PaoloG's blog (Paolo Guizzardi)

Tiki, the puffologist

Some considerations on ufology

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June 19, 2024 Paolo Guizzardi

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    I had been thinking for some time about writing an article with some general considerations on ufology, that is, research into the specific phenomenon commonly known by the acronym UFO. A phenomenon that for more than three quarters of a century has been artificially confined to a cognitive ghetto, covered in discredit and ridicule, despite an impressive body of empirical data attesting to its concrete reality. Throughout this long dark period, only a handful of curious minds and enthusiasts, together with a very few scientists, have had the courage to approach this phenomenon in an attempt to study it and somehow get to the bottom of it.
Now, however, the phenomenon, renamed UAP, is beginning to be taken more and more seriously: after so long, things are really changing. It is the right time to reflect on the role of ufology as we have known it so far, and to do so I have chosen to tell a little story.

On an island off the coast of a great tropical land, in a time long past, there lived a small tribe. The island was a great flat-topped sea stack, an enclosed world from which no one could get away, since it had no landing place on the sea. The rock arch that once connected it to the mainland must have collapsed in a distant age because of an earthquake, effectively making the island inaccessible.

It was a small, quiet and safe world, from which its inhabitants, though unable to leave, could admire the vastness of the ocean on one side and the lush vegetation of the mainland on the other. A mainland separated by little more than a hundred meters of sea, as close as it was unreachable. The nearly vertical cliffs made both the descent to the sea and any landing on the island impossible.

Tiki was a proud member of his tribe. Ever since he was a boy he had shown a keen curiosity, which drove him to explore his small but interesting world tirelessly and to ask why things were the way they were, without necessarily taking commonly accepted opinions at face value.

At some point, rumors began to circulate about peculiar things happening across the sea, far away, in the heart of the mainland forest. There was talk of white clouds appearing out of nowhere and walking above the trees as if they were alive, a kind of evanescent flying snake. These rumors were soon joined by others, telling of bird calls and other noises resembling roars, never heard before. Some claimed that the noises must have had some connection with the living clouds, because they seemed to come from the very spot where the clouds had appeared. Someone even swore to have seen, on moonless nights, fires racing above the forest and then vanishing.

A curious person like Tiki could not ignore such persistent and recurring rumors.

So he set out to gather as much information as he could. Armed with plenty of patience and a good dose of courage, he perched as high as possible in the trees of the island, on the side facing the mainland, hoping to catch a glimpse of this mysterious phenomenon. His patience was rewarded: after many attempts he was amazed to see those white clouds walking on their own above the trees. In time he also managed to hear the noises and the roars and, on a few moonless nights, to spot the racing fires.

It was clear that something was happening, but what?

These events were much talked about in the tribe. A few, very few to tell the truth, followed Tiki's invitation and perched in the tallest trees of the island as well, thus getting the chance to observe those mysterious phenomena for themselves. The common opinion soon took shape that these were new manifestations of the forest spirits. Some remained indifferent, while others never wanted to give credence to any of these stories, even though they always refused to climb the trees and check for themselves.

On many evenings, sitting with the elders around the fire, Tiki tried to gather as much information and as many opinions as he could. But not even the elders, with all their wisdom, could get to the bottom of the matter, let alone offer anything useful for the investigation. The mystery remained.

Tiki also sought the help of Aiuku, the tribe's shaman. Reluctant at first, Aiuku was eventually won over by the spirit of service that sets shamans apart, and he tried to satisfy Tiki's curiosity.

So he made a few "journeys", from which he brought back a vision that was coherent yet incomprehensible. He saw, or perceived, something he could only describe by likening it to two endless shining bamboo canes running side by side through the forest along a narrow strip without plants, joined at regular intervals by thick, straight, flat trunks. "Endless shining bamboo canes, flat trunks, a strip without plants... what nonsense!" thought Tiki as he listened to the account.

Aiuku insisted that his perception was clear, but he had no idea what it could be.

Endless shining bamboo canes lying on the ground, white clouds appearing out of nowhere and walking or flying now on one side of the forest, now on the other, fires racing through the night, noises that sounded now like certain birds and now like roars. It all seemed nonsense, and yet by now Tiki himself had watched the walking clouds many times and heard those noises. Aiuku had confirmed that his vision was sharp and coherent, but what could it be? What was happening in the depths of the forest, over on the mainland?

Tiki also made many drawings on a smooth-faced rock near his hut, to fix in his memory the shapes of those mysterious clouds and to try to explain them to the few members of the tribe willing to discuss them.

The years went by inexorably; the living clouds kept appearing, and so did the mysterious noises. In time a shared explanation took hold in the tribe: spirits of a new kind had shown up in the mainland forest. Then, little by little, nobody paid attention any more. All in all, the phenomena remained confined across the sea and never posed any danger to the tribe.

As he grew older, Tiki started a family, but he did not give up and kept watching the phenomena. He spent hours and hours enchanting his little children and grandchildren with wonderful tales of the mysterious happenings on the mainland.

He ended his physical life after seeing some forty springs, without ever solving the mystery.

Tiki never came to understand that those manifestations were caused by a railroad: a system for carrying people and goods over long distances by means of puffing, roaring steam-powered mechanical beasts. As they ran along those endless shining bamboo canes, these machines gave off the clouds that seemed alive and the noises that sounded like animal roars, and on moonless nights they left trails of sparks behind them.

The "shining bamboo canes" of Aiuku's vision - Photo by Yoal Desurmont on Unsplash

Of course, the puffs that looked like living clouds were nothing but the exhaust steam of those machines, and the mysterious noises were the whistle of the locomotive and the panting of the steam engine.

A technological system that a man from a Stone Age culture, however sharp and curious, like Tiki, could never have understood: not for lack of intelligence, but because he completely lacked the context to do so. Nor could Tiki ever know that this railroad, like almost every railroad built in faraway lands, was the vanguard of a world that sooner or later would reach all the way to his island.

Photo by Roland Lösslein on Unsplash

Those familiar with the UFO phenomenon and its manifestations will surely have recognized many elements in Tiki's story: even the tribe's conclusion, that the phenomena posed no danger and therefore deserved no attention, will sound familiar to anyone who knows the history of official investigations. To those who are not familiar with the phenomenon, I recommend keeping this story in mind, because it contains the main features they will sooner or later come across in their research.

Coming back to the moral of the story, we can say that UFOs are like the mysterious "living clouds" above the forest trees. In other words, they appear to us as the observable, if mysterious, part of what could be a much larger and more complex system, one that might prove even more mysterious and very hard to understand (assuming, of course, that it is something knowable at all for us humans of Earth).

And there is more: the puffs were not even the machines, but their exhaust steam. A by-product, given off by a system that did not exist for the tribe at all and pursued purposes entirely foreign to its life. By studying the clouds, however carefully, Tiki would never have come to imagine the travelers, the goods, the trade.

But the story teaches something else as well. In all those years of patient observation, Tiki gathered nothing but puffs, noises and fires in the night. The only one who grasped something of the structure of the system – the shining canes, the flat trunks, the strip without plants – was Aiuku, through a channel of perception that had nothing to do with direct observation. And Tiki, the most open-minded and curious member of the tribe, dismissed that accurate information as nonsense: first of all because it did not fit his usual frame of mind, and then because it was completely beyond his reach, since he lacked the knowledge needed to interpret and understand it. Even had he taken Aiuku's perceptions seriously, he would still have held the right pieces of the mosaic without being able to see the picture.

This teaches us that, of the two obstacles, the first can be overcome with an open mind and sound method, while the second calls for a good dose of humility, because nothing guarantees that we, today, have the concepts we need to understand the UFO phenomenon.

Now that the UFO subject is being taken more and more seriously, the question is: is it worth continuing to be "puffologists" like Tiki, that is, devoting ourselves to investigating the puffs – i.e. UFOs – or is it better to try to find out whether there really is a larger picture, of which UFOs are probably only a small part?

Within the wider context of the manifestations of the UFO phenomenon, the technological component is certainly a fascinating subject, and there is nothing wrong with taking an interest in it. But I think it is wise always to keep in mind that the technological aspect of UFOs is not everything, and UFOs themselves are not everything: most likely they are part of something much larger and more complex, which may also be approached by paths other than observation and instruments.

So, ok, let us by all means study UFOs in "nuts and bolts" mode, but let us always remember that this is not everything.

There is much more to the UFO/UAP phenomenon than its technological component.

Versions: June 19, 2024 → June 24, 2024 → November 12, 2026