My movie, finally called What on Earth?, with the tag line, “Inside the crop circle mystery,” is finished and getting it sold has begun. We got off to a great start with a preview at the big yearly UFO Congress bash, where we won best feature documentary in their film festival.

The statue, that looks like Oscar, is in fact an alien! Happy that crop circles are considered by them to be interchangeable with crafts, as far as unidentified is concerned, so that the film could be eligible for this award. And it has stimulated my already keen imagination about ‘the other,’ and how backwards our world is on this subject, where instead of marginalizing it we should be investigating it.

I submitted this question to the Obama forum that was held today:

If we ascertained that UFOs or crop circles were coming from another intelligence, we would be one humanity in relation to “the other,” which would enable us to best address all the challenges that face us. It is possible that the only thing that needs to happen is for the existing evidence to be taken seriously. Won’t you please change the official policy, which, since the Robertson Panel, in 1953, has been to ridicule such things, and instead make a serious examination of what we already know? If there’s one chance in a million that it would produce such a massive result, aren’t we fools not to pursue that chance?

When the full film website gets up, this blog will be part of it, and I’d like this to be a dialogue. I usually think there’s so much smarter thinking than is popularly in play. Like today, at that town meeting, Obama laughing at the suggestion to think about marijuana laws. Along with UFOs, it’s part of the world that is to come, where it’s re-think or else.

When I read things like If We Are in the Death Spiral of Capitalism, Can We Start Using the “S” Word? , I want to jump out of my skin. Yes, yes, yes, it’s an intelligent appraisal of the difficulties we are in. No argument with this:

We seem to have entered the death spiral where rising unemployment leads to reduced consumption and hence to greater unemployment. Any schadenfreude we might be tempted to feel as executives lose their corporate jets and the erstwhile Masters of the Universe wipe egg from their faces is quickly dashed by the ever more vivid suffering around us. Food pantries and shelters can no longer keep up with the demand; millions face old age without pensions and with their savings gutted; we personally are consumed with anxiety about the future that awaits our children and grandchildren.

And it has a suggestion about how the world might be reorganized. But are there any laws to pass, or stimuli to give out, or businesses to shore up or to let fail that will get us to another reality?

It makes me crazy that we aren’t talking about what’s more important than any action to take, which is how to think. Although it may not have been uttered by Einstein, whoever said you can’t solve problems at the level of consciousness that created them was a wise cookie. We argue about actions to take, while I whisper, “Pay attention to the crop circles.”

Look, if we were to ascertain beyond a shadow of a doubt there is other intelligence besides our own, it would produce the biggest change in our thinking in centuries. In fact, since Copernicus and Galileo, who removed Earth from being the center of the universe. That removal from supremacy reordered human thought. A hierarchical world, with kings on the top, which went along with Earth as supreme, no longer could hold sway.

If we were to discover extra-terrestrial life, it would show that we are not intellectually unique in the galaxy. Man has a tendency to think he’s very special. We consider ourselves morally, culturally, and intellectually unique. But if we were to find a signal from another star system, another thinking being, we would know that none of that is true. A connection with another intelligence would be the first bridging across four billion years of independent life in evolution. It would be the end of Earth’s cultural isolation in a galaxy and a universe surely containing millions of other civilizations. It would be without doubt the greatest discovery in the history of humankind. – Paul Horowitz, Project Director, Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

So, think about how it would be if we got it that not only isn’t Earth the central stellar body, but that humanity isn’t the only brainy species. It’s one thing where otherness is just in science fiction, but, seriously, just think about what would happen if science fiction became science fact. And I’m not talking about invasion, but everything staying the same except our awareness. Do you think that it soon would be yesterday’s news? Never. We would wonder, we would probe, we would see how we might answer back, and we all would be in it together — one humanity in relation to that otherness. Can’t you see that’s just the way we need to see ourselves to deal with threats to us that are global now?

If ‘the other’ wanted to take over, it had a gazillion years to do that. Galactic wars are waged in science fiction, and in fact we haven’t been harmed by anything from off planet. And, if we made real inquiry into what’s going on, we would not be meeting strange creatures coming out of metallic craft, saying, “Take me to your leader.” We would be just like we are, only we would have had a realization.

So, instead of continuing to marginalize what could be coming from elsewhere, we should be opening our eyes to see what we’ve been titillated by. We are so clever and so resourceful that if there were real interest, where the brightest minds were puzzling it out, we would have answers. I know it about the crop circles, where if you take plant material and soil samples from a ‘genuine’ circle into a science lab, you ascertain that it has undergone inexplicable changes. What little money there’s been for such research has found that to be the case, and, although credible scientific papers attest to such changes, the world isn’t paying attention.

Why? Even if there were an infinitesimal chance to make a breakthrough discovery that could be of such value to us, why not look into that? It would cost very little to investigate the origin of the circles, not to mention that we could get some interesting info about what has been done to throw us off track. Why would hoaxers go out, night after night, year after year, in fields all over the world, for absolutely no recognition and presumably no money? It defies human nature, not to mention human capacities. See Why Real Crop Circles Can’t be Hoaxed.

In 1952, the Robertson Panel was convened by the CIA to look into the buzz going on about UFO sightings. It set official government policy, which still is in place, to use the media to ridicule and debunk. It’s time for that policy to be reconsidered. What we would discover could save civilization.

Suzanne Taylor
Producer/Director What on Earth…Inside the crop circle mystery.