Exobiology: UFOS: Two Case Studies

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. Say ‘hi’ to those pesky UFOs. The bona fide UFOs are UFOs that remain UFOs even after the experts have finished their analysis. That residue still amounts to a heck of a lot of unknowns. Here are just two of them.

WASHINGTON, D.C. 1952:  In July 1952, on two separate occasions, separated by one week, UFOs buzzed America’s National Capitol, making long term incursions over restricted air space. They were tracked, independently, by various civilian and military radars. Military jet fighters were scrambled to intercept and identify the UFOs, but were outmatched and didn’t succeed, although they were witnessed by the pilots. The objects were also witnessed from the ground. USAF Major-General John A. Samford, at the largest Pentagon press conference ever held since WWII, in late July 1952, made the statement with respect to the recent Washington D.C. UFO flap that these sightings were made by “credible observers of relatively incredible things”. It’s on the public record.

Now of course these sightings had to be explained by any means necessary since you just cannot admit to having unknown aerial objects fly over restricted air space. So the idea of ‘temperature inversions’ explained all - hogwash. It’s amazing that the common occurrence of ‘temperature inversions’ had never before, and never since, caused such commotion.  

Further readings regarding Washington, D.C. (July 1952):

Randle, Kevin D.; Invasion Washington: UFOs Over the Capitol; HarperCollins Publishers, New York; 2001:

Ruppelt, Edward J.; The Washington Merry-Go-Round (in); The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects; Ace Books, New York; 1956; pages 207-227: [Edward Ruppelt was a former head of the USAF's UFO investigations, Project Blue Book.]

VALENTICH 1978: One of many, many highly unexplained UFO cases were the events surrounding Frederick Valentich on 21 October 1978. It’s more a case of where there’s smoke, there’s smoke, but smoke there certainly is, and lots of it.

In a nutshell, on the evening of that date, Mr. Valentich piloted a private plane from Melbourne, intended destination, King Island in Bass Strait. He took off only to shortly thereafter radio in that there was this UFO hovering over him. The UFO was spotted by several independent witnesses. While radioing his observations, all contact ceased; all communications abruptly ended. Mr. Valentich, plane and all, vanished without trace. An extensive air and sea search failed to find any sign of Mr. Valentich, or his plane. No oil slick, no floating wreckage, no body – nothing, zip, bugger-all. No trace has ever been found of pilot or plane – not then, not since, not ever. The weather had been perfect for night flying.

One obvious explanation was that Mr. Valentich staged his own disappearance, although friends and family could offer no reason why he would do so. Of course many people voluntarily disappear themselves for various reasons; many eventually are found, are caught or reappear voluntarily. But keep in mind; it wasn’t just Mr. Valentich who disappeared. One entire aircraft vanished as well, never to be seen again. Surely if Mr. Valentich wanted to ‘drop out’, there were easier and less conspicuous ways of doing so.  If he had deliberately gone walkabout, in these decades since of security cameras and computer facial software recognition technology, it would be hard to remain an unknown walkabout in any populated area.

Was suicide a motive? Again, no wreckage or body was ever found, and who would go to all the bother of reporting a non-existent UFO overhead – a non-existent UFO that happened to be independently reported by others.

And what of the plane since no wreckage was ever found floating on the surface of Bass Strait; washed up on beaches, or found on the ocean bottom – Bass Strait isn’t that deep.

It’s a mystery, and while it doesn’t prove aliens nicked off with Mr. Valentich and plane, there’s not that much wriggle room. Now multiply this sort of unexplained case by the thousands worldwide, and you do have the ETH as a plausible hypothesis.

Interestingly, despite my asking for a copy of the Valentich ‘accident’ case report in an official capacity related to my employment at the time, the Department of Transport (Air Safety Investigations Branch) refused. To this day, to the best of my knowledge, that report has never been publicly released.

Further reading regarding Valentich:

Haines, Richard F.; Melbourne Episode: Case Study of A Missing Pilot; L.D.A. Press, Los Altos, California; 1987: [Dr. Haines was at the time a research scientist for NASA and an accredited air safety investigations officer.]

Exobiology: UFOS: Case Studies: Earlier Is Better

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. Say ‘hi’ to those pesky UFOs. If UFOs are any sort of evidence that extraterrestrial intelligences exist in our Universe, then that best evidence will be early evidence – before the rot set in.

The UFO phenomenon is now well over 60 years old. The public in this 21^st Century has been well and truly saturated with UFO stories, mythology and lore. Thus, if Mr. or Mrs. Joe Blow Public reports anything UFO related today, well they have had a lot of previous bits and pieces to draw on – assuming they are making things up. However, if Mr. or Mrs. Joe Blow Public reported something from 1947, say through 1952, then that public saturation with all things ufological must have been quite a deal less. Thus, earlier reports seem to me to be more, all else being equal, credible – far less media, Hollywood, etc. coverage that could have had influence on the public mind.

Further, for the first couple of years of the modern UFO era or perhaps I should say ‘flying saucer’ era since UFO wasn’t a term yet in vogue or used, the public did not acquaint these flying discs with extraterrestrial spaceships. Early thoughts ran to advanced secret Russian aircraft, or maybe they were American or something that originated out of research done in Nazi Germany. They were terrestrial, and if not nuts-and-bolts, the psychological creations of Cold War fever. So, early ‘flying saucer’ reports weren’t tainted with the word ‘alien’, unlike something seen after the early 1950’s when explanations started swinging away from terrestrial to extraterrestrial.

That’s of course not to say that everything post 1952 is bunk and junk. There have been many substantial solid cases over the most recent five decades. It’s just the percentage of those types of cases, relative to the total, was probably higher and slightly more credible before the mythology solidified.

Abductions are an exception as the typical UFO abduction case didn’t exist in the 40’s and 50’s; ditto astronaut sightings. But on balance, I’d place greater reliability and credibility in those earlier cases. One other reason for doing so is that today’s CGI digital processing and manipulation of images can provide mind-boggling (but fake) UFO film and photographic ‘evidence’. It was much harder to fake images in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.

Exobiology: UFOs: The UFO Smoking Gun(s)

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. Say ‘hi’ to those pesky UFOs. The bona fide UFOs are UFOs that remain UFOs even after the experts have finished their analysis. That residue still amounts to a heck of a lot of unknowns. What we want of course is the best of that lot – the smoking gun(s).

The often used phrase by UFO sceptics such as Carl Sagan (and others) tends to be along the lines that ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’. Hogwash! Extraordinary claims require no more, or no less, evidence than any other type of claim. If I say I have a doghouse in my backyard with a dog standing in front of it, you may not believe me. But, if you go in the backyard, and see, photograph, even scientifically measure said doghouse and dog, my claim is validated. If I say there’s a flying saucer in my backyard with a being that clearly doesn’t resemble any terrestrial creature standing besides it, you may really, Really, REALLY not believe me. But if you go into the backyard and see, photograph, even scientifically measure said flying saucer and alien, my claim is again validated. There’s nothing different in principle between the two claims and the evidence needed to back them up.

Further, what is perceived as being ‘extraordinary’ lies solely in the mind of the individual. What is extraordinary to me might be mundane to you. Perhaps that’s why legislation and courts of law don’t make distinctions between extraordinary claims and ordinary claims. Proof is required for any claim, at least beyond reasonable doubt. In science, do extraordinary claims require say three or four times as many observations, and/or experiments, and/or predictions, and/or collaborators and peer-reviewers as less extraordinary or routine claims before peer-reviewed articles are allowed to be published in the scientific literature? Of course not - there’s nothing in the rulebook of peer-reviewed scientific journals that require any such thing.

In the case of the ordinary or extraordinary (take your pick) claim that UFOs = ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence), that evidence tends to be more elusive, but no more or less so than other phenomena that is unpredictable, doesn’t stand still, and we can’t bring to the laboratory and put under a microscope. But, as there have been ‘smoking guns’ for those sorts of natural phenomena, so to might there be a smoking gun(s) that provide evidence for the claim that (at least one or more) UFOs = ETI.

So what is the best UFO = ETI case ever? Well, the answer is in the eye of the beholder. In other words, if you quizzed 100 ufologists, you’d probably get 80 (or more) different answers. There would be little agreement. That suggests that in fact there are a lot of good documented UFO case studies that remain unidentified. In fact, you don’t need to quiz ufologists. The University of Colorado (Condon) Scientific Study into UFOs (1968) is full of marvellous unsolved UFO cases!

One needs some sort of criteria to winnow out the wheat from the chaff. I would suggest that firstly you must have a multi-witness sighting, witnesses who are independent of each other, from two or more vantage points, and who have no obvious reason to lie, axe to grind or profit motive. Secondly, at least one of those witnesses should be knowledgeable about the sky and atmospheric/astronomical phenomena (such as a pilot, physical scientist, or a person who spends lots of time outdoors). Thirdly, the duration of the sighting should be long enough to rule out the element of surprise and thus snap judgments, and of course the closer the better. Fourthly, there should be at least one independent physical record – motion picture, ground imprint, radar return, etc. Fifthly, the object(s) ideally should have exhibited some degree of artificial manoeuvrability and intelligent control (changes in speed, direction, evasive actions, etc.). Sixthly, an earlier case is better than a latter case as earlier cases have less probability of having a psychological, social, cultural witness bias, even if unintentional. [It could be argued therefore that perhaps the best modern UFO case is the June 1947 Kenneth Arnold one – no contamination was possible from whatever went on before.] Lastly, the case should have been investigated by those qualified to do so – responsible, unbiased and professional scientists and/or military officers – and found to be unidentifiable to a high degree of probability. 

So, what’s my favourite ‘smoking gun’? Faced with a choice of hundreds I’ve read extensively about, I’m partial to the dual July, 1952 Washington, D.C. sightings. The only criterion I listed above that was not met was that there was in fact a ‘solution’ found. The answer was apparently temperature inversions.  Based on all I’ve read about the case, I don’t think any serious investigator, atmospheric physicist, etc. believes that for a moment! This was one case where it was politically mandatory that a natural ‘solution’ be found and provided to the public in quick-smart fashion, seeing as how the air space over the American capitol is highly restricted. It just wouldn’t do to have extraterrestrials flying over and buzzing the White House. In any event, it certainly was an example of “credible observers of relatively incredible things” – a phrase used by a high ranking military officer, USAF Major-General John A. Samford, at a Pentagon press conference called because of the intense press interest and public pressure over the sightings. 

Exobiology: UFOs: Those Unknowns

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. Say ‘hi’ to those pesky UFOs. The bona fide UFOs are UFOs that remain UFOs even after the experts have finished their analysis. That residue still amounts to a heck of a lot of unknowns.

The fact, as 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. Since the number of reported and investigated UFO events now number in the many tens of thousands (100,000 worldwide wouldn’t be an out of the ballpark figure), even restricting events to those investigated by official government and/or military agencies, that’s still 5,000 to 10,000 bona-fide unknowns. It only takes one of those unknowns to clinch the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis.

This fact apparently excites the scientific, astrobiology, and SETI communities not one jot. But, as noted in a separate essay, 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 would be an understatement.

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

If the medical profession didn’t have a clue what 5% to 10% of their patient’s ailments were, there would be hell to pay over the training of MDs.

If your prescription or over-the-counter medicine didn’t work 5% to 10% of the time, you’d want a refund.

If 5% to 10% of the time your plumber, electrician, TV/laundry/dishwasher repairman couldn’t figure out what the problem was, you’d be a mighty unhappy customer.

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.

Exobiology: SETI vs. the UFO: Part Two

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. Say ‘hi’ to those pesky UFOs, a concept surprisingly either dismissed or ignored by those most interested in extraterrestrial intelligences: SETI scientists.

So, what, to date, provides more plausible evidence or support for extraterrestrial intelligence – SETI or UFOs.

So sorry to have to say this, but UFOs have a lot more extraterrestrial intelligence runs on the board than SETI, despite SETI being legit, accredited and accepted science and UFOs anything but. Despite that, the track record for UFOs as a bona fide ETI subject is way better than the track record for SETI. As even UFO sceptics (like SETI scientists) have to acknowledge, some 5% to 10% of all UFO sightings or incidents, from around the world, remain hard core UFO sightings or incidents after proper analysis (and thus remain plausible or viable candidates for the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis or ETH) - the ‘unknowns’ category.

If 5% to 10% of all interesting-at-first-glance SETI signals also proved, after proper analysis, to be legitimate ‘unknowns’; ‘WOW’ signals after the one and only one such ‘unknown’ ever recorded, that would really set the SETI community abuzz. That one SETI ‘WOW’ signal has withstood the test of time – it remains a bona fide SETI unknown. My point is that each and every one of those 5 to 10% bona-fide unexplainable UFO incidents is, for all practical purposes, a ‘WOW’ event, equal in potential to the lone SETI ‘WOW’ signal. In the case of the UFO, the collective of ‘WOW’ events now number in the thousands to tens of thousands. As I said, UFOs have more ‘WOW’ runs on the board than SETI. 

As an example, one such ‘WOW’ UFO event happened on the evening of 13 March 1997 over the city of Phoenix, Arizona. Thousands of citizens, including the state’s Governor, Fife Symington III, witnessed (and several filmed) an aerial display of a silently gliding formation of lights in the sky of unknown origin, now dubbed, not surprisingly, ‘The Phoenix Lights’. Needless to say they remain unidentified, and you can get in-depth documentary coverage on YouTube. 

One other point, SETI scientists poo-poo the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) saying there’s no PHYSICAL evidence. Eye witness testimony counts for absolutely nothing. Well of course there is PHYSICAL evidence for the UFO ETH of the exact same nature as that would satisfy a SETI scientist of E.T. – after all SETI scientists look for a PHYSICAL signal which they can study at their leisure, not an actual E.T. in the flesh. Well, UFOs have produced PHYSICAL evidence because they too can, and have, produced a PHYSICAL signal – radar returns, and there exist a fair few bona-fide radar returns of UFO events that have, after due investigation, remained unidentified. Now the PHYSICAL evidence left behind by bona-fide UFO radar cases, those unexplained radar cases, deserve intense respect, or the operators that interpret those radar returns. If radar operators can be trusted to distinguish a flock of birds from an incoming ICBM or foreign miliary bomber intent on doing us a mischief, the reason the radar DEW line was established and manned during the Cold War; if radar operators can have entrusted to them the lives of military and commercial pilots, crew and passengers, then they must have the ability to tell an echo from a temperature inversion from a solid object – in this case the aircraft. If you fly, you entrust your very life to the ability of those radar operators to tell who’s who; distinguish what’s what. Sorry, but UFO radar returns are solid PHYSICAL evidence for the reality of unidentified flying objects.  

Contrasting SETI’s PHYSICAL evidence with PHYSICAL evidence for the UFO, consider that in each case we have an object – SETI has the E.T. radio telescope; UFOs the UFO itself. In each case we have an electromagnetic event – SETI has radio waves; the UFO event has radar. In each case we have receiving technology – SETI has the terrestrial radio telescope; the UFO event has a radar dish. In each case we have a visual display – SETI probably has some sort of monitor or oscilloscope; the UFO radar return some sort of cathode ray tube (CRT) or monitor. Both displays can be captured for later and fuller analysis. That’s the closest parallel regarding PHYSICAL evidence with SETI. Of course UFOs leave behind other PHYSICAL traces from films and photographs, to ground traces, electromagnetic effects, even physiological effects too.

Another point is that say there’s one extraterrestrial technologically advanced civilization reasonably close to by – say within 10 to 50 light-years. Say their radio transmission leakage window of (our) opportunity for (our) successful SETI is 100 to 200 years before all their transmission traffic is via fibre optical or other cable and the radio noise, their radio leakage, for all practical purpose ceases. So, our SETI has up to 200 years to point an antenna tuned at the right frequency and pointed in the right direction to log up a success story.

Now, what’s the duration of our extraterrestrial civilization’s attempts to boldly go – interstellar exploration? 100 years? 200 years? No, its way more than that because once started, even assuming the home planet goes kaput, exploration is ever ongoing. So the window of opportunity for us stay-at-home terrestrials to detect these boldly going, interstellar travelling extraterrestrials (and sooner of later we’d be accidentally stumbled over even if we hadn’t been detected before-the-fact due to our bio-signatures – technological or otherwise) is also pretty unlimited. If extraterrestrials are not here now (via UFOs), then maybe there’s some evidence they were here 200, 2000 or 20,000 years ago; or maybe there will be evidence tomorrow. The argument doesn’t really alter that much, if at all, no matter how many technologically advanced (capable of both radio and interstellar travel) civilizations there are. Radio leakage is short term; exploration is long term. Therefore, UFOs (exploration) are a better bet than SETI (radio leakage) in uncovering the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. 

Now that’s not an attack on SETI. I like SETI; it’s good science. I wish SETI every success and if SETI captures THE signal tomorrow, I’d be delighted. It’s just that SETI isn’t the only game in town. UFO research is not a replacement for traditional SETI, but complementary – if the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence is your goal.

SETI scientists & UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) hunters have something in common – they both need the deliberate or inadvertent cooperation of what they seek – aliens (if aliens they be). SETI scientists need that radio (or optical or infrared) transmission. UFO hunters need UFOs to just bloody well stand still, or at least have the decency to crash in a public location!

In conclusion, I again wish to make it clear that I totally support radio, optical, and infrared SETI to the hilt. It is bona fide science. Nothing ventured, nothing gained is applicable here. Repeating myself, traditional SETI isn’t the only game available, and I equally support and encourage any and all other search strategies. To support the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, there should be a scholarly examination of terrestrial mythology, especially religious mythology, for hints of ETI. For example, do all gods in all the worlds religious mythologies live in the sky (like Heaven, or Valhalla) and possess magical (technological) powers? Also, for once, there should be a serious scientific examination of the UFO data to determine once and for all if there is a case for some UFO events (like the Phoenix Lights) exhibiting ETI technology.    

Whatever investigation, including those into ancient astronauts and UFOs, that tells you that ETI exists, or once existed, or doesn’t exist at all (and a negative result is as important as a positive one) is a part of bona fide SETI.

Exobiology: SETI vs. the UFO: Part One

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. Say ‘hi’ to those pesky UFOs, a concept surprisingly either dismissed or ignored by those most interested in extraterrestrial intelligences: SETI scientists.

Radio (and other) astronomers who search for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) in the cosmos appear to have little if any real interest in other avenues that have potential bearing on the issue, which makes we wonder about just how bona fide their overall interest in ETI really is. That’s because they tend not only to ignore those avenues, but often actively thumb their collective noses at, and ridicule subjects such as UFOs and ancient astronauts. I think they should have the academic courage to investigate these fields as well, as there is IMHO an ETI signal of wheat within the UFO (and ancient astronaut) chaffy noise.

The phrase ‘Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence’ (SETI) says nothing at all about how to search. Traditionally, the usual ways and means have centred on using the radio part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the engineering techniques and technology tried and true to radio astronomy to seek out new or established radio communicating civilizations. That is, we position radio telescopes to either target various specific points in the sky at stellar objects that theory suggest E.T. might be located around and might be deliberately broadcasting from with a view towards interstellar communication, or just sweeping the sky willy-nilly in hopes of detecting general radio leaking from civilizations broadcasting, perhaps just for their own use (radio, TV, radar) somewhere out there.  SETI is based mainly on a theoretical premise that technologically advanced civilizations – advanced enough to have radio communications – exist and can have said technology detectable by us at a distance.

SETI has also searched the optical and infrared parts of the electromagnetic spectrum for signs of advanced extraterrestrial technology, as well as trying several other approaches as well, like looking for possible alien artefacts at various strategic locations in outer space – like the asteroid belt or the Earth-Moon Lagrangian points where objects so positioned tend to have long duration stability. 

But SETI, after five decades of scanning the heavens for intelligent messages, have managed to come up with only one ‘WOW’ signal; one unknown signal, one unidentified signal, that unfortunately never repeated itself and thus couldn’t ever be scientifically and properly verified.

For some strange reason however, SETI scientists exclude alien artefacts that have any potential connection with UFOs, and closely related the concept of ‘ancient astronauts’. That seems to be putting your SETI eggs in relatively fewer baskets than is necessary! I mean, SETI is trying to find extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI). If UFOs and/or ancient astronauts provide evidence or support for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, you’d think SETI scientists would include UFOs and/or ancient astronauts in their collective baskets.

Now I’m not claiming here that UFOs provide the ‘smoking gun’ establishing proof positive for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. I am suggesting however that there must be something highly suggestive in the collective evidence over more than six decades of the modern UFO era that point to extraterrestrial intelligence as a plausible answer.

To be continued...

Exobiology: UFOs and Science

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. Say ‘hi’ to those pesky UFOs, a concept either dismissed or ignored by the general scientific community.

Sceptics who dismiss UFOs out of hand as nonsense are throwing the baby out with the bathwater by ignoring the many unanswered and important questions surrounding the phenomena. Let’s start by assuming that UFOs do NOT have anything to do with extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI). What’s the psychological, sociological, cultural, even religious need to have a UFO mythology? What’s the psychology, the sociology, the culture, etc. behind the phenomena, if UFOs aren’t nuts-and-bolts? What does it tell us about the human condition? Why does the phenomena cross, effect and appear to all ages, both sexes, all educational levels, all religious affiliations, all nationalities, and all races? Why 1947 as the year the modern UFO era began? Why saucer shapes and related? One would think that back around the late 1940’s that shapes, assuming active imaginations at work here, would be more akin to the V-2 rocket, or the sorts of ships associated with popular science fiction characters like Captain Video, Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon.  I have in front of me the “Starlog Photo Guidebook: Spaceships” [in science fiction TV and movies]. In looking at the early period, that is pre-1950, I note that the spaceships are rather conventional ones – rockets with tail fins and pointed noses, not flying discs. And, stating the fairly obvious, there were no Frisbees in 1947!

Why such persistence or longevity in the UFO phenomena, in particular given the sceptical treatment by most scientists, public officials, and the military? You’d think that the negative findings of the (University of Colorado) Condon Report and United Sates Air Force’s Project Blue Book would have thrown enough cold water over the issue to cause it to disappear – assuming that there’s really nothing to it of course? And why the alien abduction accounts? If they are products of the mind, what does that say about the human mind? That’s something worth researching no matter what.

Another topic worthy of academic consideration regardless what UFOs are, is why has the phenomena evolved over time? I mean other paranormal activities don’t evolve, like sightings of ghosts and reports of the Loch Ness Monster. But UFOs started out as daylight-discs and lights-in-the-sky, then evolved into close encounters, encounters with aliens and on to actual alien abductions. The UFO phenomena of the late 1940’s is quite different (simpler) from that of the late 1970’s, which is clearly less complex that that of the latter years of the first decade of the 21^st Century. Sceptics should be encouraging that sort of research.

However, I suggest there tends to be a scientific double standard at work here. Take the topic of string and superstring theory, to wit you’ll find lots of popular or quasi-popular books in your bookstore covering same. There certainly is a lot more solid physical evidence for the reality of UFOs vis-à-vis string/superstring theory, which, currently is the darling of the theoretical physics community and has been so for going on several decades now.  The topic has spawned multi-thousands of academic papers in highly technical physics journals, so string/superstring theory certainly has the respect of the academic community. However, there remains not one shred of actual evidence that they exist at all! String/superstring theory happens to be a beautiful mathematical construction that could explain the way the universe works. But decades later, it’s still just mathematics. No observation, no experiment, no nothing has shown they actually exist. So, the actual reality of UFOs is nonsense – the theoretical reality of strings and superstrings is embraced. Go figure!

While I’m very happy for all these physicists to spend all this time on a concept which, to date, has not revealed any physical reality whatever (yet, in theory describes some of the workings of the physical universe), it would be nice if some of those physicists could devote some of their professional time to a concept (UFOs = ETI) that has shown a tad more physical reality than string/superstring theory. Physical traces of UFO activity like angel’s hair, electromagnetic effects, radar returns, photographs and ground traces would be, I would have thought, might be of interest to physicists as well as other bits part and parcel of the phenomena like light, sound and aerodynamics.

Exobiology: UFOs

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. If ‘guess who’s coming to dinner’ came to dinner, it’s far more probable they came to dine eons ago relative to the last several, even many, decades ago. If that’s the case, we call the diners, ‘ancient astronauts’. But, if way back then, then why not now as well? Say ‘hi’ to those pesky UFOs.

Most scientists would argue that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations must exist throughout the cosmos. Thus the time, effort and energy devoted to SETI – the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. The Fermi Paradox however strongly suggests that if ETI exists, then their SETI has found us – in person. If there were no evidence that we’ve been or are being visited by extraterrestrials, then our SETI would be harder to justify since that might point in the direction that we’re the only kid on the cosmic block. However, apart from suggestive evidence via ‘ancient astronauts’, there’s those UFOs to contend with and the possible implications they bring.

In this the modern era, ETI has exhibited its existence and a terrestrial presence via at least part of the UFO phenomena.

The ‘modern’ era of the UFO, nee ‘flying saucer’, is now over 60 years old. I would maintain that that interval of time is just a tad too long to make the subject a psychological or sociological one somewhat lacking in credibility, which was not of necessity the case in June 1947. That’s even more to the point seeing as how that month is a rather artificial one. The UFO can be traced back to the ‘ghost rockets’, to WWII and the ‘foo fighters’, and further back to the mysterious airship sightings of the latter 1800’s. If you really want to split hairs, there’s little doubt the UFO phenomena (recalling that “U” just stands for “unidentified” to the viewer), harks back to our cavemen ancestors tens to hundreds of thousand of years ago.    

There’s certainly no question in my mind that the majority of close encounters of the first kind and/or vague ‘UFO lights-in-the-sky’ reports are most certainly misidentified natural/celestial phenomena or terrestrial technology.  It gets a bit harder to misidentify close encounters of the second or third kind however, and there is no overall shortage of those kinds of reports. When you put all the various reports and associated bits and pieces together (ground traces, EM effects, radar returns, still and motion pictures, independent expert multi-witness testimony, etc.) it’s somewhat difficult to dismiss the whole kit and caboodle with a wave of the hand, or, as one well known astronomer did by referencing George Adamski., According to Carl Sagan in his 1985 Gifford Lectures, because Adamski was obviously a UFO nut who produced fake photographs and visited Venus, therefore the UFO field is nuts. There was no mention of scientists intensely interested in the field that had academic qualifications equal to his own, like a J. Allen Hynek, James E. McDonald, David R. Saunders, Bruce S. Maccabee, David M. Jacobs, John E. Mack, Jacques Vallee, R. Leo Sprinkle, Karla Turner, James A. Harder, etc. That’s quite apart from a long list of other highly qualified interested military personnel, astronauts. There’s easily another rather lengthy third list of sober down-to-earth investigators, highly qualified in their own way, who are anything but nutty. In short, I thought the Adamski emphasis was a rather cheap shot at discrediting the UFO field in general and rather unworthy of someone of the stature of Dr. Sagan (whom I otherwise quite admire).

If UFOs = ETI, then their motive is certainly not invasion, nor is it apparently a ‘take me to your leader’ one. So it’s something in between. And just like biologists don’t invade rat society, nor try to communicate with it, but rather just study the race of rats (rat race?), perhaps what we have here is an on-going dispassionate study of at the minimum humans, human society, human biology, etc.

Where do potential terrestrial/extraterrestrial UFOs come from? I think we can rule out WWII Nazi Germany for starters. We can postulate other dimensions, parallel universes, even time travel. Alas, all of these are within the realm of theoretical physics (and sci-fi), and while fun to play with, remain theoretical. Space travel however is firmly grounded in proven hard reality physics.  Using Ockham’s (or Occam’s) Razor, the outer space connection seems at this point in time, the likeliest of all probabilities.

It’s also fairly clear that if UFOs are the products of an alien civilization, then on probability, given the vast age of the galaxy, that the odds are good that said race is vastly beyond our technological level, not just a little bit. Thus it’s not surprising, to use a well worn phrase, that ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic to those with a far lesser technological understanding’. (That’s not the exact quote, but you get the drift.)

Their presence seems to be one more akin to scientific curiosity/experimentation vis-à-vis invasion or diplomatic contact.

I imagine that these observations will extend into our future for an indefinite period.

Exobiology: Ancient Astronauts: Evidence from Archaeology

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. If ‘guess who’s coming to dinner’ came to dinner, it’s far more probable they came to dine eons ago relative to the last several, even many, decades ago. If that’s the case, we call the diners, ‘ancient astronauts’. There’s suggestive evidence for ‘ancient astronauts’ that comes to light via traditional archaeology.

We’ve had the overall general concept of the polytheistic gods as actual extraterrestrial (sky) beings; the Star of Bethlehem event as an associated UFO event, and dragons as a possible example of another extraterrestrial creature, in this case a pet of the ‘gods’. All three rely on mythology. Let’s turn to several hard core archaeological examples suggestive of those ‘ancient astronauts’.

We clearly have ancient myths and legends of sky beings, gods who live in and/or come from the sky, and deities associated with various celestial objects. What sort of ‘nuts-and-bolts’ archaeological evidence might complement this?

Example One: 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. Each culture honours their gods in their own way.

Example Two: Easter Island – Easter Island, a part of Chile, is stuck way out on its lonesome in the southern Pacific. Somewhere between 1250 and 1500 AD, the local Polynesian inhabitants hacked out of solid volcanic rock, carved and transported roughly 900 of the often rather large and heavy Easter Island stone statues, at quite some considerable expenditure in time, effort and energy, but to what purpose? The purpose certainly wasn’t just for the hell of it – something to occupy their spare time. Firstly, the statues could be up to ten metres tall and weigh up to roughly 80 tonnes. That ain’t small change! The statues are humanoid in overall appearance, but one could hardly call them perfectly human in form, so they were not constructed to represent the Easter Islanders themselves. Who then? Well, each culture honours their gods in their own way, but these gods certainly weren’t created in man’s image. 

Example Three: 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. 

Example Four: 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 and again, Google Images can bring up the relevant pictures. You have to decide for yourself, but if not representing really real ‘ancient astronauts’, well then I’m pretty well stumped. 

Example Five: 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.

Example Six: 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.  

Example Seven: Then there are examples of out-of-place (or time) artefacts. One example is the ‘Greek computer’, a system of clockwork-like gears structure found by sponge divers on a sunken ship which floundered sometime in the first century BC in the Mediterranean Sea. Actually the object was just a crusted lump, but on closer examination, that lump turned out to be some sort of highly sophisticated mechanism with all sorts of complex gear drives, probably some sort of astronomical calendar for calculating the positions of various celestial objects. The device is now in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, and was written up in the journal “Natural History” (March 1962).

Example Eight: 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.

All of this is hardly proof positive – the ‘smoking gun’ – of extraterrestrial visitors or ‘ancient astronauts’. However, the various threads of highly suggestive evidence continue to build. There’ a lot more to come when turning to the modern era and UFOs.

Exobiology: Ancient Astronauts: Their Pet Dragons

Exobiology: Ancient Astronauts: Their Pet Dragons

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. If ‘guess who’s coming to dinner’ came to dinner, it’s far more probable they came to dine eons ago relative to the last several, even many, decades ago. If that’s the case, we call the diners, ‘ancient astronauts’. But if they came, perhaps they brought along their pets too, accounting for, among others, the dragon-lore of mythology.

In much the same way as British colonizers of Australia brought with them reminders of home, from plants and crops to cattle and sheep, not to mention rabbits, cats and dogs, so too did the ‘god’s’ of mythology (our ‘ancient astronauts’)  bring with them their menagerie, like say the hydra, chimera, unicorns, Pegasus, and of course dragons. This would certainly explain why nearly every pre-Christian human culture independently had dragons as part of that culture. Dragons could be good (The East), or bad (The West) but regardless ‘here be dragons’. So, I suspect that at one time, thanks to the ‘gods’, dragons were anything but mythical.

For something that doesn’t exist, and never has existed, dragons and dragon-lore has quite the remarkable hold throughout nearly all societies, from novels to films to video games; they also appear on coats-of-arms, on calendars, in art works, sculptures and as toys. Just like the mythological gods might have been really closet ET’s, well maybe dragons were ET’s pets; real flesh-and-blood creatures! Yet long after most of the extraterrestrial ‘gods’ have been totally forgotten about, dragons still rule. Maybe their ‘pets’ have truly eclipsed them!

Is there anybody from the age of four onwards on the face of the Earth who isn’t aware of the mythological creature popularly known as the dragon? The exceptions would be so relatively rare that I would have to conclude that of nearly all things make-believe, dragons are probably in the top ten recognition list. So, is that the be-all-and-end-all of things? Behind most myths, folklore or fairy tales often there is a tiny kernel of fact behind the apparent fiction. What about that kernel at the core of dragon-lore?

Now mythology-themed texts are excellent at relating various dragon tales and their associated dragon-slaying humans like Saint George, Sigurd (Siegfried), and Beowulf*; the purposes dragons served like guarding treasure and the abodes or palaces of the gods, as well as go-betweens the gods and humanity (sort of like carrier pigeons) and their having some control over the weather and the waters; and what they symbolize like evil, sin, power, military might, and pagan ways in the West and the Emperor and Empress, wisdom, immortality and other positive things like good fortune in the East.   

I find it interesting that in the Chinese calendar, there are years for the rat; ox; tiger; rabbit; snake; horse; goat; monkey; rooster; dog; pig and dragon. Of all the twelve, only the dragon is considered by modern society mythical. I find it odd that the Chinese would employ eleven real beasties and one mythical one. Perhaps all dozen were real!  

However, mythology texts hardly ever explain why dragons are universal in the past tense and beloved in the present in nearly all societies in the first place. It’s one thing to just say dragons are mythological beings; it’s quite something else to explain how that is in light of such detail that surrounds dragon-lore and their universality.

Let’s look at what a typical dragon looks like. The classic dragon of Western tradition was a four-legged winged serpent with scaly skin and sharp claws (or varying number). Chinese dragons were generally horned and bearded, with a pair of long whiskers protruding from the upper lip. Dragons were very large, averaging about 80 feet (25 metres) in length. They had the ability to fly through the air as well as move on the ground. Many dragons breathed fire although others killed with their venomous breath. There’s nothing vague about what dragons looked like and what they did which is odd seeing as how they never existed. Or did they – never exist that is?

As to that explanation:

The traditional mainstream explanation for the reason for mythological dragons does not usually rely on human nature to invent out of whole cloth life forms that don’t exist, but rather on an assumption that fossil remains of dinosaurs, etc. gave rise to speculations that, in this case, the life form we call the dragon, well those fossils kick-started those dragon mythologies all over the world. As expressed in a recent book on mythological creatures:

“The ubiquity of dragon legends around the world remains striking; few legendary creatures have a wider distribution. Some scholars have linked the stories with discoveries of dinosaur bones and it may be that in early times tales of dragons served to explain the existence of long-dead creatures of huge size. Yet no single reason can ever hope to cover all the many strands of draconian lore. More likely, gigantic winged serpents fill some archetypal need in the human imagination, crossing cultures in their power to excite awe and fear.” (Tony Allen; The Mythic Bestiary: An Illustrated Guide to the World’s Most Fantastical Creatures; Duncan Baird Publishers, London; 2008: Page 169)

Oh what a load of crap! Actually, loads of crap. Firstly, no large dinosaur bones come equipped with wings, etc. Have you ever seen a fossil or replica T-Rex that had wings and could fly?  Maybe they mean pterosaurs and/or pterodactyls, although they aren’t dinosaurs but a class of flying reptiles. However, fossils of flying reptiles aren’t very common and are in fact quite fragile.

Secondly, fossils aren’t going to tell you anything about colouration, scaly vs. smooth skin, beards and whiskers, fire-breathing abilities and venomous or otherwise bad breath, etc. Those sorts of details aren’t preserved in the fossil record, though very, very, very rarely dinosaur skin impressions are found but there are just about enough examples on hand that you can count them off on the fingers of one hand. .

Thirdly, the non-avian dinosaurs and flying reptiles died out 65 millions of years before humans and dragon mythology so there can be no contemporary firsthand knowledge of those previous long-dead dinosaur life forms to draw on. And the avian dinosaurs, which did survive – we now call them birds – hardly approach the sorts of sizes and other characteristics that could remotely be related to dragons.

Lastly, 99.9% of large fossils don’t just lie on the ground fully exposed in all their glory for the entire world to see. Most bits are usually buried and mainly in a somewhat jumbled state due to the various geological, hydrological and meteorological forces acting on the bones at the time of the animal’s death and the millions of years thereafter. It takes experts to piece things back together again as two of more animal fossils might be intermixed.

Further, why would the uneducated great unwashed living back before those golden years when mythological dragons ruled the skies go to all the trouble of the backbreaking sort of work it takes to fully expose a large fossil in the first place, and thus invent the mythological dragon? I mean it wouldn’t put any food on the table!

So when all else fails, put our invention of mythological and universal dragons down to some variation of nebulous Freudian psychology mumbo-jumbo. Give me a break! No, the answer is that dragons were really real and humans actually observed them. There is a single reason after all.

Now the bigger mystery here is why the cultural difference between East and West in the popular perception of dragons, although that’s not as clear cut as some texts make it out to be. For example, China too had bad dragons – evil black dragons that were credited with inciting storms and floods – and a dragon slayer (Lu Dongbin). Japan had an evil dragon too called Yamata-no-Orochi, slain* by the often troublesome Japanese trickster god Susanowo.

Exceptions to the rule aside, I suggest that the relative differences in the portrayals of dragons reflect back on the nature of their masters – the gods.

The Eastern gods appear to me to be a lot less dysfunctional and all around nicer deities than the Western gods. The Greeks and Norse people may have worshiped Zeus et al. and Odin et al. but you really wouldn’t want them to serve as role models for your kids. 

There is however another, and perhaps even more logical explanation for the differences between Western and Eastern dragons. Dragons are bad in the (Christian) west because the Christian churches decrees it so. Dragons represent the old ways, the old gods, maybe even the devil incarnate. In the non-Christian (Hindu, Buddhist, etc.) east, dragons have no such baggage or stigma attached.

The extraterrestrials ‘gods’ and their dragon pets share something in common. The dragons, much like their masters, the ‘gods’ are as close to immortal as makes no odds. I think it’s safe to say ‘immortal’ in this context isn’t really forever and ever, amen, but rather a damn long time, which, as far as primitive humans were concerned translated as, for all practical purposes, ‘immortal’.  

The bottom line in all this is that the gods are really extraterrestrials; their pets, the dragons are also aliens; part of the god’s bestiary. When the gods left the building (Planet Earth), they took their dragons with them as well as the rest of their so-called ‘mythological’ menagerie. 

*As an aside, the actual slaying of dragons is problematically against such events. If as described (see above) you’d no more go up against a dragon armed only with a sword as you would a T-Rex. You’d want at least an army tank under or at your command or an army of swordsmen at the least (and expect lots of casualties too). Then too, the gods might not permit the slaying of their pets. Of course the Christian church would encourage tall tales of dragon slaying since the dragon was pagan and may even be symbolic of Satan. But if dragons were slain, where are all the mounted and stuffed dragon head trophies that should be on display in all manner of ways and places? 

Telling tales of slaying dragons is akin, IMHO, to a fisherman’s tall tales – the six inch fish that got away, after a few drinks at the pub, turns out to be a six foot monster fish! But if dragons were really slain, where are all the mounted and stuffed dragon head trophies that should be on display in all manner of ways and places? Lack of such stuffed trophies doesn’t prove dragons didn’t exist (there are no taxidermic head trophies of sabre-toothed cats either on display), rather that mortals didn’t dare go up against them!

Further reading:

Hargreaves, Joyce; A Little History of Dragons; Walker & Company, New York; 2009:

Exobiology: Ancient Astronauts: Part Two

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. If ‘guess who’s coming to dinner’ came to dinner, it’s far more probable they came to dine eons ago relative to the last several, even many, decades ago. If that’s the case, we call the diners, ‘ancient astronauts’.

My ‘ancient astronaut’ scenario:

Once upon a time, a long time ago, a group of boldly going extraterrestrials discovered Planet Earth and took dominion over it, like humans take dominion over national parks and reserves, but starting at a time before humans.

Now I’ve no idea where they came from except from somewhere out there. Different myths and legends point to different points of origin, all of which could well be the case.

In the time of humans, sometime later on down the line, these extraterrestrials would become, in the minds of the humans, the ‘gods’. But the so-called ‘gods’ (including ‘God’) were never real supernatural deities, but ‘flesh-and-blood’ extraterrestrials with advanced technology and powers.

The ‘gods’ reign over their dominion of mankind wasn’t always benign and just.

They, the extraterrestrials, made their presence felt at the dawn of mankind’s emergence; but hence, because there were so many of them, polytheism became the religious order of the day as far as the various human cultures were concerned. The humans obviously mistook the advanced extraterrestrials for supernatural deities, worshiping what they thought were the ‘gods’, but who in reality were at best pseudo-gods.

Therefore, the polytheistic pseudo ‘gods’ (or at least some, many or most of them) exist. Later on down the track, what became the monotheistic ‘God’, actually pseudo-God also existed. However, in the beginning, pseudo-God was just one of the pseudo-gods.

Now I assume here that the ‘gods’ and ‘God’ are all related, but like humans, aren’t always one big happy family. In fact, if there’s any one word that describes the family of the ‘gods’, its “dysfunctional”!

Even further on down the track, was there was some sort of a falling out between ‘God’ (and His followers) and the other ‘gods’ for control over humanity? If so, ‘God’ and hangers-on win – monotheism comes to the fore.

However, ‘God’ (assuming His reality) and His minions have a falling out in turn – a house divided against itself. This is where ‘Satan’ and followers tell ‘God’ and followers to take a long walk off a short pier. Ultimately, ‘God’ proves to have ‘the force’ be with Him.

But, a now much weakened ‘God’ and company are ripe for getting their comeuppance and it was so. They then get overturned and banished by the ‘gods’, which is why there’s no evidence for any Godly presence over the past several millenniums. ‘God’ has left the building! ‘God’ has been tarred and feathered and exiled from Dodge City.

But are the ‘gods’ still around? There’s been equally and relatively little evidence for them too over the past several millenniums. Still, I propose they’re out there at a distance, patiently observing, ever observing.

But what happens when humans get advanced enough technologically to begin to, at least in principle, have the potential to challenge the ‘gods’ on their own turf? That is, we humans can begin to toss around a thunderbolt or two of our own.

Enter the modern UFO era, with the ‘gods’ moving in to keep far closer tabs on us and their dominion, which they’ve probably never relinquished but are worried that it will be taken away from them, even by force. Our thunderbolts are now, or soon will be, bigger and better that their thunderbolts. 

In conclusion, this is a field ripe for detailed academic study, and the concept of the ‘ancient astronaut’ shouldn’t be dismissed by scholars are readily as it has been. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely any academic would put his/her career on the line by pursuing such a controversial, ‘pseudo-scientific, topic because of the associated ‘giggle’ factor. Pity.

Exobiology: Ancient Astronauts: Part One

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. If ‘guess who’s coming to dinner’ came to dinner, it’s far more probable they came to dine eons ago relative to the last several, even many, decades ago. If that’s the case, we call the diners, ‘ancient astronauts’.

Scholars when they research the polytheistic gods of ancient civilizations and cultures start with the assumption that the gods are imaginary inventions of the fertile human mind and purely mythical beings. I start with the opposite assumption, that is that ancient peoples depicted real (extraterrestrial) beings which to them were so advanced as to be deities - the gods. The concept of ‘ancient astronauts’ now should form the basis for some serious academic study by those scholars.

Extraterrestrial Intelligence(s) or ETI have explored our neck of the cosmic woods, finding Planet Earth. Planet Earth has probably been under observation by visitors from the stars as far back into pre-human history as you care to go (thus ‘ancient astronauts’), probably even earlier still.

If one or more such visitations happened in our historical past, there might be some suggestive evidence of same; and thus the concept of the ‘ancient astronaut’ has come to pass. The man who most popularised the idea of ‘ancient astronauts’ was Erich Von Daniken, (though many both before and after him had similar ideas). He had the germ of a good idea, but got rather carried away with the concept and started seeing ancient astronauts behind every pyramid and megalith in existence. No, I don’t believe for a moment that aliens, or humans assisted by aliens, built the pyramids or the statues at Easter Island or any other type of archaeological monument. If for no other reason, mythologies around the world credit the ‘gods’ with creating humankind with the idea that humans would do the hard work while the ‘gods’ eat, drank and made merry!

Evidence suggestive of ancient astronauts will probably best be found in those sorts of myths and legends, advanced human knowledge of scientific concepts out of sync with that particular culture, or in art works, or other archaeological works that are suggestive of an awareness of sky beings (another common theme in mythology). Nearly all cultures have stories and pictograms about/of sky beings, including the Australian aborigine and American Indians. Myths and legends surrounding, say, the Greek/Roman/Norse gods can be interpreted in an ancient astronaut context (ditto for other religious beings), or perhaps the Wheel of Ezekiel and the ‘star’ of Bethlehem are suggestive. While the etchings on the Plain of Nazca were certainly not runways, they can easily be interpreted as mammoth human constructions designed to be viewed by sky beings.

So what evidence do I offer up that the ‘gods’ were really real, albeit actual flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials? Well, there’s the consistency of the tales within each culture and often parallel consistencies between ancient societies and their mythologies. For example, parallel ideas central to a ‘paradise’ or to ‘sky beings’ or to ‘wars fought in heaven’. Then there are the images of the ‘gods’ as wall paintings or rock carvings or as statutes, frescos, etc. So what? Well, these images are contemporary with the reign of the ‘gods; it’s as if the ‘gods’ sat for their portraits. The ‘gods’ weren’t camera shy! If the ‘gods’ didn’t exist, why would the ancient Greeks go to so much trouble as to construct the massive Statue of Zeus at Olympia which occupied the whole width of the aisle of the temple that was built to house it, and was 12 meters (40 feet) tall; the Colossus of Rhodes, a giant statue of the Greek god Helios, god of the Sun, some 35 meters (110 ft) tall; or the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus which was dedicated to the Greek goddess Artemis and took 120 years to build. Oh, all of these are listed as being three of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. That’s big league territory. Sorry, not one of the Seven Ancient Wonders was devoted to ‘God’.

Then there is the nature of some of those images. I mean if you look at, or read a description of the Egyptian god Seth (Set), it just screams out ‘I’m an extraterrestrial’.

Then there’s a whole pot-full of mythological creatures – the Centaur, unicorns, the Sphinx, the Griffin, Pegasus, the Minotaur, mermaids, dragons, etc. which might be non-humanoid extraterrestrial life forms. Or, more realistic perhaps in light of the grays, are the myths and legends shared by many cultures dealing with elves, dwarfs, gnomes, the fairy-folk, the wee-people, and other smallish beings that aren’t quite human. It strikes me as more logical that these ‘wee folk’ actually exist, and that’s why all the references to, and belief in, them, exist. That is vis-à-vis references to, and belief in them, not because they are real, but because there is some psychological, sociological or cultural necessity to invent imaginary beings, calling it mythology (as opposed to literary fiction).

To be continued...

Exobiology: I Think We’re Property! An Outline

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. To investigate life-in-the-Universe one needs to look at what the most likely distribution of extraterrestrial life will. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists – then what? Well, they find Planet Earth and set up shop!

*The phrase ‘I think we’re property’ apparently originated with the late Charles Fort, an anomalies researcher who compiled several volumes of strange, weird, unusual, phenomena culled from newspapers and journals. His name has given rise to the word ‘Fortean’ as in ‘Fortean phenomena’. Actually the exact quote or a variation thereof, is apparently "The Earth is a farm. We are someone else's property." Regardless of the exact quote, IMHO, he’s spot-on!

*If we’re property, who or what is ultimately our owner? E.T.; that’s who or what! Why?

*Based on conservative estimates (guesstimates?) of the number of interstellar travelling extraterrestrial civilizations there were in the galaxy, and how fast they could spread out and explore, the late Carl Sagan (astrobiologist and planetary astronomer) calculated that on average, each star in the Milky Way Galaxy should get a monitoring visit roughly once every 100,000 terrestrial years, more frequently in proportion to the more interesting the accompanying stellar system of planets were. Thus, Planet Earth should have received lots of monitoring visits over her vast eons of geologic time. So it shouldn’t be surprising that not only are we in various alien databases, but since we, as a biological planet, should get even more frequent visits. It’s just another version of the Fermi Paradox – where is everybody? Well, they’ve been here! [1]

*Being a rather nice sort of planet, perhaps one or more of our cosmic visitors decided to set up shop on Earth, either as a place for a brief R&R (maybe they thought Mount Olympus or Mount Meru might make a nice resort location) or a ‘permanent’ home-away-from-home. Perhaps Planet Earth was colonized by extraterrestrials long before humans were dreamt of in anyone’s philosophy

*E.T. would have had no moral or ethical qualms about using Planet Earth as an R&R sport and/or base of operations way back then. There was no intelligent life and indigenous civilization already present – the Prime Directive (assuming such a concept in real as opposed to the fictional Star Trek concept) would not apply.

*Now mythologies from around the world tell that the gods created humanity, which in itself is mysterious since there’s no intuitive reason for human myth-tellers to assume that humans needed creating in the first place. But that’s a separate story. The bottom line here is that humans were created. The gods created us, not out of a separate whole cloth, but via genetically engineering us from primate stock. We biologically evolved from the primate branch of zoology, but with a little bit of technological help from our friends, the gods.

*Further, recall that nearly all mythologies around the world credit the gods with not only creating humans, but giving humans the gifts of knowledge, culture, all the various skills and the intellectual and material tools central to domestic settlements needed to establish ‘modern’ civilization, while at the same time archaeology records our extremely rapid transition from our hunter-gather mode of making a living to living in rural villages, towns and finally urban cities. So we’re created by, and we’re further indebted to, the gods to boot.

*Normally, if you create something, you own what you create unless you voluntarily give or sell it away – transfer ownership elsewhere. I assume here that the gods didn’t sell us, trade us, or give us away!

*The general reason the gods created humans was to do the hard work and free the gods to do other things, no doubt of a more pleasurable nature. Humans were also created in order to serve the gods, and I assume that wasn’t to be voluntary servitude either.

*There’s nothing strange about that concept. There are lots of terrestrial parallels.

*Humans ‘own’ many fellow life-forms, from scientists owning laboratory rats, mice and rabbits to farmers with their cattle and sheep to everyday Joe Blow and his cats, dogs, and goldfish as pets.  Lots of animals ‘serve’ humans as food, as beasts of burden, as entertainment and in ‘sports’, be it hunting, fishing, cock-fights, bullfighting, thoroughbred or greyhound racing, rodeos, etc.

*Ownership of an intelligent life-form by another intelligent life-form is usually called “slavery”, which might be benign or harsh. There are many terrestrial examples of slavery as we’re all well aware, so it’s hardly an unknown concept.

*We are the slaves of the gods who created us.

*However, in my scenario, the gods aren’t gods, but ‘gods’ – not supernatural deities but flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials.

*Throughout history, humans have often been subjected to traumas inflicted by various non-terrestrial beings; often called under a variety of names, from demons like the incubi and succubi to the UFO ‘greys’. Various entities, including the ‘gods’ can have their wicked ways with us and there’s nothing we can do about it.

*Modern UFO abductions have historical counterparts. The ‘greys’ are but elves and fairies (fairy-folk in general) in a modern context; the fairy-folk just the ‘greys’ in an historical context.

*The UFOs agenda is one of neither invasion nor take-me-to-your-leader, rather more one of scientific study including the concept inherent in the Zoo Hypothesis. We are ‘animals’ – they are the zoo keepers. Alternatively, we are their ‘slaves’; we are their property; they are the masters and the owners.

*The UFO abduction ‘greys’ seem to be interested in humans mainly with respect to areas or aspects surrounding reproduction and genetics. These are the same sorts of areas required for the ‘gods’ to have ‘created’ humans in the first place, so maybe their grand plan is still unfolding!

*There’s an obvious parallel with aliens abducting humans. If humans are anything to be judged by, we abduct animals for all sorts of reasons, from the illegal trade in wildlife, to animals for zoos and safari parks, for medical research and biological research. With respect to the latter, wildlife biologists will often abduct, tag and release animals. Sound familiar? If animals communicate among themselves, their verbal history must be chockfull of abduction tales with humans the abductors.  

*Okay, we’re the property of the UFO ‘greys’ and they feel they have every moral, ethical and legal right to have their wicked way with us.

*However, few will even remotely face up to this possibility, the probability that aliens are abducting humans for various and not too pleasant reasons, because the implications of the “I think we’re property” scenario are just too terrifying!

*Of course even in today’s realm, you, the reader, are in one real sense just the property and slave of society. You do not have the ability or right to do whatever you damn well please. Society can force you to do what society wants you to do (like get drafted into the armed forces, serve jury duty, pay taxes, obey the road rules and otherwise go along with a whole pot-load of ‘thou-shall-nots’) and you have no real say in the matter. You might be a willing slave; an agreeable slave, but you’re ultimately a slave nonetheless. Of course way back when, back in the days before we had democratic institutions and freely elected governments, there was rule by divine right, where kings and queens and emperors and empresses and pharaohs were ‘appointed’ and ‘approved’ by the gods, and by that divine right, you were property of that ruler and a subject required to carry out their every whim. They could do with you what they wished.

*It’s a sort of property/ownership hierarchy at work here. At the relativity lowest level you’re the property of the society you find yourself in. Society is the property of those ruling by divine (or elected) right - The Big Cheese (king, emperor, pharaoh, prime minister, etc.). The Big Cheese was the property of the gods (or God), at least way back when the Big Cheese survived at the whim of the gods (or God) and answered to the gods (or God). Of course the gods (including a God) were just the extraterrestrials that came to Earth eons ago, though today for the most part leave us pretty much to our own devices, apart from some monitoring and those abductions, the purpose of which isn’t entirely clear though the emphasis is certainly on reproduction and genetics. 

*Still however, I guess we have a mental case here of better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. Being kidnapped/abducted and subjected to medical tortures by a human is bad; being kidnapped/abducted and subjected to invasive medical tortures by an extraterrestrial is worse. Things get uncomfortable when E.T. enters the equation.

*However, the worrying bit is that personal refusal to even acknowledge such a (“I think we’re property”) possibility because such an acknowledgement would mean throwing away your knowledge that you are in control, suggests the subject of alien abductions will never be dispassionately addressed. The most professional of us are at the core human, and this sort of scenario could easily cause the human to turn, not turtle, but ostrich and bury one’s head in the sand. Like a child hiding under the covers hoping the monster will just go away. Unfortunately, the alien abduction phenomena probably won’t – go away that is.

*Sceptics in denial (‘it can’t be, therefore it isn’t – my mind is made up’) will counter that UFOs (and by association abductions) are all misinterpretations, hoaxes and delusions, physical evidence (radar, photographs, motion pictures, ground markings, electromagnetic and physiological effects) be damned. However, there are two very logical facts that dispute any ‘all in the mind’ hypothesis for UFOs (and associated abductions).

*One very telling point about ufonauts or UFO occupants (aliens associated with UFOs) and the aliens and scenarios behind alien abductions: in the case of the former, within the ranks of sci-fi (films, TV, novels, short stories, video games, etc.) the range of alien body-types is massive. If you can imagine it, it’s been done. However, the range of alien body-types associated with UFOs is way, way, way more limited. Imagination is not at the forefront here. With respect to the abduction plot, if you were asked to write a sci-fi story that started with the premise of UFO aliens abducting a human in their ‘flying saucer’, the evolution of that initial plot element could take hundreds of different turns. Real abduction tales hardly differ from initial abduction to final resolution. Again, imagination isn’t coming to the forefront. If UFOs, UFO occupants and abductions are all in the mind, well the variety should be more akin to Heinz (57 varieties) squared.

*One common thread in the tales of abductees is some sort of invasive medical procedure(s) performed on them. Back in the real world, anybody undergoing a routine terrestrial medical, standard medical exam, blood donation, etc. will be able to count on one universal part and parcel of same. Their heart/circulatory system will be checked. There will be stethoscopes, blood pressure measurements, pulse rates taken, haemoglobin levels checked, etc. That’s nearly a given. However, in abduction scenarios, the ‘medicals’ never, but never, seem to include anything to do with the heart, veins, arteries, or associated blood chemistry. Now if abduction tales were all in the mind, all made up, entirely imaginary, you’d bet the family farm that the aliens would check your heart and blood pressure! They don’t!

*There’s one more interesting point to be made about the ‘greys’ behind UFO abductions. Horror author Whitley Strieber came out of the closet to tell the world that he too had been abducted by aliens - the ‘greys’ and wrote a best seller about it called “Communion” (plus sequels). Strieber’s claims, true or false, aren’t the point here. The image on the dust cover of “Communion” – a head shot of a typical ‘grey’ – well a picture is worth a thousand words or perhaps nightmares in this case. That image, on the front cover of his book in thousands of bookstores around the world had an amazing responsive chord with the public; it had a resonance with multi-thousands of ordinary people. It seemed to unlock hidden, repressed memories/experiences in many people. The question is why? If ‘greys’ don’t exist; in UFO abductions aren’t real, then that image should not have had the psychological impact it did. 

*There is an interesting quasi-parallel between the 50’s contactees and the later abductees, even though the “Nordic” “Space Brothers” appear vastly different than the abductee’s “greys”. The contactees were pre-Hippy New Ager types. In contrast, many abductees seem to undergo quasi-New Age lifestyle changes post abduction(s). They may have become vegetarians, gave up smoking or drinking, joined community groups, started participating in charity work, developed ecological concerns and/or become overall a more spiritually-oriented being.

*In conclusion, UFOs have a right to invade our air space as Planet Earth is their turf, their real estate; their property. From the point of view of the ‘greys’, they have every right to abduct us, just because we’re property!

[1] Sagan, Carl & Shklovskii, I.S.; Intelligent Life in the Universe; Holden-Day, San Francisco; 1966; pages 450-452: