What's Behind the Use of "Ontological Shock" Claims to Attack UFO Skeptics?

7/29/2023

Since David Grusch stepped out of the backrooms of the UFO media circuit to become a public UFO celebrity, the phrase “ontological shock” has become his defenders’ go-to explanation across social media for why skeptics refuse to accept without evidence Grusch’s recycled assertions that the United States possesses multiple crashed alien spaceships and their dead occupants. “Ontological shock” is a phrase used in philosophy to refer to being forced to question one’s worldview. Historically, the phrase has been rarely used outside of theology, and even there, a search of databases finds it is not widely deployed. However, alien abduction researcher John Mack adopted the term to refer to abductees’ feelings about encountering space aliens, and he deployed the term in a 1994 Washington Post article about alien abductions, Reptilians, and Greys. A search of historical newspaper databases did not turn up any other reference to the phrase in relation to aliens. Similarly, a Google Books search finds the phrase used in connection with UFOs primarily in quoting John Mack.

However, the reporter who broke the Grusch story, Ralph Blumenthal, recently wrote a biography of Mack that uses the phrase “ontological shock” and now the phrase is being used to defend Grusch as well as the network of ufologists and UFO celebrities who surround him. Many social media users who attack skeptics deploy the phrase as though it were in common use, though it was not prior to this summer. A Google trends graph shows the rapid rise of “ontological shock” at the exact moment Grusch’s claims emerged in June.

All told, this suggests that the use of the phrase across social media in online defense of Grusch’s claims is intentional and coordinated, likely a talking point produced within the network of UFO advocates seeking redress from Congress.

24 Comments

Jim

7/29/2023 05:17:32 pm

Somebody should do a forensic investigation on ontological shock.

Just another example of Believers Creed

7/29/2023 05:59:07 pm

Who cares. The Burden of Proof lies with the Believers. And they have been unable to deliver time after time.

gdave

7/29/2023 08:46:05 pm

The idea that the use of the phrase "ontological shock" is "intentional and coordinated" strikes me as itself a rather extraordinary claim. A novel phrase (whether truly new or previously obscure) suddenly emerging and spreading rapidly through social media seems like...social media. It's literally a meme, in Dawkins' original sense.

And while the use of that particular phrase may be fairly novel for Ufologists, the idea behind it dates back decades, and probably to the earliest days of Ufology. The charge that skeptics reject the existence of aliens (and for that matter, psychic powers, ghosts, and the Loch Ness monster) due to some sort of pathological fear of having their orderly world view shattered has long been a go-to for believers. It's closely akin to the idea that atheists secretly fear or hate God, which dates back centuries.

And it also just *sounds* good. It's got that "truthy" ring of pseudo-scientific portentousness that so many Ufology fans love. It's a Serious term for a Serious subject.

I just don't see any particular reason to ascribe the rapid spread of the phrase to some sort of conspiracy. It seems far more likely to me that it's simply a convenient phrase that happened to (re)surface recently which neatly encapsulates a long- and deeply-held view among Ufology fans.

Paul

7/30/2023 12:21:00 am

If there was any doubt about the existence of aliens, doubt no longer.
Didn’t think it could get any stupider than this pops up:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/aliens-exist-cryptocurrency-182610042.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

Wink twice if Reptilians are co-owners of Earth.

7/30/2023 02:03:27 am

Pure religious creed.

E.P. Grondine

7/30/2023 10:19:40 am

I never hit any evidence that the US government held UFO remains.

Perhaps what is going on is that technology has become so advanced that many people do not understand it, so they use the rationalization that it had to come from UFOs.

As a space journalist, I have run into many people who have seen UFOs. I suppose that they feel comfortable taking with me about their experiences. I am glad that there is now someone they can talk to about their experiences.

Aside from that, I suppose that it is easier to talk about UFOs than the Israeli Palestinian conflict, which is why we are being treated to this gush.

Brian Dunning link

7/30/2023 12:39:09 pm

It's also much clickbaitier news.

Kent

7/31/2023 03:37:17 am

"I never hit any evidence that the US government held UFO remains."

I achieved the same thing with much less work. I simply never looked. You don't think they'd leave it out where you could find it do you?

It's easy to get the impression that you think you're the measure of "sumpsing" (hat tip Max Schmeling).

7/31/2023 03:37:41 am

Anthony W.

8/2/2023 08:10:30 pm

It’s totes adorbs that you finally figured out how to use the reply function, but you only need to hit it once.

Charles Verrastro link

7/30/2023 12:03:56 pm

I remembered the reference too, and saw it become a meme in the UFO Disclosure cult community, but wasn't aware it had been so recently turned around against the skeptics to paint them as 'snowflakes' (another neologism it would be interesting to trace historically.
All in all, it's just another example of creating a convenient moniker by propagandists and spin doctors. Like Iraq's "Deadenders", or the MAGA fave "Woke".

7/30/2023 12:37:36 pm

I might look first to Hanlon's Razor for the sudden popularity of "ontological shock" — Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. Alien Truthers will take any sciencey-sounding phrase they can get. It's not necessary for there to have been a planned and coordinated spread of the term, only for people on #ufotwitter to say "Hey, that sounds sciencey; I'm going to use it."

Clete

7/30/2023 01:28:11 pm

ALIENS EXIST1 ALIENS EXIST1 I know they do. Here in Utah we elect them to congress and the Senate, both on a state and federal level. We call them Republicans.

7/30/2023 02:30:25 pm

More children got ontological dissonance from the Brothers Grimm that this ontological bullshit that is attempting to be passed off as news. Tired of paying taxes for this garbage, would rather pay for my entertainment of choice.
This is of the same ilk as the Younger Dryas Impact bullshit.

7/31/2023 07:35:06 pm

Hi Paul -

I usually get part of my daily hand exercise from Kent, but as a specialist in the Holocene Start Impact Events, this looks far more profitable.

We have a layer of impactites. We have gamma rays from those impacts, as evidenced by 14C production. We have meltwater pulses from those impacts.

By the way, and back on topic, I never hit any evidence of the US government having flying saucers stashed away anywhere.
The most I had was my fellow citizens coming up to me to share their accounts of seeing UFO's.

8/9/2023 07:45:27 am

"We have a layer of impactites."

A little too much man on man impact in the ole Americas? You old pow-wow passaround, you!

Two words.

Stool softener.

8/1/2023 06:49:03 pm

Eddy, long time, too bad it ended.
Even though you can’t read the entire article without doing a go fund me, here is some light reading for you, and as an aside, the article kind of drives home your imbecility on this younger dryas impact bullshit.
Enjoy. A genuine, scientific article, btw.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825223001915

E.P Grondine

8/6/2023 09:46:54 am

Hi Paul -

The link you provided does not work. It will be interesting to see how they explain the proxy evidence, or fail to explain it.

8/6/2023 05:20:49 pm

The link works fine.

8/7/2023 12:02:39 am

Eddy, there is this thing called copy and paste. If that is too difficult, you might want to go back to bic coozies.

8/7/2023 03:32:21 pm

Thanks, Jim. The link finally worked on this machine -

I wonder if there is a large, large cash prize for tearing this particular bit of rationalizations into very, very small pieces?

You may enjoy my collection of Native memories of the second of the Holocene Start Impact Events over on academia.

By the way, I really resent these clowns' failure to mention my raising the impact hypothesis in Man and Impact in the Americas (2006 for all practical purposes).

They know who I am, and are simply cowards, for very good good reason.

I spent a couple of years sorting out Firestone Senior's mistakes until Firestone Junior got it right.

8/8/2023 12:17:30 am

Face it, Eddy. What you have is pure, unmitigated, delusional bullshit, pure and simple.
Take your garbage and flush it. You aren’t a scientist no how, no way.
Go play with your imaginary giant friends in your dirty, slushy, imaginary impact craters.
You got no primacy, you got nothin’. Period. Take a crap and flush those delusions away.

8/8/2023 11:19:25 am

Then there is this. Certainly inspires confidence in your buddies…..not.

In September 2021, Bik discovered repetitive elements in published images that indicated digital tampering by authors of a paper by the controversial Comet Research Group claiming the discovery of the Biblical Sodom, and evidence that it had been destroyed by a cosmic airburst.[45] The authors initially denied tampering with the photos but eventually published a correction in which they admitted to inappropriate image manipulation.

terry the censor link

8/7/2023 06:24:26 pm

Maybe they got tired of saying "paradigm shift" without the paradigm shifting.

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What's Behind the Use of "Ontological Shock" Claims to Attack UFO Skeptics?

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