I have explored the fun-house mirrors of the world of UFOs for years. When you brush away the cobwebs of disinformation, snake oil, mistakes, and reports of remarkable flying machines that we make ourselves, we are left with credible people telling us what they saw. Fighter pilots, intelligence agents, commercial airline pilots have told me what they or their friends encountered, that the hardware is real and flew rings around them, leaving them in the dust. We're a small planet on the edge of a vast spiral of stars, the center of nothing but our own perspective. All we have is our small voice.
Digital media can amplify that voice or drown it out.
As Jane Wagner said, I get more and more cynical all the time and still can't keep up. Yet we humans are meant for a deeper truth, more truth than a thousand pages of a president lying to keep a sexual affair secret. Sex on the Net is a sideshow, keeping our eyes on the dancing bears. Islands in the Clickstream is a weekly column written by Richard Thieme exploring social and cultural dimensions of computer technology. Comments are welcome.