Norman Knight: Accept the truth, even if it isn’t as fun

<p>Hard facts and particular details about a mysterious monolith discovered in a desert in southeastern Utah continue to trickle in. By the time this column comes out, the complete story behind this puzzling news event may be revealed. Will it turn out to be an art project? Some prankster’s idea of a joke? A publicity stunt? Or maybe something more … unearthly?</p><p>Of course, some are already exploiting the story. For example, a well-known fast food behemoth has posted a doctored photo of the 10-foot sliver rectangular box to make it look like a drive-through order machine with a sign attached: “Welcome to McDonald’s, What can I get you?”</p><p>My own theory based on nothing more than fanciful thinking is some fans of the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey wanted to pay homage to Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece.</p><p>In the movie, aliens leave monoliths on our planet and moon in anticipation of the time when homo sapiens have developed intelligence and technology to understand them. In my story, this cadre of fans sneak a large rectangular box into an isolated area and leave it for someone to discover. It would be a humorous work of conceptual art. You know, at one time in my wild youth I might have participated in that sort of guerrilla theater.</p><p>2001: A Space Odyssey fascinated me as a kid even though I wasn’t sure what the ending was all about. It was visually weird which meshed with my teenage sense of art, and as a bonus, the film suggested there were otherworldly beings who were watching us. The idea that there are undiscovered mysteries, that there are events and forces that are really in control of everything was something I so wanted to believe was true.</p><p>Some of my friends insisted UFOs were real and the government was keeping that information from us. “Sure,” I agreed, “Why not?” It was the same idea: There is something bigger behind this veil we call reality. Something beyond the world of our senses. Something hidden from most people except for those in the know.</p><p>But that was years ago. I still believe there is something beyond the natural — something supernatural — but it is more of a spiritual truth in which I believe. It is not dependent on the acts of spacemen or Earthmen. The older I get, the more I realize that plain old everyday reality is pretty cool. The world I can perceive is pretty weird and beautiful on its own. It doesn’t need a lot of help from alien forces to make it so. And this view of the truth has the added benefit of being reasonable and relatively easy to comprehend.</p><p>And that can be the trouble with some truth. Sometimes it is not what you want to hear. Sometimes a new truth really understood is so powerful that it causes us to forego long-held beliefs. Maybe that’s why some of us are so resistant to change. It is much more comfortable to have a comprehensive worldview that helps us live our day to day lives even when individual facts don’t quite fit into that view. The various conspiracies theories, for example, that are being floated about these days seem to be at least a little bit about people not wanting to admit their worldview might be wrong.</p><p>So, when the facts of the Mystery Monolith of Utah eventually come out, I, for one, will accept the truth, boring though it may be. I’ve got to say, though, an alternative “truth,” one involving space aliens or a heretofore unknown tribe of earthbound Bigfoots (Bigfeets?) would be way more interesting and much more fun.</p>