Alien Cupcakes, Gorillas, and why Magicians Beat Whistleblowers wh
y Magicians Beat
My
story for the Feeding Kate anthology
was called “That’s a Sweet Invasion, Craig” and features a telepathic alien
cupcake appearing here as an advance scout for his persecuted people, or cakes,
whatever. Since the fiction collection was to benefit Sabrina’s ability to nosh
her favorite goodies, including a cupcake was pretty obvious, but once I got
the extraterrestrial notion combined with it in my head, I couldn’t shake loose.
I admit to enjoying lore of the strange and unexplained, and
so does my character Gracie, a misanthropic young oddball to whom appears the frosted
E.T. In one part of the story, she recaps the “UFO flap” over the skies of
Washington D.C. during late July of 1952. That’s real-live history, and thousands
of witnesses, FAA radar returns, citizen and Coast Guard sightings up and down
the eastern seaboard, and journalistic coverage exist. Here’s a Wikipedia page
with background info and more about the official decision to “debunk” in order
to calm public anxiety.)
It
shouldn’t be personally threatening or damaging to admit things exist we can’t
explain, should it? Science is a process by which we can expand and refine our
understanding. We, not to mention the world and universe, are filled with
as-yet inexplicable wonders, like yawning as one example. (Did you just yawn
reading that? Do you know why?) But this circumstance only makes for open issues,
not insults to reason and civilization.
So what about the particular subject of difficult-to-categorize
aerial oddities gets people so roiled, so ready to pigeonhole questioners as
members of the Tinfoil Hat Brigade, local order #WTF? Well, on this bit, I do
have a theory. In the following popular video, viewers are asked to count the number
of basketball passes made by one team’s players. While doing that, about half
of the viewers will miss seeing something important, and the psychologist who
designed the attention-grabbing experiment explains why:
If we have a limited amount of processing power to decode
the world around us into comprehensible pieces, it matters what you’re mentally
up for at any given time. If I’m running late to a nerve-wracking appointment, hearing
about traffic snarls ahead, then realizing I just forgot something and
calculating whether I have time to retrieve it, I won’t see the Invisible Gorilla.
Not even if he’s handing out free ice cream. Extraneous things that try to siphon
my attention—even a wave hello from a dear friend I didn’t expect to see—are
more liable to earn scowls than smiles unless I can force myself from one
mental groove and into another.
Now,
consider that there are several well-established think tanks concerned with
developing public guidelines for what they call extraterrestrial “Post
Detection Policy.”
I’m not arguing that these organizations assume
extraterrestrials exist. In fact, they assert there’s no empirical evidence for
that conclusion at all. What I am
asserting is that there are deep-pocketed people who’ve spent considerable
effort to figure out how to handle what would be the Big Daddy of Suddenly
Visible Gorilla problems, should it ever occur.
Other people speculate that whatever may be perceived in UFO
encounters (and there are many types
and classes), it’s existed side-by-side with humans for millennia. They base
this notion on ancient myth and representations, from cave art to Renaissance
paintings, and the way those dovetail with modern reports of incidents. We
didn’t used to know about microorganisms. Just seeing them via microscopy
didn’t make them any more inherently dangerous, but new awareness did make some
people extremely nervous, even to the point of risking the development of
superbugs through overuse of antibiotics and antibacterials. And maybe the way
the modern media typically handle stories—that is, with BIG, SCARY OMGs—has
something to do with that. I’m not on the side of the Presumed Gorilla Hiders,
if such exist, but I can see where the manner of introduction matters.
When you buy a ticket to a spectacular magic show, you’re hoping
to be fooled in a dazzling and entertaining way. In fact, you’d feel angry and
ripped off if they didn’t succeed in
deceiving you. But part of the fun of being fooled is your certainty that is
isn’t really supernatural at all. Today’s best magicians know a lot about
psychology, physiology, neurology, and the way people are both hard-wired and
culturally acclimated to respond, so they’re experts in hiding the gorilla. And
when you settle into your seat to enjoy their fictions (or, dare I suggest, even
ones on the page), you’re inviting the Invisible Gorilla trick to happen to you.
And that welcoming attitude of delight may make all the difference.
When unanticipated situations or truths pop into people’s
conscious awareness, perhaps even things that were always present but
disregarded or minimized, words come up like “horror” and “nightmare” and
“trauma.” Think about the confirmation of an awful family secret everyone
suspected. The unpleasantness is frequently compounded with utter “shock” that
such an unexpected, and therefore unwelcome, thing could have disrupted the
predictable rhythms of life. It’s always just an ordinary day until it isn’t.
I think vampires may have the right idea about needing to be
invited in. Look how popular the bloodsucking murderers have become in the
cultural consciousness while cattle mutilations and crop circles remain,
despite a lot more forensic evidence of their existence, relegated to wackadoos
on the fringe. I say forget about trying to push any topic people don’t ask to
hear. If they’re not primed, any revelation is pointless and may even be
counterproductive.
As Eleanor
Roosevelt said: “The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other
form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in
fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.” Want
to expose something uncomfortable, even awful, and have people thank you, as
opposed to pulling out the pitchforks? Tell them first it’s all a lie then make
them buy a ticket.
Cupcake image from http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/green%20aliens?language=tr_TR
UFO images from http://ufocasebook.com/
BIO: Despite Clare Toohey’s background in art and music, she gives store-bought greeting cards
and plays the ukulele poorly. As a writer, she aspires to genre hack-dom, and
as a fan, she appreciates the trashy and inventive. She’s the site editor and
manager of CriminalElement.com, Tweeting @clare2e and blogging more foolishness at WomenofMystery.net
P.S. Go Red Sox!
Feeding Kate: A Crime Fiction Anthology is available from Amazon. All proceeds from Feeding Kate benefit the Lupus Foundation of America.
3 comments:
This post is sooooo awesome. I want to sit you down with my father in law to discuss the moon landing. Something tells me that you two would get along quite well. Thanks for being my guest, Clare... and for being such an awesome friend. We are friends, right? *winks*
We are pals, never doubt it : )
(But you've got me worried, because most people think of fathers-in-law as a decidely loopy species apart.)
I don't believe every theory of anything, but I do think the calm, even stagnant, pool of consensus isn't nearly as exciting as the muddy fringes, and isn't ever the font of the next disruptive technology or development.
Social Media, they said? Heresy! Media belongs to established, um, mediators, not you...you...wisecracking rabble.
I just meant he could go on for hours about conspiracy theories and make it entertaining... it was meant as a compliment. I swear it.
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