Now encountering a mysterious voyager from the beyond: The Alien….

As a wee lad, aliens were the single-biggest thing I was afraid of. The only problem, of course, was that I was deathly fascinated with them. I scoured nearby libraries for books. I watched “In Search Of” with Leonard Nimoy religiously - and any other similar documentary I could come across. And I’d sit there and watch them completely transfixed until that one moment - that one moment where they would flash an image of an alien on the screen. A blurry photo. A drawing, a sculpture. Whatever. Any and all of it would freak me out to high heaven. Sometimes I’d try to time it so that when they showed the picture I’d look away or close my eyes. But even still, I’d catch just a moment’s glimpse, and that would be enough. The darkness would suddenly become sinister. The hallway to my bedroom would turn into a catacomb, lit only by my flickering fear. Once in bed, I’d pull the covers tightly over my head, so that only my mouth was sticking out. And only just enough so I could breathe.

I was afraid. I was never afraid of communists or nuclear war or terrorists or shit like that. I was afraid of aliens. Okay, aliens and gremlins. And ghosts too. Anyway, looking at these images sometimes still stirs up a little tiny inkling of that old panic - even though it’s mostly gone away. The central image of this card is from the cover of Whitley Strieber’s hugely successful book, Communion - an image that always freaked me out, even though I’ve never read that book. Actually haven’t delved into the alien stuff in quite some time.

To me, The Alien card represents the fear of the unknown, whereas The Archon card is more about power - about the fear of someone else having power over you. Certainly that’s an aspects of alien encounters as well though. The thing that I always especially feared was that aliens would do that trick where they would materialize through the wall, paralyze me and then take me out to their ship. And from there, God only knows… or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe it’s outside his realm.

The Alien card also could mean a complete and utter paradigm shift. Suddenly everything you know or thought you knew is proven to be wrong. Or incomplete. You overlooked something, and now it’s got you. This could also be a positive thing though. It could represent suddenly rising to a new level of consciousness or understanding. Suddenly the secrets of the universe have come knocking on your front door. Are you ready for them? Because they are ready for you. Many New Age-style UFO encounters involve aliens being friendly rather than nefarious. They provide messages of peace, or offer wisdom teachings on how to right the course of humanity.

The idea of alien abduction is also referenced in this card with the beam of light blasting out of the UFO to grab the man. This image is taken from Fire in the Sky, which I also never saw, because I was too scared. The abduction fear may also be about letting your fantasies and fears get the better of you. This is certainly what happened to me as a kid.

We also see in this card the backdrop of a giant field with a crop circle in it. No matter how many times people “disprove” crop-circles, they never seem to go away. They obviously satisfy some larger need for mystery. Which I think is very much what aliens do as well. In a way, the yearning for there to be aliens is the yearning for an authentic old-fashioned experience of religion. Fox Mulder in the X-Files had that poster that said “I Want to Believe.” The alien card may then be also about this yearning for something to believe in, or else the failure of what you believed in previously. It may also mean you’re believing in weird things which may not exist - chasing phantasms and illusions. This is referenced by the image from the so-called “alien autopsy” video which came out. Though it looks so much like an obvious forgery, many people still bought into it. Another example of our inherent need for mystery.

Another clue as to the man-made aspects of these phenomena is the UFO pictured here. It comes from concept art for alleged UFO’s or flying discs which the Nazis supposedly made towards the end of World War II. Some say that this technology was then taken to America, during Project Paperclip and other programs to place Nazi scientists under the employ of the US government. It is also an emblem of the fact that those in power are aware of our need for mystery, and are not above exploiting it for their own ends.

Also pictured here is the famous “face on Mars,” which to some people is a signal from a lost race, and to others is merely another example of our incessant ability to project our fantasies and desires onto reality. This is also a bit of an oblique reference to the weird old sci-fi movie Zardoz where Sean Connery runs around in red underwear and an elite post-apocalyptic group flies around in giant stone heads to scare and awe the primitive survivors. Aside from that the final image we have is the little guy riding inside what looks like a comet in the upper left corner. This is from (I believe) a medieval image - one of several which are often cited by enthusiasts that “ancient astronauts” have been visiting and influencing humanity for untold millenia.

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