What was your personal epiphany to begin an interest in the UFO phenomena?

This thread needs more attention.

My experience, or lack thereof is not dramatic. I merely think logically. The sheer amount of UFO sightings suggest that something real is happening. And I think this something is going to play a major part of our future. Therefore I pursue the subject. Simple. I wish to make myself knowledgeable and valuable in the days to come. As well as this, I have a penchant for wanting to know things others have no interest in, or don't even know about. Something about the mysterious is extremely alluring to me.

Im surprised no one has said it yet.

I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind as a kid. I was amazed. As an adult even more things have popped out at me:

1. the scene in the truck where Roy gets the radiation burn...if you watch closely there is a moment of anti gravity, never noticed it when i was younger...makes that scene even more intense.

2. when all the toys start working on their own and Barry first sees the alien in his kitchen, he stops dead in his tracks and just has this look on his face, whatever they did to get that take from that little kid is absolutely perfect..also not showing the alien then just leaves everything to you.

3. the aliens....obviously....i realized it was special effects, i realized this was a movie, but what struck me the most is they were not typically designed horror movie aliens, i think because they had actually anatomy, and not tentacles or exposed brains made more of an impression...although the tall spindly one that comes out first STILL creeps me out a little.

4. when Roy finally boards the ship, in the original they never showed the inside, it drove me nuts wondering what would be in there. Later, they recut footage to show it in the special edition, but now i believe it ruins the end of the movie. I liked it better when i had to think about it.

So yes , i'm a product of the pop culture machine driving my interests, but its better than the movie Hangar 18.

reply to post by Instructoralpha


Oh god man, "Fire in the Sky," did it for me. And I did watch "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" as well. Just the thing about Fire in the Sky was that it's supposedly a true story in which all the standard avenues of investigation into abductions is taken, and no evidence could be found that it didn't happen the way the main guy said it did. I apologize if I can't remember specifics right now. It's late.

My first experience of UFO's was when i was 7..

I was playing with my friend in the garden ... who was a year older than me. We were playing on my swing, which was next to a tall old apple tree. Anyway, it was a sunny afternoon and for some reason I decide to jump off the swing. As I did, there was this loud rushing noise and a big gust of wind. I walked up the garden a bit and looked up at the tree. The top of the tree was completely bent over and then this huge disk appeared out of nowhere. I ran up the garden further and was just fixated with this thing. It hovered for a few seconds and then shot off diagonally across the roof tops. I ran up the side of the house to watch it and could see a trail of vapour as it disappeared towards space?? My friend saw it too. This happened on the outskirts of London in 1970
I had long since moved from there, but a few years ago I found my friend on friends reunited. I had to ask her if she remembered it. She did and referred to the incident as 'that peculiar thing in the sky!'
Of course no body believed us, but I do remember my Mum telling a neighbour and the neighbour said she had seen two UFO's over her garden, but this had been at night.
That was the first one i ever saw and it is as clear in my mind as if it were yesterday.

For me, the spark of alien gnosis (or the xtraterrestrial epiphany) came through;

1. Years of deep meditations, and work on inner alchemy.
2. Holy libations, as in naturally growing spores and herbs. (No, this is not advocation, just information.)
3. A spontaneous notion of "As above so below"; Discovering that inner cosmos has a strong connection to outer cosmos. Realizing that man is probably NOT the be all/end all, and top of the chain in every way. (Often when man rationalizes, confronting the enigma of alien/ufo-phenomena, it is like; "Hey, why should Aliens do this, do that etc.?"; all those questions were we judge and measure from a tiny, human part and range of consciousness... thus suggesting and mentally inducing man as be all/end all. Remember, we can NOT know! It is ALIEN, remember?)
4. Then there was the notion of governmental powers and authoritys withholding information, in order to keep firm the paradigm of mental slavery (Keep on shopping, fall in line, you are alone and afraid, surrounded by bad terrorists, have another pint of fluoride). Disclosure could very well mean a giant jab to the jaw of organized religion, which in turn could lead to man not having to argue whether Mohammed, Shiva or Jesus is king of the hill. That is; a mankind being less angry, scared and scornful=less controllable.
5. A couple of personal sightings (under no libations, illnesses or sensory deprivations); A hovering saucer over a meadow and a ball of fire over a forest.

Not saying i believe all UFO phenomenon are xtraterrestrial though. Lets dance, shall we? There is also the intradimensional twist, the hallucination waltz, the plasma tango and the hush-hush samba of military aviation. Even the jive of little mankind with its lens flares reflected through swamp gas and relayed through weather balloons. ;-)

Have a great weekend OP, and all others. Take care.

The universe is infinite. The only reason I ever needed.

My original interest came from the "Who built the pyramids, and how did they build them?" debates. Egypt in general really, and the Mayans, the Incas.

Seeing a Chevron shaped UFO hover slowly over my neighborhood on long island back in 86. I was 7 and always looked for answers ever since, Never found one yet.

i was never abducted or taken onto a space ship or anything along those lines but based on my own experiences and what i have been through in the past seven months i would have to say that aliens are real ~ i would have never believed anything like this until i actually seen it for myself (UFOs in the night sky) these creatures never did anything to harm me they (space people) have always been good to me and ever since i have been contacted i have had an Interest in astronomy ~ i watch more alien movies more than what i used to ~ and even though the stereo types say that aliens probe you i honestly dont think that there all that bad, aliens have even guided me in the right direction (for example; if i wanted to get involved with someone i would have a dream that very same night and something would be telling me not to go through with it) its never lead me astray either each and everytime its be very accurate otherwise i would have made a huge mistake

I was a senior support scientist working on GMO's. I started having "dreams' of beings around my house and in my room. Then my partner saw a being the same night I had a particular dream (long story...). I tried to ignore this then one night I wake up and my house is full of light and I see them properly, ten days later I see another type in my room. I Have lights following my car while my father is a passenger, crazy lights when camping with friends and more recently very intense OBE's whilst driving a car at 100kmh. I am starting to believe this reality we currently inhabit is not what I have been taught to believe.

reply to post by Dextraphite


No worries, i only got around to seeing Fire in the Sky very recently, there's some messed up stuff in that story that makes CE3K look tame by comparison

I realize its kinda silly to talk about movies when this is real to alot of people, but its all i have to go on as far as why this subject interests me.

just being honest, sorry that i don't have a badass story to tell.

My epiphany came suddenly -a long time ago, reveals itself again on occasion in spurts, and as a psyche, has grown exponentially, but as yet remains unfulfilled...

Chicago, Illinois - I was about seven years old.

My parents took me to the Adler planetarium to see a night-sky show. I was enamored, enthralled, captivated. I asked the presenter probing questions, most of which he had no answer to: When did the Universe begin, how big is it, where is the edge, what does it look like, what was before the beginning, and the classic: Are we alone?

I've been asking the same questions ever since. The answers, consistently disappointing and unsatisfying to say the least, made me search farther and wider - especially, the, "Are We Alone" part. I read all I could on astronomy and cosmology, but, like many of you, the only comfort I found was in Science-fiction - books, movies, anthologies. Seems odd that we seek the truth to the most profound, unanswerable questions in sources of "fiction" - since no one - especially not the "Experts", have the right answers.

My library of UFO/Aliens, space science, exobiology, astrobiology, etc., including hundreds of movies, documentaries, and audiotapes, numbers in the thousands. Still, the answers, especially the "Big One", remains elusive.

ATS helps, but it's likely a temporary fix, and the feeling of satisfaction fades quickly when I log off. Like listening to, watching, or reading Sagan or Hawking or Asimov or Spielberg - it all seems so fleeting and wispy and incomplete. Will we EVER know the truth?

One moment of epiphany, or perhaps enlightenment, came when I was working on a technology implementation project and there were some people at a meeting I attended from various DOD and black-ops contractors present. I try not to bring up my interest too much at these meetings, and especially try not to seem conspicuous or over-eager about it, since as a pilot myself, I have learned that such sensitivities are genuine and could also be career-threatening if not handled carefully. Anyway, over drinks at a bar one evening, I dropped a little hint about the truth I was seeking, and my evening-companion swore he'd kill me if I ever repeated it, but said he has seen "evidence". Nothing more was said, and I could pry nothing more out of him, but as we were leaving, he said, "listen, why do you think every witness on this planet always describes the same thing..." or something to that effect.

That got me thinking and I started pouring over my books and films again. Sure, some of the consistency in the appearance of UFO's and aliens can be attributed to popular culture, media exposure, and the like, but practically ALL of them? Throughout history?

To me, this is the one epiphany that has stuck with me (that and the realization that sheer numbers mean the odds are we are NOT alone (see Probability 1 - my favorite book on THAT subject -available for 1 penny - definitely worth the cost...)).

Ok, so they all look alike (the "greys" at least) and their ships, for the most part, all look alike. Big deal. No, that is not proof. No, it is not definitive. No, I can't rest easy or give-up searching for the truth because of it.

Yet, it is an interesting epiphenomenon that is inescapable. A small, perhaps barely significant consolation prize.

Now all we need is confirmation. I hope we get it, one way or the other, before I'm gone...

I hope one of you get it, before your gone...

Take care, my friends...

Mine came when I was about 9 or 10, reading a small portion of the Betty and Barney Hill book "The Interrupted Journey" in our local newspaper. The idea that something like that could happen, both the sighting and the abduction, just amazed me. Been interested in that sort of thing ever since.

Enrich Von Daniken at first but then took a long break.

When I was studying I used UFO videos as a data set and wasted sooooooooo much time reading about them. Mostly it depresses me that there is so much stuff I'll never know and I love reading so if I met an alien I think they could tell me more things, and that would make me happy.

Other than that I'm a ASIO shill or something discrediting youtube videos for $14:50 an hour. I need a new job.

Interesting thread!
I remember it was 2007-ish, and I was doing an internship at my university. But the internship was bloody boring, with very little actual work for me to do. So out of the six hours or so that I had to sit at my computer and appear as if I were working each day, I'd surf the net (naturally). Until then, I had little experience with conspiracy theories, UFOs, etc - probably a bit more than the general public, due to my interest in science fiction. Of course, most of my knowledge about the subject came from the popular media - discovery channel, news reports. All of which pretty much cast a skeptical or humorous light on UFOs.
But as I sat at my desk one morning, horribly bored, I stumbled across a popular UFO video that was making the rounds. It was a hoax, and appeared as such. A video with a very well-rendered alien spacecraft flying low over a beach. I'm sure many long-time readers here would know what I'm talking about, since it was very popular. But due to my boredom, I decided to check out a few other videos and images of UFOs around the web. This took me to UFOcasebook, and a bunch of images which I also assumed were fake or easily explainable (still do!). But eventually, I stumbled across a list of UFO events on wikipedia. And the incident that caught my attention was the Iranian Jet Incident. Not one to believe wikipedia, I looked into it, and was shocked that it was backed up by official sources and people with impeccable credentials. This pretty much shattered my preconceived views about the entire matter, and led me to look into it further. And, of course, it also led me here!

Edit:
Amusingly, when I was a kid, I was terrified of aliens. The X-Files used to make me hide in my closet if I ever saw anything resembling an extraterrestrial.

In one of my earliest memories at perhaps age 3 or 4 around the year 1986 - 1987, I remember playing in a parking lot, I wandered away from my parents a bit, who were talking to some one. It was at my father's yaught club.
So anyways, I was running around I remember those cement parking dividers and beside one of those, I saw what I thought was the sun on the ground. It appeared directly I front of me. It was a bright glowing orange sphere.
I was frightened because I didn't want to burn myself, I knew that the sun was hot and being so young I was confused as to why the sun was on the ground so I ran away from it back to my mom.
I pulled her hand and said "mommy mommy the sun is on the ground". She came with me and the orb was gone.

For the most part over the years since I put this event out of my mind since I thought it was the sun on the ground. Until I was about 23.

I was at my father's house watching tv, and he had a friend over. I could hear them talking in the kitchen. He told his friend that when he was a child (1940s) he was at home alone one night and under his kitchen table he saw a glowing orange orb. Instead of running away from it like I did, he reached out to touch it.
When his hand got near to it he heard clear in his kind a voice saying "do not touch me" so he pulled his hand away and at that point he somehow knew that if he would have touched it, it could have harmed him unintentionally.

When I heard him tell his friend this, I was like omg I remember the sun on the ground.

Additionally to this, last year I really thought hard about this puzzle of the glowing orbs, I sat at home hoping to see it again, I wanted answers. And then suddenly, I saw it again. It flew past me, up the stairs and was gone. No answers, just a tease

I have also had one UFO sighting. I was living in midland Ontario at the time, and got the urge to go outside. It was about 2 am. I snuck quietly into my backyard and I was in awe of how beautiful the night sky was that night. The sky was so dense with stars, I could make out the milky way, it was amazingly beautiful.
As I was looking up, movement immediately drew my eye. 3 stars moving in unison? Wtf I thought. Satalites? But no. Upon closer inspection, the area between the 3 stars was black. I was looking at the silhouette of a perfect isosceles triangle, a light on each corner. Each of the 3 sides were solid, and it seemed to be moving incredibly fast. Suddenly it accellerated in a burst of speed and was gone.

I, too, will tell my story that I have not yet informed any one of. I never even knew about all the UFO/alien phenomena until my son said something to me one day...

Back in 2008 my son, who was 11 at the time, ran into the house and said quite sternly "Mum I just saw a lizard man in the back yard". I thought nothing of it at first because I had never heard of such a thing and thought it was an over imaginative mind at work. I thought it was odd for him to make up a story like that as he was not a toddler any more and never made up stories nor had a vivid imagination but I left it at that.

Later that day I kept thinking of the strange story my son told me earlier and that maybe I should look into what he "saw". You see, when my son was old enough to start talking, he used to talk in his sleep an say things that would come true the next few days. He had precog dreams, the term I later learned, and he also used to talk to me whilst sleep walking constantly about things I could not see. When my son started school the happenings ceased.

Because of my son's history, I decided to surf the net to try to understand why he think he saw a "lizard man" and boy was I shocked from all the literature that spewed out before me! I was hooked... and I mean hooked. I soon learned all about the reptilians, Nibiru then the New World Order and honestly I was so scared that I could not sleep for weeks. My searching also lead me to reading ATS constantly to learn all I know now so I finally joined in 2010/11.

In January 2009 I moved to the other side of Adelaide and that is when it all started happening. I began seeing very odd things in the day and night sky that I still, to this day, can never explain. I mean, for one instance, a black/grey "disc" flew slowly right over my house then shot off at an alarming speed which made it "turn" red into the distance. I have not seen anything since the beginning of 2012 though.

So my personal epiphany to begin my interest in UFO's began with my son one day apparently seeing a "lizard man". Go figure???

reply to post by Outrageo


I guess like so many of us you are continuously waiting for something, I have been like this for 5 years. Recently I was contacted by an individual in the most bizarre of circumstances and I thought that perhaps whatever it was I was waiting for was about to occur. However that encounter has now been and gone and again I am left waiting. Its like living in a badly scripted film sometimes.....

My interest in UFOs actually began quite abruptly. It happened in July 1973 in Milwaukee, WI and I was with 3 buddies and we parked outside of our friends house waiting for him to come out when we all noticed 2 bright white lights lights flying pretty close together and rather erratically in the southern sky. This is around around 8PM or so.

After watching for awhile, we ruled out helicopters,planes,jets,kites, everything really. Well, the lights headed toward us and then hovered silently for awhile then headed west. So we took off after them in the car. What we could see is that they both had a bright white light in the front and a red and blue in the middle and back. Lights did not blink or flash.

We're following these for about 15-20 minutes are now approaching the outer edges of the suburbs , but the road comes to an end with only a northerly exit. We were so disappointed we were going to lose following them. We watched them fly away, one kept going west, the other finally broke off and went south. Our only option was north so we leave, feeling pretty disappointed we were no longer able to follow. Well, this feeling didn't last long, after a couple of minutes, the one that headed west was coming back, right for us. We were going to get a close up view!

We stopped and got out of the car before it reached us. It was flying at a very low altitude and flew directly over us. There is no way this could have been any kind of a conventional craft. After it flew over us, it stopped , hovered for a couple of minutes and started to descend. This is about 1/4 mile away and it descended to maybe 500 ft or so. Never once did this thing make any noise.

Watching this, I remember my feelings gradually going from excitement , having a once in a lifetime moment to fear. We're out in the middle of nowhere and this thing seems like it might be interacting with us. What if they ARE interested in us? So we just watched in amazement for a couple of minutes and it finally ascends, heads east and we lose sight of it.

Over the next 3 years, my friends and I would see them almost every weekend. Always the white light in the front and red and blue lights behind it. They were always silent as well. My last sighting was in March of 1976 until just recently, that being October of 2011 when my wife and I saw 4 triangular red/orange objects.

My current theory as to what UFOs are, and I've had many of these theories the past 40 years, is that they are our guardian angels or spirit guides/soulmates, watching over us. There are a few bad ones out there (greys and abductions) but overall, they watch over us and are not suppose interfere (until they get THE order)

reply to post by Instructoralpha

I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind as a kid.

Unfortunately by the time CE came out I had traveled highway 20 past middle butte and seen the strange lights in the desert. Project Echo was a memory from the 60's and my mind had ready made connections for most everything in the movie.

There is so much alien UFO out there just waiting for an epiphany but unfortunately as we age our ears grow cold. We see that happening a lot on ATS, mostly threads discussing UFO events from 50 years ago.

What inspires the kids today?

Being a child growing up in the 60's, I became interested in the tv show "Lost in Space', and then from there my space interest esp. related to tv shows just exploded. I went to "Star Trek", the original show, then "The Invaders", and about the same time I got into some "Twilight Zone" and some "Outer Limits" tv shows esp. the space/alien/ufo ones of course. Then I got into a cheesy Show called "UFO" which had this male androdgynous lead character, and the ufo's would spin and shoot the corniest lazer you have ever seen. Then I got into "Space 1999", and by then "Star Trek-The Next Generation" followed by "Voyager" and the most recent version "Star Trek" for the early 2000's. All these shows and many books as well as space/ufo websites have done much to feed my never ending interest in all things space, and the Universe.