Michael English and Nigel Weymouth and the references in all of the songs wasn’t just used as a graphic symbol or a convenient lyrical device. People did feel that flying saucers were shorthand for a wider, deeper understanding, a sort of god figure I suppose or a sense of an external spiritual deity of some sort. There was one clothes shop called Hung On You that Michael Rainey had, and he very much believed in flying saucers, and there was a lot of flying saucer imagery all over the shop.”
As saucers permeated the hippie subculture, they began to appear more frequently in the underground press. International Times featured many articles and book reviews concerning saucers, engaging John Michell as its ‘UFO correspondent’. In the 16 June 1967 issue, it reviewed Anatomy of a Phenomenon, the first UFO book by French scientist and influential ufologist Jacques Vallee. Reviewer Greg Sams used the argot of the period to express what a significant book it was: “Do you believe in flying saucers? Most people with even a slightly open mind accept their existence, if only because so many reliable people have seen them… The book itself doesn’t turn you on. You must read the book and turn yourself on…"
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Like acid trips, UFO's might be nothing more than chemicals in one's brain, re-combined to give one impressions of something profound out there.
I like mysterious things, so having UFO subculture is definitely a good thing to me.
However, UFO sightings might be nothing more than a symptom of decadent cultures. It takes a certain cultural background to sight and/or believe in UFO's.
Most UFO sightings are reported in the first world.
The mystery comes in many flavors, and UFO's are my favorite flavor. That's because I grew up watching Star Trek, and Project Blue Book.
Other people find mystery palatable in other flavors.
We scanned the skies with rainbow eyes and saw machines of every shape and size
We talked with tall Venusians passing through
And Peter tried to climb aboard but the Captain shook his head
And away they soared
Climbing through the ivory vibrant cloud
Someone passed some bliss among the crowd
And We walked back to the road, unchained
David Bowie, Memory of a Free Festival - 1969
http://www.polynomialtime.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=212&g2_serialNumber=2
"However, UFO sightings might be nothing more than a symptom of decadent cultures. It takes a certain cultural background to sight and/or believe in UFO's."
Not true DJ Perl. While share your disbelief in UFO's, I don't agree that it takes a decadent culture for the myth to arise. There have been thousands of reported sightings across the world from every continent and virtually every nation. The UFO map that you link to is clearly very biased and only reports sightings in the US and the UK. There have been many hundreds of sightings in South America, Australia, the USSR, China and so on all across the world.
Drug use might be important, especially DMT. It seems weird but apparently our brains are wired to have the standard alien abduction hallucination with just a little push from the right chemicals. Drug use is not a sign of decadence either. Most traditional cultures make use of the local "pharmacy".
The overlap between alternative hippie culture and an interest in UFOs was crystal clear within the world of music. For example, UFOs populated Cat Stevens' "Longer Boats" (1970) lyrics, which included this beginning:
Longer boats are coming to win us
They're coming to win us, they're coming to win us
Longer boats are coming to win us
Hold on to the shore, they'll be taking the key from the door.
I don't want no god on my lawn
Just a flower I can help along
'Cause the soul of no body knows
how a flower grows... Oh how a flower grows.
Back in the day, Cat Stevens (who today, of course, is Yusuf Islam) certainly was not covert about what his song was depicting:
"It's a story about space ships. I think we have or will be contacted by some other force outside our own world. We must accept that we are not the only ones alive." - Cat Stevens, from a 1972 interview/album review for Music Time magazine.
But then what does this all mean? Will some future Fortean historian study, in some depth, the television ads of beef jerky and Sasquatch? Oh ya, we already are doing that!
;-)
Alright, I'll fess up. I once drank mushroom tea, deep in the Costa Rican rainforest. Then, I saw extraterrestrials of the standard variety -- glowing green & purple, big dark beady eyes, roundish heads, long limbs. They told me that I was a human-ET hybrid, descended from them, from the stars. They were so friendly and accepting, and I felt I really belonged with them. I believed it for a few days.
It was a wonderful experience!
What do I make of it now? Not much! It sure was fun!
:)