There is a pretty pervasive and consistent assumption in our long history of UFO sightings: that the unidentified objects some of us see in the night sky are vehicles or crafts inside of which are what we’re really interested in—the aliens themselves. But what if this assumption is mistaken? What if the craft or vehicle itself is what’s alien, full stop? What would this discovery entail? UFOs are like mirrors for human nature The long history of UFO sightings in the world, taken as a whole, can act as a reflecting pool for our often subconscious beliefs and assumptions. The term “flying saucer” has been around since the late 1940s, when a private pilot named Kevin Arnold reported seeing something fitting that description in the skies over Mount Rainier in Washington state. The moniker stuck because it seems to aptly describe what so many people since then have described seeing in the night sky. UFO sightings often involve a disk-shaped object in the sky, sometimes with lights or doors or other hardware that suggest the …