Again with the reptoids

Hang on tight, folks.  I'm free-associating again.

Once more, Coast to Coast AM has spurred me to write a post about aliens.  Or maybe it's just December dry skin, making me think of lizards.

It was an episode with cryptozoologist Lyle Blackburn discussing the Lizard Man sightings of 1988.  I've described this before but the gist is that in South Carolina during that year, there was a flap of crytpid encounters.  These sightings entailed a tall, humanoid creature that was described as being almost entirely reptilian in appearance. If these cases are true (and man is that ever a big "if") then the logical follow-up question is "what is it?"

A short answer might be a "reptoid." Once again, I've written already written about these alleged beings with David Icke seeming to be the biggest proponent of their existence.  Reptillians are a race of aliens visiting our planet and they don't exactly have our best interests at heart.  Those who have encountered them have described these beings as being aggressive, even warlike in their demeanor towards us.

Then again, there are those that who argue that their nature is not alien whatsoever, but more of a "cryptoterrestrial" as Mac Tonnies would say (there it is again). Check out this bad boy, Reptoid.com.  They've got a whole FAQ on the reptoid issue.  According the folks at the site, the reptoids live in isolated locales that favor "specific geological formations." Stuff like ancient volcanic beds and underground caverns.  They hide beneath the earth, just fine living out their existence far from humans (so why the sightings, then?) and apparently sharing my ochlophobia.  Take a look at the human race.  Do you blame them?

The FAQ list goes on.  It describes how the reptoids' origins can be traced to prehistoric Antarctica.  Also thrown in are the typical things you might find in Fortean discussions regarding Antarctica, such as entrances to the Hollow Earth, Nazis, and Operation Highjump.  The site authors also link reptoids to dinosaurs via the work of Dale Russell, a paleontologist who through a "thought experiment" came up with a model of what dinosaurs might have looked like if allowed to evolve to humanoid form.  Sleestaks, anyone?  Sorry.  I use that joke every time this topic rears its scaly head.

So was the Lizard Man a wayward reptoid, either wandering up from its home beneath the Earth's crust or lost E.T.-like from its spacecraft?  Could be.  I have another idea.

Well, it's not really my idea as I'm cribbing much from Jacques Vallee.  The "Lizard Man," if in existence at all, might have much more to do with objects of the subconscious than aliens from space.  As Vallee's research demonstrates, UFOs are nothing new.  We've been seeing them in the sky since prehistory.  For just as long, people have also alleged to have met UFO occupants. We've seen chimeras, angels, hippie "space brothers," and of course the Grays.  All of these descriptions perfectly mirror the corresponding social and technological development of their times.

So in a junk food, "science fiction=action movie" culture (see the aforementioned Sleestaks as well as Star Trek's Gorn), is it any wonder that we are now at a point where people are describing encounters with reptilians?  Is that perhaps what we've trained ourselves to see?  Even weirder, is there maybe a discorporeal intelligence that shifts its appearance to meet our expectations?

Sound weird?  Well, I like that better than betting on actual lizard people.  




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