Do you believe in extra-terrestials?

United Kingdom. 26 December 1980.

As darkness fell, an RAF security patrol observed a series of strange lights descending into the gloom-laden Rendlesham Forest.

An investigative team was dispatched.

The officers noted burn marks and broken branches - a mysterious triangular pattern was also discovered on the forest floor.

This is what they heard.

i've been thinking about the x-files opening sequence. two phrases are shown:

"the truth is out there"

"i want to believe"

i find this interesting and significant. we are now immersed in the new challenges of the information age. one issue is that... the truth is out there, but it doesn't reach the majority. we need to raise the average skill for sifting through, seeking, and being skeptical. people arrive at false beliefs, often taken in by deceivers, who may be witting or simply careless.

another issue is people lack the education on logic that would help them to assess and debate information. in other words, they are not equipped with the tools that would prevent them from falling into... motivated reasoning, or wanting to believe.

it is interesting to me that, taking a bird's-eye view, an advanced civilization would pass through this phase that occurs at the dawn of the information era. they would be familiar with these new challenges that we are discovering and struggling with.

even more interesting: this aspect of the species, the general skill level, enforced by societal norms, to sort out conflicting information, and force accurate understanding, this is kind of the thing that would either enable or prevent a species from being contacted and introduced to a broader civilization. there would be great hazards to contact, if we are unable to reliably arrive at accurate understandings, and resist deceptive misleading.

so, what i don't know is this: did the x-files theme arrive at this very appropriate set of formulations

(a) by luck

(b) they didn't, i'm nuts

(c) cia or someone fed it to them

(d) events were engineered by higher forces to arrive at this

(e) the x-files people were smart and intuited this significance

anyway, this is how i address the question of belief. belief is an important concept, here. it is maybe better to avoid belief and practice doubt.

  On 3/8/2021 at 4:23 PM, very honest said:

(e) the x-files people were smart and intuited this significance

I'm sure you know that Chris Carter, the X-Files creator, is a complete and total hack who hit the jackpot when he came up with the idea for the show, which was largely a continuation (or rip-off) of the Kolchak Night Stalker series. he hit the jackpot in the sense that the team he was lucky enough to put together (Kim Manners, Gordon, Wong, etc.) were hugely talented creative forces (and experienced in TV productions) that led the show to become the piece of thinking man's pop culture we love it for.

therefore I think the "I want to Believe" ethos ingrained in the show is not some deep mantra you are insinuating here, but originally came about from a California surfer dude saying "whoa, aliens, cool, I want to believe in those, let's make a TV show about it." the creative team/writers used "I want to Believe / The Truth is Out There" as a guide to fine tune the alien mythology arc, and then the meaning behind the quotes just grew from there. this led to people theorizing things (like you did, not saying this is bad btw, you're not nuts, that post was great) that may not have been originally intended.    

Kolchak is so good.

  On 3/8/2021 at 4:57 PM, zero said:

I'm sure you know that Chris Carter, the X-Files creator, is a complete and total hack who hit the jackpot when he came up with the idea for the show, which was largely a continuation (or rip-off) of the Kolchak Night Stalker series. he hit the jackpot in the sense that the team he was lucky enough to put together (Kim Manners, Gordon, Wong, etc.) were hugely talented creative forces (and experienced in TV productions) that led the show to become the piece of thinking man's pop culture we love it for.

therefore I think the "I want to Believe" ethos ingrained in the show is not some deep mantra you are insinuating here, but originally came about from a California surfer dude saying "whoa, aliens, cool, I want to believe in those, let's make a TV show about it." the creative team/writers used "I want to Believe / The Truth is Out There" as a guide to fine tune the alien mythology arc, and then the meaning behind the quotes just grew from there. this led to people theorizing things (like you did, not saying this is bad btw, you're not nuts, that post was great) that may not have been originally intended.    

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interesting. yeah, i could see how those phrases could be organically arrived at. however they were arrived at, they nicely illustrate the big issues ot the current information landscape. and i do think that those issues would bear on contact. 

very clickbaity thread title. music is meh.

also very honest, "I Want To Believe" is nowhere in the X-Files opening credits. 

  On 3/8/2021 at 4:23 PM, very honest said:

people arrive at false beliefs, often taken in by deceivers, who may be witting or simply careless.

illustrating/embodying your own point 

  On 3/8/2021 at 5:45 PM, auxien said:

very honest, "I Want To Believe" is nowhere in the X-Files opening credits. 

illustrating/embodying your own point 

ah, you're right. 

  On 3/8/2021 at 5:45 PM, auxien said:

very clickbaity thread title. music is meh.

also very honest, "I Want To Believe" is nowhere in the X-Files opening credits. 

illustrating/embodying your own point 

Thanks for the feedback anyhow!