Recently released UFO records from the British government confirm the power of perception. If you study how people's UFO reports have changed over time, you'll note that in the 1940's and 1950's people reported UFO's as "flying discs" or "flying saucers." At the same time, the popular Hollywood depictions of UFO's as in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) or "Forbidden Planet" (1956) was intergalactic Frisbees. But as science fiction movies changed, UFO reports oddly changed as well. After the powerful opening sequence of Star Wars featured the giant triangle shaped spacecraft, or the unveiling of the Stealth bomber (also triangle shaped), UFO "reporters" started seeing a wider variety of shapes, most notably triangles.

What does it mean? Our brains make connections. And whether or not UFO's are real, we tend to make statements based on familiar images stored in our brains. Our debt to great stories and myths runs deep.