Perhaps it was written in the stars.
I first found out about the assignment that would change my way of thinking forever through an email sent to me by one of my fellow editors.
In the letter, which also included a link to the event that was taking place, Bridget mapped out what she was looking to see in the article, saying that she thought it was right up my alley.
“Kind of spacey,” “really weird,” and “kind of surreal,” were a few of the words used. These caught my interest immediately, and then I reached the attached item.
It was an email forwarded to her from Tony Tremblay advertising a lecture happening tomorrow night, a lecture with Stanton T. Friedman. The name rang a bell, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on where I had heard the name before.
Wasn’t he a scientist or something?
Then I saw the title of the lecture and found myself understanding a bit better what she meant by “spacey.”
The talk was called “Flying saucers and science.”
***
Later that night, I began to do some light research into Friedman and his work to get a better idea of what he was about.
I learned the basics. Friedman was born in New Jersey, went to the University of Chicago, and was a nuclear physicist. He had worked for companies like General Motors, Westinghouse, and General Electric, and had also worked on several classified government projects until their eventual cancellations.
Then, in 1958, he turned his attention towards the study of UFOs,specifically flying saucers.
Friedman was the first civilian to investigate the alleged UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico. In 1967, he gave his first lecture on the topic and has since spoken at over 600 colleges across the world, all the while researching the UFO phenomena, becoming one the most important figures in the field of ufology.
Realizing I had to be up in five hours, I decided to call it a night. Tomorrow would be interesting, there was no doubt about that.
***
As I walked to the lecture the next evening, I thought about what to expect from the man some called the “flying saucer physicist.”
What would he be like? How plausible would the arguments be that he’d put forth? How was I going to cover the lecture of a man who had been already written about so much up to that point?
The main question in my head, however, centered around what proof we would have.
My own opinions regarding aliens and UFOs were on the fence. There seemed something silly and closed-minded in the arguments of people who said the phenomenon was impossible, but some of the stories and theories on the other side seemed just as ridiculous.
When reading up on Friedman, it was clear something convinced him aliens were visiting our planet, and I wanted to know what that something was.
Arriving at Kinsella auditorium, I snatched up a seat near the front and began setting up my audio recorder. Then I snapped a picture of the projector screen facing the audience. The title?
“FLYING SAUCERS ARE REAL! AND THE BETTY HILL STAR MAP IS TOO!”
After rummaging through my bag for an ill-placed notebook and pen, I looked around the auditorium at the people gathered there.
Professors from both UNB and STU were peppered throughout, some displaying doubt and disapproval on their faces already.
There were families with young children who appeared eager for the man who knew about the aliens to take the stage.
Some high school students sat gossiping while others wondered aloud why their teachers were making them go to a lecture on a Wednesday night.
Then Tony Tremblay walked up to the podium to introduce our guest.
“He’s known for his work, and especially for his rigorous defence of thoughts and ideas that some would define as science fiction,” he said.
“His challenge to orthodoxy is as compelling as his ideas. If we can’t challenge orthodoxy at our universities, the place where knowledge is literally created, then where can we do so?”
Finally, formalities over with, Stanton T. Friedman took the stage.
***
Friedman does not look like a man pushing 80.
Though his hair is gray and his stride isn’t quick, there’s a surprising energy about him.
After flipping his microphone on and warmly greeting the audience, he began his lecture.
“After 54 years of studying and investigation, I’m convinced that the evidence is overwhelming that planet Earth is being visited by intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft,” he said, going on to clarify that some unidentified flying objects are manned alien spacecraft but most are not.
Friedman went on to classify the UFOs he was here to talk about.
“Typically not just a light in the sky, but something that’s appearance – like the absence of wings, tail, landing gear, absence of noise and visible external engines – coupled with its behaviour, means it wasn’t made here.”
Then he mentioned Betty Hill and her star map, mentioned in the title slide.
In 1961, Hill and her husband were allegedly abducted by aliens. Afterward, while undergoing hypnosis therapy, Betty Hill drew from memory a star map depicting Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli, two stars systems in the constellation Reticulum.
According to Hill, this was where their abductors said they were from and years later, after three dimensional sculptures were made using what she drew, her map was, according to Friedman, proved to be surprisingly accurate.
Unfortunately Friedman’s speech was sometimes disorganized. He seemed to go off track, either trying to give color and context to some stories or just losing his train of thought.
The most interesting point for me, despite the confusion, came when answered the question many people ask when debating UFO phenomena.
If something was visiting our planet, why haven’t they tried to contact us?
Friedman questioned whether we were actually worth contacting at all. First he talked about humanity’s barbaric nature, saying that perhaps the visitors were coming to keep tabs on their destructive neighbors.
“I hate to remind you, but there’s been a lot of wars.”
Then he cited how primitive we must be in comparison to a possibly far-advanced species.
“We’ve only had long distance radio since 1901. Before that we didn’t know anything about flight, about rockets, about DNA, about things nuclear, and a whole long list of stuff that we take for granted,” said Friedman.
“We need this sense of perspective to get off of our high horse.”
***
After Friedman finished, he answered questions from the audience.
A young man approached the microphone and asked Friedman if he had ever seen a UFO before.
“No,” Friedman answered. “I’ve never seen a neutron or a gamma ray either. Chased them for 14 years, never saw one. They’re real too.”
The answer surprised me, and immediately brought me back to when I was doing my research the night before.
I found it hard to sleep that night. I kept thinking about Friedman’s background and how unexpected it was. When you first hear that someone’s giving a lecture on the existence of aliens or, in his case, has devoted the better part of their life to the subject, it’s hard not to jump to the conclusion that there might be something wrong with them.
But I didn’t get that from Friedman.
Here was a man who was obviously intelligent and well educated, someone who didn’t appear to have trouble finding work in his field.
Yet he walked away from his profession to follow a path other scientists would never dream of going down.
To find out that this choice didn’t come about due to a close encounter, but instead because the conclusions he drew as a scientist made it very hard to ignore that perhaps he was onto something.
Finally, after answering a few more questions, Tremblay asked for a round of applause.
Then, as we all rose, the flying saucer physicist hovered out the door to sign books and shake hands.
***
I can remember long nights years ago spent in front of my babysitter, also known as the television, watching the adventures of FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully as they sifted through the X-Files, trying to find answers to the unexplainable.
Mulder, of course, was the “true believer” of the two, having experienced the phenomenon firsthand as a boy. Scully, a forensic scientist, was the level-headed skeptic, the realist and constant devil’s advocate.
During their monologues and banter what always seemed to catch my eye was the poster hanging behind Mulder’s desk. It displayed a grainy photo of a flying saucer hovering over some trees. Written underneath were the words “I want to believe.”
The lecture was over, and as I walked through the doors and into the night air, that phrase came to mind. Friedman left me with more questions than answers.
During the course of two hours, I realized something thanks to Stanton T. Friedman.
Many of us want to believe humanity isn’t alone in a void, that there’s more than just darkness past our skies. It’s something felt by more than just believers in alien visitors. Sometimes we forget that, but I think that that willingness to be open represents one of humanity’s greatest potentials.
When we want to believe in the possibilities of ideas, whole worlds can open up to us.
