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so I'm sitting out here and a late

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afternoon here in central Pennsylvania

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in the spring the Sun is out

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after a what seemed to be a very long

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winter and when you do this and you go

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out here finally and you can actually

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sit outside and in a shirt without a

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jacket you really appreciate the Sun you

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really appreciate the blue skies and it

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makes me sort of think about the kind of

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human and and and environmental aspects

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that surround the UFO phenomenon namely

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how we as human beings relate to the

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skies above us

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certainly dating back to ancient times

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right

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the skies the heavens were linked to and

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always associated with the gods or God

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and therefore things that happened in

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the heavens particularly unusual things

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like comets and meteors always always

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we're seen as in some way having to have

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some kind of meaning they were seen as

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communications wholly communications

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from the deity or deities that existed

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or was seen as existing at the time and

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in many ways I think that hits it's

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something that I find really essentially

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and and fundamentally human about the

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UFO phenomenon about the way we interact

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and think about the environment around

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us and particularly the ways in which we

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imagine and try to map out ways of

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interacting with outer space because

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what to me is essential to understand

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when thinking about the UFO

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phenomenon is that we cannot think about

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it nor can we think about outer space or

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the sky or the Sun in any other way but

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through our eyes through our eyes as

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human beings who come to those kinds of

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perceptions could come to those kinds of

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insights those kinds of speculations in

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ways that inherently are always going to

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be connected to the world we live in

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here what we believe is happening above

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us has always been deeply inflected by

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what's going on here below us I mean

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take the nineteenth century for instance

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right you're kind of a long way away now

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from those ancient and medieval worlds

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where unusual things in the skies might

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be associated simply with the acts of

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God we get into a much more secular

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world a much more materialistic world

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and yet this world too starts to project

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its own kinds of meanings onto the skies

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above them and onto objects that they

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believe might be in the sky namely in

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particular this is the age in the 19th

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century of the creation of all sorts of

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new fabulous inventions the steam boat

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the locomotive photography telegraphy

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ocean liners by the end of the century

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right

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all of these are touted at the time is

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modern wonders they themselves become

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the things that are seen as marvelous as

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wondrous but they are now our inventions

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they are things that we made and so

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there seems to be in fact by the end of

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the 19th century for many people many

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observers at the time really perhaps no

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end no limit to what we might achieve

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and so the great dream of the 19th

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century really circles around and really

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rotates around this possibility of human

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flight when will we conquer it we've

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done it with balloons already they are

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saying but by the mid part of the 19th

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century

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but will we be able to do this as human

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beings by creating contraptions that can

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fly through the air and when you hear

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people talk about those possibly they

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imagine it like the ways they did when

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they observe the steamships right they

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saw and they talked about these

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possibilities when they talked about it

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they talked about it in terms of the

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ways in which an airship might be

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powered by steam engines right or

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through the sails of ships similar to

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what you see on the high seas and so

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when we move further into the early 20th

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century what do people start to describe

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when they describe sightings of strange

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objects we start to hear descriptions

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that sound like Zeppelin's right the

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dirigible is that the Germans are

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creating around the early part at the

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end of the 19th in the early part of the

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20th century here so what we do and what

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we see in that instance is a similar

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thing always talking about in the past

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there is always going to be this way in

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which we can only understand and

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perceive and think and imagine what the

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great inventions of the modern world our

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interactions and our thinking towards

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and about what is beyond this particular

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world in which we live in and how it

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might expand beyond that to other worlds

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and that's exactly what you see when the

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Flying Saucer phenomenon takes shape at

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the end of World War two and the

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beginning of the Cold War a similar way

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because in a similar fashion of the 19th

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century all sorts of new technologies

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all sorts of new ways of thinking about

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not just flight but thinking about how

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we might we might be able to create

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machines and technologies that can do

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things that exceed our wildest

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imaginations here and if we can do that

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then what might an intelligent

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civilization even far more advanced than

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us what might they be capable of

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that to me then is what connects us

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today people fifty years ago with the

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people who are in the ancient world we

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may view the world through different

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eyes we certainly do

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but what connects us is always this idea

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that when we approach and think about

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and project on to the world some sense

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unusual anomalous kinds of things we

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inherently have to come back to the

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world we live in the world we've grown

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up in the world we're a part of it are

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making we turn to we can only turn to

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that which is available to us our

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culture our values our ideas that we've

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inherited that are part of our legacy

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but that we live with an embrace today

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every society has invariably done that

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that can be seen perhaps as a limitation

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as a problem I see it differently I see

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it is that is it what it means to assent

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to essentially means to be a human being

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we are meaning makers we seek to make

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meaning and understand things that are

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sometimes difficult or downright

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impossible to make meaning of but we

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seek that out and we will keep doing

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this for the foreseeable future

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so if you ask me what makes the UFO

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phenomenon a distinctively human kind of

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problem it is that what it does is that

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what what so many other things have done

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throughout history it forces us it