Out of all the mythical creatures and monsters, aliens have to be the scariest.
Vampires, werewolves and mummies are nothing more than folk legends, and Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster are ever-elusive.
But aliens?
There are so many unknowns, alleged governmental cover-ups and terrifying film franchises featuring toothy, scaly-skinned beasts. It’s the stuff of nightmares.
Of course, not everyone shares this negative view of extraterrestrials — we’re looking at you, Steven Spielberg.
Earlier this year, the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure culminated in five days of testimonies from journalists, activists, military personnel and politicians regarding the existence of extraterrestrials.
“The Citizen Hearing on Disclosure was an unprecedented event in terms of size, scope and the involvement of former members of the U. S. Congress,” according to citizenshearing.org. “With over 30 hours of testimony from 40 witnesses over five days, the event was the most concentrated body of evidence regarding the extraterrestrial subject ever presented to the press and the general public at one time.”
Of course, nothing is actually proven on the website. Just like all the “Do aliens exist?” programs on the Syfy network, the video on citizenshearing.org consists of nothing more than some grainy clips of lights in the sky, a bunch of old guys pointing their fingers while yelling “Open the files!” and a ridiculously overdramatic musical score.
But, naturally, people ate it up. Though the Citizens Hearing was months ago — April 29 to May 3 — filmmaker, activist and former MMA fighter Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell is currently in production of a few films documenting his interviews with journalists, historians and activists who claim extraterrestrials exist and have been in contact with Earth. His documentary “Truth Embargo” is slated to come out later this year.
Corbell told VICE, “I no longer have the luxury of disbelief. Humanity is being engaged by non-humans — whether our minds can handle that fact or not is an open question. The realization that we are not alone is only the beginning. If you’d been witness to the testimony at the Citizen Hearing, it’s pretty compelling evidence for an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race.”
No matter the compelling evidence, the whole alien-conspiracy scene is still too much of a fringe element to be taken seriously — hence, its coverage in VICE.
Besides, as Neil deGrasse Tyson said to Business Insider in July, if complex beings hypothetically did exist outside of Earth, maybe they want none of us lowly, simple humans.
“You don’t walk by the worm on the street and say, ‘Gee, I wonder what he’s thinking,’” Tyson said.
A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 10/24/2013 under the headline "I want to believe: Alien conspiracy theory is alive and well"
