With the recent buzz over the release of some videos of various sensor data of Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon, the new term for UFO, I decided to explore “What if….” and apply it to the realm of RPGs. {Companion podcast episode here:]

For the record, I believe in UNIDENTIFIED flying objects. It means you don’t know what it is. So many have conflated UFO = Aliens that a new term is being used. Of course, if there really are extra-terrestrials flying around, I want to live long enough to know about them and their vehicles.

Research

I watched a lot of videos where the host and guests approach the topic as if it is real. They avoided fantastic claims and come down to whatever these UAPs are, we have nothing like them. The science fiction realm offers many potential explanations. It’s when they mention things written about in Roman times that fit some of these descriptions and it reminds me of the Project UFO TV show when I was a kid, and some of the fantastic “documentaries” of that period like Chariot of the Gods, and the History Channel shows. (I haven’t had cable for nearly a decade, but the History Channel had very little history or focus on fact when last I watched.)

I just started making a list of what could be the source of these UAPs. Such a list is easy to add to. There are enough fringe ideas out there that one can find ample material online. I keep adding to the following list as things occur to me or I stumble across them online.

What Might They Be?

• Lizard People and other fringe beliefs
  • Did V come before or after this idea took hold?
• Cryptobiological Lifeforms
  • Bigfoot
  • Yeti
  • Nessie
  • Etc.
• Mad Scientist or other Driven Individual
  • Someone like Captain Nemo.
• Lost Civilizations
  • Atlantis
  • Lemuria
• Natural Phenomenon
  • Lifeforms native to Earth.
    • The vehicles are living creatures.
    • Some unknown branch of life evolved and developed technology long before humanity.
    • The Silurian Hypothesis – Advanced Pre-Human Civilizations
• Other Dimensions
  • These are not aliens but creatures from the Earths of other dimensions.
• Time Travelers
  • Not aliens but time travelers.
    • Maybe they are “tweaking” the time line to avoid the end of civilization as we know it, and preserver or improve things in their own time.
• Aliens
  • Lone aliens observing us.
  • Galactic Committee/Council/Federation/Confederation
    • Observing us to evaluate accepting us into the fold.
  • “Creators”
    • Ancient aliens crashed here and are our forebears.
    • Aliens seeded life here and are raising us for some unknown purpose.
      • “To Serve Man“
      • “A Small Talent For War“
  • We are an experiment.
• Masters of the Hologram/Program/Machine
  • Reality is a hologram and these incursions are observers on whatever purpose the hologram has for them.

Different Shapes

The different shapes of these vehicles suggests either different functions/purposes like the difference between a car and a truck or a helicopter and a jet. They also suggest the idea that different “factions” have their own style of vehicle.

The shapes reported are cylinders, spheres, saucers, triangles, octohedrons, cubes, etc. One can easily assign various shapes to the above list to come up with one’s own campaign.

RPG/Campaign/Scenario

These ideas could be used in all kinds of table top RPG situations. One could make a new RPG, or use it as the basis for a campaign, or the scenario for a one shot or convention game.

This could fit into any genre and era. Cowboys and Aliens, Gangbusters & Aliens, WWII and Aliens, Apocalypse and Aliens, Post-Apocalypse and Aliens, Science Fiction, Sword and Planet, etc. Substitute Aliens with anything from the above list of possibilities.

A Changing World

Whatever these real world UAPs are, we may learn more following the Congressional hearings in June, 2021.

As a kid once I understood what was meant by UFO I’ve wanted it to be real, who hasn’t. But all the decades of “there are other explanations that cover everything except a miniscule number of sightings for which more evidence is needed.” It makes sense when new, secret planes are spotted, but to hear that evidence supports that these things are real requires a lot of re-thinking.

First, we have to un-learn what we were trained to believe. Then we have to figure out what it means for us. The not knowing what they are or how they function leaves me with the greatest sense of FOMO. I want to live long enough to know the answer.

I wish I could talk to my Dad about this stuff. He was in the Air Force in the late 1950s and was a radar operator on Okinawa. He said that the Chinese would send jets to test the air defenses. That is how long until jets were scrambled to intercept. Dad said they could see them taking off, but waited to scramble jets so they couldn’t figure out they could be seen taking off. I don’t recall him ever mentioning seeing anything weird, so I messaged my siblings to see if they could recall anything. They didn’t recall him mentioning anything like that either. My brother suggested he may have signed an NDA. I’m sure if he had, he’d be telling us all the weird stuff he saw with all the current revelations by the government.