Making A Comment Into A Post
In one of those “comment longer than the post” incidents that crop up at every site, “Press To Digitate” reacted to my claim that no real evidence exists to conclude that aliens are visiting Earth in structured craft. He insists that the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH) has been almost conclusively settled. Instead of answering in the comments, I thought it might be fun to make a whole post out of it, because “Press” makes a few valid points, but also makes a few assumptions. I thought he failed to make a compelling case, although he obviously put a lot of thought into his comments, and that’s something we can all appreciate.
Please be aware that I am not trying to nitpick the points separately without taking them into account as a whole. I agree that there is often something unexplainable to consider in the UFO subject, but to make the jump to an iron-clad belief in ET visitation is something I cannot do as yet.
Original comments in italics:
The reality of alien visition [sic] (flesh and blood extraterrestrial interstellar astronauts in nuts and bolts starships) is so thoroughly established by hard evidence at this point that its hardly subject to rational debate.
Rational debate about something that presents us with no opportunities to repeat results under our control coupled with an assumption that alien civilizations exist and have the desire and wherewithal to visit should always be subject to discussion.
Hundreds of physical trace cases, many with electromagnetic, radiological, chemical, and microbiological residues that have been verified by independent laboratories, all remain, without alternative prosaic explanation.
As far as I can remember, the trace cases do not provide evidence of anything that can be called “extraterrestrial.” Taken with witness testimony, they may add up to “unexplained,” but not “alien.” Something appeared and left a trace that was probably not there before. That is all we can say.
Hundreds of former government and contractor employees, with verified Army, Navy, Air Force, NASA, CIA, DIA, and NSA credentials (i.e. dd214 forms that check out) have come forward, and testified under oath that they have personally worked inside the coverup, seen or handled physical evidence or official documents attesting to UFO reality, and that UFOs are, in fact, definately [sic], extraterrestrial alien spacecraft.
That is their belief. There is no concrete evidence that they have any better idea where these things came from than the rest of us, unless I am missing something. The artifacts (none of which civilians have any access to for examination) are apparently unexplained and testimony would indicate that the military witnesses assumed (or were told) that they were from an ET civilization. It may be what the people who control the information want them to think. Also, do we have verifiable testimony that any “alien” appeared and told someone this? If so, why should we trust them (the aliens)?
Hundreds of abductees have come forward, exhibiting either physical evidence (surgical scars, radiological burns, or implanted devices) or with third-party eyewitnesses to their abductions, missing time, and/or returns, for which no hypnographic artifacts provide an alternative explanation.
There is a real problem of researchers looking for something they want to find, and witnesses cooperating with them on a subconscious level. The database may have been so contaminated early on that objectivity is no longer possible. Do stigmata count as “hypnographic artifacts?” Many people forget where some of their scars came from, and may seize on any irregularity as evidence (and so might investigators.) Apart from reports of some supposed implants issuing radio waves (were these tests done in a Faraday cage?) I have heard of no recovered artifacts that proved anything except that they were either normal objects or that results were inconclusive. These things may be evidence, but not necessarily evidence for aliens coming from other planets. Finally, do third-party witnesses have an infallible detector that determines the origin of what they saw?
This may all be neutralized by a recent interview I did with Peter Robbins, who worked with Budd Hopkins for many years, and is convinced that something like “aliens” have in fact taken people from their beds and other places on many occasions. I trust Peter as an honest and thoughtful person, however that still doesn’t answer the question of their origin.
There is no scientific reason to believe that we are alone in the universe, or even in the galaxy, or to doubt that older and wiser civilizations may have the technological power to visit us - and to do so discretely if they so chose. [sic]
There are valid scientific reasons to believe that we are definitely not alone in the universe. That doesn’t necessarily equate to visitation. If these civilizations are trying to be discrete, they’re doing a pretty bad job, and it may appear that aliens are coming here from other planets because as a society, we have provided ourselves with a mental “box” to put it in. In addition, it may appear “discrete” because we can’t all accept it. The “alien” idea rests on the current technological view of existence. Why are we more correct in our assumptions than witnesses from hundreds of years ago? I don’t think it’s simply because “we know better now.” How will we look at this enigma in 50 years? In 100?
All ‘official’ explanations for Roswell, Rendlesham, Phoenix, and dozens of other high profile UFO cases have been conclusively debunked, leaving the alien reality the only plausible alternative.
Just because some don’t agree with the “official” explanation doesn’t make the ETH opinion the right one. Also, how do witnesses in the incidents you mention know the objects were not advanced human technology? (And Roswell is a real can of worms.) There are better examples of unexplained sightings that are less likely to be human-created, particularly those the involve poltergeist, psychic, psychological and cryptozoological effects around the area of the sighting and on the witnesses. These suggest connections that lie closer to home.
While thousands of pages of government documents, both declassified and leaked, attest to official knowledge of UFOs as Alien spacecraft, there is none - as in Not One - which renders any discription [sic] of any other plausible source of such objects and observations. No evidence exists in any form whatsoever that UFOs are Psychic, Interdimensional, Imaginary, Animals or other Life Forms, Manifestations of Gods/Demons, or anything other than nuts-and-bolts transportation equipment not of human origin.
Once again, is our society at the end of all evolution? Do we know everything? Does the fact that the Government can’t come up with anything else to leak to us mean that they haven’t considered other explanations? Are all the documents genuine? Is the Government always right? There are a host of assumptions in your argument. The problem with ETH believers is that they use something that seems to be the best explanation by eliminating possibilities that don’t agree with the main belief. Ingrained beliefs color our perceptions. We are all susceptible to this, even military insiders. What I try to do is consider other possibilities, since the alien explanation does not seem to be conclusive. There are some fruitful tributaries to be found in the litany of subjects you seem to throw out with the bathwater.
There is no evidence that humans are subject to “mass delusionâ€, or that any such phenomenon exists, as this is not observed in any context other than as proffered to explain UFO sightings by multiple witnesses. The notion that ‘Mass Delusion’ occurs at all is crank psychology with no basis in empirical scientific psychoanalytic fact.
What happened when Orson Welles broadcast The War Of The Worlds? Here is a definition of “mass hysteria” from wikipedia, with references. It is not “crank psychology.” The point is, some (not all) SOME sightings of UFOs can be explained by a widespread misidentification of a prosaic event, or subsequent sightings after an initial UFO is seen. I have actually seen this at work in a group of believers who insisted to me that satellites and aircraft we were seeing were UFOs, but the leap that fundamentalist skeptics make to explain all multiple witness sightings is indeed laughable.
Until Tangible Proof can be put forward to advance a theory for [prosaically unexplained] UFOs apart from the “Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesisâ€, the ETH will have to stand as - by far - the best documented explanation we have for the millions of sightings reported each year worldwide. Interdimensional Ghosts, etc. will have to wait their turn behind the flying saucers that multiple retired Colonels have ‘kicked the tires’ of, and sworn to.
The ETH offers no “Tangible Proof” either, leaving aside your definition of “tangible.” Did these retired colonels see the craft fly, or were they just sitting there? Lights in the sky are definitely from other planets? How does that follow?
The ENTIRE theoretical opposition to ETH rests on the [now discredited] notion of 20th Century physics that “Nothing - not even Information - can travel faster than the Speed of Lightâ€. In the 21st Century, we know that this primitive niave [sic] dictum was drivel. Beethoven has been transmitted at speeds of 300x “câ€, Quantum Entanglement has telecommunicated data instantaneously over 15 km., Molecules of hundreds of atoms have been ‘teleported’ with zero delay, and NASA’s own Breakthrough Physics program has invested in new physics approaches to hyperluminal propulsion. Morover, “C†has been shown, in a dozen different laboratories, to be variable and not a true ‘Constant’; cosmology now admits that it has also changed over time. Light Barrier? BUNK!
I highlighted a paper called “Inflation Theory Implications For Extraterrestrial Visitation” here on January 3rd of 2007. However, the paper was a plea to consider the possibility that extra-human intelligence could theoretically travel here. It’s not proof that it has happened. It also suggests (I believe) that time may not be a mitigating factor, which opens up the possibility that some form of human from some sort of Earth in some other existence may be playing with us. Finally, relativity has not been “discredited,” just considered as incomplete.
Lets move on, to the far more important question: What are they doing here in the first place, and what is so important that it must be kept secret at ANY cost (its surely not their mere presence)???
Right on (wherever “they” come from)!
I have never said that the ETH should thrown out. As a theory, it remains just that. I find it far more interesting to consider other possibilities that seem to point to a larger view of existence, and our perceptions of it. Examples can be found in areas that Ufologists who yearn for “respectability” fear to tread, such as shamanism, psychoactive plants, religious ideas, fringe science, occult beliefs and other hidden aspects of history.
The 50-odd year saga of UFO study reveals that the public largely considers UFO researchers as part of the lunatic fringe. Not one in a thousand people could tell you who J. Allen Hynek was. Not one in ten thousand would recognize the names of James MacDonald or Jacques Vallee. This will probably be the status quo until the media, academicians, and pundits change their minds about the subject, and it probably isn’t going to happen due to the efforts of UFO enthusiasts. Either that, or whatever is behind the phenomenon itself would have to change its modus operandi.
Most of us should stop searching for acceptance and use the subject as a tool in a personal search for meaning. Any public revelations would be icing on the cake.
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on Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 7:36 pm and is filed under Abductions, Anomalous Phenomena, Beliefs, Close Encounters, Conspiracies, Evidence, Fundamentalist Skeptics, Government Projects, History, UFOlogists, UFOlogy, UFOmystic Exclusive, Wake Up Down There. You can follow responses via RSS 2.0 feed.
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Aug 31 2009 
September 1st, 2009 at 1:13 am
I’m getting the impression that the ETHers are really magicians working to evoke a physical manifestion. It reminds me of the Paranormal State episode last night that teared me up. I recently got regular access to cable but before that I had watched all the old Paranormal State episodes back to back on dvd. I was still dubious about the authenticity — but then I went to the website — and they all seem a sincere bunch (plus Heather is hot). haha. Anyway they always use the psychic Chip Toffey or something — he’s a bit flamey and there most be some secret love for the hunk founder. haha.
Oh yeah so the psychological projection — Nandor Fodor style — the Paranormal State had a ghost in a fire station. It was making physical presence — telekinesis — but the ghost had been a fireman who committed suicide. Then the psychic stated that the ghost knew that the new fireman to replace him was also suicidal and therefore was OUTING the physically alive suicidal fireman.
So there is a symbiotic relationship because the psychic stated that the ghost was achieving pentance — that the physically alive people were helping the ghost make up for his own suicide. So that the physical presence of the ALIENS is also the symptom of the ETHers being helped by the disembodied spirits which are in turn a psychological projection of the ETHers repressed emotional blockages.
Isn’t Nick supposed to writing a book on this — how the scientists are actually conjuring up the extraterrestials using occult technology?
Thanks Greg!
September 1st, 2009 at 9:17 am
Greg,
Thank you for taking the time to address my comments point by point. In the end I guess that I just find it wholly implausible that ALL of the witnesses, contactees, abductees, ex-spook whistleblowers, ex-military, etc. are all similarly befuddled or conspiring to make up the same coherent, cohesive set of lies. At least, it seems less plausible than the more mundane explanation that somebody else on another planet can simply build better flying machines than we can.
Having said that, I am troubled by the “either/or” mentality of the discussion. The number and variety of un-Earthly anomalous aerial sightings certaily leaves room for *some* to be things other than ET spacecraft. For example, the many small ‘orbs’, often seen up close, which apparently respond to the observer, could well be entities manifesting themselves from the Spiritual Dimension. But, even if true, how does this in any way inform our understanding of mile-long, boomerang shaped craft with running lights, seen up close by thousands of people over Phoenix, by RAF and Belgian fighters over the English Channel, and elsewhere around the world? Why do all sightings have to be the same thing (either “ETH” or “Not”) when there could likely be a veritable ZOO of things outside the official canon of our scientific and cultural understanding?
The existence of alien spacecraft in no way negates that “larger view of existence, and our perceptions of it… such as shamanism, psychoactive plants, religious ideas, fringe science, occult beliefs and other hidden aspects of history.”
Unlike Drew, I have no trouble with Ghosts, Psycho-Kinesis, or other manifestations of the Afterlife or ESP phenomena, since hard laboratory evidence has accumulated in recent years which fairly conclusively establish these to be real as well.
Biological Aliens from other worlds and Spirits of the Dead from higher dimensions are in no respect mutually exclusive. I suspect that an advanced ET civilization, more evolved and sophisticated than ourselves, probably has a better understanding of Quantum Consciousness and spiritual transcendence than we do. They’ve had more time to shed fundamentalist scientific dogma and fundamentalist religious dogma, in order to come to a more accurate understanding of - and likely more practical access to - the ‘Spiritual Environment’. Aliens are not “gods”, “angels”, “demons”, or “devils” (though likely mistaken as such by primitive Man), but are probably better acquainted with Him/Them than we are…
September 2nd, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Drew,
…or there’s the story that Strieber told a few years back about some secret Government study from the 1950s that said that the only way to hold back an invasion was to keep people from believing in aliens.
September 2nd, 2009 at 5:20 pm
“Press,”
Thanks for not getting fundamentalist on me! My personality is such that I gravitate towards non-ETH theories. By no means are they mutually exclusive. My problem is that people almost always assume that UFO = ET. While that is not out of the realm of possibility, it hasn’t been proven, because there is no real way to do so. The other theories haven’t been proven either, but they seem more exciting to me because they tend to put humans in the equation, which might give us a better handle on some aspect of the problem.
You might be interested to read other posts I have made on this subject:
Where Might Aliens Come From?
Where Do UFOs Come From?
September 3rd, 2009 at 10:17 am
As a great fan of Terence McKenna (and an admirer of Timothy Leary, Rick Strassman, Dean Radin, Aliester Crowley, and Robert Anton Wilson), I fully appreciate the power and potential of the transcendental; I empathize with the desire to ‘keep humans in the equation’. I have personally had experiences of direct spiritual contact with elements of that Jungian “Other”. I am fully convinced that it is as ‘real’ - and as external to our own imagination - as anything common to our physical existence. There is a non-human intelligence at work - or, more likely, a plethora of them.
But keeping humans in the equation is much more complicated than the reality of a universe of populated star systems, some of them being spacefaring civilzations.
Within 20 years, EVP and related Instrumental Transcommunication technology will evolve into a reliable Thanatronic Interface, enabling the ‘dead’ to walk among us, piloting robotic avatars. Simultaneously, A.I. will reach - and surpass - human intellectual capabilities, and, likely also become common ambulatory ‘persons’ ubiquitous in society.
Whether organic humans are bumped off our pinnacle to become the lesser among three, or least out of four (including ET) types of ‘beings’ inhabiting the planet at that time would seem to make little difference. I think we will find that we have more in common with our ‘dead’ and with other biologicals (ET) than we have with machine intelligence of any sort.
If [at least some] ET are not alien visitors, then it may indeed be true that no intelligent civilization survives its technological Singularity to continue biological evolution long enough to travel space.
If some are aliens, then perhaps such an older, wiser civilization may help us avoid becoming obsolete, ultimately to be eaten by Carbon-fxing nanobots and excreted as ‘Computronium’. For that is the path we’re on; Man as a mere ’speedbump’ on the evolutionary highway which runs from “Animal” to “Machine”.
Lets hope that ET is there and able and willing to help, because we have already passed the Singularity’s ‘Event Horizon’, and it now appears beyond our power to alter the trajectory of this timeline. Interdimensional, transcendental companions are nice, wise, even prescient, but our most pressing existential threat comes in nuts-and-bolts, not from space but from Silicon Valley.
What if McKenna’s “self-transforming Machine Elves” are a stoned Artillect from our own near future?