> That absence of resolution is not a failure of the book. It is its central revelation.

sighs and closes tab There's no there there, like the AI that wrote it.

Was this written by a human? It has quite a few one sentence paragraphs which look strange.

I'm honestly more interested in the sociological and anthropological study of the phenomenon than I am the actual claims made because to be it's obvious folklore. But I remember when "the truth" was nuts-and-bolts saucers from Zeta Reticuli, Majestic 12 and Roswell, abductions and experimentations, secret bases under Dulce, New Mexico, all grounded in a tacit (albeit fanciful) technological and physical reality. None of it was real, of course, but it was at least (barring some handwavy physics, if you squinted hard enough) physically plausible.

Now it's all interdimensional space elves and biological craft and metaphysics again, and "reality" is no more tacit than a level in a video game. One "whitleblower" post on 4chan for some reason has asserted itself into the zeitgeist as the New Canon and most of the folklore now assumes some intersection between this and everything post Nimitz/Grusch. No one is getting abducted by greys into saucers anymore, everyone is seeing eldritch garbage bags flying in the wind. We've come back around to the Jacques Vallee "ultraterrestrial" view, or the "space friends" of the 1960s.

And so much of it is so obviously driven by government and other interests now, that it isn't even fun anymore. Like every time the government makes a "disclosure drop" I know it's all going to be nothing (because what else could it be) and that it's just there to distract me from all of the things. That every "convincing" photo or video is going to be AI. That every claim made by a government "whistleblower" is a psyop or a grift. Vallee's "control system" exists but it isn't hyperdimensional aliens pulling levers from behind the veil it's just billionaire pedophile psychopaths drip-feeding us nonsense through social media so we won't bring out the guillotines.

I guess this is the enshittification of the lunatic fringe? Ah well. At least I can always still listen to reruns of Art Bell.