The Holographic Universe and You: Part Three

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

QUESTIONS (AND ANSWERS): If the Universe is a hologram, then presumably our Moon, the planets Mars and Venus, as well as Titan (moon of Saturn) are holograms too. So, how can one land space probes, as we’ve done, on a hologram? The answer, I suspect, is that our space probes too were holograms, so it wasn’t as if you had a solid 3-D object land on an illusionary 3-D planet or moon. Both the probes and the planets were illusionary 3-D objects; or conversely, both were (or are) solid albeit 2-D objects.

How can you have a solid 2-D surface when anything that’s solid must have a third dimension to it? The answer seems to be that the operative word here is ‘surface’ and the surface, itself, is 2-D even if there is structure beneath it.

EVIDENCE: You’d be aware that if you examine an image at an every closer and closer detail, the image will become fuzzier and fuzzier or grainier and grainer. The newspaper picture breaks up into little individual black and white dots – granulation, or noise in the signal; the TV picture is just a series of pixels at high magnification. So too, if our Universe is a hologram image, that image should get ever fuzzier and start to break up when resolving it to an every greater and greater level of magnification.  Unfortunately, ordinary astronomical instruments aren’t powerful enough to see the required level of magnified detail that would suggest whether the Universe’s alleged hologram imagery begins to break down and become granulated. But, one type of instrument just might have (the required resolution), and just might have (found evidence that the Universe is a hologram).

The technique in question is instrumentation designed to detect gravitational waves, something predicted by Einstein’s excursions into relativity theory. One such instrument or research project is called GEO 600, located in Hanover, Germany.  Gravitational wave detectors like GEO 600 are essentially fantastically sensitive rulers that can probe the smallest unit of space-time which brings the microscopic quantum structure of the Universe within reach of current experiments.

Now GEO 600 has detected unexplained noise in the signal it’s actually designed to detect. This noise matches the loss of resolution prediction of what one would be expected to detect if the Universe were but a holographic image viewed at extreme resolution, resolution GEO 600 is capable of. Interestingly, the prediction of this ‘holographic noise’ was made by Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, and director of the Fermilab's Center for Particle Astrophysics. When Hogan first realized this, he wondered if any experiment might be able to detect the holographic blurriness of space-time. That's where the GEO 600 comes in. GEO 600 has come across the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time ceases behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into ‘grains’, just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in.

According to Hogan, "If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram." "If you lived inside a hologram, you could tell by measuring the blurring," Hogan says.

The initial match between what holographic theory suggests, and actual observation, while interesting, is still tentative enough that no one is yet claiming absolutely that GEO600 has found 100% proof positive evidence that we live in a holographic universe. It is still way too far too soon to say absolutely. A mundane source of the noise is still a very real possibility. However, further investigations are planned, so stay tuned!

CONCLUSION: I can take neither credit nor blame for such an idea as that given above. You’ll find it in many relatively recent physics, astrophysics and cosmology books and articles, often as a subject in its own right – see the further readings section. The concept of our Universe as a hologram is certainly one of those ‘far out, star scout’ ideas, but all it takes is a bit of thinking outside of the box – not that that makes the idea right. But, it’s a concept worth playing around with, just for fun if nothing else.

Further readings:

Amoroso, Richard L. & Rauscher, Elizabeth A.; The Holographic Anthropic Multiverse: Formalizing the Complex Geometry of Reality; World Scientific Publishing Company, Hackensack, New Jersey; 2009:

Bekenstein, Jacob D.; ‘Information in the holographic universe: theoretical results about black holes suggest that the universe could be like a gigantic hologram’; Scientific American, August 2003; page 59:

Cardiff University; ‘Holographic Universe: discovery could herald new era in fundamental physics’; Science Daily, 4 February 2009: [GEO 600 observations]

Chown, Marcus; ‘Our world may be a giant hologram’; New Scientist, January 15, 2009: [GEO 600 observations]

Grote, H. (for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration); ‘The status of GEO 600’; Classical and Quantum Gravity; Volume 25, Number 11, 7 June 2008; page 114043:

Hogan, Craig J.; ‘Measurement of quantum fluctuations in geometry’; Physical Review D; Volume 77, Number 10, 2008; page 104031: 

Lindesay, James & Susskind, Leonard; An Introduction to Black Holes, Information and the String Theory Revolution: The Holographic Universe; World Scientific Publishing Company; Hackensack, New Jersey; 2004:

Talbot, Michael; The Holographic Universe; Harper Perennial, New York; 1992:

Vienna University of Technology; ‘How many dimensions in the holographic universe’; Science Daily, 9 February 2009:

Vitini, Leonardo; ‘Reality: a mere illusion (part 1); The Epoch Times; 13 December 2009:

Vitini, Leonardo; ‘Reality: a mere illusion (part 2)’; The Epoch Times; 20 December 2009:

Wilber, Ken (Editor); The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes;

Shambhala Publications, Boston, Mass.; 1982:

*Time is, IMHO, an illusion. Time has no real independent existence – it can’t stand by itself. If you removed all the matter and energy from the Universe, would there be left anything we could address as time? Time is just our way of keeping track of, and measuring rate of change in matter and/or energy. If nothing ever changed it would be nonsense to talk about time. The flow of time; the arrow of time; is just the flow of macro things changing. If everything were somehow ‘frozen in time’ – like a single frame from a film – there is no actual time that can be discussed or measured. So we don’t in any sense measure something that is time, we measure rate of change and call that time.

Actually you measure rate of change by another rate of change. For example, the rate of change from birth to death is usually measured by the rate of change in position of the Earth orbiting the Sun (years and fractions of years) and rate of change of position of the Earth rotating around on its axis (days and fractions of days). Another example: The rate of change between the beginning of your lunch hour and the ending of your lunch hour is usually measured by the rate of change of the hands of a clock (sixty 360 degree sweeps of the minute hand or a 30 degrees clockwise change in the hour hand) or the rate of change in the numbers on your digital watch, say from 1:00 to 2:00. Translated, a variable or uncertain rate of change (lifespan; length of a lunch ‘hour’) is usually measured by a standard, invariable, predictable rate of change.

Now rate of change is affected by gravity or mass – the greater the mass the greater the gravity and the slower things change from A to B, but that slowness is only relative to someone else also measuring A to B but who is in lesser gravitational field. Rate of change is also affected by velocity. The faster you go, the slower things change from A to B, again however it’s relative to someone else also measuring A to B but who is moving at a lower velocity relative to you. That’s why it’s the theory of relativity!

The Holographic Universe and You: Part Two

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

EXAMPLES:  I don’t know what, academically at least, is so odd, or hard to understand about, the idea of ‘Universe as hologram’. Holograms are now a familiar part of our society and our technology.

As an aside, regardless whether or not our apparent 3-D Universe is hologram, is there anything, any phenomena here on Planet Earth that can be interpreted as a hologram? Well I suppose a rainbow might qualify except it doesn’t appear very 3-D like. Mirages come to mind. The one other thing that immediately springs to mind, are ghosts (and all manner of associated ghostly images). I’ve often wondered how it could be that ghosts can apparently walk through walls, but never seem to sink through the floor! Of course if they were some sort of mirage-like hologram that might explain that. But that’s getting off topic.    

Anyway, that aside, many ancient civilizations often viewed the sky as 2-D, a sky composed of celestial crystalline spheres that surrounded their world and on the 2-D surfaces of those spheres were embedded the various celestial orbs that rotated around the Earth because the spheres rotated around the Earth.

Some what similar, albeit more current, most people have attended planetarium sessions (themselves an example of simulated reality and pseudo time travel) which project celestial objects onto a 2-D hemisphere above the audience’s heads – now just add holographic technology for a greater illusion of depth.

Artistic paintings are normally 2-D, but good artists provide the illusion of perspective, of depth, to give the impression that you’re looking at 3-D.

Our TV and computer monitors give a 2-D image, as does the big version – the silver screen. Yet you have no trouble interpreting the images as 3-D.

You can see your reflection, and things in the background, in a pane of glass, while at the same time seeing things that are outside that window pane. The window pane, a 2-D surface, is sort of like a hologram – you’re seeing a 3-D picture while looking at a 2-D surface.

If you could ask the characters in an interactive video game or those in your dreams if they are 3-D or 2-D and interact within a 3-D or 2-D (simulated) environment, they’d say ‘3-D’ – but you know better! The characters in your dream don’t walk the 3-D landscape from say the front of your brain to the rear of your brain for the duration. No, the dream drama is played out on the 2-D screen within your mind. They’d also no doubt tell you that they were acting on their own accord (they would insist they had free will) – but again, you’d know better. Your mind is controlling them and their actions. Now you however would also insist that you exist as a 3-D individual within a 3-D Universe and that you have free will. But does that make it so? Go back again and talk to your video or dream characters!

Or, thinking a farther into the future, there’s those “Star Trek” holodecks or holosuites. It isn’t too difficult that idea coming to fruition in the not all that distant future. Maybe not in your lifetime, but not many millennium away either. 

Speaking of holograms in the cinema, take a ride back in time to that hologram of Princess Leia and her plea for help, all witnessed by Luke Skywalker, and started the plot ball rolling for that very first “Star Wars” film.  Holograms are now taken for granted in many sci-fi features. They were fairly common for example in the “Stargate: SG-1” TV series.

But back to the here and now and in reality, on most credit cards, sometimes as an part of monetary banknotes (as an anti-counterfeiting security measure), sometimes used as a DVD cover, and a lot of other things (greeting cards, etc.) as well, you have the hologram, which again is basically an illusionary appearing 3-D image arising from a special technologically adapted or treated 2-D surface. Various manipulations using lasers also are used to generate illusionary 3-D holographic images. Now apply these now well known holographic technologies – those principles – to the Universe as a whole. If you wish to think of a hologram Universe this way, just imagine super-sizing your “Star Trek” holodeck up to the scale of an entire Universe. But you first have to start with Black Holes.

THE PHYSICS OF IT ALL: It’s suggested that information going into a Black Hole is actually ‘stored’ in the Event Horizon, that two dimensional (2-D) ‘surface’ marking the point of no return that surrounds the Black Hole’s Singularity – whatever that actually is. The Event Horizon concept isn’t difficult to envision – Earth’s crust/oceans is a 2-D surface surrounding the spherical 3-D planet.

Now as more and more stuff enters a Black Hole, the Event Horizon expands accordingly – obviously - just like our crust (area) would get bigger if Earth’s volume increased. The Event Horizon is also the area where Hawking radiation is emitted from. The interesting bit is that information ‘stored’ in 2-D form that is a representation of 3-D information, has a name – we call that form a hologram!

Now say you are inside a Black Hole’s Event Horizon – that’s the wrong side to be on, but this is just a thought experiment. There’s lots of trapped radiation (photons) in there with you. Those photons can struggle up, losing energy with each unit of distance gained, to reach the Event Horizon, but no farther. Their energy has exhausted itself. I gather they can just barely touch and ‘reflect’ off the underside of the Event Horizon and come back down again (in a direction towards the Singularity), picking up the energy again that they expended in their futile gesture of escape. So, you, being also beneath the Event Horizon can see the Event Horizon from the inside via these trapped photons. You can also see beyond the Event Horizon via new photons entering the Black Hole from outside the Event Horizon – photons that will join their trapped or prisoner kin. This is a situation akin – as noted in the ‘examples’ section - to seeing your reflection, and things in the background, in a pane of glass, while at the same time seeing things that are outside that window pane. The window pane, a 2-D surface, is sort of like a hologram – you’re seeing a 3-D picture by looking at a 2-D surface.

Now one could (and people have) suggested that one could consider the entire Universe as being the inside of a Black Hole – after all, nothing can escape from the Universe. You’re as trapped inside our Universe as you would be living on the inside of a traditionally thought of Black Hole. Like a Black Hole, or our Earth, our Universe has a crust or a surface or boundary or an horizon – a rose by any other name…

You can see where this is going! The upshot is that our apparent information rich 3-D environment is actually information somehow stored on the Universe’s 2-D boundary or horizon. In short, the Universe is a hologram.

Anyway, our Universe doesn’t exactly mirror a real Black Hole unless there is an outside to our Universe – a beyond the boundary or horizon that allows stuff to get into our Universe, ultimately trapping it. That actually would be a Universe more akin to the window pane analogy. But even if there is no beyond the boundary of our Universe, our Universe can still be thought of as a hologram – it applies in either case, just like an Event Horizon is a hologram to mythical inhabitants inside a Black Hole.

So, Black Holes residing inside a Black Hole Universe, which maybe residing inside…

Russian dolls within Russian dolls within Russian dolls within Russian dolls.

As an aside, the Universe as hologram scenario doesn’t invalidate the expanding Universe scenario, as one can have an expanding area as opposed to an expanding volume.

To be continued...

The Holographic Universe and You: Part One

INTRODUCTION: If the Universe is actually a hologram (a 3-D image residing on a 2-D surface), and we’re part of the Universe, then we too are but part of a holographic 3-D image on a 2-D surface! If you are a 3-D hologram, then your brain too is a hologram. Perhaps some of the properties of holograms might be relevant in explaining some of the neurological mysteries of that wetware brain thingy of yours – like memory.  You might think it intuitive that a volume could contain more bits of information than the area that surrounds that volume. But a 2-D (area) can store all the information of the 3-D (volume) it represents. Think of it this way, the contents of your immediate 3-D surroundings can not fit into your brain. That 3-D image is being viewed instead on a little 2-D TV screen inside your head. That’s a considerable savings – a compression of information from a large volume to a small area. Our human brain can store lots and lots and lots of bits and pieces (like perceptions and memories) in a relatively little space. It has been scientifically guesstimated that the human brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10 billion bits of information all inputted during the average human lifetime – that’s a lot of bits. Similarly, holograms possess an astounding capacity for information storage. It’s been shown that one cubic centimeter of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information. So, our amazing ability to rapidly retrieve whatever information we need from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if the brain functions according to holographic principles.

So if 2-D is reality and 3-D is illusion then that has various implications for life, the Universe and everything. So climb aboard this magical carpet ride; this magical mystery tour into the holographic Universe and the holographic you. Let the game begin.

OPENING REMARKS: For starters, you are not inside the Universe, be it a really 3-D or just a holographic 3-D Universe. The Universe is inside you. The Universe is inside you since the ‘reality’ of everything external to you (i.e. – the Universe), is ultimately transmitted to you (to your mind) via your five senses. The Universe or your Universe is therefore only perceived and interpreted by and within your mind – via your brain’s biochemistry. But that brain thingy of yours isn’t big enough to house anything larger than it is – as noted above. Since your mind doesn’t have the room to incorporate the reality of the entire Universe within it, the apparent and alleged 3-D aspect of it is reduced (compressed) to 2-D by your brain projecting it onto an internal mental screen as it were, a screen that exists solely within your mind. Any 3-D image (that’s what you see) that resides on a 2-D surface (the screen within your mind) is just a hologram by any other name.  

But wait; in addition to the Universe existing within you, you must also exist within the Universe! That’s because the Universe provides you with all those essentials you need to keep that brain thingy alive and ticking and perceiving. These essentials include such things as food and water and oxygen and gravity and a reasonable temperature range, etc. This is no chicken and egg puzzle since in order for you to house the Universe within your mind; the Universe had to exist to give you existence.

So, we have a real duality going here!

Actually one might argue that one doesn’t need a real Universe, 2-D, 3-D or otherwise at all – you in it and/or it in you. You’re mind can by itself provide all the rich, if imaginary, details needed to keep you occupied and amused. You don’t need any input from your five senses, from the outside world, to conjure up some sort of picture(s) on that 2-D silver screen within your brain. It’s what’s known as an active imagination which operates awake or asleep. Trouble is, the odds are good that imaginary food, water, oxygen, room temperatures, etc. won’t sustain your be-all-and-end-all mind for very long. But then again, if your mind is the be-all-and-end-all of all things, maybe it doesn’t need anything else since there isn’t anything else! Let’s assume that’s not a viable option.

So we have to have a real Universe. The question is, is it actually 3-D or an illusionary 3-D?

DIMENSIONALITY: We go through our entire lives absolutely convinced we exist in a 4-D Universe. 4-D is also known collectively as ‘space-time’ after Einstein merged the concepts of 1-D time and 3-D space with his theories of relativity (general and special). You need a total of four space-time dimensions to specify where you are. There’s the 3-D of space (longitude, latitude and altitude), plus the 1-D of what time is it? It makes a great big difference to your plans whether it’s 10 am or 10 pm; the 13^th or the 14^th; March or April; 2010 or 2011. But is it really so? With respect to the 3-D of space, there’s left – right; up – down; and forward – back. Time however is only one way and therefore time is somehow different, but that’s another topic entirely*.

Leaving time out of the picture, it’s relatively easy to imagine less than the 3-D of space. 0-D is a point; 1-D is a line (length); 2-D is a square (area); and our familiar 3-D is a cube (volume).

It’s harder to imagine more than 3-D (again, leaving time out of the matrix) although the maths is straight forward enough. The highly theoretical ‘string theory’ or ‘superstring theory’ or ‘M-Theory’ has to invoke a 9-D to 10-D Universe (plus the extra 1-D for time) in order for it to make any sense. Needless to say, it’s remained theoretical-only for decades now! There’s zip, zero, zilch evidence for a more than a tri-dimensional (3-D) Universe (plus the extra 1-D for time).

Rather than invoke more than 3-D; can we postulate our existence in fewer dimensions? Well 0-D is absolutely ridiculous; 1-D isn’t any better. Can we contemplate a 2-D existence - in a 2-D Universe? We’re of course familiar with many 2-D facets in our world.

To be continued...

Mythology’s Hybrids: Human Imagination or Alien Genetics? Part Three

Various mythological beasties, associated with the polytheistic gods include a generic type commonly referred to as hybrids, but which I term the ‘half-and-halves’. That is to say, these mythological beasties are a composite of two (sometimes more) distinct life forms.  There are the half-and-halves that are half human–half animal, and the half-and-halves that are half animal–half some other form of animal.  My premise is 1) these half-and-halves weren’t mythological; neither were the gods. The gods were really extraterrestrials, and the half-and-halves among the end products of ET’s genetic engineering experiments.

There are many puzzling features in mythology, if taken as purely mythology, regarding the so-called gods. I say so-called because to my way of interpreting things, the gods weren’t mythological but flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials with advanced technology, especially in the field of bioengineering or genetic engineering. A puzzling feature regarding the ‘gods’ and related tales, or even tails, are the half-and-halves (my phrase – you probably won’t find it lasted in any index in any mythology text). But these half-and-halves, some of which I’m going to cite, are just scratching the surface of the sum total of those represented in our ancient mythologies. The interesting point is that these hybrids are universal within that collective mythology. That is, they appear across all cultures; all geographies. Anytime something supposedly mythological, is represented everywhere, it’s time to sit up and take closer notice that things might not be quite as mythological as things first appear.

Continued now from yesterday’s blog…

Where’s the body-on-the-slab-in-the-lab evidence? With no fossil evidence of any such hybrids, perhaps this is where mythology overrides reality. Perhaps it is just a natural pondering to wonder ‘what if’ human abilities could be combined with some other animal’s abilities; or what a composite of one animal’s body parts attached to another animal’s body parts might achieve.

But then again, maybe that’s not the case.

Now clearly, judging from the small number of examples noted above, a lot of people, our ancestors, went to a lot of valuable time and effort to create or depict in often quite considerable detail all over the world, the who’s who, and what’s what, in tens of thousands of paintings, literature, statues, figurines, murals, monuments, carvings, pictograms, hieroglyphs, etc. to what we (their descendents) would call nonsense – purely imaginary entities. But I maintain our ancestors would not go to extraordinary lengths to devote precious resources into making images of beings they knew to be imaginary. Translated, they believed with all their hearts and souls that these beasties, globally numbering in the multi-hundreds, whether ‘gods’ in various combinations or lesser mortals (human-animal) or purely animal-animal forms, really existed. Multiply that by more multi-hundreds of ‘normal’ mythological characters that have been honored with thousands of monuments, and well there’s apparently a whole ancient expensive and often backbreaking industry devoted to what again, we superior modern descendents of theirs, believe to be nothing at all.

As an exact parallel, ‘modern’ human have built and erected all manner of monuments, memorials and statutes to really real historical people. Many are on display in all manner of public parks for the pigeons to rest their weary wings on.

Then again, in our modern era, nobody designs and builds cathedrals just to provide work for the construction industry, but rather because the relevant powers-that-be, the instigators and designers and fundraisers of cathedrals firmly believe there is a being who deserves such monuments to be built in his honor. Now the fact that being probably doesn’t exist, at least as a supernatural creator deity, but rather just one of many of an advanced race of extraterrestrials is irrelevant. You build the cathedral because you believe that being exists – full stop. Atheists don’t build cathedrals. Okay, our smart-as-we-are ancestors believed the half-and-halves really existed.     

Now that we’ve seen some of the puzzling anatomical features associated with the half-and-halves, beasties that are composites of two or more terrestrial life forms, here’s a hard as solid rock case study that not only illustrates time and effort but might highlight why human imagination is not at work. There’s a very large life-size statue from ancient Assyria housed in the British Museum of a winged, human-headed bull (probably representing Shedu or Lamassu). That would be odd enough, but in this statue of a bull with wings and a human head, you find that the bull is depicted with five legs (please note I can count up to five!).  Now, if you were to design from scratch a mythological beastie, one thing I’m pretty convinced of is that you would NOT give it five legs! So, I ask instead, is this statue a representation of one of the ‘gods’ genetic experiments?

Now before pursuing that tack, we’re all aware of the various plants and animals we’ve artificially selected for via breeding pairs of organisms that have the sorts of characteristics we desire such as leading to faster horses; disease resistant wheat, cuter puppy dogs, etc. Sometimes we interfere at the cellular level to increase the pace of the changes we want. We’ve all heard of genetically modified food or genetically modified organisms; of DNA from one species being spliced onto the DNA of another species. We’ve heard of harvesting animal tissues and organs for transplantation into humans. We’ve come into the era of the designer baby, or at least prospective parents undergo genetic counselling and testing before having children. Having children is no longer hit or miss and take your chances. And it won’t be long before babies will be made-to-order if the parents so wish.

Now imagine the genetic tricks a highly advanced, if somewhat amoral race of ET’s were to use terrestrial stock to further their genetic research and agenda. Even several hundred, far less thousands of years in advance technologically of us could produce the half-and-halves of our mythologies.

So, were the half-and-halves of our mythologies evidence of genetic and bioengineering experiments by the ‘gods’, the ‘gods’ own version of “The Island of Dr Moreau”?  If these hybrids are not the wild imaginations of our ancestors, and standard Darwinian natural selection cannot adequately account for them, then it’s clear an alternative artificial selection mechanism must be contemplated instead. What on Earth (or off Earth) could be the driving force behind such artificial selection – behind the required bioengineering or genetic engineering required? Well, unless your best guess is better than my best guess, ET, that’s who.

But then it all ceased to be; then they all went away, either literally (as I suspect) or within the human imagination (and if so, why?). I can imagine first and foremost that these non-deity hybrids (assuming their reality) were probably sterile. Thus, they were rather limited in population. One didn’t have a sphinx litter from which to choose a family sphinx pet. 

One thing I’m convinced cannot adequately for the massive range of our mythological hybrids are fossils. Fossils cannot explain the half-and-halves. There aren’t going to be too many buried skeletons of a lion minus its head that just happens to have a human skull in the immediate vicinity to explain the Sphinx. And what about the odds of finding the skull of a falcon minus body that just happens to rest next to a headless human skeleton and thus explain several of the Egyptian ‘gods’?

Now clearly some of these half-and-halves beasties are going to ultimately prove to be mythical – figments of the human imagination invented for reasons now lost and buried by the sands of time. Some cases are probably of real beasties we all know today but embellished for reason or reasons unknown and probably unknowable. There’s going to be cases of linguistic misinterpretations or misunderstandings or errors in translations. Then too there’s going to be cases of someone who told someone who told someone who told someone who told someone over many miles and probably generations before the tale was written down. The 20^th generation retelling of an ‘eyewitness’ account explains some of the half-and-halves.

But are the mythological half-and-halves all really products of pure human imagination and embellishments and 20^th generation retellings? If that be the case, why are there no more recent equivalents, in the multi-hundreds, in our ‘modern’ (say within the last 300 years of fictional literature, later films and TV) apart from those taken directly from our mythological ancient history like Mermaids? Nearly all ‘modern’ literature’s creations are human (Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Harry Potter, and Captain Kirk as examples – even if they do come from another planet like Superman or Mr. Spock). The Creature from the Black Lagoon was humanoid; ditto the Wolfman who at no time was represented as being a wolf’s head on a human body or vice versa. Frankenstein’s Monster was still human, even if patched together. Dracula may have been able to shape-shift into a bat, but he never was actually half-human and half-bat – ditto Batman. Even Donald Duck was still a duck; Mickey Mouse was just a clothed talking mouse. Some of the Egyptian gods were represented as half-and-halves, but The Mummy wasn’t! So, if all is assumed to be human imagination, then there’s this discrepancy between way back then and recent history. The one obvious ‘modern’ exception is the well known novel “Island of Dr. Moreau”.

The “Island of Dr. Moreau” was originally a novel published in 1896 by H.G. Wells with film adaptations in 1933 (as the “Island of Lost Souls”), 1977, and 1996. It basically deals with vivisection and an obsessed scientist who conducts profane experiments in evolution, eventually establishing himself as the self-styled demigod to a race of mutated, half-human abominations. This all takes place on a remote island, the inhabitants being those experimental animals being turned into strange looking humans by one Dr. Moreau – the obsessed mad scientist in question. I’m just substituting the ancient ‘gods’ for the more modern Dr. Moreau; the so-called mythological half-and-halves for those modern fictional experimental animals turned into abominations.

That ‘modern’ novel aside, you may think the ancient mythological menagerie – if entirely imaginary - exhibits quite an intense range of the human imagination in the creation of half-and-halves. I’d beg to differ. There’s an immense array of potential half-and-halves possibilities that apparently have never been realized, or at least popularized. The whole plant and invertebrate communities have largely been ignored, which may make sense from the biological reality of a genetic engineering standpoint. I do realize that Hollywood has rectified this with several versions and sequels to “The Fly” and B-Grade films like “The Wasp Woman”, and probably several other B-Graders in that vein. But 1) those cinema features were relative rarities in terms of modern half-and-halves images and 2) there was never any possibility of mistaking those films for anything else other than social commentary and/or entertainment, just like the novel by H.G. Wells.

Anyway, as to what might have been imagined by our ancient ancestors, but never really was, though I do seem to recall a mythological human head on an octopus body, but that was about it when it came to the invertebrate and plant kingdoms – no lobster heads on a human body; no human heads on a slug; and as for humanoid rose bushes – forget it! 

However, when talking real modern half-and-halves, one would be remiss not to mention Mothman, a winged hominoid with glowing red eyes, associated with the Point Pleasant area of West Virginia around the period of November 1966 through December 1967. Mothman’s been the subject of several books, dozens of articles, and at least one motion picture (“The Mothman Prophecies” – 2002). However, there have been no sightings since. Perhaps Mothman’s a purely imaginary half-and-halves case, one never before or after seen. Maybe.

Finally, there might be a really real modern version of the ‘gods’ and their half-and-halves. If UFO / alien abductions are to be believed, taken at face value, (somewhat backed up and supported by animal mutilation cases), then the alien ‘gods’ – collective now called the ‘Greys’ – are still manipulating human genetics and further progressing with the evolution via artificial selection (breeding) of the human species, as well as their own, for the apparent objective is nothing less than a human-alien (or human-grey) hybrid. That this is implausible, well, recall from mythologies around the world those human-animal hybrids like the Satyr, Sphinx, Minotaur, Mermaid, and a host of others.

Mythology’s Hybrids: Human Imagination or Alien Genetics? Part Two

Various mythological beasties, associated with the polytheistic gods include a generic type commonly referred to as hybrids, but which I term the ‘half-and-halves’. That is to say, these mythological beasties are a composite of two (sometimes more) distinct life forms.  There are the half-and-halves that are half human–half animal, and the half-and-halves that are half animal–half some other form of animal.  My premise is 1) these half-and-halves weren’t mythological; neither were the gods. The gods were really extraterrestrials, and the half-and-halves among the end products of ET’s genetic engineering experiments.

There are many puzzling features in mythology, if taken as purely mythology, regarding the so-called gods. I say so-called because to my way of interpreting things, the gods weren’t mythological but flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials with advanced technology, especially in the field of bioengineering or genetic engineering. A puzzling feature regarding the ‘gods’ and related tales, or even tails, are the half-and-halves (my phrase – you probably won’t find it lasted in any index in any mythology text). But these half-and-halves, some of which I’m going to cite, are just scratching the surface of the sum total of those represented in our ancient mythologies. The interesting point is that these hybrids are universal within that collective mythology. That is, they appear across all cultures; all geographies. Anytime something supposedly mythological, is represented everywhere, it’s time to sit up and take closer notice that things might not be quite as mythological as things first appear.

Continued now from yesterday’s blog…

Now if two (or seven) heads are better than one; if many arms and hands make for lighter work, then rest assured we had many beasties, and ‘gods’ that had many heads and/or arms.

For starters, well the Hydra comes immediately to mind, ditto the Greek multi-headed dogs (Cerberus with three heads and Orthrus with two heads; collectively each with a snake for a tail). The Amphisbaena (Greek) was a serpent with two heads – one at each end. That’s sort of like the Mesoamerican ‘god’ Quetzalcoatl, often depicted as a feathered snake with a head at each end. The Scylla was a multi-headed sea monster with a woman’s torso attached to a dog’s body with a (cheaper by the) dozen legs! Not quite as bizarre was the Azhi Dahaka who was an ordinary run-of-the-mill triple-headed serpent (perhaps the inspiration for Godzilla’s nemesis, the Ghidorah).

That’s just a sample, but there are lots of others, especially from the Indian (as in subcontinent) mythology. For those, see the India section below.

Were some of the ‘gods’ themselves half-and-halves? Most of the Egyptian ‘gods’ tended to have had an animal head but a human body. For example:

 * Amon (or Amun) had the head of a ram.

* Anubis had a jackal head placed on a human body.

* Bastet had a cat’s head atop a human body.

* Harakhte was another falcon-headed deity.

* Hathor was often depicted as a cow-headed goddess.

* Horus had a falcon head placed on a human body. Of the four sons of Horus, three had animal heads (Duamutef – jackal; Qubhsnuf – hawk; and Hapi – dog).

* Khnum was another ram-headed god.

* Ra (or Re) had the head of a falcon.

* Sebek (or Sobek) was one of their gods who had a crocodile head.

* Seker (sometimes known as Sokar) had a hawk’s head.

* Sekhmet had the head of a lioness placed on a human body.

* Then there was the ancient Egyptian God Seth (Set) – a really one off. See below for more nitty-gritty details.

* Sokar (sometimes known as Seker) had a falcon head placed on a human body.

* Thoth had the head of an ibis placed on a human body.

It’s interesting that several ‘gods’ have falcon heads on human bodies. If Horus, Sokar, Ra and others depicted as falcon-headed were figments of the ancient Egyptians’ imaginations, you’d think there would be enough animal heads to go around without duplicating. I mean it would make things easier in terms of who’s who. However, there’s more than one ‘god’ with a jackal’s head, a hawk’s head or a ram’s head as well.

Speaking of strange non-terrestrial appearances of the ancient Egyptian ‘gods’, let’s take the ancient Egyptian ‘god’ Seth (or Set). Here’s how various mythology texts tend to describe him.

* He [Seth] was often depicted as a tall beast – perhaps a jackal or donkey – with a long muzzle. 

* Seth (Set) was mostly depicted as a fabulous creature, with a curved snout, square ears, forked tail, and canine body, or sometimes as a human with only the head of the Set animal. It has no complete resemblance to any known creature, although it could be seen as a composite of an aardvark, a donkey, a jackal. Some early Egyptologists proposed that it was a stylized representation of the giraffe due to the large flat-topped 'horns' but the Egyptians themselves distinguished between the giraffe and the Set animal. In the late period Set is depicted as an ass or with the head of an ass.

* When depicted in animal form, the god Seth was a very odd creature, with a long snout, short ears, and a pointy, upright tail. There have been many attempts to try to identify this creature with a known animal. The possibility remains that it was purely a mythological creature. To Egyptologists, it was known as ‘the Seth-animal’.

* [Seth was] depicted with floppy ears and an erect and divided tail. 

* Set was represented as having the features of a fantastic beast with a thin, curved snout, straight, square-cut ears and a stiff forked tail. This creature cannot with certainty be identified and was commonly called the ‘Typhonian animal’. Sometimes Set was depicted as a man with the head of this strange quadruped.

* Seth had a bizarre appearance. His human-form body is topped by a head that appears to combine the rounded snout of an aardvark (unknown to the ancient Egyptians) with curious, straight, flat-topped donkey ears. When represented in fully animal, four-legged form, he also displayed a long neck, a dog-like body and an erect, curiously forked tail.  Egyptologists have struggled to identify Seth’s component features: the more imaginative include camel, long-nosed mouse, hare, antelope, pig, giraffe and boar.

If Seth (Set) was an ‘ancient astronaut’, and extraterrestrial ‘god’, then by implication all his kin were too and by implication so were all the ancient Egyptian ‘gods’ (noted above), and by implication the whole lot of the polytheistic ‘gods’.  

If the physical appearance of the ‘gods’, or at least one representative ‘god’ can not be reconciled with that of any living thing known to man, then that alone is suggestive of something not-of-this-Earth; an extraterrestrial in other words, or the catch phrase, an ‘ancient astronaut’.

Let’s now take as examples some other geographical regions and their half-and-halves.

Mesopotamia (Persia) had several hybrid ‘gods’: Mithra had the head of a lion on the body of a human – with wings; Ahura Mazda on the other hand had a human head, but, like Angels, they had bird wings.

Half-and-halves were common throughout nearly all cultural mythologies, not just European and Egyptian ones, and other combinations from other mythologies have been realized. Here’s a small sample:

India: As noted above, when it comes to multiple body parts, you had the many headed hydra. However, one culture in particular seems to revel in multi-headed and/or multi-armed gods or creatures – ancient Indian (as in subcontinent) mythology. For example, the Nagas of India were multi-headed cobra-like snakes. Brahma had multi-heads; Shiva had multi-arms; ditto Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, and Yama. Agni and Ravana had multi-heads and multi-arms.

Then as noted above, there was the Indian elephant-human hybrid ‘god’ called Ganesha.

Peru: Ancient Peru had a pot-load of half-and-halves. There were owl-headed supernatural folk healers; unreal monsters shown flying through the air with falcon wings and tails attached; sculptures of half-human half-feline beings. In fact you had the flying felines known as the Ccoa, somewhat larger than a domestic cat with a winged body. The Ccoa was one of many frequent appearances of flying creatures containing human, feline and bird characteristics.

There must be something about Mesoamerica that has a thing about felines. The mysterious Olmecs showed images of a human body but with feline facial features. Unfortunately, the Olmecs vanished mysteriously leaving only the images for us to speculate on.

To be continued...

Mythology’s Hybrids: Human Imagination or Alien Genetics? Part One

Various mythological beasties, associated with the polytheistic gods include a generic type commonly referred to as hybrids, but which I term the ‘half-and-halves’. That is to say, these mythological beasties are a composite of two (sometimes more) distinct life forms.  There are the half-and-halves that are half human–half animal, and the half-and-halves that are half animal–half some other form of animal.  My premise is 1) these half-and-halves weren’t mythological; neither were the gods. The gods were really extraterrestrials, and the half-and-halves among the end products of ET’s genetic engineering experiments.

There are many puzzling features in mythology, if taken as purely mythology, regarding the so-called gods. I say so-called because to my way of interpreting things, the gods weren’t mythological but flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials with advanced technology, especially in the field of bioengineering or genetic engineering. A puzzling feature regarding the ‘gods’ and related tales, or even tails, are the half-and-halves (my phrase – you probably won’t find it lasted in any index in any mythology text). But these half-and-halves, some of which I’m going to cite, are just scratching the surface of the sum total of those represented in our ancient mythologies. The interesting point is that these hybrids are universal within that collective mythology. That is, they appear across all cultures; all geographies. Anytime something supposedly mythological, is represented everywhere, it’s time to sit up and take closer notice that things might not be quite as mythological as things first appear.

So what were some of the common and relative well know examples of half-and-halves where half of the half was a human half?

* If you’re a Christian, I guess you accept the reality of Angels way back then – humans with wings (though you won’t find winged Angels in the Bible).

* The Greek mythological Centaurs had a human head on a horse’s body (#).

* Cupid (or Eros) was in Greek or Roman mythology a human (‘god’) with wings.

* The Cynocephali were a medieval dog-headed people. 

* The Indian ‘god’ called Ganesha had an elephant’s head atop a human body.

* Also from India, there’s the Garuda, a half-human (head and torso) and half raptor (wings and talons).

* The Gorgons, especially the infamous Medusa, had a human head on a human body, but with serpents’ (snakes’) for ‘hair’.

* The Harpies were females having a human head on a bird’s body.

* The Persian Huma had a gender crisis being half male, half female – with wings.

* If you attach a lion’s head on a giant’s body, you would get the Humbaba of Gilgamesh fame.

* The Kurangaituku was a Maori (New Zealand) bird-woman.

* The Lamassu (or Shedu) were winged bulls with human heads in ancient Mesopotamian or Assyrian mythology.

* The ancient Greek Lamia had a female head and upper torso, but from the waist down, she was just a snake.

* Also courtesy of the ancient Greeks, we were once presented with the Manticore – a human face on a lion.

* The Mermaids or Mermen had human heads on the body of a fish or fish-like creature.

* The Greek Minotaur had a bull’s head on a human’s body.

* Satyrs were hybrids with a human head on a goat’s body.

* The Sirens were bird-maidens with a female head and body but with bird wings and tails).

* The well known Sphinx was a human head on a lion’s body.

* The Tengu was a Japanese birdman.

* The Typhon was the father of all monsters in Greek mythology, who was a man from the waist up, and a mass of seething vipers from the waist down.

But there were other half-and-halves that had nothing to do with humans and human features. For example:

* The Ahuizotl was an Aztec dog adapted for life in the water - but with a hand at the end of its tail.

* The ancient Egyptian Amemait once possessed a crocodile head attached to the body of a lion and that in turn to the hindquarters of a hippo.

* The Anzu (also called Zu of Persian and Sumerian mythology) was depicted as a lion-headed eagle.

* If you have the body of a horse, but the head of a bull, you were probably a Bonnacon.

* The Chimera was a triple-headed, triple-bodied composite of lion, goat and dragon.

* The Cockatrice was a winged cockerel with a serpent’s tail.

* Dragon’s themselves were an amalgamation of a lizard or snake or serpent with wings.

* The Fenghuang from Chinese mythology, was a hybrid cock, swallow, swan and goose.

* The Gryphon (or Griffin – alt spelling), was a combo of a lion’s body tacked onto the head, talons and wings of an eagle.

* The Hydra had a lion’s body with numerous serpent heads.  

* The Japanese Kappa had a monkey-like face with the ‘arms’ and legs associated with frogs, along with the body and shell of a tortoise.

* From Hindu mythology, there was the Makara with the head of a crocodile but the body and tail of a fish.

* One can’t of course forget Pegasus, the flying winged horse.

* A Peryton had a deer’s (or stag’s) head and body but with wings; perhaps useful to Santa?

* From Arthurian mythology arose the Questing Beast with a serpent’s head but various feline body parts, but also hooves (not paws and claws).

* The Qilin was a Chinese version of the Unicorn, but with the body of a deer, hooves of a horse and the tail of an ox.

* The Simurgh from ancient Persia was an eagle-like raptor with the head of a dog, the claws of a lion and tail of a peacock.

* The Tarasque had a lion’s head, but the body of a serpent – with wings.

* The Yale was antelope-like but with boar tusks and an elephant’s tail.

The Biblical Book of Revelation had more anomalous hybrids within than you can shake a stick at, from seven-headed dragons to locusts with humans faces and the tails of scorpions, to a sea beast with, you guessed it, seven heads but collectively ten horns which sort of looks like a leopard with bear’s feet! 

To be continued...

(#) I received the following comment from a friend who received a copy of the above essay. She said: “I also have no explanation (except for one) to offer for all the mythological hybrids. The one explanation I have to offer is not mine, but I can’t remember the source.  It is for the centaur.  I think this is meant to be a human torso on a horse’s body rather than just a human head.  Centaurs have two arms and four legs.  The explanation put forward for this myth is that when horse riding was first observed by people to whom it was unknown, they just didn’t think they were seeing a person sitting on a horse’s back.  They didn’t know horses could be ridden. They thought they were seeing a new creature.”

My retort was that at first glance that might work as long as the rider(s) didn’t dismount. Then too, the rider isn’t at the front but in the middle of the horse, so it doesn’t entirely work. Further, you’d have a two-headed creature – one head pure human; one head pure horse. Your centaur only has one head – human. Sorry, close, but no cigar to whoever thought up that one.

Aliens: I Want To Believe: Part Two

A vast majority of people think it’s a total waste of time to search for extraterrestrial life in space – throughout the entire cosmos – not because they’re convinced ET doesn’t exist, but rather that ET has been (ancient astronauts) and is now (UFOs) not only here but up close and personal with Planet Earth and humanity. 

Continued now from yesterday’s blog…

What becomes of all those UFO eyewitness reports (sometimes backed up by physical evidence)? Well those qualified to do so, scientists, military personnel (because UFOs were once a national security issue) and others so qualified try to come up with a prosaic answer. They don’t come up with an acceptable answer in all the cases. So then there are the UFO unknowns – the actual hardcore, bona-fide unidentified flying objects. Even the most hardened of UFO sceptics acknowledges that between 5% and 10% of UFO reports turn into hardcore unidentified sightings. When translated over six plus decades, worldwide, that’s one hell of a lot of mysterious residue one has to come to terms with. Why science and scientists, presumably charged with the responsibility of exploring the unknown and figuring out how things work, choose to ignore this massive pile of hardcore unknowns is quite beyond me.  I mean if each and every UFO report that came in was quickly explained away, well everyone should and probably would be sceptical when yet another report hit the fan. But that’s not the case.

The fact, as noted above, what most sceptics readily acknowledge, is that between 5 and 10 percent of all reported UFO incidents remain unidentified after investigation by those qualified to do so. This fact apparently excites the scientific, astrobiology, and SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) communities not one jot. But, if SETI received out of all radio signals, 5% to 10% unexplained radio signals, (“WOW” signals), that of course would set the SETI community abuzz.

In a similar vein, if 5 to 10 percent of particle interactions were unexplainable by the current standard model of particle physics, that would set the physics community abuzz without question.

If the speed of light varied ever so slightly 5% to 10% of the times it were measured, the special relativity community would be agog, and extremely interested.

If 5 to 10 percent of galaxies showed a discrepancy between their red-shifts and their distances, that would set the cosmology community abuzz.  

So, why the big scientific yawn over the apparently bona fide UFO’s unidentified percentage? Perhaps it might take sociologists who study the sociology of science to pin that one down. There’s a mystery just begging for serious attention here that has the potential for massive ramifications, not just scientific ones.

Now the hardcore unknowns aren’t a ‘possible this’ or a ‘probable that’ or maybe yet some other thing(s) that acquaint yet again to something in terms of a prosaic explanation. The experts haven’t a clue what these 5% to 10% of UFOs are.

So, faced with these hardcore bona fide unknowns, the public focuses on the ETH. That’s understandable as how many other possible explanations for the hardcore can there be?

Okay, maybe it’s time travellers from our future as one alternative. But then hardcore UFO unknowns aren’t clustered around significant historical events that would be must sees – the bread-and-butter of that industry – to tourists and historians from our future.

An early UFO ETH theory was that UFOs were actual living organisms who lived in outer space but now and again would dip into our atmosphere. No biologist could actually explain how such creatures could survive, far less thrive, in the harsh conditions of outer space.

Some suggest that the hardcore represent some sort of totally new natural phenomena, except there’s no even theoretical underpinning for new natural phenomena, and after six decades, well that’s a total failure to come to terms with an easy way out of the hardcore mess. However, natural phenomena wouldn’t exhibit intelligent behaviour in any event, which the hardcore UFOs do. That’s why they often tend to be the hardcore.

Now one might argue that if nine out of ten UFO reports turn out to be prosaic, then the final tenth one will to. That point of view (POV) is seemingly logical, but really illogical. If your footie team wins nine grand finals on the trot, well that’s no reason another team won’t win the next one. Toss heads nine times in a row – the tenth toss is still 50/50, not 100% in favour of heads. Nine out of ten of anything tells you zip about the tenth occurrence.

The mention of eyewitness testimony of course brings to the fore visual images. An image (picture) is worth a thousand words as the saying goes. For visual images to really be effective, they have got to be captured in some form or other. Still photographs and motion pictures come to mind here. There are of course a fair few photographs; alas fewer motion pictures of UFOs – no bona fide examples of actual LGM (the “G” could stand for ‘Gray”) - are present and accounted for. However, films and photographs and fakery are too often associated. But even real motion pictures of ‘lights in the sky’, albeit unidentified ‘lights in the sky’ don’t have quite the same visual impact as some of those from our historical past – not film, but something more durable. It’s a lot harder to explain away images from ancient history – images often carved out of stone or carved into stone.

For example, there are the famous statues on Easter Island. Well, the representations are human, but not quite human enough. If they are a representation of ancestor worship (as is commonly cited) then either the ancestors were very strange or else the stone masons were rather poor carvers, or they were one of the first to have invented abstract art. There’s something screwy somewhere in attributing the Easter Island statues as representing a strictly human form. If not strictly human, what’s the alternative?

You have some of the ancient Egyptian ‘gods’ with jackal and falcon heads – how many humans do you see down at your local shopping mall with animal heads?

The Nazca Lines are world famous. They basically are etchings (representing various animals and other objects) made in the dry desert plains in Southern Peru that, much like crop circles, can only be really appreciated from the air. In fact they were only discovered in the 1930’s from aircraft flying overhead.   There’s no doubt humans constructed the lines, which took a lot of time, effort and energy, but to what purpose? Certainly they were not runways for flying saucers and astronomical alignments and associated explanations fail too. Since they were clearly meant to be seen from the air and since we’re talking about their construction some 400 to 650 years AD – sort of our pre-flight era – then the most logical explanation is that they were art works for the sky gods to see and appreciate. 

Tassili n’Ajjer is located in the Sahara Desert in southern Algeria. It’s famous for its prehistoric art rock paintings, many of which are really, really weird. One archaeologist dubbed one such art work the ‘Great Martian God’. Humans drew the various images of – well what exactly? Many of the images certainly don’t depict anything terrestrial that’s for sure. Just plug in the term ‘Tassili’ into Google Images for examples, and decide for yourself. 

Visoki Dečani is a major Serbian Orthodox Christian monastery located in Kosovo. Within are various murals. On the "The Crucifixion" fresco, painted in 1350, objects similar to UFOs can be found. They represent two comets that look like space ships, with two men inside of them, and are often cited by those interested in ‘ancient astronauts’. The images are certainly striking. You have to decide for yourself if these images are representing really real ‘ancient astronauts’ aerial craft. 

Cylinder Seals date from about 3500 BC in Mesopotamia and surrounding regions. They tell ‘picture stories’ and were engraved on cylinders that could be rolled onto a flat surface like wet clay. The interesting bit is that not only are some images clearly mythological, showing dragons and various gods, but some images are clearly astronomical. Celestial objects abound. No less a scientist than the late Dr. Carl Sagan, is on record (in his co-authored book “Intelligent Life in the Universe”) as noting that some cylinder seals clearly show various extra-solar planetary systems, often in association with specific deities.

There are many, many ancient figurines or statues showing beings something less than what we’d call ‘human’. Of the lot, I personally found some of the most striking to be male and female clay figurines dating from the archaeological period called the Obed time or Obed horizon in Mesopotamia, roughly fourth millennium BC, with insect-like heads or at least eyes. In fact the eyes are very striking, and certainly representing nothing terrestrial – they remind me of the modern depiction of the eyes of the UFO-related greys.  

Speaking of which, there was that immense psychological subconscious reaction to the face of the ‘Grey’ on the cover of Whitley Strieber’s book “Communion”.

The Piri Reis Map is another well known case of something that really shouldn’t be, but is. Piri Reis was a Turkish admiral and cartographer who strutted his stuff in the early 1500’s. The famous map in question shows in considerable detail the coastlines of the Americas, greater detail than exploration of that era would have been possible, plus the opposite side of the Atlantic (which, okay, was pretty well known), but most impressive, parts of coastal Antarctica, a continent which hadn’t yet been discovered (though highly speculated about). However, in fairness, there are enough errors that sceptics can easily dismiss this as evidence of ‘ancient astronauts’ – close, but no cigar.

Then there’s the popular literature.  There was the immense popularity of Erich Von Daniken’s ancient astronaut books – they really rang quite a responsive chord around the world. UFO books tend to sell well too, for example, as noted above Whitley Strieber’s “Communion” and sequels; also Budd Hopkins “Missing Time” and later works. For people to shell out their hard earned bucks for books that are on the fringe of science and acceptability – well, there’s got to be some sort of responsive chord driving this. 

In conclusion, I want to believe? Indeed I do – believe that is!

Aliens: I Want To Believe: Part One

A vast majority of people think it’s a total waste of time to search for extraterrestrial life in space – throughout the entire cosmos – not because they’re convinced ET doesn’t exist, but rather that ET has been (ancient astronauts) and is now (UFOs) not only here but up close and personal with Planet Earth and humanity. 

People tend to believe in a whole host of things because it brings them some sort of sense of identity or comfort. For example, you might believe in white supremacy because you’re Caucasian. You might believe the British are best, because you were born, raised and live in London. You believe in ghosts because that’s evidence that there’s a ‘life’ after death. You believe in God (or the gods) because that gives your life a meaningful purpose. You believe in astrology because you know what’s in store for you and can make your plans accordingly. You believe in the positive curing powers of alternative medicine when you’re diagnosed with a terminal illness and given just months to live.

But what does belief in aliens give you? - At best, absolutely nothing positive. Aliens here and now don’t really effect your world view – those set of beliefs or faiths that direct you in your every day-to-day affairs. There’s nothing to be psychologically or emotionally gained from belief that little grey men are walking amongst us, maybe abducting us, unlike say your belief that you had better get your bills paid on time. Now that’s important!

On the other hand, at worst, collectively there’s a case for not believing in aliens – if aliens, then humans aren’t the Big Cheese of the cosmos. If you believe in aliens you lower your own status (as well as the status of humanity as kingpins of the universe).

No one is born believing that ET has established an existence here, so that belief has got to have been acquired based on some sort of evidence.

Public opinion polls from the early to mid 1950’s onwards have shown that a reasonable minority of the public seriously believe that aliens have been and/or are here now. That this is the case despite all the denial that come from the scientific community and other officialdom (the government and the military) is not in any way disputed. It’s not usually a matter of “I want to believe” like Fox Mulder of “The X-Files” as rather ‘I do believe’. Why such belief for such a lengthy period of time? There’s not to be something suggestive that in this case officialdom is wrong – by intentional design or by incompetence.

UFOs vs. evidence for the ETH – there is no absolute smoking gun - yet. I’d be the first to acknowledge that. I’d suggest however that this is a case of where there’s smoke, there’s smoke. The fire has yet to be seen through the smoke. There however has got to be something suggestive about the nature of that smoke to drive lots of people, even some quite intelligent people, to accept the possibility of the UFO ETH. I mean the idea just didn’t pop out of the ether – out of thin air. Something very suggestive is driving it. Yet, as noted, there has been no ‘smoking gun’ proof.

No UFO has crashed in Central Park, NYC – an event which couldn’t be concealed or covered-up.

No ancient tomb or grave site has yielded or contained the remains of an obviously extraterrestrial entity.

No president or prime minister or equivalent has ever announced to the world that their country had alien technology in their possession. 

No Little Green Man (LGM) has landed on the White House lawn and said in traditional fashion “Take me to your leader”.

No exotic metallic alloys have ever been found incorporated in ancient structures like the Egyptian or the Mesoamerican pyramids.

ET can’t telephone home because no mobile phones have been found by archaeologists on their digs and put on display in any museum’s ancient history exhibits.

So belief in ET being here must stem not from one biggie piece of smoking gun evidence but from lots and lots and lots of little clues. That’s much like whodunit murder mysteries. The guilty party is revealed at the end by someone piecing together a lot of small clues that, when put together, when everything falls into place, finally point the finger at the murderer.

We probably innately realise they (ET) should be here – there’s nothing to prevent that from being the case, and lord knows that probability has been reinforced again, and again, and again in sci-fi books, short stories, movies and TV episodes, as well as documentaries of the written or visual kind. But just because they could be here, or should be here, doesn’t translate immediately into belief that they are here. So, why do we believe (well many of us anyway) that that’s the case?

Well for starters there are personal experiences – your own UFO sighting(s) or abduction(s). However, relatively few of us actually have such a personal interaction or close encounter, and in any event personal experiences are well, personal. But if you had one (or more), well a common phrase is “I know what I saw”. Therefore, I believe.

More likely as not it’s the sum total of all the eyewitnesses testimony of others, over six decades worth, worldwide, the sort that is commonplace not only in our daily conversations with others (“I saw Jane Doe and Joe Blow together at lunch last week”) but in legal proceedings in courtrooms – though apparently not allowable in the courtroom of science which demands a body on the slab in the lab.

For eyewitnesses to be convincing, they need to be credible observers, so we’re not talking here about alcoholic bums lying in the gutter; elementary school dropouts who couldn’t tell the difference between astrology and astronomy if their life depended on it; New Age hippies zonked out on the latest designer or party drug; and those, who through no fault of their own are mentally disabled in one way or another.

No, what the great unwashed know of credible UFO sightings come from pilots (military and civilian); astronauts, police officers, professionals like health professionals and medical doctors, lawyers, engineers and yes, even scientists; politicians (okay, maybe not pollies who can’t even lie straight in bed); as well as the average citizen whose word and credibility wouldn’t be under any strain under any other set of circumstance. Even used car salesmen and real estate agents usually qualify as credible observers, though most of all tend to be those people who spend a lot of time outdoors/outside and thus are quite aware or familiar with the sky and associated optical and atmospheric phenomena.

Now if each and every eyewitness to a UFO event were a lone witness, that would or should ring alarm bells and delight the sceptics. Of course that’s not even remotely the case. Not only do you often get a group of witnesses, but often two or more eyewitnesses in two or more separately placed locations – independent verification of events by multi-witnesses from multi-sites.

There’s another form of independent verification. The presence of physical evidence is often, not usually, but often, left behind. UFOs can and do have an impact on the environment. If UFOs are solid objects and some come close to ground level and even land, you’d expect broken tree branches perhaps and ground traces. That box is ticked. You’d expect UFOs, if they can be seen, to be photographed (still pictures) and filmed (motion pictures), evidence even more valuable in the pre CGI and Photoshop era. If UFOs don’t cloak all the time, you’d expect some radar cases – that’s another box ticked. There have been documented cases of people suffering ill effects after a UFO close encounter, sometimes extreme effects akin to radiation exposure. Electromagnetic (EM) effects, like automobile engines cutting out when in the near vicinity of a UFO have been documented more often than is necessary to establish the reality and credibility of the phenomenon. 

To be continued...