Waiting for sleep so stalking threads and saw this. Sounds like you’ve had a pretty rough go of it. My love goes out to you. Growing up surrounded by violence makes everything much harder but, it seems you are reaching for purity and conditionless love...that’s a great thing. Be proud of yourself for that. I mean it. Pride is only a bad thing if you wave it around on a pole in people’s faces. Those of us brought up in a soup of emotional and physical abuse from the people who were supposed to only love and nurture us, need to self love above all things. Keep rockin’ on.

Now...about the UFO angle...it’s so difficult to decipher what’s happening there. When we have mental instability, we question everything. I’ve often wondered, if there are alien visitors zipping around us...they seem to target those with heavy burdens of emotional uncertainty. Is it because of the energy signatures they emit or because they are already Uber sensitive to “emotional cues outside of normal parameters”, they can sense a broader spectrum so they “see” and “feel” these encounters better and, the visitors are, in fact, way more common than anyone realizes?

Who knows. I am a writer and science fiction is my main genre. I have researched this conundrum a great deal. I have yet to discern a clear idea of which is the cart and which is the horse...as well as the third possibly of these encounters being highly pronounced mental illusions and there are no otherworldly, advanced life forms involved. There is also a fourth explanation; that of our own government using the alien phenomenon as cover to carry out their own experiments on an unsuspecting, mentally unstable populace. Unless clear, unquestionable evidence presents itself, it’s impossible to prove or disprove any of it.

Personally, I don’t believe we are alone in this galaxy much less, this universe. The odds of Earth being a singular anomaly within a galaxy of billions of stars and mathematically anyway, still more billion of planets with “Goldilocks” conditions to sustain highly evolved, sentient life, are just too great to ignore.

So...IMO there is no reason your family could not have experienced everything they speak of. There are “Dark” military installations in most every state. But, those who work there sign several levels of security non disclosure documents where saying pretty much anything could land them in some serious Black Ops doodoo. So, I would be suspect of such blatant statements from your family but, it’s no reason to assume anything. Just be wary and...if they are or were employed in one of these places, speaking about it to you could put your life in danger as well. If the Black Ops bunch is good at one thing..it’s pulling out all lose ends and cleaning behind themselves afterwards if you get my meaning. In your shoes, I would concentrate on enjoying your reconnections with loving family and not be too keen on uncovering things others have a vested interest in staying hidden from those not involved.