Are UFOs Racist? and Other Issues in Paranormal Data Collection

[00:00:21] The question we're asking today is, are UFOs racist?

[00:00:24] Sure it's a silly short starter question, but I guess what I really mean is, are aliens

[00:00:31] or alien encounters racist?

[00:00:34] Now for comedic purposes, we're not really discussing racism as an ideology here.

[00:00:39] What we're really trying to get at here is, does this particular subset of paranormal

[00:00:44] encounters disproportionately affect any racial, ethnic groups or even nation states?

[00:00:52] So why get into this approach at all?

[00:00:55] So for me personally, UFO studies is probably the most disappointing thing in the entire paranormal

[00:01:01] field.

[00:01:02] It's something that's wrapped in so many layers of conspiracies and different personas

[00:01:07] that are involved in the whole field that finding any truth really seems hopeless.

[00:01:12] I don't call myself a UFO skeptic, I'm more like a disappointed UFO cynic.

[00:01:19] UFOs are always the ultimate teasing.

[00:01:21] You always think that there's new discoveries about to reveal itself but it ultimately turns

[00:01:26] out to be not much of anything at all.

[00:01:30] When we study UFO phenomena, we can never really get to the evidence directly.

[00:01:35] As far as I'm aware, no useful physical evidence has been presented.

[00:01:40] You want to go down the whole cliché, government conspiracy rabbit hole but usually there's

[00:01:46] nothing tangible for the common person to really investigate.

[00:01:50] And even in actual abduction cases that people might share or read about, abductees are usually

[00:01:57] never able to conveniently snatch anything off the ship.

[00:02:00] Nothing of value is really grabbed in any way like that.

[00:02:04] So whether you're a fully funded government agency or just a silly person like myself,

[00:02:09] at the end of the day you're stuck with good old fashioned pattern analysis.

[00:02:14] So what I think is that we can always look deeper into the people that are involved in

[00:02:19] these stories and less on maybe some of the more physical and technical aspects of the

[00:02:25] UFOs themselves.

[00:02:27] So let's take a look at some of the data.

[00:02:29] Now looking at it from a US perspective as an American, I would say that from what

[00:02:36] I've seen growing up, I don't think that we see many stories of what you would consider

[00:02:43] to be racial minorities within the United States being abductees.

[00:02:48] Now I know that many of the older stories from the past such as the classics like Betty

[00:02:54] and Barney Hill will do feature of course racial minorities but what I'm referring

[00:03:00] to is more very modern like modern stories either posted on social media or into podcasts

[00:03:08] such as this one or just in written books and stuff is what I'm noticing.

[00:03:13] Now of course I am just one person doing my own research reading things so of course my

[00:03:18] own data collection will not be perfect.

[00:03:20] Of course that's part of the reason why it's so important to collect stories from

[00:03:25] individuals.

[00:03:26] But one thing of course that I acknowledge is that it seems that the total number of abduction

[00:03:33] cases that are being reported by individuals has gone down in recent years I would say

[00:03:40] versus regular UFO or UAP sighting just seeing objects in the sky.

[00:03:45] Now this could be for multiple reasons.

[00:03:48] It could be that the phenomenon itself has actually changed over time from a physical

[00:03:52] perspective or it could simply be that some of those older stories that we've heard.

[00:03:58] The more silly ones like being seduced by these very attractive aliens things like that

[00:04:03] just wouldn't fly in today's maybe more aggressive analysis where people demand

[00:04:11] maybe a lot more physical evidence than just a simple story.

[00:04:15] So I do think some of the narratives that people share have definitely changed in that

[00:04:20] way.

[00:04:21] But of course going back to the idea of racial minorities or any other minority populations

[00:04:28] in the larger field of paranormal research I think that the Missing 411 series by David

[00:04:34] Pilates is one of the things that does touch on the race component a little bit.

[00:04:40] But of course you know that's a little different than UFOs because Missing 411 of course

[00:04:45] directly deals with the humans that have gone missing right that's the focus and

[00:04:49] it also doesn't have the sort of I'd say historical baggage that we sort of associate with UFOs.

[00:04:56] Now I don't believe that I'm the first one to have looked at it from this perspective.

[00:05:00] In my own reading I've come across some really good analysis being done by individuals online

[00:05:07] looking at some publicly available UFO reporting from sources such as MuFon and NiCAP.

[00:05:13] And after looking at almost 4,000 reports spanning over a hundred years the final conclusion

[00:05:21] of this analysis is that almost 80% of reported UFO abductions originate from the United States.

[00:05:28] And further 90% of all of these abductions originate either from the United States,

[00:05:35] Canada, the UK or Australia.

[00:05:38] Now of course based on this analysis it would appear that one could conclude that UFOs are

[00:05:44] definitely biased towards conducting their abductions within these Western countries.

[00:05:51] But there are definitely counter arguments to this perspective as well.

[00:05:55] One argument being of course that perhaps these Western countries simply have more infrastructure

[00:06:03] set up for UFO reporting right?

[00:06:05] Even having agencies or organizations such as MuFon is just not something that other countries

[00:06:11] may have.

[00:06:13] And of course the counter to the counter is that well if other countries were facing

[00:06:19] such a large number of abductions then that they would have set up such organizations

[00:06:25] themselves.

[00:06:26] I'm not saying that I fall within either one of these arguments but I do think

[00:06:32] that it shows the importance of at least attempting to collect more of these abduction stories

[00:06:38] or UFO encounter stories from other nations.

[00:06:42] And of course there are different ideas that have been presented to me as well right?

[00:06:46] Like such as the difference within racial demographics of urban populations versus

[00:06:52] rural populations right?

[00:06:55] Crossed with the idea that perhaps the UFOs themselves target rural populations.

[00:07:01] And of course ideas that are not racial at all but more nation-state focused right?

[00:07:06] Such as maybe within the United States there might be more military bases in some rural

[00:07:11] areas testing advanced technologies versus in some European countries that maybe the

[00:07:17] city population is a little more dense than maybe that type of military testing

[00:07:21] just doesn't occur near large population centers.

[00:07:26] I think that this data and its associated analysis really highlights a lot of the issues

[00:07:31] that I think we run into when trying to really analyze the UFO phenomenon.

[00:07:37] And it leads to some further questions as well.

[00:07:39] You know like if there's large billion in person populations in nations such as China

[00:07:46] or India why don't we see similar reporting of UFO abductions from those nations

[00:07:53] that we're seeing within the United States?

[00:07:55] This is simplifying it a bit of course you know because there could be barriers right?

[00:08:00] Such as social media access, language barriers, cultural differences that could be responsible for this.

[00:08:08] But you know even putting that aside we're seeing similarly low numbers in European countries

[00:08:16] where we wouldn't expect to see those same barriers.

[00:08:20] When the UFO phenomena was you know of course rebranded as UAP one of the more popular things

[00:08:27] that's always mentioned in the media and reporting around UAPs is the seeming

[00:08:32] you know attraction of UAPs to nuclear technology.

[00:08:38] You know with the obvious conclusion being that UAPs have an interest within this nuclear technology.

[00:08:44] But just like the previous example relating to human populations

[00:08:49] this could be another case in which the military installations containing nuclear technology

[00:08:55] just happened to be the ones that have both the you know cameras and the sensors

[00:09:00] that are able to capture you know evidence of UAPs right?

[00:09:04] And the UAPs themselves may show up in multiple locations

[00:09:09] and simply have no interest in nuclear technology at all.

[00:09:13] The only thing that UFO analysts can really do is hope for more data collection.

[00:09:18] One of the benefits of a more silly question like asking if UFOs are racist

[00:09:22] is that it's a little easier to disprove right?

[00:09:27] We can simply disprove if UFOs are either racist or if they have a bias towards certain nation states

[00:09:34] by just happening to collect stories from other nations.

[00:09:39] And if those stories seem credible enough then we can move on from that theory right

[00:09:44] and look for other patterns.

[00:09:45] So while I will probably still joke that UFOs may be a little racist

[00:09:51] I do think that looking at the actual people involved in the UFO phenomenon

[00:09:58] you know and trying to map out some of those human factors

[00:10:02] might lead to more answerable questions than you know going down the

[00:10:08] some of the other rabbit holes such as government conspiracies or looking for physical evidence.

[00:10:14] You know of course you know if somebody is able to find those physical evidence

[00:10:19] or any other information in those rabbit holes those are would be of great value too.

[00:10:24] But personally they've been a little disappointing

[00:10:27] so I do think that you know that the people aspect might you know be a little more promising.

[00:10:33] Which is why if you are listening to this podcast and you have had a UFO encounter

[00:10:39] or just any other strange experience you can leave me an audio message at flyingteacups.com

[00:10:46] or you can call in at 202-505-1144.

[00:10:51] Please also reach out to me if there are any other topics that you would like me to dig a little deeper into.

[00:10:57] All credits and source material used for this episode are included in the show notes as well

[00:11:03] that's flyingteacups.com or 202-505-1144.

[00:11:10] Until next time!