Yesterday I received a message from my friend Rohit. He shared this uncanny video that’s been making the rounds on Reddit lately. The video (which is actually old, the first version dating back to 2014) is bizarre. It shows a plane flying erratically above the clouds, with small orbs menacingly swirling around it, before the aircraft vanishes in a flash.
While the video has been mostly ignored for the past 9 years, due (I believe) to the recent interest in UFOs sparked by the congressional hearings in the US, Reddit is now going crazy with theories, with scores claiming that the plane is Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, and this is proof of extraterrestrial existence.
While my sceptical self quickly dismissed this notion, this episode got me thinking about the fascinating tendency we humans have to embrace the extraordinary, even in the face of scepticism and uncertainty.
Filling in the Blanks: The Narrative Urge
When confronted with the unknown, humans are wired to seek explanations that make sense of the chaos. We need to fill narrative gaps: We need heroes, culprits, we need closures, we need moral judgements on the stories of our lives. The “narrative sense” is a powerful force. Our minds seek patterns and connections, even where none may exist. In this case, I still remember my frustration and pain when the plane disappeared. Our sense of empathy is magnified by the size of the tragedy, individual stories, and the suffering of all the families still left without an answer.
In our struggle to seek meaning in a story that continues to contain too many unknowns, the “MH370 video” provides a visual stimulant to fuel our imagination and satisfy our craving for a complete narrative. It allows us to conjure explanations that bridge gaps in our knowledge. But this tendency to fill in the blanks is a double-edged sword, simultaneously driving narrative satisfaction while allowing the wildest deceptions to creep in.
The Pull of the Extraordinary
Humans have an innate desire to reach beyond the boundaries of their known world. Since we have records, mythologies have been born from this drive, giving rise to stories of gods, magic, and unexplained phenomena. Similarly, the tragic disappearance of MH370 has offered fertile ground for all sorts of theories. The prospect of “otherworldly beings” orchestrating events that defy our understanding taps into our hunger for the fantastical. It sparks a sense of awe and wonder that easily outweighs our rational scepticism.
Realistically, if you consider all the possibilities, it is rather unlikely that extraterrestrial probes teleported the plane to another universe or whatnot.
And yet, there are scores of people who watched the video, and without hesitation, in a few minutes, accepted that this is the only plausible explanation, even though buying it should completely change how they see the world and reality. If you believe there are beings out there who can teleport a plane away, how can you just go on with your day and have a coffee while commenting on Reddit? It’s mind-blowing.
The Dance of Perception and Reality
While discussing these ideas with Rohit, he described to me the idea of Portal Fiction, a concept from magical realism seen in classics like “Alice in Wonderland”, “Harry Potter”, and “The Matrix,”. It is a class of very popular trope that sees the protagonist start with a somewhat mundane and boring life until magically something unrealistic happens and, through a portal or gateway, is transported into another reality where you can suspend disbelief in certain ways. Portal Fiction challenges the boundaries of what we consider possible. In the case of the MH370 video, the possibility of extraterrestrial teleportation engages our cognitive dissonance, momentarily convincing us that the extraordinary could indeed be our new reality.
The desire to explore a reality beyond the mundane is a shared human trait. We ache to venture into realms that transcend the physical, and narratives involving extraordinary occurrences allow us to do just that. It could be a way to escape the routine of our lives; maybe it’s the contemporary reaction to look for transcendental experiences beyond the religious realm (and hence into the next best thing, sci-fi and angel-like beings that live on distant planets).
In the End, the Human Experience
So, what does it all mean? It’s a testament to the intricacies of the human experience. Humans are tempted to fill in the blanks of a narrative with anything that seems to provide an answer. Especially when there is “visual” evidence for it. Also, we tend to accept and welcome narratives that challenge our understanding of the world and satisfy our innate need to reach beyond physical reality. We grapple with uncertainty, yearning to find (1) meaning in narratives and (2) mystical adventures that reveal a deeper reality than the one we can experience with our senses.
The most fascinating (and worrisome!) part for me was that at some point, while deep in the rabbit hole of Reddit, I believed that this all could make sense. I knew I was pulled in by the illogical force of the narrative urge, and yet it was difficult to resist the pull.
Our minds dance between realist scepticism and the embrace of the extraordinary, revealing the layers of complexity — and bewilderment — that shape our perception of reality. Our human ability to question, analyze, and, ultimately, seek truth defines our journeys. And yet, it seems we all require a good dose of magical realism escapism from time to time.
