Australia is on my bucket list. Always fancied the accent. I have even eaten vegemite!

You know, there is so much here to respond to, rich stuff, and I am not going to hit it all. You're right about the snake. There could also be genetic connection to archetypal responses. The phenomena itself could be archetypal, which is what Carl Jung wrote about in his book.

If the universe is Consciousness, that would be a form of simulation. The Cartesian universe suggest we take in data and model the universe in our brain, which would be a form of simulation. Same above, same below. Your objections about the universe has been discussed, and Thomas Campbell, author of My Big Theory of Everything, and The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot take the more metaphysical side. Michael Gazaniga, author of Who's In Charge, take the more materialistic view of we're just meat zombies and consciousness is an illusion, which is again, by default- a simulation.

Why bother simming the universe? Well, why bother with video games at all? Why not just start with a world, or just render a galaxy? Well, in some sense- we used to have smaller world views, but as we aged and pushed the boundaries of our understanding, we became continent, a world, a solar system, a galaxy... and more galaxies. Now, I am not saying that structure changed as we changed, but one could argue maybe that is what happened, and has players pushed the program to its limits- the boundaries were increased, just as if the background behind us isn't rendered until we turn and look. This concept has been discussed longer than I have been alive. Even Einstein said, "I would like to think the moon is still there when I am not looking at it."

But if the universe is the mind of God, then humans are the archetypes. It would certainly seem the human individual mind is full of archetypes. How many entities have you dreampt of in a life time?

Which brings us back to aliens... If we're in a sim, maybe they're the custodians of the game. Perhaps they're the parents, and being human is essentially the larvae stage. In the old days, aliens would have been spirits, demons or angels... Sometimes the phenomena appears as such. Now, that could be evidence of advanced tech that reads minds and gives experiencers what they imagine most, a way of trying to comfort folks... And if this life was a simulation, the AI interface would want to know if the sim is convincing.

I have heard of two 'alien' encounters where the aliens asked, do you believe we are who we are. In that instance, humans had tried contacting them through old magic rituals... So was it aliens, demons, or magic is a way of accessing the program...

The world is much stranger than we are told, and maybe even stranger than anyone can or dare tells. That kind of fits with that saying, the universe is not only stranger than you think, but stranger than you can think.

Oh, and I love your preferred word "agreement." And I think you're right. Few people can keep secrets, but how many people have come forwards and they're made out to be nuts? How many new stories didn't get shared. Haim Eshed and Robert Bigelow are really important people and they came forwards in big ways and said, it's aliens.

And back in the day, supposedly there were giants. There are still giant stories around. :) I don't focus too much on them. I find them fairly scary...