THE HUMAN ENIGMA: WHAT IF WE ASSUME UFOS DO NOT EXIST?

 

Let's do a small, fun thought experiment and place ourselves in the viewpoint that many skeptics have defended for years. Let's assume that UFOs do not exist and for a moment adopt the rationalist perspective to address this mystery. To simplify our experiment, we will set aside all the elements that usually occupy the center of the ufological debate in recent times: the supposed physical evidence, radar detections, blurry filmings, traces on the ground, and even the omnipresent Roswell case. Each of these aspects generates endless discussions and contradictory readings that, instead of clarifying the panorama, tend to muddy it even more (besides being open to more possibilities). Therefore, we are not interested in entering that territory in any way.

What we propose is to move towards a much firmer and undisputed area for both parties: human testimonies. That which remains standing even when material evidence is discarded; that which both skeptics and believers admit: that people recount "incredible" or "very strange" things. Similarly, we decide to exclude from this exercise incidents that have been correctly explained or are the result of inventions, whether by the witnesses themselves or by some investigators, as they do not contribute anything to the core of the problem we are interested in addressing here.

No one doubts that for decades, the UFO phenomenon has fueled the collective imagination, occupying newspaper headlines, books, and documentaries, presenting itself as a challenge to known science. From Kenneth Arnold's initial sighting in 1947 to close encounters reported on different continents with flying saucers and occupants, thousands of people claim to have seen, felt, or experienced something that defies conventional explanations. And, in many cases, their accounts coincide in striking details despite the witnesses not knowing each other, living in different contexts, and lacking apparent motivations to invent their stories. But the unusual thing is that it happens.

But let's start from that initial premise: UFOs have no real basis; that is, there are no extraterrestrial ships or visitors from other worlds or dimensions. If this were the case, a troubling question would still remain to be resolved: why do so many people, apparently sane and without signs of mental disorders, claim to have lived experiences that they believe are profoundly real?

Immediately, skeptics resort to their preferred arsenal of explanations: psychology, sociology, confusion, deception, or mental disorders. And it is that various scholars of the mind have been pointing out for years that the human brain is not a perfect instrument, like a hard drive that stores information perfectly, but rather a creative interpreter, capable of filling in gaps with its imagination and even seeing or remembering events that did not happen exactly as we perceive them. We tend to look for patterns, complete missing information, and grant coherence to ambiguous stimuli in order to interpret them. From lights in the sky to strange sounds, the cultural context can mold the interpretation of an event. This does not mean that the witnesses are lying. On the contrary, many of them are fully convinced that they experienced something extraordinary, supernatural, or extraterrestrial. Researchers often describe these people as balanced individuals, showing no signs of deception and with a solid account that they often integrate into their belief system.

Therein lies one of the skeptic's great arguments: the sincerity of the witness does not guarantee the veracity of the event, at least in its literalness, but, importantly, if it comes to that, it does not completely invalidate it either. Because the witness is reporting something. If one thing has become perfectly clear in the last 8 decades, it is that the UFO phenomenon moves in an intermediate territory where the subjective weighs more than the objective, although, occasionally, physical or physiological evidence is also presented that is difficult to evaluate and continues to baffle experts, but which we will set aside as promised. Because skeptics may eliminate the existence of the phenomenon, but not the extensive casuistry (case history). Here we are no longer talking about UFOs themselves, but about the accounts: thousands of testimonies that cannot be erased from the equation, even if we objected that flying saucers are the product of fantasy. These experiences narrated by thousands of people would still demand an explanation, reminding us that, beyond the objective reality of the phenomenon, the subjective reality of those who claim to have lived it remains an undeniable fact.

If UFOs were a chimera in any of their anomalous aspects, from the extraterrestrial to the most paraufological or Fortean theses, psychology would put at least three major propositions on the table, although none would completely resolve the puzzle of the casuistry:

Memory: Memory does not function like a video recording, but as a continuous reconstruction. A witness can fill in gaps with familiar cultural elements, especially when trying to make sense of an unknown event.

Perception Under Pressure: In situations of stress, surprise, or fear, the brain can interpret ambiguous stimuli as threats or anomalies. A flash, an airplane, or an atmospheric phenomenon can be transformed, from the personal experience, into something completely different.

Cultural Contagion: Cinema, literature, and the media have created a shared visual code about "the extraterrestrial". Even people from different countries can describe similar experiences because they all draw from the same collective imaginary.

But evidently, there are pieces missing here to close the case before a judge. This scenario that we have presented in this essay, despite offering explanatory elements, does not completely resolve the enigma. Evidently, and we can agree on this, the casuistry does not necessarily demonstrate the arrival of extraterrestrials to our planet, but it would reveal the existence of a fertile territory for psychology, sociology, and anthropology still to be explored. It would be necessary to understand why thousands of people, in different eras and places, have constructed experiences so vivid, so coherent with each other, and so profoundly significant.

What kind of visionary state do these people experience? Because, despite numerous attempts, skeptics have not yet identified any syndrome, disorder, or psychological mechanism capable of fully explaining how someone can "hallucinate" in such an elaborate, sustained, and, in some cases, even shared way with other witnesses. There is no diagnostic category that includes episodes of hyper-realistic daydreaming that generate structured and coherent visions with such a high degree of emotional impact. And this absence of a clinical explanation leaves open a fundamental question: if there is no pathological framework that explains these experiences, then, what human, cognitive, cultural, or perhaps something yet to be identified, process is operating at their origin?

Perhaps that is, in the end, the true challenge, regardless of the existence or not of aliens. The human mind appears to be the key to understanding these liminal phenomena that are situated between our Cartesian reality and a very different one, but which would have little or nothing to do with their literalness offered before our eyes. They are manifestations that contain too much of the human, as if they were acting through a psychological filter capable of reinterpreting or "translating" an unknown stimulus into images, archetypes, and narratives according to our cultural expectations. From this perspective, we would not be dealing with a simple perceptual error, but with a more complex process in which the original experience, whatever causes it, is molded, amplified, or distorted by the witness's own mental apparatus. The final experience, the one that is verbalized, would be a kind of mixture of external stimulus and internal construction, an encounter where the real and the imagined intertwine until they become inseparably unexpected.

In fact, it is worth noting that traditional skepticism has tended to deny the very existence of any anomalous manifestation because the proposed explanations have never convinced them: neither the extraterrestrial hypotheses in ufology, nor the supernatural readings of Marian apparitions, nor the Fortean interpretations of unusual events. The focus of their criticism is usually on the conclusions, on the final label assigned to what is observed, and not on the possible triggering phenomenon of these visions. Thus, they casually dismiss that extraterrestrials are visiting Earth, that the Virgin Mary appears before a shepherd, or that someone can encounter a spirit at a crossroads, but they rarely dwell on the obvious: the accounts exist, the experiences are narrated, and these experiences form part of a persistent body that remains over time, regardless of the interpretive framework assigned to them by researchers, witnesses, or believers.

To conclude, we can say that the distortions—that is, the ufological, Marian, supernatural, or Fortean scenarios—however erroneous they may be, do not necessarily invalidate the existence of a real trigger behind them. In any case, they remind us that the important thing is not to deny the explicit content of the experiences, but to understand how, and why, the human mind decodes them in that particular way. Then we will be able to undertake an in-depth, unbiased study of the origin of these manifestations.

JOSE ANTONIO CARAVACA

UFOZNAUTS: THE MYSTERY OF UFO ENTITIES

 

For eighty years, we have been calling them crew members, occupants, humanoids, extraterrestrial biological entities. And for eight decades, none of those labels has fit quite right with what witnesses report. That is why I proposed a new term to define those strange creatures and beings associated with flying saucers. The invention blends UFO with Oz, in a clear reference to L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and also includes a nod to an earlier term coined by researcher Jenny Randles. The reference to the book is not a literary whim. In the novel, the great and powerful Oz turns out to be an elderly man hidden behind a curtain, pulling levers to appear as a terrifying deity. The suspicion raised by this new term follows the same line: that a large part of what we call UFO crew members is also an imposture set up using the cultural materials of each era—spaceships, silver suits, diving helmets, ray guns—so that people see precisely what their time expects them to see.

A ufoznaut, to be more precise, is that real or perceived entity that appears linked to a sighting or an encounter with an unidentified object—which also includes lights and flashes—and whose nature is not fully resolved by the traditional extraterrestrial hypothesis. What is interesting is that these beings show a very clear continuity with figures that were already there long before anyone talked about spaceships: fairies, daimons, Marian apparitions, incubi, beast-men, spirits, ghosts. The proposed term does not force one to decide what these beings are made of; it works equally well whether one believes they are projections of the witness's mind, prefers to think of other dimensions, or leans toward the archetypal realm handled by Jung. Rather, what it does is change the question. Instead of asking where they come from, it invites us to ask what function they serve and under what disguise they reappear time and again throughout history. If you strip any account of an abduction or close encounter of its modern stage props—spaceships, astronaut suits, weird technology—what remains is strikingly similar to what shepherds, monks, and peasants have been telling for centuries. Lights that appear and disappear without explanation, figures uttering disconnected phrases that lead nowhere, beings that enter and leave our reality as if stepping through a door only they can see. The aesthetic changes with each generation, but the underlying pattern remains fixed.

This is neither an isolated idea nor something fresh out of the oven. Ufologist John Keel, the same man who investigated the Mothman case in West Virginia during the late 1960s, reached a similar conclusion and coined his own term, "ultraterrestrials," to talk about entities capable of shape-shifting and disguising themselves as whatever each culture considers supernatural at any given moment—now demons, now men in black, now flying saucer pilots. A few years earlier, Jacques Vallée, the French astrophysicist who inspired François Truffaut's character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, published Passport to Magonia, a book that carefully compares accounts of UFO encounters with old fairy kidnappings from European folklore, finding the exact same ingredients: abductions, tests, physical interactions, relationships with these beings. Neither Keel nor Vallée thought the phenomenon was pure fantasy. They thought it was real and that, precisely because it was, it did not fit inside the astronaut suit we had placed upon it. British writer Patrick Harpur went even further in his book Daimonic Reality, where he argues that fairies, UFOs, Bigfoots, Marian apparitions, and ghosts belong to the same sphere that the Neoplatonists called the World Soul (Anima Mundi)—something that is neither entirely objective nor entirely invented. Harpur points out something that anyone who has read comparative folklore notices right away: that the old fairies who appeared as small humanoids in green coats have transformed, generation after generation, into humanoids in silver astronaut suits.

This is where the ufoznaut enters as something more than a traveler from another planet: an inhabitant of that borderland between the real, the dreamlike, the imaginal, and the supernatural—neither fully physical nor fully imaginary—moving through that murky terrain where the psychological, the religious, and the Forteana step on each other's heels all the time. Some even go further and speak of these beings as genuine psychopomps, mediators between two worlds that have been colliding forever. One does not need to swallow the most mystical part of the argument to recognize the underlying issue: we remain determined to solve through biology and physics a phenomenon that perhaps belongs, at least in part, to the realm of human consciousness and how it processes what it does not understand.

The morpheme "OZ" is not inserted into the word by accident. It points directly to the mechanism by which a manifestation presents itself with an aesthetic of authority or high technology tailored to what the observer of the time expects to see, while hiding its true nature beneath. Viewed this way, the ufoznaut ceases to be merely a traveler from another planet and becomes a form of otherness that, depending on the era and the cultural framework in which it appears, puts on whatever disguise that context offers as the most credible or terrifying. 

This scenic imposture points to a broader underlying problem: the role of the perceiver's consciousness in decoding and—more than likely—interacting with the phenomenon. It is not merely a matter of the interpretive bias inherent in any human experience—an obvious factor already assumed in all observation—but something of greater significance: the possibility that the phenomenon itself adapts to the sociocultural parameters of the witness, actively assuming that personalization in the way it manifests. In other words, the phenomenon would not be limited to being interpreted differently depending on who observes it, but would seem to show itself as malleable to the presence of the witness, adjusting its aesthetics, its symbolic content, and its mode of communication to the frame of reference of the person perceiving it.

 

JOSE ANTONIO CARAVACA

TRAPPED IN LITERALITY: THE QUICKSAND OF UFO THEORIZING

For decades, much of the theorizing around the UFO phenomenon has rested on ground that was thought to be solid and unshakable. For many ufologists, the analysis of thousands of recorded incidents worldwide seemed to offer a straightforward interpretation, pointing to a clear and undeniable conclusion: we were dealing with physical, technological machines piloted by intelligent beings visiting our planet. The premise was simple—if they weren’t human, then the only question left was: where did they come from?

But soon, something fundamental was forgotten: the cases themselves.

Once a broad overview had been drawn from hundreds of reports, it was assumed there was no need to dig deeper into individual incidents or revisit the details. Many even dismissed the stranger cases as irrelevant, not worth the time.

The core idea of the UFO phenomenon was reduced to a literal reading of the simplest accounts. But that approach carried a serious risk: it stripped away the nuances found in most experiences and obscured the true scale of the phenomenon.

Thus, the conclusion that UFOs must be crafts and their occupants intelligent beings—taken almost as unquestionable truth—may actually be a mirage that has limited our understanding. A great many interpretations about the nature of flying saucers have, in reality, been built on quicksand.

Most hypotheses—whether extraterrestrials from distant star systems, intraterrestrials, interdimensional entities, time travelers, or descendants of ancient civilizations like Atlantis—rest on an unstable foundation: taking sightings literally, as evidence of physical craft and beings. This does not mean denying the UFO phenomenon itself, but questioning the assumption that what is seen must necessarily be a material reality, a tangible object like a plane or a mountain.

And why should we doubt the spectacle put on by flying saucers? Some might ask.

Because the doubts are more than justified.

The body of UFO reports worldwide presents a picture that is far more complex, puzzling, and often incompatible with literalist interpretations that ignore the possibility of decoys or sensory illusions.

Perhaps what we are dealing with is not an “intrinsic reality” at all, but something that merely presents itself as real. In other words, what we see may be a construction of perception, entangled with an unknown phenomenon—one that doesn’t necessarily involve machines or visitors carrying galactic passports. Perhaps what we’re witnessing is a kind of sensory screen.

Witness accounts provide no certainty that the “objects” or “beings” observed correspond to an objective reality. After eight decades of research, doubts remain.

Reports frequently describe events that defy our physical and temporal expectations: appearances that vanish without a trace, constant shape-shifting, inconsistent observations, dramatic perceptual shifts in witnesses, and links with psychic or parapsychological phenomena.

And then there is the connection between UFOs and other extraordinary manifestations recorded throughout history: religious apparitions, encounters with supernatural beings, mysterious lights in the sky, or folklore phenomena. These parallels suggest the phenomenon is not exclusively modern but has adapted itself across centuries, reshaping to fit the cultural beliefs of each era. This makes it difficult to take observations at face value; the true nature of the phenomenon may be far more ambiguous and complex than conventional explanations admit.

Ultimately, what we perceive with our senses may not match objective reality at all, but instead may be altered, filtered, or distorted.

This means the dominant theories about UFOs have largely been built on a “sensory screen” produced by the interaction between witnesses and the phenomenon itself: the idea that “something” or “someone” is visiting us aboard physical machines made of nuts and bolts. For decades, this mechanistic and technological outlook shaped ufological thought, directing interpretations toward tangible space visitors while sidelining other possibilities.

And under that powerful framework, almost any origin story could fit: starships from Orion, dimensional portals, lost civilizations, humans from the future. Yet none of these conjectures adequately explains the weirder corners of the UFO archives beyond a superficial level.

This shallow narrative of “ships and beings” has also fueled some of the more curious directions in UFO theorizing. From this perspective, ufologists have interpreted the supposed actions and behaviors of “saucer occupants” through the lens of cultural bias. Thus, we hear of civilizations bound by “cosmic treaties” not to interfere with less advanced species, of genetic experiments on humans, of time travelers conducting anthropological studies, or of interdimensional entities manipulating us for sinister ends. But these stories simply project our archetypes and expectations onto the phenomenon, reinforcing a literalist view.

Instead of bringing us closer to the truth, this synthesis has created a tangled web of interpretations where imagination often substitutes for evidence.

The more ufologists speculate about the motives and actions of supposed UFO occupants, the more elaborate the theoretical scaffolding becomes. Over time, this scaffolding solidifies into a self-supporting system of beliefs. Once entrenched, it becomes difficult to abandon—even when many incidents contradict it. This dynamic explains why new approaches struggle to gain traction: accepting them would require dismantling the entire framework of ideas, a vast belief system that not only assigns extraterrestrial, interdimensional, or ultraterrestrial origins to the phenomenon, but also builds upon it with sprawling narratives about genetic experiments, cosmic guardianship, or malevolent controlling entities.

Even scientists and outside researchers who occasionally engage with the subject often fall into the same trap. While their intention may be to apply academic rigor, they usually reinforce the same surface-level idea: that UFOs must be “crafts and beings.” In doing so, they add layers of confusion instead of clarity, when the actual evidence suggests something far less concrete and far more elusive.

Today, many scholars argue that the real challenge is to shed old assumptions and re-examine the evidence with fresh eyes—ones open to unknown dimensions of reality, aspects of human consciousness, or even undiscovered principles of physics and perception. If the UFO phenomenon has shown us anything, it is its ability to overwhelm our categories of thought and resist simplistic explanations. After more than seventy years of investigation and debate, we are still no closer to a definitive understanding. The UFO enigma not only unsettles our most basic explanations—it forces us to rethink what we mean by reality itself.

In the end, any hypothesis that does not rest on a deep and rigorous examination of the ufological record will remain vague, partial, and biased—lacking the foundation to stand against the abundant evidence that has been collected over decades.

JOSE ANTONIO CARAVACA

UFOs: WHO IS REALLY VISITING US?

In the eternal discussion about UFOs, some questions persist and remain unclear: Why do "they" allow themselves to be seen? And, even more unsettling, what could their true intentions be? 

The Distortion Theory presents a different view from traditional interpretations. From this perspective, the supposed "craft" that thousands of witnesses claim to have observed wouldn't necessarily be independent physical objects, but rather complex symbolic interfaces between the phenomenon and the witnesses. What we observe during a UFO encounter would be a kind of decoding, a bridge between the external and the internal, that attempts to make something that does not belong to our habitual reality comprehensible through images or archetypes. Therefore, we could say that what is visualized adapts, through our own filters, to each era, to our culture, and to our collective expectations, functioning as a vehicle to transmit a "humanized" message.

In this way, in the Middle Ages, the inexplicable manifested as visions of angels, demons, and other Fortean creatures. In the 19th century, under the influence of the balloon and airship revolution, the skies became populated with mysterious airships. And with the dazzling space age, in the mid-20th century, came the iconic "flying saucers." And in the 21st century, the phenomenon adopts forms closer to our contemporary imagination: drones, intelligent lights, or simply as non-human intelligences.

Therefore, we would have to rethink whether everything we have labeled as encounters with advanced civilizations might actually be a kind of cultural projection that the phenomenon uses to interact with our minds.

This same perspective helps answer another one of the great unknowns: What intentions might these supposed visitors have? The Distortion Theory does not contemplate the existence of multiple alien races orbiting our planet, each with its own purposes and intentions—a hypothesis that, furthermore, would be statistically improbable. What we interpret as "benevolent civilizations" or "cosmic guides" would, rather, be the result of our attempt to make sense of a phenomenon that seems to absorb, reflect, and amplify human archetypes in a process of co-creation that transcends the limits of the imaginable. These manifestations are not fixed or autonomous entities, but expressions permeable to our own perception, shaped by interaction, expectation, and the cultural filter of each observer. Thus, the phenomenon presents itself as neither benevolent nor malevolent, but essentially neutral, molded by the observer and their cultural context. It would not be an invasion or a hidden cosmic plan, but a mirror in the sky that reflects in a distorted way what the human being fears, hopes for, longs for, and imagines from forces it does not understand and with which it has been grappling since the dawn of humanity.

Meanwhile, on a more subtle level, perhaps behind the scenes of these hypnotic staged events, the phenomenon could be operating silently, causing psychological and perceptual transformations in individuals. These changes, difficult to detect immediately, could be fostering a slow but profound reconfiguration of consciousness. More than a collective phenomenon in the strict sense, although it inevitably touches upon that too, it seems to operate in the intimacy of each individual, in that inner space where perception and the experience of the transcendent intertwine.

Perhaps its purpose is not so much to transform humanity as a whole, but to accompany, provoke, or catalyze a process of internal actualization in those who manage to connect with this reality. It is as if the phenomenon were seeking a personal dialogue, a silent conversation with the mind and spirit of every human being willing to look beyond the limits of their own map of reality.

Thus, in its apparent neutrality, the phenomenon acts as a dynamic disruptor that stimulates in each person the possibility of expanding consciousness, of rethinking oneself, of remembering something that has always been there, waiting to be recognized. Perhaps connecting with one's own soul. What makes us human.

JOSE ANTONIO CARAVACA

THE DISTORTION THEORY: A NEW FRONTIER FOR UNDERSTANDING ENCOUNTERS WITH THE "IMPOSSIBLE"

For decades, the UFO phenomenon has been approached mainly from two major explanatory frameworks: the classic extraterrestrial model, which posits that reports point to the clandestine visits of beings from other worlds, and the psychosocial model, which interprets sightings as cultural constructs, perceptual errors, hoaxes, or modern mythologies (substitutes for religion). However, both approaches have shown limitations: one tends toward excessive credulity without conclusive evidence, while the other toward a skeptical reductionism that ignores the richness and complexity of the phenomenon.

In this context, the Distortion Theory would represent a middle path. It does not deny the reality of the phenomenon, but it redefines it beyond its apparent literalness. It does not reject witness testimony but reinterprets it, understanding that what is perceived is not necessarily what one thinks they see.

1. THE CORE OF DISTORTION: AN INDUCED AND PERSONALIZED EXPERIENCE

The Distortion Theory (DT) proposes an idea as simple as it is controversial: close encounters are real—yes—but what we see is not. They are not spaceships or biological beings. What the witness perceives and feels is a kind of immersive projection, a vivid experience that seems to come from outside but actually arises in part from their own mind. Still, it is triggered by an “external agent” that, so far, remains a mystery but operates from what could be considered hidden portions of reality.

We would be facing the same phenomenon that witnesses have interpreted throughout history through specific sociocultural filters. In fact, Kenneth Arnold’s sighting in 1947 offered a new interpretive framework, a worthy successor to fairies, ladies in white, or demons of antiquity. The trigger of these experiences—about which nothing is known except for its ability to interact with the human mind in unimaginable ways—uses the witness’s reservoir of memories, ideas, emotions, and beliefs to build a unique and unrepeatable experience which, in many cases, proves to be profoundly transformative. We would thus be facing a distortion of reality that activates very deep and archaic mental archetypes as a form of communication. Many experiences begin with similar phenomena, such as the observation of lights, strange sensations, voices, sounds, or vague entities. In some encounters, these acquire a more defined appearance, shaped by latent beliefs, though in most cases they remain so ambiguous that they could fit into almost any category of the supernatural or Fortean. It is the filters of investigators that ultimately assign them a label.

2. THE DARK POINTS EXPLAINED BY DISTORTION

NON-REPETITION: The diversity of forms and entities.

From flying cauldrons to humanoids in tight suits with antennas, to figures with animal traits or robotic presences—the sheer variety has long been a headache for classification. DT explains this endless gallery of “space troops” as the outcome of an interaction between the external agent and the psyche of witnesses, a process whose results will never be exactly the same. According to this view, the human mind does not perceive the event as it is but “translates” or symbolically overlays it using elements available in its cultural, emotional, and imaginative environment. This adaptive process acts as a kind of mental filter or earthly coating, necessary to make the experience comprehensible.

This symbolic overlay has a dual purpose: it allows cognitive processing of the experience and integrates it into a framework of personal, social, and cultural meaning. Thus, what might otherwise be an unbearable or alien reality is transformed into an acceptable—if ambiguous—narrative that aligns with the mental coordinates of the witness or society. Importantly, this is not just a cognitive adjustment: the manifestation itself assumes this role, both in how it presents itself and in how it behaves toward witnesses. In this way, the filtering process truly operates on the “substance” of the phenomenon.

THE ABSURD.

Most researchers have never been able to account for the omnipresent absurdity in many UFO events. Many encounters resemble dreams: disconnected actions, contextless symbols, sudden disappearances, spacetime anomalies, and so on. Within DT, this is understood as the result of an experience not subject to ordinary physical laws but to the logic of the unconscious, since the manifestation process occurs through the human channel (even if its origin is external). The setting is a slice of reality that could be considered intermediate between external and internal, physical and psychic.

THE PSYCHIC LOAD.

Witnesses often recall the experience as intensely real, even if it sometimes feels illusory, dreamlike, or imaginal. This aligns with the idea of an experience designed to impact human consciousness, not necessarily to be understood within our usual parameters.

THE LACK OF PHYSICAL EVIDENCE.

Although the manifestations can appear physical, they maintain an ambiguous dual existence—external and internal—at a level beyond the reach of our mechanistic understanding.

3. THE WITNESS AS CO-CREATOR

One of the fundamental elements of DT is its conception of the witness as coauthor of the experience. They are not a passive recipient observing an external object but an active participant whose mind, at the critical moment, provides the material with which the phenomenon cloaks itself. This does not mean that everything is subjective or imagined. Quite the contrary: the experience is imposed from outside but built from within.

This model opens new pathways for understanding not only UFO encounters but also extraordinary visionary phenomena such as religious apparitions, experiences of the deceased, shamanic journeys, or even manifestations from ancient folklore. All of these could be cultural variants of the same core of Distortion.

4. BEYOND CONSCIOUSNESS

DT does more than offer an explanatory framework for anomalous encounters; it also raises profound questions about the nature of reality, consciousness, and the limits of the human. Who—or what—is the external agent? To what end is the experience induced? Is this distortion a form of symbolic contact with a non-human intelligence? Or is it a kind of test—a simulation meant to confront us with the unknown within our own psyche?

CONCLUSION: A NEW FRONTIER

DT does not seek to eliminate the unknown component of the phenomenon but to rethink the concepts and ideas present in ufological literature since its beginnings. It does not claim that witnesses are lying, nor does it deny that something real is happening. Instead, it proposes a new way of interpreting the phenomenon: not as a physical intrusion by extraterrestrial entities, but as a symbolic interaction with an as-yet-undefined reality—one capable of expanding human consciousness toward new and revealing cognitive frontiers.

JOSE ANTONIO CARAVACA

DOES ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE DREAM OF ELECTRIC UFOs?

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has burst into our lives, radically transforming the way we work and entertain ourselves. But above all, AI that generates images has offered us a new and surprising way of looking at the world. They have produced scenes and videos that seem to come straight out of a dream... or the imagination of some interstellar explorer. Many of their creations inspire awe and bewilderment due to their original and almost alienating nature. These images are unlike anything we have seen before, yet they exert an inexplicable and irresistible magnetism.

AI-generated images often have an unsettling air because they mix the familiar with the strange, creating faces and scenes that seem almost real but with details that don't fit and are disturbing. They are highly unique compositions—true oddities. A new way of presenting reality from a perspective that does not entirely belong to humans. We were not trained for their “art.”

Curiously, this unreal, almost supernatural atmosphere that appears on our screens, halfway between the grotesque and the sublime, finds an unexpected echo in another realm—one where one would not expect to find this kinship.

In stories of close encounters with UFOs.

Since the mid-20th century, thousands of witnesses have reported alleged contacts with extraterrestrial civilizations. The content of their narratives was not what was expected. Far from presenting themselves as coherent alien visitations, the archives of ufologists showed a confusing and disordered narrative, where the most mundane was coupled with the extraordinary. There are cases in which a flying saucer lands next to a corral to steal some rabbits, causing astonishment like the protagonists of a bad B movie, as well as events where humanoid-looking occupants, dressed in astronaut suits, move as if walking on the surface of the moon. There are even dozens of accounts of creatures apparently emerging from the depths of the cosmos who act with clumsy or ridiculous gestures, aided by technologies that, seen through the eyes of 21st-century humans, seem outdated or fake—like cardboard cutouts.

Such was the explosion of strangeness brought about by these UFO bombs that researchers were forced to expand their hypotheses almost to infinity in an attempt to make sense of them beyond extraterrestrials. For this reason, the study of UFOs is fertile ground for confusion and anarchy of thought.

The curious thing is that, both in the material generated by AI and that collected in the field notebooks of ufologists, a disturbing pattern appears: the composition does not quite fit with what our mind expects, although, on the contrary, it is capable of recognizing traces that function as perfect handles for the construction of an “identification.”

AI uses millions of images, combining styles, eras, and objects in a non-linear way, producing “errors,” impossible perspectives, and extremely chilling compositions. Similarly, close encounters with UFOs resemble a poorly assembled collage—a succession of hypnotic images that seek to convey an idea, but whose meaning is not entirely clear. It is as if it were an incomplete, defective transmission or one broadcast by a source that does not process language in a way analogous to our form of communication. Flying saucers were humanized as if aliens had developed a science modeled on our own.

In both cases—AI and UFOs—the absurdity can be interpreted as more than just a failure, understanding it as an essential part of their language that perhaps seeks to synthesize and express something beyond our reach but not too far away. There is, however, one clear feature shared by both AI-generated images and visions of flying saucers: a disturbing quality. They break our mental patterns and force us to think... or rather, to rethink.

They break our cognitive automatisms, our perceptual routine is blown apart, and they open up a new space for interpretation. The vision of a machine piloted by UFOnauts in the middle of our garden forces us to rethink what we understand by real, coherent, and meaningful. It could be said that AI, in attempting to imitate our complex world without fully understanding it, creates images that speak their own language—a bizarre, hybrid code that is neither human nor entirely computational. Similarly, many UFO encounters seem like attempts to copy and process our way of thinking, our technology, and even our culture. Both are replicating and parasitic systems.

They create something from something that already exists.

Both AI and the hypothetical “alien” from another world seem to be trying out forms of communication that inevitably clash with our cultural and aesthetic conventions. Perhaps our psyche intrudes on this communication with its filters and triggers the storm of “visual” noise we encounter in close encounters. Just as AI connects to our databases to learn, this unknown phenomenon could use its interaction with the psyche of observers to craft its manifestation. We are the “database” for UFOs.

But it is not only artificial intelligence or close encounters that display this extravagant and enigmatic language. There is another agent, older and deeply human, that shares these characteristics: the dream world. Is it possible that dreams hold some clues to unlocking the secrets of these manifestations?

THE HIDDEN INTERFACE BETWEEN DREAMS, AI, AND UFOs

No one can deny that dreams also masterfully transform the everyday into cryptic symbols night after night and build worlds from scratch to present complex narratives indistinguishable from reality. In dreams, the irrational and the familiar coexist side by side, creating images or scenes that defy conventional reason—although we are unaware of this while we sleep. It must be remembered that dreams are the liminal territory par excellence, the border between the conscious and the unconscious, and where sometimes disconcerting phenomena such as premonitions emerge.

In this sense, the dream universe functions as a bridge between human experience and forms of perception or communication that transcend rational logic, much like what happens with AI creations and encounters with the inexplicable.

The modus operandi of dreams, with their ability to articulate archetypes, metaphors, and fictions that do not follow the rules of conscious logic, could offer a fundamental key to understanding these visionary phenomena. It is possible that what we call close encounters are the result of a complex interaction between the human psyche and an unknown external agent, where the mind, in attempting to make sense of the communication, generates a symbolic and perceptual layer that acts as a “translating” filter. This “interface” would be nothing more than a manifestation of an ancestral cognitive phenomenon—a shared space where the internal and the external intertwine, shaping experiences that transcend our usual understanding but which, at the same time, deeply reflect human nature in its constant attempt to translate the unknown into its own language.

In a way, the UFO sightings of the 20th century were the most “viral” manifestation of an adaptive phenomenon, whose “technological” content is nothing more than the modern packaging of a deeper, more atavistic message. It must be understood that a vision that borders on the supernatural or the extraordinary produces a fissure in our psyche, mobilizing deep, unexplored areas. After all, beyond the paraphernalia of a spectacular staging, these apparitions encourage us to reconstruct the notion of “reality” from frames of reference other than our everyday logic, which has been culturally conditioned since childhood. That may be the starting point.

It is possible that this learning process, which we have called encounters with flying saucers and their occupants, is expressed through a new language loaded with symbols, errors, and moments of pure absurd poetry. Perhaps, in the end, AI, dreams, and UFOs are all communicating the same thing to us: that reality has more versions than we can conceive, and that the most surprising of all may be the one we have not yet learned to read.

JOSE ANTONIO CARAVACA

DISTORTION: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH UFOs ARE NOT A TECHNOLOGICAL PHENOMENON

 

My interest in the UFO phenomenon has always been centered on the study and analysis of close encounters, as I have always considered them to be the events of highest strangeness within the case studies, and moreover, they seem to most challenge any conventional explanation. From the very beginning, I was deeply attracted to those incredible and extraordinary testimonies of people who didn’t limit themselves to reporting simple distant sightings of lights in the sky, but rather involved direct encounters with the occupants of flying saucers in situations laden with bizarre elements that seemed to completely break the rules of reality as we understand them. At close range, the phenomenon revealed itself as something more than the possibility that we are being visited by extraterrestrial intelligences. Many of these experiences were closer to the visions of mystics or some other type of encounter with the supernatural than to a casual observation of the landing of an all-powerful extraterrestrial civilization. Furthermore, the chaotic irruption of various paranormal phenomena into the lives of the witnesses did not bode well for the extraterrestrial theory. Over time, I understood that it was crucial to approach these accounts not just as isolated phenomena that had emerged since 1947, but as a continuation of a rich folklore that has accompanied humanity since time immemorial. Like other scholars, I argue that there is a connection between close encounters with UFOs and the ancient traditions of strange entities and creatures that have been described in multiple cultures across the planet. In this sense, it seems to me that the UFO phenomenon is not new; rather, it is an updated version of old manifestations that our ancestors interpreted as fairies, demons, goblins, or celestial beings, each adapting the phenomenon to the worldview and beliefs of their era. But perhaps most extraordinary is that the phenomenon seemed to accept this role in its manifestations.

From the outset, I assumed that we should not take at face value the image presented in these encounters as what it purports to be—a faithful reflection of the true nature or origin. I understand that what we observe is merely a distorted representation, an echo of something deeper and more complex that extensively plays with our sociocultural models. This is where what I have called the "Distortion Theory" comes into play. In essence, this idea proposes that what we see and experience during a close encounter is profoundly influenced by our own beliefs, expectations, and the cultural context in which we live. That is, the UFO phenomenon does not present itself in an objective or pure manner; it is filtered through our mind and perceptions, which, in turn, are conditioned by social and historical factors. And the strangest thing of all is that the phenomenon takes on these peculiarities as its own vehicle of expression. One of the key points is to understand the similarity between the accounts of encounters with flying saucers and the myths and ancient folklore. Throughout the centuries, humanity has reported multiple encounters with entities and beings of all kinds which, although given different names depending on the time and culture, share many characteristics in common, such as appearing and disappearing at will, being accompanied by lights or glows, or delivering ambiguous and perplexing messages that clarify nothing about their motivations or intentions. This seemed to indicate that, in a covert way, the observers played a crucial role in shaping the aesthetics of these manifestations. In other words, it seemed that there was a kind of hidden communication between the witnesses and the phenomenon, in which the details of the observed scenery were telegraphed from the unconscious of the individuals.

Is it possible that what we see in a close encounter is nothing more than a reflection of our own psyche projected back at us by an unknown force? What is undeniable is that, despite the passing of many decades, no researcher of the Fortean has managed to unravel the mystery they tirelessly pursue in their discipline. We don’t have a Bigfoot, a ghost, much less a captured UFOnaut for public display. It is as if there is an insurmountable barrier preventing us from accessing the true nature or essence of these manifestations—a barricade raised by our own perception and by sociocultural conditioning that, like noise, prevents us from clearly hearing the message. In this way, I came to a conclusion that fully shapes my perception of these events: what is observed is inevitably influenced by the observer. The UFO phenomenon, over the years, has demonstrated a chameleonic ability to embrace the form that best fits the beliefs and myths current at each moment in history. In fact, even the UFO reports from the 1950s and 1960s carry a patina associated with the technology of that era, making these events seem vintage and even ridiculous to us today. Therefore, if the phenomenon can change its appearance in this way, how can we trust that what we see reflects its true nature? But above all, is it the phenomenon that changes at will to deceive us, or is it the witnesses who ultimately drive these structural changes in the appearance of the manifestations?

In this sense, the Distortion Theory offers an approach to the core of the problem by starting from the premise that close encounters with UFOs are not objective experiences in the traditional sense but are conditioned and limited by the psyche of the witness and by cultural and social factors. We are dealing with malleable and highly interactive visions that are the product of a series of conjunctions that unpredictably combine to create a scenario labeled with supernatural names, such as Marian apparitions, encounters with unknown animals (or monster), experiences with spirits, or fairy tales. Therefore, the witness plays an active role in the construction of the experience, and the UFO phenomenon functions as a kind of "catalyst" that activates a psychological and cultural response in the individual, giving rise to an experience that is as personal as it is universal. This could explain why close encounter accounts vary so much between people, and why the details of descriptions often reflect elements deeply tied to individual beliefs and expectations. Even the observed scenarios seem to adjust to certain geographical areas, suggesting an endemic factor in the appearances. In other words, the aesthetics of these phenomena would require cultural transmission for certain roles to be known and represented by the phenomenon elsewhere. This, in turn, would indicate that Fortean manifestations are not the creators of this aesthetic manipulation but are influenced by the existing cultural contexts. From this perspective, the UFO phenomenon cannot be understood solely from a materialistic or physical standpoint. While it is tempting and suggestive to think of flying saucers as spacecraft from other worlds with nuts and bolts, the reality seems much more complex as we may simply be dealing with an updated version of an ancient phenomenon that has accompanied humans since the dawn of their existence. The interaction between the phenomenon and the witness creates a kind of "theater" where visual, narrative, and emotional elements intertwine to produce a unique experience that defies any attempt to catalog or classify it definitively within a framework known to our science. The key may lie in the fact that we are not dealing with something entirely exogenous that acts independently, but with an interaction between an unknown external agent and the mind of the observers. This communication between the two distorts what we perceive, creating a hypnotic screen that resists conventional explanations. It is as if the phenomenon has the ability to expand into our reality based on our beliefs and personal expectations, adapting to them to create an experience that is absolutely immersive and enveloping, one that we can comprehend to some extent, but that in reality conceals a deeper nature. It is important to understand, to avoid misunderstandings, that ufological experiences exist independently of the witness, but they very likely do not respond to a technological phenomenon as we have assumed. I believe that the appearances of lights or entities follow certain common patterns in their initial form; later, either due to distance or exposure time, at a certain point the aesthetics of the manifestation acquire very defined features due to the interaction with the observers. And interestingly, this aesthetic we see in some Fortean manifestations is clear enough for us to have no doubt that we are in the presence of extraterrestrial visitors, angels, deceased people, or goblins.

Not everyone who witnesses these apparitions manages to interact with them in such a way that they "react" or "mutate" in response to their presence. What’s interesting is that these experiences can awaken certain changes in us or paranormal effects depending on how immersed we are in the event. Although these experiences occur outside the witness’s mind, they have profound internal ramifications. They seem to be a superimposition of realities—the physical and the psychic—that give way to a third path. As for the physical aftermaths that sometimes accompany these events, it seems they do not always act the same way. For example, UFOs that emit light do not always produce the same effects on the environment or on those who see them. The interaction of the witness with the phenomenon also seems key in determining the impact of the encounters or their repercussions. It is important to note that encounters with these entities or phenomena often include a series of common elements, such as altered states of consciousness, buzzing sounds, changes in the perception of time and space, and even the awakening of extrasensory abilities. These characteristics make us think of similar experiences recorded throughout history, in which people have reported encounters with other strange creatures or mysterious entities far removed, at first glance, from the UFO phenomenon.

When we witness a close encounter with supposed inhabitants of other worlds, what we are recording is not exactly what is happening in front of us. It is more like watching a movie through augmented reality glasses that distort the scene, adapting it to the beliefs and expectations of each viewer. The UFO phenomenon, for example, could be part of a vast cognitive universe that our mind tries to decipher using "codes" that are comprehensible to us. This mental filter prevents us from seeing the phenomenon as it really is, and instead, we interpret and perceive it in a limited or even altered way, as our psyche strives to make sense of something that is, in essence, beyond what we can fully comprehend. What we observe, then, is not the complete reality but an adapted version that fits our way of understanding the world, both the known and the mysterious. This would explain why two people can experience the same phenomenon but interpret it in completely different ways. One person might see it as a UFO, while another might interpret it as a divine apparition. The phenomenon is real, but each mind "translates" it differently according to its own filters and beliefs. Understanding that this distortion exists is the first step in beginning to decipher what we are truly witnessing. Although we may never fully understand it, accepting that what we see is filtered by our minds is key to getting a little closer to the true nature of these phenomena.

JOSE ANTONIO CARAV@CA