“Reptilians Suck!” and Other Definitions of Consciousness
My search for consciousness at the world’s largest UFO conference.
For the last few years I have focused much of my personal work on fringe communities, and groups of people who bond over their shared passion for some specific thing. In the past I’ve met people from all kinds of worlds— miniature builders, tabletop gamers, uranium glass collectors, home-museum curators, Knicks fans, etc. Often times, my philosophical takeaway from these projects is about how we’re all more alike than we care to admit. While I still believe that’s generally true— and I found evidence of that in the desert, this experience taught me that the answer is more complicated than that.
Like so many other kids who grew up in the 2000s, I have a surface level interest in all things UFO. I watched so many “documentaries” on the sci-fi channel with my dad growing up. Going into this convention, I assumed that I’d experience some concentrated version of that— tinfoil hat guys talking about weird lights in the sky.
The theme for this year at Contact in the Desert was consciousness and infinite realms, which meant something different to anyone you asked. For some, it meant a kind of spiritual enlightenment, for others it’s their story of contact with an unknown life force.
On our first day at the conference, the thing that jumped out at me was how different everyone seemed to interpret the same word— consciousness. It felt more like a thousand little worlds harmoniously disagreeing on the definition. Vendors throughout the resort sold their flavor of enlightenment ranging from crystals, and spheres made of meteorite, to more experiential offerings like biohacking and pineal stimulation. Inside chair lined ballrooms, lectures on topics like alien abduction experiences, inter-dimensional beings, and government disclosure added to the growing list of things to mull over. As we broke for dinner that first day, I felt myself frantically looking for a neat bow to tie all these worlds together.
Driving back to the resort after dinner, I decided to try and free myself from the pre-existing expectations, and just enjoy the ride. Kind of instantly upon arriving at the after-hours speaker meet and greet we were attending, there was a distinctive shift for me. I felt like the world opened up as soon as I looked away. As I talked to more and more people, I found myself caring much less about the neat bow, and much more about who these people were, what brought them here, and how they were spending their time at this weird and beautiful gathering.
I cheered in earnest for the vast panel of experts from all areas of study as they emerged from the amorphous blob of knowledge that had formed in the ballroom. Neuropsychiatrists, magicians, UFO researchers, oceanographers, physicists, cognitive neuroscientists, psychedelic experts and so many more took to the stage to receive thunderous applause for their contributions to the cause.
Outside on the great lawn, The Disciples of Shima— a band made up of members from the conference AV team exploded into a fitting cover of Stevie Wonder’s Superstition. I surrendered myself to the pool of fellow seekers singing and dancing along. I wasn’t sure what it all meant, but I felt strongly that this was what I was looking for.
In reflecting on this conference, I realize how wrong my first impression of it was. I thought that tinfoil hats and UFO phenomena would obviously be the common ground that united this group of people, but they weren’t. The core similarity I noticed across it all, was the same thing that drove me to fly across the country to attend— the pursuit of an unknowable knowledge. It didn’t matter that we all disagreed on what consciousness was, or why we were here. Our common ground was that it was worth trying to find out.
I am endlessly thankful to the kind people who welcomed us into their worlds during this weekend. Special thank you to Lauren, Ryan, Scott, Jaimie, Chris, Mike, Hank, Daisy and Seth.
