Looking Beyond the Heavens in Search of a Reason to Believe

I want to believe. I think, deep down, we all want to. Knowing for a fact that it’s true would send a chill down my spine.

It’s just that the story they want us to believe sounds so preposterous on its face that it’s hard to accept. We don’t want to feel stupid, be taken. And yet, what about the witnesses--dozens, even hundreds? Sure, some may be crackpots, liars or wishful thinkers, but all of them? Still, for something this important, this potentially life-altering, can they blame us for wanting to see proof with our own eyes?

Psychologists say that some people have a need to believe, that a belief in something grand fills a void in their lives or gives them something to hold on to. In a way, it comforts them and gives perspective to their daily toil on this old Earth.

So what if skeptics laugh at them for being suckers or self-deluders? What if the “suckers” just happen to be right?

That pretty much captures the essence of this UFO debate, doesn’t it?

A band of “true believers” knows what they’ve seen. Why they were eyewitnesses to history, they can’t say. All they’ve done is pass on what they’ve seen or experienced--ranging from sightings of aliens to abduction and extraterrestrial travel--and let others believe what they want.

“We don’t know who they were; we don’t know why they came; we only know they changed our view of the universe.”

Those were the words engraved on a plaque unveiled last week near Roswell, N.M., the holy land of the extraterrestrial debate. The remote ranch site where the plaque stands was the site of a crash 50 years ago last week that many people say proves the existence of alien beings.

A television program about the Roswell incident aired several times last week and included on-camera interviews with civilians, as well as law enforcement and former military personnel. They included the son of the Army Air Force officer who investigated the crash and, certain of what he knew, then told his public information officer at the Roswell Army Air Field to put out the story that a flying saucer had crashed.

The Roswell paper on July 8, 1947, headlined the story, “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region.”

The next day, the Pentagon debunked the story, claiming the debris was that of a weather balloon. The most recent Pentagon explanation for the “aliens” is that they were crash-test dummies.

Whether myth or reality, the story of what happened outside Roswell resurfaced in recent years in all its resplendent controversy.

A former master sergeant named Frank Kaufmann, who said he was at the crash site, has told of seeing one body outside the craft and another half-in, half-out. Three or four other bodies were inside. A mortician has told of a nurse at the base telling him the next day, while still crying as she had been the night before, that autopsies had been performed. A brigadier general has said he believed a Pentagon cover-up exists.

When Kaufmann, the alleged eyewitness to the aliens, was told there still is no verifiable proof of the existence of extraterrestrials, he conceded the point. “You either believe it or you don’t,” he said.

The program also featured the alleged filming of the autopsy of one of the aliens. When two experts who viewed the film were asked for their opinions, both suggested the film was a hoax.

Eyewitness accounts versus hoaxes. Faulty memories versus official cover-ups.

For years, the implausibility of the Roswell incident kept it under wraps. As one resident told a reporter in 1996, “People kept their mouths shut. There are still tender feelings about this and some people felt like Roswell didn’t need to be known as a kook city.”

The rest of us are left to sort it out. Even if we want to believe, how can we be sure? Why do we trust these long-ago accounts by an infinitesimal fraction of the population? Why should we not trust them? Are we even capable in the modern age of believing the seemingly unbelievable? Have we seen too many Hollywood special effects to believe our own eyes?

Are we relegated to a life of eternal skepticism, no matter how much evidence we get? Must we go on faith alone that UFOs exist?

Walter Haut, the military press officer who wrote the original press release in 1947, told an interviewer last year he didn’t know if there are extraterrestrials or not. If the government had proved the debris was from a weather balloon, he’d accept that, he said.

But, in concert with the age-old nagging nature of mankind, he added: “We want proof, one way or the other.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.