Roundup: December 2021

Roundup Synopsis

Taken from the Winter 2021 Branding Iron.
The December Roundup was the last meeting of 2021, and of the Westerners’ brief return to in-person gatherings before Omicron forced a new wave of pandemic restrictions. Blissfully ignorant of this future, our meeting was animated with festive cheer, cherries jubilee, and philosophical questions like, “Are we alone in the universe?” The night’s speaker, Gary Turner, offered his answer by sharing his personal journey down the rabbit hole—or rather, up the tractor beam—of UFOlogy. Since the dawn of prehistory, humanity has looked to the heavens as the realm of gods and fate, and devoted lifetimes to divining the wisdom in the stars. Pilgrims to Roswell, New Mexico, have retraced this ancient process of mythmaking, with extraterrestrials becoming today’s celestial beings. Scientific certainty has made the night sky cold and lonely by removing its sense of mystery, but with a little imagination, it can still, indeed, be out of this world.
— John Dillon

Photos from the Roundup