Rick Deckard said:
Why would an ETI bother teaching a 'contactee' anything?
Why would they give a contactee information about the future or their star system or anything else of importance when *they know* full well that the majority of people on this planet are gonna take very little notice?
Wouldn't a public 'demonstration' of their technology be more effective at getting our attention rather than pushing a 'nobody' forward with the 'news' of impending disaster?
I'm just thinking out loud really - abductions sort of make sense to me, but actively 'grooming' contactees makes very little sense in my eyes...
Say, Rick, didn't you see 'Contact'? And I quote:
Hadden: I've had a long time to make enemies, doctor. So many governments, business interests, even religious leaders that would like to see me depart this Earth. I'll grant them their wish soon enough. But before I do, I wish to make a small contribution. A final gesture of good will to the people of this little planet who have given... from whom I have taken so much.
Ellie: You found the primer.
Hadden: Clever girl. Lights. Pages and pages of data. Over 63,000 in all. And on the perimeter of each...
Ellie: Alignment symbols, registration marks, but they don't line up.
Hadden: They do, if you think like a Vegan. An alien intelligence's got to be more advanced. That means efficiency functioning on multiple levels and... in multiple dimensions.
The believers might argue that "You can't possibly think like them, so how on earth can you even try to understand their motives, Rick, in human terms?"
I'd concede that on the one hand, their probably right. Reticulans and Vegans would have their own set of principles, methods, and modalities, with regard to how they deal with humans. Believers might continue their dialog with Rick as follows: "Maybe they wouldn't take the route of public demonstration, Rick. Why wouldn't they pursue normal average people for their training and communication purposes? Maybe they aren't the bad guys after all. Maybe, they're thousands of years smarter than you and I, so why even try to understand their alien practices here on earth?"
On the other hand, I think that YOU are absolutely right. A sensible person absolutely must approach claims of contact with a very high degree of skepticism. That is the only way you can approach this subject, if your purpose is to get to the truth.
Further, your point is well made. These claims do not seem logical, do they? Carl Sagan speculated, in his book
Contact, that Vegans were incredibly cryptic in how they got their message to us, requiring humans to reach multiple levels, multiple dimensions of efficiency in our analysis of their information, before we would be prepared to obtain that message, and use it to reach contact with them. This is just a fictional story, of course, but it does come from the mind of the late, great Carl Sagan. For me, probably the most useful speculations come from the minds of scientists, with vast knowledge and insight, venturing forward into the realm of creativity.
So your logic seems to hold water with other bright minds who have explored this subject in the past. You are in good company.
I'll add my own personal sensibilities: The alien explanation, is not the only explanation for contactees It might not make logical sense taken at face value, but perhaps it makes perfect sense, however, if you are a creative human-being, faced with the impending possibility of earthly disasters in our future.
So let's consider this scenario: How does a person, with a vivid imagination, cope with their own fear of holocaust? How do artists deal with their emotions? How do actors come to terms with their fears? What do musicians do, when faced with a moral sense of obligation? How do the great Authors of years gone by, address their duties and responsibilities to the greater good? These creative minds take their given talents, and use them to generate works of art: Fiction, Paintings, Songs, Characters. They don't do this because they want to. They do this because they have to. Creativity tends to run parallel with emotion. Emotion cannot be stored in the human mind forever. It must be expressed. It must come out. It must be projected into the real world. Once a creative mind has taken that emotion, and projected it into a work of art, the mind can be free to then generate new emotions, which become new works of art, and thus, the cycle continues.
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for those with vivid imaginations, who do not have outlets for their emotions, well they would likely turn to other means and methods. If you were a highly creative individual, with a vivid imagination, but you did not have the same talents as artists, musicians, writers, and actors, and if you had not yet learned how to take your creativity and apply it in a healthy way, well it is quite likely that you will turn to arguably less productive methods, in order to expel those emotions out of you.
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So, if your fear is nuclear holocaust, you might have dreams; you might go through regressive hypnosis; you might simply have a precognitive sense of pending doom. In short, you might be prophetic. Does that make it true? Maybe, maybe not. But, one possible explanation that must be explored by any sensible person, is the possibility that what you are experiencing, is a misplaced creation of your imagination. And, in the case of many contactees, and their highly suspect claims, I think it would most prudent to explore this explanation, as well as the others.