Aliens Moved My Cheese

After reading my brother’s essay concerning Faerie Kidnappings and Parasitism as it relates to alien abduction, the same troubling thought obsessively crossed by mind for about the next hour. Why the fuck does my kid brother know so much about Faeries and what the fuck does am I supposed to write about that? Understand my job as an author in this case is to state my opinion on the topic in front of me. I have no opinion on Faeries. I never met a Faerie. I hear they’ve got really bad attitudes and they like to float around messing with people’s lives, tralaa. That’s about the extent of my knowledge base on the subject. All I know about Faeries I’ve heard from my drunken Irish friends when we’d had one too many pints of Guinness. I’m kind of partial to a drink called an “Irish Car Bomb” which is basically a boiler maker comprised of a pint of Guinness with a shot of Bailey’s dropped in it. If you can still stand up after six or seven of those bastards, you’ll probably start seeing mythological Celtic creatures yourself. Just the other day I hallucinated a friggin’ leprechaun named Colin Ferrell (no relation to the actor) and he told me, “the first rule of fight club is never to talk about fight club.” I kind of get the gist of what Aaron was talking about (I hope), so I’ll give this one my best shot (don’t judge me).

We humans love our myths. The alien abduction myth is simply a relative newcomer on the scene. Do myths have a relation to our lives in the real world? They sure do! You don’t have to believe in the credibility of a myth to recognize it’s importance to us culturally. The myths we tell for all intensive purposes are an excellent way to instruct us as to who we are and where we are coming from. The truth of the myth is not important. What the myth tells us about ourselves and the human condition is all that matters. Damn that was deep, perhaps I should take another shot and become suitably incoherent? The fact that the Celts had their own set of myths is therefore not remotely surprising. Every culture has their own set of myths and cultures that come in contact with each other will sometimes share myths and add to them their own unique cultural spin. That being said I am not shocked at all that the alien abduction myths have parallels with Celtic Faerie stories. For all we know the modern abduction stories are just Faerie stories that have been embellished over time and across oceans and let’s face it a blind piss drunk Irishman seeing weird shit is not an altogether unusual occurrence now or then. Just for future reference: That was not at all a racial slur against the Irish, just a simple observation of human nature. Let’s face it if I really wanted to talk about outrageous blind drunk behavior I’d introduce you guys to a former member of the Scott’s Guard I met in Germany Jamie, who once challenged me to a drunken head butting contest for the honor of our respective countries. We both ended up on the bar room floor half conscious signing a rousing chorus of “Barnacle Bill.” We’ll call that one a draw. Even the fucking Germans thought we were crazy and that takes some serious drunken insanity. Does the Beer Hall Putsch ring any bells? Coincidentally, the Scottish also have their fair share of faerie stories “yes miss Money Penny” I’m being serious. Do you see a pattern forming here? If not you must have been drinking over the legal limit yourself. A large segment of both of those cultural groups like to get their beer and whiskey on. There is nothing wrong with that. It’s just a part of their cultural experience in many but not all cases. There are more pubs than Catholic Churches in both places and that is really saying something because these are predominantly Catholic countries. That fact is also telling in that the vast majority of faerie and alien abduction stories come from countries known for having a surplus of two fisted drinkers. That isn’t terribly scientific I know but it goes a long way towards explaining both a reason for people seeing weird unexplainable shit and the cultural connection to these stories making the rounds over time.

For you old school Trekkies out there what was the name of the original Captain of the Starship Enterprise? I know this will date me but it was James Tiberius Kirk. Kirk is an Irish name. Coincidence? I think not. American pop culture has latched onto stories of little green men since the 1950’s. Star Trek in the late 60’s through the current era has had an undeniable influence on several generations of UFO enthusiasts. It makes sense that that a fictional guy hailing from Irish roots, who likes to party and score alien babes is the poster boy for the Ufolgists of my generation. Just kidding, I’m talking out of my ass. There is a point to my silliness believe it or not. If I had not explained you that I was just making that shit up, some of you would probably have believed everything I was telling you. In the scary scenario the majority of you would have fallen for my line of bullshit. I was making up my own myth. It is very important for Ufologists to be able to distinguish between myth and fact, if this field has any hope of advancing itself into a legitimate science. By “legitimate” I mean fact based and utilizing scientific method to do research as opposed to just taking the word of every loon, who claims to have seen or experienced something bizarre. If I told you I was abducted by parasitical faerie kidnappers just yesterday, what would the vast majority of you say? Most of you would assume that I was completely out of my ever loving mind. Why? It sounds awfully far fetched and I have no conclusive proof of my claims. Yet back in ancient Ireland I more often than not would get taken seriously. Hell I know a couple of modern drunks from Belfast who would take me seriously right now. Now think of UFO abduction in similar terms. It is a modern myth that has yet to be fully substantiated. If the aliens come down to earth and tell us, ”why yes we have been visiting you since the Roswell incident and anally probing people for shits and giggles” then the abductees will be fully vindicated. Until that time it is only a myth that maybe has some basis in reality but more than likely does not. Human mythos often follow predictable patterns as evidenced by the correlation between the faerie stories and the alien abduction stories. I believe the reason is because we are all human, with a very human perspective on things that occur that we can’t explain. That is why we often see parallel stories separated by vast amounts of time and distance and across cultures. It’s not necessarily that we are all seeing the same crazy shit. It means we tell our stories about a similar unexplainable event that occurred in much the same way.