A Litmus Test for UFO Beliefs
Artist and all-around creative person Ciara Barsotti blesses The Observer with an analysis of UFO beliefs. She also paints dope scenes featuring UFOs. Are you a Denier, Believer, or Questioner?
I’ve had several people ask me recently if I’ve ever had an encounter with a UFO.1 It’s a valid question, particularly with UFOs making a reappearance in the zeitgeist, but also because, lately, I’ve been painting a lot of them.
Flying saucers hovering over mono-chromatic, desolate desert scenes, neon lights pulsing around a tractor beam of abstract insanity, glimpses of psychedelic colors and shapes swirling in the midst of the dry earth and cactus sentinels… I guess you would wonder also if I had a personal experience or not, based on the paintings that have been materializing out of my studio.
“Not that I can recall, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened,” I like to respond, with a wink and a nod. This is where the interaction gets interesting. Folks will either smile politely and move on, or they launch into their own stories, whether first-hand accounts or retellings of retellings. They are just happy to have found a kindred spirit, a fellow believer.
The UFO “Question” is safe and fertile ground to learn about a person’s worldview. It’s uncouth and sometimes socially (not to mention professionally) dangerous to ask a stranger directly about their belief in deities or religious ideologies, but “do you believe in UFOs?” is the perfect epitome of a non-threatening conversation starter. This is because everyone I’ve met has an opinion on them, and the response you receive can teach you more about a person than almost any other banal icebreaker. How someone answers The Question gives us a glimpse into the way they might carry other beliefs, regardless of how deeply they are held.
Folks tend to fall into three main categories of belief based on the gamut of answers I’ve received in response to The Question.
First, there are the Deniers. This seems bizarre to me because UFOs do, in fact, exist–the next question being “what” they are, but that’s not The Question that was asked. Sometimes these folks are just contrarians, but often they are merely classic conservatives (at least from an ideological standpoint, not necessarily a political one, because you’ll find Deniers on both sides of the aisle). These are the people who won’t tolerate their own worldview being questioned, which isn’t to say that their intolerance is aggressive, just that their minds are not very open to any other possibilities.
These folks are not friendly to mysteries; they want answers to everything but don’t want to have to think too hard about it or they demand scientific or rational proof, and as a result, their worlds are, sadly often limited by their own individual, human capacities and perceptions.
Then there are the Questioners. The people who have to add a caveat to everything and can’t commit to a yes or a no lest they be judged one way or the other. These folks existed long before social media trained us to include entirely too many words to virtue signal our way through our lives online. The Questioner is interested in knowing exactly as much as they can know about a thing and are always adding to their personal encyclopedia of data. Yet they are still quite reliant on the facts they can know and understand, which, as alluded to earlier, UFOs toe the line at best. This is why you’ll never get a wholehearted and unencumbered “Yes!” to The Question from a Questioner.
Finally, there are the Believers. Perhaps ironically, Believers hold their beliefs and certainties so lightly that they’ll agree to almost anything with a mere suggestion. They’re willing to “try on” new theories, change their minds, and explore ideas. When asked The Question, they will emphatically say “yes, and!” in their response like good improv artists in a comedy class.
These folks are the most fun to talk to about UFOs, because I always learn new stories and theories throughout conversations with them.
Obviously, Believers can and do hold some of their beliefs more strongly than others, but they aren’t immediately threatened by new ones and are generally pliable people. Some would call them gullible (I prefer “trusting,” as a fellow Believer), but gullible people can learn to protect themselves from charlatans, too, by exercising caution and vetting their sources, which we should all be doing anyway.
As an aside, you also get a peek into a person’s position on the pessimist/ optimist spectrum when you ask them The Question. I’ve had people recoil in fear when I ask them The Question and others proceed to tell me that UFOs obviously mean that an alien species is trying to impart benevolent wisdom on how to save the planet to any and all who are willing to receive such a message. I have a strong suspicion that the way The Question is answered directly correlates to a person’s general outlook on life: how safe we are in the world, and if there’s any hope for humanity.
These three categories, Deniers, Questioners, and Believers, represent a spectrum of our capacity for belief and our adaptability as people. The beauty of The Question is that, currently, there aren’t many consequences pertaining to where you fall on the spectrum of belief about it. Almost any other question surrounding personal beliefs can have layers of emotional and social conditioning piled up around it, and the natural outcomes of many beliefs have huge ramifications for humanity.
And yet, I find that there is also an interesting correlation between how someone responds to The Question and how comfortable they are with uncertainty. How comfortable a person is with uncertainty expands into the way they hold their beliefs in general.
This has huge ramifications for our ability to collaborate as humans in a now-global society.
I should say here (the caveat-loving Questioner in me coming out) that my description of a Denier is not flattering. It might seem like the kind of mentality that is a net negative for humanity as it relates to adaptability and being a team-player. But if not for the Deniers balancing the scales of belief, the Believers would have us running amok while the Questioners lounge about on the fence. It takes all kinds and we all deserve a seat at the table when making decisions based on the particulars of our beliefs which ultimately do not have to be shared in order to work together for the good of mankind and life on this planet.
All of this pontificating on the nature of belief from a 21st century perspective makes me wonder… just how much information is actually required for belief in anything? Probably a lot less than our cultural scientific-method- obsessed modus operandi would have us believe is required. For example, how much of our understanding is required to make the sun rise every morning or to have gravity keep us grounded on the Earth? We can “know” and have complete faith in a thing on a gut level, and this “knowing” can’t always be learned from purely quantitative information.
All humans know what it is to be alive, to be conscious, and what it is to love and be loved, but can any of it really be explained in a way that is 100% objective, rational, and scientific? Does it even need to be?
UFOs are going to continue existing in their bizarre, untouchable liminal space whether or not anyone “believes” in them. Maybe someday we will have more quantifiable knowledge about what they are and why they’re here. Until I know better (should “better” ever come), I’m just going to keep painting them and asking people The Question and having interesting conversations about them, and be grateful that they’re part of the weird, wild universe we inhabit.
CIARA BARSOTTI is the host of the Chico Creates podcast, and is a painter who makes exuberant abstract art and fantastical landscape paintings. She lives with her husband, son, two cats, and lots of plants in Chico, CA. See more of her stunning work at: ciarabarsotti.com
I feel it’s pertinent to mention here that I’m not going to acknowledge the government’s attempt to legitimize their own reports about UFOs by renaming the phenomena.
I've been studying UFOs for more than 3 decades (I'm 50) and after all these years I strongly support the 'excluded middle' approach. Judging questioners as 'fence sitting' is more unfair than calling deniers 'negative', because the people who are still making questions instead of fighting for a line they drew on the sand are aware there are many things that SHOULD be denied about claims re. UFOs—particularly if those claims are designed to manipulate public perception—but unfortunately Believers are too busy trying to convince everybody else they've been right all along.
"Belief is the enemy." This quote by John A. Keel (who nobody would call a Denier) has been a lifesaver in my life, and has helped me retain my sanity. By all means, we should retain the question in our minds for as long as we can, because falling into each of the other camps is an intellectual defeat.
PS: Your artwork is very beautiful and interesting :)
Thought-provoking article accompanied by beautiful art. I wonder, when you ask the "question," do you get more Believers than Deniers? Put me down as a Believer.