Randall Nickerson, Director of the documentary Ariel Phenomenon, compares the elusive nature of UFO sightings to his experience with wildlife photography.

Last year Randall Nickerson, who directed a documentary on the Ariel School encounter, did an interview with a podcaster I listen to named Chris Ryan. You can watch this on youtube here. Its sort of a meta discussion about documentary making around the topic more than a deep-dive into the case but its worth watching I think.

Ryan isn’t a UFO podcaster but he’s had a few UFO dicussions on his show. He asks Nickeron why UFOs dont just land on the White House lawn, a question that often gets discussed in UFO Circles.

Nickerson has a perspective that I think is pretty thoughtful, and partly based on his experience as a wildlife photographer. This happens in the episode around the 29 minute mark, but I’ve transcribed this below for those who don’t want to watch the video.

Nickerson: What it seems like, when I look at the whole field, and all the research that I’ve done and all the incidents that I could look at – um…there definitely seems to be a measure of study, you know. Study, [and] subtle movement in towards us – but not overwhelming. I mean it’s actually really smart cause I do wildlife [photography], so when I’m out in the field, photographing, I have to build trust with that animal, or that animals going to take off.

Ryan:
Right

Nickerson:
So I start off at a distance, I always wear the same clothes, same hat, so it knows who I am. And…particularly with animals that are far away from humanity – they don’t see humans very often. But its a process of building trusting, and I’m, you know, trying not to be the technological giant, which I am in their eyes. They don’t understand a lot of things that I have, which are magical to them, you know, in a sense. Things I can do with light, fire, [camera] lenses. You know, all these strange things they don’t normally see.

But it takes a process of time. And sometimes a lot of time – months….months, to get an animal to trust you. Wildcat or bobcat, or whatever. In Africa it was a different deal – bigger stuff [laughs], that can eat you, very easily. But uh, I kinda see that perspective of…how another species may be looking at us – and being a little delicate. Like, you know we don’t wanna shock them, our society will likely fall apart if we do. So they keep an eye on our technology, they’re trying to evolve us to understand, yeah – we’re not the only ones here. Thats kinda the way I see it.

I’m not extending this to say we are farm animals or whatever, but I agree with Nickerson here and I think his analogy makes sense. I’m not sure how abductions would fit into this but since many of those seem not to be benevolent I’d have to put them into a different category.

But as far as ‘orbs’ and the like, it makes sense they would be cautious, if they’re actually trying not to scare the bejeezus out of people that encounter them.