The Aliens Have Landed And We Don't Even Care

My 12-year-old self got incredibly excited this week.

Hi,

I was an obsessive kid. If I liked something, I really liked it. Nothing came in halves with me. It was all or nothing.

And throughout the 90s — and into some of the 00s — The X-Files was my obsession.

It was one of the first shows on network TV to have a sprawling, epic story scattered throughout its multitude of seasons (there are 11, but in my mind, there are really just six), with each standalone bottle episode exploring its own mad world.

(If any of you are cold and want to dive in, can I please suggest Home — season 4, episode 2 — and Jose Chung’s From Outer Space — season 3, episode 20.)

Jose Chung’s From Outer Space.

It’s my honest belief that my X-Files obsession fundamentally changed my brain chemistry, installing a sense of wonder in my core, and changing the way I saw the world. I’d almost liken it to Black Mirror for its ability to play with outlandish ideas that could be real.

And the aliens. Yes, the aliens.

At its core, the X-Files was a show about the existence of extraterrestrial life — seen through the eyes of a skeptic (Dana Scully) and a believer (Fox Mulder). It was the biggest, most mind-bending idea one could think of in the 90s. There was nothing more epic or exciting to think about, and somehow The X-Files made the proposition seem grounded and real.

And I was obsessed with it all. I collected everything — and one of my proudest days was completing my set of X-Files collector’s cards. I hate to think how much I spent on endless packs of cards, looking for the elusive ones. I still have that set, back in New Zealand, hidden away in some dusty box.

Then — I grew up. The world moved on. 9/11 happened and various wars and I left school and got a job and the world seemed to get stranger somehow. And one day the guy from The Apprentice became president, a pandemic changed all of our lives, QAnon infested people’s minds with brainworms, and none of us could seem to agree on any kind of objective reality anymore.

Sitting here in June of 2023, it’s difficult to find a headline that can truly surprise anymore.

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I think of the kid and his X-Files cards and that sense of breathless wonder. And so I logged onto eBay to see if anyone was selling those cards; those cards that I’d spent years collecting. And they were — everywhere. I saw my set of cards, and then I saw an auction that had my set of cards, plus the second set, plus the third, plus all the special reflective foil cards I’d never managed to find and good God: All of them were just $20.

I spent $20.

And this week, they arrived.

It was like time travel.

The kid part of my brain woke up again. Those foil cards I’d never managed to find! They were all here!

On and on and on.

And on. And there, amongst hundreds of cards, that big alien story documented on pieces of cardboard. All these images are etched into my brain — I’d just stopped thinking about them. Thinking about the wonder.

Me, 14, it’s all I ever thought about before the world moved on. Aliens. Aliens, here on earth, visiting us. Crashed crafts, recovered bodies.

And then, yesterday, this:

Former intelligence official David Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency, has alleged that the US has craft of non-human origin.

Information on these vehicles is being illegally withheld from Congress, Grusch told the Debrief. Grusch said when he turned over classified information about the vehicles to Congress he suffered retaliation from government officials. He left the government in April after a 14-year career in US intelligence.

That was from The Guardian, but the original story is on The Debrief — and is a pretty mind-blowing read:

Grusch said the recoveries of partial fragments through and up to intact vehicles have been made for decades through the present day by the government, its allies, and defense contractors. Analysis has determined that the objects retrieved are “of exotic origin (non-human intelligence, whether extraterrestrial or unknown origin) based on the vehicle morphologies and material science testing and the possession of unique atomic arrangements and radiological signatures,” he said.

In filing his complaint, Grusch is represented by a lawyer who served as the original Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG).

“We are not talking about prosaic origins or identities,” Grusch said, referencing information he provided Congress and the current ICIG. “The material includes intact and partially intact vehicles.”

As I stared at my X-Files cards, trapped between 12-year-old me and 40-year-old me, I felt a mixture of things.

There was excitement, puzzlement, curiosity and of course a healthy dose of skepticism (some headlines today: Pentagon denies secret UFO retrieval program after whistleblower bombshell).

But part of me also felt — numb to it. I sent a message to my friend who loves this sort of thing. It read: Um the aliens though. What do you think?

He’d missed the news. Missed the news that “The US has craft of non-human origin.”

Suddenly 2023 sort of banged into focus, and I realised it didn’t even matter if David Charles Grusch’s allegations were fact or fiction. It’s been nearly 30 years since The X-Files hit TV screens, and we’re in a different place. We’re in a different reality.

I get the feeling alien craft could arrive Independence Day style and hover over various world monuments and the best we could muster up would be a collective shrug. Ah “meh” as we scroll onto the next thing.

As for me — I want to try and hold onto those feelings of excitement, puzzlement and curiosity.

At the same time — I think the idea of aliens visiting us in crafts is unlikely. We’ve done to extraterrestrial life what we’ve done to God: Personified him us as, and personified that they give a crap. Humans are arrogant like that; we assume someone cares.

So we imagined God as us. So Jesus becomes a white guy with a beard. And aliens drive vehicles like we drive cars. God and aliens? Chances are both are like a motorway is to an ant. They’ll be right there in front of us, but we won’t see them. Our brains aren’t built for it. An ant has its own complex life and goals — but it can’t conceptualise the motorway by the anthill. The cars and the people whizzing by don’t exist to an ant. That’s God and aliens to us, I reckon.

But of course part of me, the 12-year-old kid part, still gets excited that Charles Grusch might be right: The part of me that obsessively collected those cards for years.

Less so, the 40-year-old that bought them all in 5 seconds for $20.

But these last few days I’ve accessed that kid again, and I’m grateful for that. I wanna try and let some of it sink back in. The wonder bit.

David.