Too Much Enigmaz
First of all, for security purposes, I have been assigned an official MUFON I.D #. It's not clear to me yet whether I can disclose this number, but I can give you a hint: the digits add up to 23. Which, if you recall from one of my earlier posts ("Posh Spice, E.T." August 2, 2011), has an enigma associated with it. I don't know about you, but I think enigmas are kind of puzzling and inexplicable, and I find it troubling that the MUFON folks have dragged me into the whole thing. Still, having an official secret I.D. # is cool, so I'm not going to make a big deal about it.
Looking inside the Journal (which, by the way, you can't access online if you don't have a secret MUFON I.D. #, which, by the way, I do), this item jumped out at me from the editor's column: "Before the end of this year, MUFON will have a new Field Investigator Manual and a new test to take to become a Field Investigator." This is shattering news... I'd been planning to order the Field Investigator Manual soon, so that I could study up and take the Chicago-area Field Investigator Examination in September. Now I'm looking at at least three or four months more of amateur field investigating, and, as rewarding as that can be (see my last post), I'm not entirely comfortable with the "one mere human vs. the aliens" dynamic, especially when I'm the one mere human.
On the plus side, the editor does go on to say that both the new manual and the new test will be "much more user-friendly for new field investigators." Translation: "Too many people were failing the exam, so we made it even easier." No complaints here, although I have to wonder whether lowering the bar is such a good idea. On further reflection, this seems like a prescription for disaster to me. Won't this just embolden E.T.? Is this any better than the "one mere human" scenario? I'll tell you one thing: I sure will be interested to meet my fellow graduates... assuming we all graduate... which, of course, we will.
Further into the Journal, I find the welcome news that Bigfoot investigators may have found new reasons to work closely with UFO Field Investigators. Since my brother is a Bigfoot fan, this can only bring my family closer together.
I'd say more about Bigfoot, but I skipped that article to get right to the real meat of the issue: a six-page feature offering a digest of recently-investigated UFO encounters. I was curious to see whether any other recent sightings are similar to my family's (they are), and whether I could pick up any tricks from the Field Investigators who filed the reports (the jury's out). Good reading all-in-all, with one curious detail: the most unspectacular cases get the longest write-ups, while the strangest occurrences get very little attention at all. Why does a ho-hum story about a woman watching three lights over the horizon get almost a full page of copy, while a barn-burner about a man who awakes to find strange little people in his bedroom gets one scant column? Especially when the guy who had aliens in his bedroom also reports that his father was a UFO abductee? I find this enigmatic. Also puzzling and inexplicable.