Are We the Proverbial “It”? Part Two

Every one and their great grandmother has apparently had a go at, and calculated a value for the Drake Equation (named after radio astronomer and SETI scientist Frank D. Drake). The Drake Equation estimates (guesstimates is actually more accurate) the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy that could in theory say “Hi” to us and receive our “Hello” in return by examining all the factors that are part and parcel of that scenario. Seeing as how the Universe is some 13.7 billion years old, and seeing as how the current human species has been around for only some 200,000 years (give or take), then I have to ask, is it logical to assume that we’re the proverbial “It”? Here’s my two cents worth.

Are we alone in the Universe? That’s a question that’s been asked by millions over the eons, without, to date resolution. Of course the word ‘alone’ implies alone in the sense of whether or not there exists elsewhere our rough equals, more likely as not betters. We want to get to know our neighbours across the street, not their pets, or their plants. The standard gut-feeling answer to the question usually revolves around how vast the Universe is, and surely, given the billions of stars in our galaxy and the existence of billions of galaxies each with billions of stars, etc. and the vastness of time, surely we can’t be the proverbial “It”. There’s unfortunately one slight flaw in that statistical approach. There’s a rather long chain of events that have to happen, hurdles to be jumped, in order to get from the elements of star-stuff to biological cosmic neighbours. Depending on whom you talk to, that chain can be extremely long indeed. The point is, if any one factor in that chain of causality has a very low probability of coming to pass, it matters not one jot whether or not all the other factors are extremely probable, the overall result is going to be low. If any one factor is as close to zero as makes no odds, then the overall answer will also be a close to zero as makes no odds. Certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by zero multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty ultimately equals zero!

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Next, let’s assume your intelligent neighbours are fairly far away and the usual means of keeping in touch is by phone (or email). That introduces one additional complication; it’s not enough to just be intelligent. You need to have technology. Then, and only then, will the ‘are we alone?’ question be answered to our absolute satisfaction. We need technology if we are to find extraterrestrial intelligence(s); and/or extraterrestrial intelligence(s) will need technology to find us. One or both of us has to have invented engineering to a somewhat sophisticated level - maybe rocket ships, maybe radio telescopes, but something technological is required. There’s also a hidden assumption here – you actually want to seek out new civilizations. It matters not if you have all the required technology but care not to use it for the purpose of answering that question – ‘are you alone in the Universe?’ I’ll assume here that if you have intelligence, and it’s been able to construct technology, then part of your intelligence is devoted to be a curious critter who wants to know and find out things – so that’s a certainty of one. But what’s the level of certainty of developing technology in the first place? Rather poor judging from those terrestrial species that have some reasonable smarts to their credit. There’s the human species of course, and though while we’re not quite a sample of one, it’s pretty close. There are documentary observations of some animals (primates mainly) not so much making, but making use of existing ‘tools’ to assist in their survival. Alas, most intelligent species lack the anatomy and/or the right environment to manipulate objects. In the case of dolphins and whales, their ocean environment stymies any way and means of constructing things and making use of fire, for example. So, developing technology has to be rated, judging from our terrestrial sampling, as rather low. 

Technology is also a double-edged sword. The use of technology has had obvious survival value for the human species. You wouldn’t be hard-pressed to come up with dozens of technological inventions that have enabled us to survive longer and thrive better. But, out technological genie is out of the bottle, and unless you’re a hermit, you will have noted by now that technology can also reduce our quality of life, and no doubt you wouldn’t be equally hard-pressed to cite dozens of examples - which leads nicely into the last consideration. 

Lastly, there’s the issue of longevity. If your neighbours move in, but then move out again in less than 24 hours, that doesn’t allow much time to meet them and chat over afternoon tea - blink, and they’re gone. But if you’re both on the block for twenty years, that allows lots of time for afternoon teas, philosophical chats and bridge games, etc. So, how long do technological civilizations last?  

Well, the pessimist will look around and cite global warming, probably antibiotic resistant germs giving rise to pandemics, chemical, biological and radiological warfare and/or terrorism, the extinction of species, rampant pollution, and in general an overall quality of life heading rapidly down the gurgler, right down to the point that the human race will to extinct – by our own hand. But if you’re an optimist, then the sky’s the limit.

Longevity – It’s hard to imaging what human civilization, what humans themselves, will be like 1000 years from now, but if you could come back 1000 years hence, would you indeed find a human civilization, indeed find recognizable ‘humans’ at all? Once you have evolved to the stage of being a multicellular critter with intelligence and technology, then physics and chemistry and plain everyday evolutionary biology are no longer in control of your evolution. You are now in control! You are in control not only over the future evolution of other species (artificial selection instead of natural selection) but of your own evolution. The age of the designer baby is already upon us, albeit still in its infancy (pun intended). What will another several more decades bring to this now embryonic field but obviously an ever ongoing and continuing maturity! 

Humans will probably go kaput within 1000 years, not because of a global nuclear war, or pandemic, or asteroid strike, but because they have by their own hand evolved into something else, and the process has already started. In fact, it’s possible that in 1000 years there could be two humanoid species on Earth. One will be an amalgamation of flesh and blood plus ‘iron and silicon’; the other pure ‘iron and silicon’ (robots).

The first is not too difficult a swallow. Just replace or augment flesh and blood bits with ‘iron and silicon’ bits (or wood bits, or ceramic bits, or plastic bits, etc.). Look at most pirate films and you’ll see those beloved peg-legs and hook-hands. Do you wear glasses or contact lenses? What about a hearing aid? Perhaps you have an artificial joint(s) or a heart pacemaker. You surely have a dental filling (or two), maybe even dentures. Then there’s artificial skin and all manner of other internal or external types of technology that have replaced your failed flesh and blood – like kidney dialysis. There’s now serious talk about the development of a bionic eye within a few years (to go with the bionic ear). What further artificial bio-bits will be available in another 20 years, another 50 years, or another 200 years? The era of the “RoboCop” or an actual “Six-Million Dollar Man” (and “Woman”) is nearly upon us.

Within 200 years or so, I can envision that one will be able to download the contents of a human mind into an ‘iron and silicon’ equivalent.  Why? Well, does the word ‘immortality’ (or as close to immortality as makes no odds) suggest a possible reason? You don’t think anything of endlessly replacing worn automobile parts for new parts to extend the useful lifetime of your car. Why not endlessly replace your worn parts. Your mind (brain) won’t last forever. Replace it - transfer it to a more durable technology Do it again, and again and again as is necessary. In fact, one might create a mega-mind or super-mind by merging into an ‘iron and silicon’ body a lot of minds. By merging the minds of say a cosmologist, general relativist, quantum physicist and mathematician, one might speed up the development of the Holy Grail of physics, the Theory of Everything (TOE) – which is a theory of quantum gravity. 

Once your mind is contained in an ‘iron and silicon’ ‘head’, just attach that to an all ‘iron and silicon’ ‘body’. Immortality indeed!

All of which leads to a future Earth inhabited by a humanoid robot species, artificially evolved from today’s human species. That process too has already started. Robotic appliances, even artificial ‘iron and silicon’ ‘pets’ are on the market. Research into artificial intelligence is ever ongoing. Watch that final minute of the final episode of the TV revision of “Battlestar Galactica’! How about those sci-fi “Transformers” or “Terminators”, or Data (from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”)? Then there’s “Doctor Who’s” Cybermen or Daleks (though they’re part machine; part organism). Think of those robots from “Westworld” or “Futureworld” where nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong… Then there’s “The Stepford Wives”, “Cherry 2000”, the original “Battlestar Galactica” Cylons, and many more. It might be just science fiction today – could it be science fact tomorrow? There doesn’t seem to be any violation of physics involved. Everything not forbidden is compulsory! However, some of those sci-fi scenarios suggest that perhaps ultimately there might be a conflict between the (part) machines we become, and the (artificially) intelligent machines that we create!

Of course we’re in control, so a robotic future isn’t of necessity compulsory. But I suspect it will happen. Why? There are rational reasons for humans deliberately abandoning their flesh and blood existence and evolving themselves, if not 100% into ‘iron and silicon’ then at least into something part flesh and blood coupled with part ‘iron and silicon’ – sort of like we have today (recall those dentures and peg-legs). 

Quite apart from immortality arguments, it’s nice having more indestructible bodies and bodies that can be more easily repaired. Death won’t go totally away of course – accidents still happen. Presumably, your mind will be able to absorb 10, 100, 1000 times the amount of experiences and memories and knowledge, etc. than is currently the case. You might be able to explore environments now closed to you, like taking a stroll across the sea bottom – kilometres down – in your robotic ‘birthday’ suit. All of which then opens up the entire ‘boldly going’ experience. What’s the hardest part of going to Mars? – it’s the flesh and blood frailty of the human body – the need for gravity and oxygen and organic food and water, and space suits, and how you can’t carry spare flesh and blood parts along too, etc.  Extrapolate to our exploration of the entire solar system, then our stellar neighbourhood, eventually the galaxy. Even if you don’t want to go yourself, well, there’s artificial intelligence housed in perhaps nanotechnology bodies, spreading throughout the cosmos like so much cancer.  

The ultimate point of all of this is that if eventually us (humans), why not them (extraterrestrials) now? Translated, after a relative short period of biological development, a civilization can obtain longevity that evolutionary development into ‘iron and silicon’ provides, coupled with far easier expansion into the realm of outer space.

This level of technology can also partly undo the bottleneck created by the relative improbability of multicellular evolution. There maybe relatively few multicellular infested planets, but once technology of the ‘iron and silicon’ kind happens on them, then boldly going, being fruitful and mechanically multiplying and colonizing the cosmos rapidly fill that gap.

All of which doesn’t mean that we are, in the here and now, the proverbial “It’. However, there are enough ‘probability one’ or certainty factors that suggest this is rather unlikely. The proof of the pudding will be to find them; or for them to find us.

Are We the Proverbial “It”? Part One

Every one and their great grandmother has apparently had a go at, and calculated a value for the Drake Equation (named after radio astronomer and SETI scientist Frank D. Drake). The Drake Equation estimates (guesstimates is actually more accurate) the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy that could in theory say “Hi” to us and receive our “Hello” in return by examining all the factors that are part and parcel of that scenario. Seeing as how the Universe is some 13.7 billion years old, and seeing as how the current human species has been around for only some 200,000 years (give or take), then I have to ask, is it logical to assume that we’re the proverbial “It”? Here’s my two cents worth.

Are we alone in the Universe? That’s a question that’s been asked by millions over the eons, without, to date resolution. Of course the word ‘alone’ implies alone in the sense of whether or not there exists elsewhere our rough equals, more likely as not betters. We want to get to know our neighbours across the street, not their pets, or their plants. The standard gut-feeling answer to the question usually revolves around how vast the Universe is, and surely, given the billions of stars in our galaxy and the existence of billions of galaxies each with billions of stars, etc. and the vastness of time, surely we can’t be the proverbial “It”. There’s unfortunately one slight flaw in that statistical approach. There’s a rather long chain of events that have to happen, hurdles to be jumped, in order to get from the elements of star-stuff to biological cosmic neighbours. Depending on whom you talk to, that chain can be extremely long indeed. The point is, if any one factor in that chain of causality has a very low probability of coming to pass, it matters not one jot whether or not all the other factors are extremely probable, the overall result is going to be low. If any one factor is as close to zero as makes no odds, then the overall answer will also be a close to zero as makes no odds. Certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by zero multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty ultimately equals zero!

Rather than give an exhaustive list of all those factors required to give us cosmic neighbours, I’ll focus on six essentials.

Firstly, one has to have the right kinds of matter and energy that can produce beings like us, and a solid surface to stand on. That’s no problem. The Universe has lots of kinds of energy on tap; stars can manufacture and disperse the required kinds of matter, like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, silicon, etc. There’s lots of solid bodies (planets) out there. That’s one vote for certainty. 

Secondly, one has to have a solid planetary body turn into a habitable world; a suitable environment for physics, chemistry, biochemistry and biology to do their evolutionary thing. Fortunately, that shouldn’t be a problem. There’s a lot of real estate out there and it comes in all sizes and flavours. While there’s only ever going to be one Planet Earth (I’ll avoid discussions of the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics, the notion of parallel worlds, and the Multiverse here which could argue the contrary), there has been, is, and will be, lots and lots of earth-like abodes, just letter perfect for life-as-we-know-it to survive, even thrive. If one wants to throw in life-not-as-we-know-it, there will be lots of worlds suitable for those possibilities as well. So, that’s another vote for certainty.

Thirdly, physics has to become chemistry, and chemistry has to become biology. We need biology to have had origins, or an origin, an origin(s) of life that’s an inevitable outcome of the everyday ordinary interactions between physics and chemistry. Well, many will argue that the origin of life is as nearly predictable as death and taxes, given a suitable habitat. Many will also argue that the origin of life is a fluke! In my point of view, the origin of life need only happen once, and that clearly has been a certainty – we exist and we are life. Once there’s one origin of life, the rest is just distribution. Panspermia provides the ways and means of distributing (microbial) life throughout the cosmos. So, I’ll have to cast another vote for certainty again!

Fourthly – well, now we hit the proverbial brick wall.  You and your neighbours aren’t microbes – you’re a colony of microbes. In short, you’re a multicellular life form. We seek, in the cosmos, other multicellular life forms, on the grounds that the odds that a microbe or unicellular life form isn’t going to prove to be much of a companion or drinking buddy is a near given. So, we need to get from unicellular to multicellular, and therein lays the rub. And it’s here that we have to rely for guidance on a sample of one – Earth. Note: It’s dangerous to extrapolate from a sample of one, but what choice do we have? 

There’s no ecological niche on Earth occupied by multicellular critters that’s not also occupied by unicellular critters (microbes). The reverse isn’t true. You may think the world is totally dominated by multicellular critters – you, your partner, your family, your pets, your garden, your food, all the life you see around you is multicellular. There’s millions of species of insects – all multicellular. What’s more common than bugs? Yet, if you did a biological census, even in your home and your garden, you’d find that apparently common multicellular life forms are out-common-ed, vastly outnumbered, by unicellular life forms by a ratio of trillions to one. What you don’t see does matter!

So, are multicellular critters an evolutionary certainty? Is there anything a ‘colony’ of 2 or 20 or 200 or 2000 cells can accomplish or fill a previously unfilled ecological niche that one cell can’t? And by the way, that 2 or 20 or 200 or 2000 stage has got to be selected for before one can get to the two million and two billion colony stage. Well, clearly the transition happened here, albeit it took some three billion years to seriously kick-start the process, so it’s hardly some inevitable ‘law of nature’. I mean taking some three billion years to get to a colony of cells from a single cell doesn’t inspire confidence that the process is easy, necessary or inevitable. Anyway, it did happen here, so it’s obviously possible. I just don’t see it as a super-evolutionary development that confers immediate survival-of-the-fittest advantage. Of course a colony of two cells might be harder to eat than one cell, but at that level, ‘food’ tends to be absorbed at the molecular level. In any event, microbes can easily attack and ‘eat’ multicellular critters, causing sickness, death and decay. We’re ultimately food for the microbes and the proof of that pudding is how we spend small fortunes keeping them at bay. But, eventually, though you might win the battles against the microbes, you’ll lose the last one, and thus the war.

Another factor that argues against multicellular organisms being a universally common feature of the Universe is that it is also a lot harder to transport around the Universe by natural means – that concept of panspermia – multicellular critters. I mean getting a microbe from Earth to Mars is one thing. Getting a cockroach there is a whole different scenario.   

Multicellular development; its probability, can’t be zero since we’re multicellular, but, on balance, I can’t assign a high probability to the transition between unicellular and multicellular life on every habitable planet, every time. This one is nearing zero!

Fifthly, as noted earlier, you don’t want to interact with your neighbour’s multicellular pets or multicellular garden plants, but your neighbours. What do you have in common with your neighbours that you don’t have in common with your neighbour’s pet or garden plants? Intelligence (even if you probably think your neighbours are a few cents short of a dollar!).

The issue now is whether, having evolved to a multicellular stage, will one develop some higher brain function? Is there any further evolutionary advantage towards increasing one’s intelligence? By going back to our sample of one, if Earth is any guide, the answer is roughly ‘not likely’. There are millions of multicellular species that have existed, and do exist, on Planet Earth. There are apparently only a very few species that have evolved something beyond the minimum level of brain power required for their day-to-day survival. That doesn’t inspire confidence that intelligence has inevitable value as a means of survival.

By far and away, most multicellular critters just operate on pure instinct and don’t (can’t) stop to figure things out (far less stop to smell and appreciate the roses) - but, there are an admittedly few exceptions.  Many wild birds would put our everyday companion animals to shame in the IQ department. I mean I love my cats, but little Einstein’s they’re not. Whales and dolphins have also been credited with being in the higher IQ bracket; ditto our close primate cousins. In the invertebrate kingdom, the octopus is pretty smart – by invertebrate standards (and then some if one is honest). However, on balance, most multicellular critters put their evolutionary strategies into something other than higher brain function. Take my cats. Is it to their survival advantage to ‘figure things out’ or to be just a bit faster afoot, hear just a bit better, see ever more clearly? Nearly all organisms put their survival abilities into something other than pure brain-power. Clearly brain-power has survival-of-the-fittest attributes. But, it’s not the only game in town, and therefore doesn’t have what I’d call evolutionary ‘certainty’.  However, it would be illogical to say that developing intelligence, the ability to figure things out, isn’t valuable and doesn’t have survival value; it’s just that if you were to list all the multicellular animal species on Planet Earth, very few would have an IQ of even one (the human average is 100). So, let’s say intelligence is somewhere between certainty and highly improbable.

To be continued...

Our Post Biological Evolution: Boldly Going (Both Ways) Revisited

A well worn staple of science fiction is travel to the stars – ‘boldly going’ to borrow the tag phrase from one well known science fiction staple, “Star Trek”. Unfortunately, what’s easy to do in the pages of sci-fi literature, or show on the small or big screen isn’t anywhere as simple in reality. But, just because something isn’t simple doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. Most solutions focus on new cheaper, better, faster rocket propulsion technology. I got a better idea!

A well known SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) scientist recently made the following statement.

“The real question to me isn’t why ET isn’t everywhere, but why ET’s machines aren’t everywhere.”*

The standard thinking, that basic point being made is that it’s dangerous and costly to boldly go anywhere out there in person relative to staying at home. But sending out unmanned probes instead, probes which might be sophisticated enough to not only explore but reproduce themselves using resources discovered while exploring would like a cancer spread out more and more until they have covered every cubic mile of space. Maybe there’s just one ET; zillions of ET’s machines.

Perhaps ET and ET’s machines are one and the same. Even if there is but one ET race or civilization, there could be an abundance of ET’s machines (that’s standard thinking noted above), but all containing not just ET but lots of ET (that’s not standard thinking). Translated, if you want to ‘boldly go’ (i.e. interstellar travel), it may make more sense to be an actual part of the spaceship instead of just being a passenger. Better rocket propulsion might prove to be fairly irrelevant.

Premise: Exploring is in our very makeup. Humans do not want surrogates to do their exploring for them. It may be necessary, but it’s never enough. A photograph of Paris isn’t good enough – I want to see the Eiffel Tower for myself.

While a robotic probe discovered the location and wreck of the RMS Titanic, humans had to go to the time and trouble and cost to see and explore the shipwreck in person.

We don’t send an unmanned robotic rover to climb Mount Everest; we do it ourselves, even though it’s a very dangerous activity to life and limb.

I’m sure the scientists who guide the unmanned rovers on Mars are happy little campers; they would be even happier if they were on Mars in person.

Sending Pioneer 10 & 11; Voyager 1 & 2 out into interstellar space is all fine, well and good but wouldn’t you want to travel to, say the star Tau Ceti, in person? An unmanned probe (a descendent of Pioneer or Voyager) exploring Tau Ceti and sending you back data doesn’t generate quite the same thrill as being there up close and personal.

However, it’s difficult to get you to Tau Ceti. Your life span isn’t long enough to last the trip at projected interstellar velocities achievable in the foreseeable future, and in any event, you’d need massive life support infrastructure which adds lots of additional mass requiring lots of extra energy and thus cost to your journey. All up, too much mass, too much energy, and too much cost.

But, what part of you really needs to get to Tau Ceti? Does your big toe need to go? Does your liver need to get up close and personal with Tau Ceti? No. The only part of you that really needs to encounter Tau Ceti is your ‘inner you’, your mind, not the physical body part of you apart from that which houses the mind – your brain thingy. Alas, even your mind, your wetware, is part of your physical body (your brain) and it won’t last the distance from Earth to Tau Ceti.

Now let’s pause to consider the following interlude. Somewhere around the time of humanity’s transition from a hunter-gather lifestyle to a life of domestic settlement and leisure, even if not always domestic bliss, there was a remarkable but hardly remarked upon revolution. There was a slow but sure transition from Darwinian natural selection and evolution to artificial selection and evolution.

So how does artificial selection come into play? What useful role is it? Well, we now augment enough of our natural abilities with some sort of non-biological technology to allow us ultimately to produce offspring that otherwise would not have been produced. Reproduction is ultimately the name of the game; no reproduction, no selection, no evolution, natural or otherwise.

That transition to a post biological humanity probably all started when the first human used a long stick as a prop; as a cane to help him support himself and walk easier, instead of lying helplessly on the ground as prey for a saber-tooth cat! That stick could further serve as a prosthetic and be used to fend off the cat or hit it and drive it away. We are now in control, or at least better control over our fate. Clearly, like the stick-cane, we’ll continue to use artificial means – technology – to better our existence and defy the odds Mother Nature throws our way.  That path has already been well and truly started down. Since the stick-cane we’ve added eyeglasses and hearing aids and dentures and artificial joints and drugs** to help us with our sex lives and to breed and we’re talking about using nanotechnology nanobots to circulate through our blood stream seeking out nasty cancer cells from the inside and destroy them while unclogging our arteries, plus various prosthetics that increase our strength, etc.

There are in addition to non-biological technology those other sorts of means to achieve artificial selection, as in genetic engineering techniques for improving the human lot, like DNA splicing and manipulating the structure of our genes, etc., but I want to stick with biological plus non-biological integrations (bioengineering), like human-computer interfaces often used to immerse yourself in virtual reality simulations or games. 

We’ve come a long way in applying artificial selection technologies since those hunter-gather days. Now where does it all end? And how might artificial (as in technology) selection help us, and by analogy ET, boldly go?

Fast forward say 500 years. Might it not be possible to transfer the ‘inner you’ contained in your wetware, the brain thingy of yours, and transfer it into software and hardware made of more durable non-organic stuff like silicon and steel? If so, you’re now onboard, but as part of the electronics, the computer, that’s onboard. You and the ship have merged.

Of course your wetware, once downloaded or transferred into a software package, could be transferred again and again into many different computers, sort of like an endless  ‘copy and paste’ operation, each copy of you on a ship headed to some other interstellar destinations. In fact, everyone could explore anywhere and everywhere they wanted. If a lot of ‘people’ (could we still call ourselves ‘people’?) wanted to go to Tau Ceti, that’s as easy as if just one wanted to go since presumably there’s room on the ship for many ‘brains in the electronic vat’. Maybe everyone is headed everywhere. Eventually everyone experiences everything, but not quite at the same time of course.

I mean You #1 goes to Tau Ceti, while You #2 heads off to say the star Sirius. However, You #1 and You #2 don’t share your separate experiences even if you both communicate them to each other. Each is a surrogate to the other. But of course You #1 could go to Tau Ceti and then go on to Sirius; You #2 goes to Sirius and then on to Tau Ceti. Both ‘copy and paste clones’ get both experiences.

Regardless of those variations on the theme, your lifespan has increased by orders of magnitude. There’s little if any real ‘life’ support needed. There might even be a ‘sleep’ switch to turn you off while the light years slowly tick by. [That alone, by the way, takes care of the ‘they (aliens) can’t get to here from there’ argument, often used as a debating point against the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis.] And, when you reach Tau Ceti, there will be mechanical devices, rovers or robots on board you can download into and thus explore the Tau Ceti environment – in person!

Post-biological development or bioengineering is our ticket to the stars, even if the big toe has to stay at home! So, I wouldn’t be surprised if each and every one of ET’s machines didn’t actually contain ET or ET’s entire population for that matter!

Of course some real extraterrestrials might not have to resort to the ‘brain in the electronic vat’ to get from there to here, but it’s one way of doing it.

And as to why we don’t see ET or at least ET’s machines, since they (the machines) are supposed to be everywhere, well perhaps our scientist hasn’t heard of UFOs, or perhaps taken the time to study the subject. If s/he did, well perhaps s/he wouldn’t have raised the issue in the first place since ‘everywhere’ obviously includes here.

There is some interest in the morals or ethics of wetware to software transfer and cloning of that resultant software. From an ethical or moral point of view, the ‘inner you’ transfer from wetware to software would probably happen just prior to your natural death. The body would be buried or cremated in the normal way. Or, you might sign a consent form authorizing the transfer at any time after you reach the legal age. The body would still be treated as if it had died since it obviously must do so if there’s no longer any wetware running it. Oh, since this is a copy-and-paste arrangement, there could be one copy of the ‘inner you’ as software; two copies of you; 20 copies of you; 200 copies, etc. Think of a video game with a character in the game. Now recall that there are thousands of copies of the game in existence, therefore thousands of copies or clones of the character - Same distinction.

Each version of the ‘inner you’ would probably regard itself as the real ‘me’ but it makes no sense to distinguish between them as an outsider. Each version wouldn’t really care about the other versions. Even though you no longer have a flesh-and-blood body, your consciousness will be where it always has been – part and parcel of your wetware. Only now it’s cloned and exists as software not wetware – one copy per how many copies of the software you now are part and parcel of. But from the point of cloning onwards, those clones of your consciousness diverge depending on the various career paths taken by the various software versions of you.

*Impey, Chris (Editor); Talking About Life: Conversations on Astrobiology; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2010; page 325.

**In fact all your pharmaceutical drugs and over-the-counter medicines are technological fixes designed to help you beat the odds.

The Big Bang’s Tiny Pinprick

Did our massive Universe start off as just a tiny pinprick in size? That’s what the standard cosmological model would have you believe. But to paraphrase a well known Gershwin song from the American opera “Porgy and Bess”, ‘those things that you’re libel, to read in Cosmology’s bible, well it ain’t necessarily so’.

Recently, a well known physical scientist made the following comment in an article he wrote: “Everyone knows about the Big Bang. (Well, almost everyone. I receive several e-mails a month from people who simply cannot believe that all existence began as a tiny pinprick).” I took certain umbrage at that since it seemed to imply that if you didn’t accept the ‘tiny pinprick’ you were scientifically illiterate and that the Big Bang (as a tiny pinprick) event was somehow set in stone.  

So I sent him one more email to add to his collection that disputes the ‘tiny pinprick’ version of the Big Bang.

But first, that standard model of the Big Bang suggests that the origin of our Universe was such that not only was all matter and related energy created at that point in time, but that time and space itself were created then. First there was nothing; then there was something; and the transition between the two was something akin to a pinprick of stuff in size popping out of the never-never that rapidly expanded until, 13.7 billion years later the Universe is the now massive size that it is with all the stuff that it contains.

However, I’ll first note that this standard model of cosmology’s origin of our Universe, the Big Bang event (as a tiny pinprick), isn’t universally accepted by all cosmologists. There are many variations on the Big Bang ‘tiny pinprick’ origin theme, from two branes colliding (technically called the Ekpyrotic Universe which is the string theory version – and it’s hardly a pinprick scenario); to an origin via quantum fluctuations arising out of the vacuum energy (which is an alternative pinprick scenario); variations of the Steady State theory of cosmology still kick around which postulates our Universe had no beginning and will have no end (obviously no pinprick there); to (and this is my favorite) the contraction of a previous universe that resulted in a Big Crunch which so warped space and time that the contraction inverted itself back into an expansion and thus kick-starting our Universe (which also wouldn’t be a pinprick event IMHO). So, I sort of object when the standard pinprick model Big Bang event is put forth by people (such as the above physical scientist) as something set in concrete.

As to that pinprick itself, take a tiny pinprick (equivalent to the physics term ‘quantum’) object of very high, but finite density (on the grounds that it is ridiculous to have a zero dimensional object with infinite density – say a Black Hole’s singularity as so often portrayed, but equally applicable to the standard Big Bang concept). If you keep adding stuff to a pinprick sized singularity, the volume might remain constant for a while, while the density keeps increasing, but because density can not ever equal infinity, that progression has to stop somewhere. When it does, the volume of the pinprick singularity has to increase and eventually increase beyond the realm of the pinprick sized that equates to all things quantum. The proof of that pudding as if any were needed is that, if you add stuff to a Black Hole (with its three dimensional ‘solid’ singularity centre and finite density) you get a bigger Black Hole. The singularity inside must have grown a bit. If it keeps on growing, it will eventually grow past the realm of the pinprick quantum. Anyway, it’s that ‘beyond the realm of the quantum’ that I see as the real Big Bang ‘singularity’ or whatever you wish to call it (to be honest I still like the term coined by Ralph Alpher and  George Gamow in the late 40’s  - ‘Ylem’ – their term for the sort of cosmic egg our Universe started out from).

Now cosmologists can’t observe any closer back in time than to about 380,000 years after the Big Bang event. It’s only then that electromagnetic radiation (i.e. – that which enables us to observe) was able to escape through the expanding and cooling plasma soup, in much the same way that a photon (the particle associated with electromagnetic radiation) at the core of our Sun takes a very, very long time to work its way up to the Sun’s surface, but once there, it shoots off into space quick-smart. Thus, as far as cosmologists are concerned, anything prior to 380,000 years post Big Bang is beyond the realm of observation and hence pure theory – mathematical equations that may have bugger all to do with an accurate reflection of what’s what. 

The General Relativity equations that govern the Big Bang event break down at the presumed pinprick quantum level. Or, the equations covering quantum pinprick sized events break down under extreme gravity; two sides of the same coin. That’s because General Relativity covers gravity, and gravity is a continuous force. That is, you can have this value of gravity, or that value of gravity, and all values in-between. However, pinprick sized quantum events are not continuous. You can have this value, or that value, but only selected values in-between, if any. A useful analogy is a book. You have the first page, through to say page 100, but while you can have page 50, you can’t have page 49.5 or page 50.1 or page 99.9. Put another way, when it comes to gravity, you can be half-pregnant; in quantum physics, it’s either this or that, no half-pregnancies allowed.

Translated, gravity and pinprick quantum events can not be meshed. What ones needs is a theory of quantum gravity to adequately come to terms with the sort of extreme gravitational conditions coupled with the extremely tiny sizes that the standard model of cosmology puts forth. Alas, there is no theory yet to hand of quantum gravity despite the best efforts over many decades by the finest intellects in theoretical physics. So, there’s no actual meshing between the quantum and gravity and thus I suggest perhaps that in actual reality, gravitational (General Relativity) and quantum equations, well they break down well in advance of the extreme Big Bang conditions so postulated by the standard model, losing all semblance of accuracy. Equations are ultimately theoretical representations and don’t always reflect Mother Nature’s reality, especially when they push the boundaries of the envelope, and the conditions postulated at the time of the Big Bang certainly do push the envelope. 

As to those theoretical equations, General Relativity, quantum or otherwise, and the faith some physical scientists put in them, well let’s just point out that the history of physics is littered with discrepancies between theory (the equations) and reality (the observations). An obvious example is the value of the vacuum energy – theory has it as 120 orders of magnitude greater than experimental observation! You don’t have to understand the ins and outs of what the vacuum energy is; the important point is the massive discrepancy between the equations and the reality.  Then there was the ‘ultraviolet catastrophe’ where classical equations totally failed to explain certain phenomena by their prediction of logically absolute nonsense, which ultimately resulted questioning those classical equations resulting in the beginnings of the transition of classical physics to quantum mechanics in order to come to terms with that classical failure. But, speaking of quantum mechanics, that field is also full of sleight-of-hand parlor tricks like renormalization to deal with the many variations of infinities that kept cropping up in the solutions to the newly formed quantum equations.  You could fill entire books on things that were once considered impossible because the equations said so, yet are now commonplace, like breaking the sound barrier. So, I just don’t put that much faith in what equations predict in the absence of any observational backup.

Now the evidence for a Big Bang event (which happened way before anyone was around to actually observe it and take measurements) rests with observations billions of years after the fact. Observations strongly suggest that our Universe is expanding. It is increasing in volume. So, what happens when you run the expanding Universe clock backwards? The Universe would be getting smaller and smaller. Take that to its logical extreme and you end up with the Universe having to start out as a massive (extreme gravity) object crammed down to a pinprick in size. But, should one take that running the clock backwards to such an extreme, or should one stop well short of that?

Now by analogy, one can think of blowing up a balloon and calculate the expanding mathematical relationships. Then one can run those equations backward – a contracting balloon. But it would be wrong to extrapolate backwards to where the contracting balloon becomes a dimensionless point (or at least a quantum sized tiny pinprick), though you could have of course done it – in theory. But, it would be a case of where theory wouldn’t reflect reality.

One obvious standard model proof-of-the-pudding tactic is to try to get closer than 380,000 years after the actual time of the Big Bang event in order to sort out what’s what. Now the detection of gravitational waves could narrow that post Big Bang interval to a time way closer to the event itself. However, the technical challenges are quite considerable and downright daunting. While that hasn’t stopped scientists from trying to detect the gravitational waves that would have been part and parcel of the Big Bang event, translated, don’t hold your breath waiting for immediate results, but please do stay tuned. 

One other bit of evidence that points towards the relatively pinprick micro-origin to our Universe is the concept of ‘inflation’ – that’s a super-sudden ultra-extra expansion oomph to our Big Bang event. While that concept of ‘inflation’ helps solve many cosmological problems, from magnetic monopoles (the lack thereof) to the overall flatness of the cosmos,  some cosmologists consider ‘inflation’ a bit of an ad hoc add-on, and also that there is no such thing as THE inflation model, rather there are several versions floating around, each with their own champions. Thus, ‘inflation’ is not proof-positive that the standard model is the be-all-and-end-all. If it were, the textbooks would be definitive and cosmologists would be out of a job. The textbooks are not definitive and cosmologists remain gainfully employed. The standard model of the pinprick Big Bang remains the leading contender, but it’s not the only game in town. I’m playing a different game!

Personally I think that anyone who believes based on pure abstract mathematical theory that the observable universe, far less our entire Universe can be squeezed into a volume or space that’s atomic sized or less (i.e. – that pinprick) is living in cloud cuckoo-land. Now readers well versed in cosmology have got to believe what they’ve got to believe, but I see no compelling evidence that the Big Bang was an actual quantum pinprick event. It was far more likely to have been, IMHO, a macro event. So, if you don’t go along with the pinprick model, I personally don’t consider you scientifically illiterate.

In summation, the origin of the Universe is still a very fluid one and I’ll bet dimes to donuts that any similarity between a cosmology textbook published in 2011 will be not only be out of date by 2031, but be viewed as quaintly as Lowell’s books on the canals of Mars are today.

Pilots & UFOs: Flying the Deadly Skies: Part Two

There have been thousands of pilots who have died while piloting, even apart from those killed in battle, that haven’t involved UFOs. There have been (by now) thousands of encounters between pilots and UFOs that haven’t involved death. However, there is an intersection between these two categories. 

The phrase “unidentified flying objects” suggests that UFOs have an affinity with our terrestrial pilots – both fly and share our airspace. Thus, terrestrial pilots should have seen and reported a goodly proportion of UFO events. And that indeed is the case. There’s been many an interesting close encounter between military, commercial and private pilots. No great news there. However, there have been several UFO incidents that have resulted in the death or disappearance (and presumed death) of the pilot(s) and sometimes crew too. That ratchets up the seriousness ante quite considerably.

UFO sightings by airline pilots (military, civilian, and private) now number in the thousands. Unfortunately, there have been instances of pilots who have died or who have gone missing (presumed dead) while witnessing, pursuing or otherwise involved with some form or other of UFO-related activity. That alone suggests that UFOs are not only a serious business, but also at times a deadly business.

The list of pilot encounters with UFOs is now so extensive that it would take several book length volumes to adequately cover the subject. There is however that deadly subset of those pilot-related encounters. Here are a few of the better known case histories and fortunately, to the best of my knowledge, they are relatively few. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

KINROSS INCIDENT (1953): On the 23^rd of November, 1953, First Lieutenant Felix Moncla (pilot) and Second Lieutenant Robert L. Wilson (radar operator) were scrambled from Kinross Air Force Base in their United States Air Force (USAF) F-89 Scorpion to investigate the incursion into American air space, just on the American-Canadian border and over Lake Superior of an unknown aircraft that had been detected by Air Defense Command radar at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. At roughly 8000 feet elevation, after being guided by ground radar tracking that was also required for an intercept, an intercept was accomplished. Ground Control tracked the F-89 Scorpion and the unidentified object as two separate blips on their radar screen. The two blips on the radar screen grew closer and closer, until they seemed to merge as one return blip. Assuming that pilot Lt. Moncla had flown either under or over the target, Ground Control thought that moments later, the Scorpion and the object would again appear as two separate blips. There was little actual fear that the two objects had struck one another in collision. To their astonishment, rather, the now single blip disappeared from the radar screen, and then there was no radar return at all. The F-89 apparently merged with the other mystery radar return. Its IFF signal also disappeared after the two returns merged on the radar scope. Attempts were made to contact Lt. Moncla via radio, but this was unsuccessful. A search and rescue operation was quickly mounted, but found not a trace of the plane or the pilots and radar officer.

The USAF reported that Lt. Moncla and Lt. Wilson had crashed and that the ‘unknown’ object was only a misidentified Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) aircraft. The official USAF Accident Investigation Report identified the unidentified second aircraft as a RCAF C-47 Dakota VC-912, crossing Northern Lake Superior from west to east at 7,000 feet en route from Winnipeg to Sudbury, Canada, that had traveled off course.

But, on multiple occasions, the RCAF refuted their involvement in the intercept incident, in correspondence with members of the public asking for further details on the alleged encounter.

So, like the Valentich case below, did a bona-fide UFO make off with an aircraft and crew? No trace of the F-89, Lt. Moncla or Lt. Wilson has, to this day, been found despite the alleged ‘crash’ in the official report.

SCHAFFNER INCIDENT (1970): United States Air Force (USAF) pilot Captain William Schaffner was on an exchange program serving with the British Royal Air Force (RAF) in September 1970 at RAF Binbrook. On the 8^th of that month an unknown objected was picked up by radar at various locations, and aircraft from various bases in Iceland and Scotland were directed to take off and investigate it. However, the object in question kept playing hide-and-seek, appearing on and off radar scopes as various aircraft approached, thus forcing them to ultimately abandon the chase and return to base.

When it became Capt. Schaffner’s turn to investigate and intercept, piloting a Lightning, the object quit playing games allowing the officer to make visual contact. He spotted and described a dazzling blue conical-shaped object minutes before his plane then disappeared off the radar. It would seem at first glance that his plane and the object merged, the object then moving off at high speed, but that was only apparent as the disappearance of the Lightning aircraft off the radar was because for one reason or another Capt. Schaffner was flying way too low and actually flew directly into the North Sea.  And that’s when the real puzzles start.

The aircraft was located (within three weeks) and recovered from the bottom of the North Sea shortly thereafter (within three months) of the incident. The Lightning aircraft was largely intact with minimal damage; no explosion, in fact no signs of any mechanical failure that would have led to the crash. The canopy was in place and closed. Unfortunately, there was no body of Capt. Schaffner within the plane. Capt Schaffner’s body has never been found – and he did not eject from the cockpit into a survival dinghy.

So was the missing pilot snatched by aliens? The Board of Inquiry came to the conclusion Capt Schaffner manually abandoned the aircraft, but because he has not been found, he was presumed to have drowned during or after his escape. But, since the aircraft canopy was in place when the Lightning was lifted out of the sea (and pictures confirm that), how did the pilot exit the craft? So, regardless of what the unknown object was, and some say it was nothing but a slow moving Shackleton maritime reconnaissance aircraft that had lost radio contact with the outside world that Capt. Schaffner was trying to intercept and not a bona-fide UFO at all, you still have a UFO incident and one missing, presumed dead pilot. Of course if aliens did somehow manage to abduct Capt. Schaffner while in the air, that would explain why his now unmanned jet landed in the drink!

VALENTICH INCIDENT (1978): America, the U.K., so why not Australia? One of many, many highly unexplained UFO cases is 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, in perfect weather for night flying, Mr. Valentich piloted a private plane from Melbourne, intended destination, King Island in Bass Strait. He took off only to shortly thereafter radio in repeatedly asking if there was another aircraft in his vicinity. That was a negative according to air traffic control.  This ‘aircraft’ ultimately started hovering or orbiting over him. Let’s now call a spade a spade here and state the ‘aircraft’ was a UFO. The UFO was also spotted by several independent witnesses. While radioing in his observations, ultimately acknowledging at the end that the mysterious ‘aircraft’ was not an aircraft, 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.

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 way 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. Anyway, no suicide note was found.

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.

Interestingly, despite my (and others) 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. A summary report was issued mainly giving the transcript of Valentich’s final conversation with air traffic control with the conclusion being that they could not determine the exact cause into the mishap.

In conclusion, there really is no common high strangeness thread here (though I’d suggest a few of the above incidents are individually in a high strangeness category), just a UFO incident and a dead pilot, sometimes pilot and crew. But that alone is enough to strongly suggest that UFOs are a serious business indeed.

Pilots & UFOs: Flying the Deadly Skies: Part One

There have been thousands of pilots who have died while piloting, even apart from those killed in battle, that haven’t involved UFOs. There have been (by now) thousands of encounters between pilots and UFOs that haven’t involved death. However, there is an intersection between these two categories. 

The phrase “unidentified flying objects” suggests that UFOs have an affinity with our terrestrial pilots – both fly and share our airspace. Thus, terrestrial pilots should have seen and reported a goodly proportion of UFO events. And that indeed is the case. There’s been many an interesting close encounter between military, commercial and private pilots. No great news there. However, there have been several UFO incidents that have resulted in the death or disappearance (and presumed death) of the pilot(s) and sometimes crew too. That ratchets up the seriousness ante quite considerably.

UFO sightings by airline pilots (military, civilian, and private) now number in the thousands. Unfortunately, there have been instances of pilots who have died or who have gone missing (presumed dead) while witnessing, pursuing or otherwise involved with some form or other of UFO-related activity. That alone suggests that UFOs are not only a serious business, but also at times a deadly business.

The list of pilot encounters with UFOs is now so extensive that it would take several book length volumes to adequately cover the subject. There is however that deadly subset of those pilot-related encounters. Here are a few of the better known case histories and fortunately, to the best of my knowledge, they are relatively few. 

MAURY ISLAND INCIDENT (1947): This incident is only indirectly related to ‘pilots and UFOs’ insofar as it involves an alleged UFO incident and the death of two military officers piloting a military aircraft, but there was no direct encounter between the UFO and the aircraft. While there is a massive amount of material related to the Maury Island Incident, from conspiracy theories and cover-ups to threats by the Men in Black, to the disappearance of witnesses and evidence (photographs), even something approaching an outright hoax that ended up involving several of the early pioneers in the ‘flying saucer’ business, most of that story isn’t relevant to the deaths of the military officers and is omitted here.

The basic tale revolves around Harold A. Dahl, his son Charles, and a dog. They were all out boating near Maury Island in Puget Sound near Tacoma Washington on or about the 21^st of June 1947 (which actually precedes the ‘official’ beginnings of the modern UFO era by a few days). They claimed to have spotted an overhead fleet of what we’d now call (doughnut-shaped) UFOs flying in formation and surrounding another UFO which seemed to be having some sort of difficulty. The object that was in some distress or that was malfunctioning ejected some solid slag-like material which, obeying the laws of gravity, fell earthwards, struck and damaged Dahl’s jointly owned boat, caused some minor injuries to himself and his son, but alas killed the dog. Samples of the ‘slag’ were recovered. Via a roundabout route, two military (Army Air Corps) intelligence officers were ultimately called in to investigate. The two investigating officers, Captain William L. Davidson and Lieutenant Frank M. Brown of Army A-2 Intelligence, arrived and conducted interviews and obtained samples of the ‘slag’ before boarding and piloting their B-25 aircraft, destination Hamilton Field in California. The plane carrying the two investigators and the slag crashed near Kelso, Washington, shortly after leaving Tacoma, killing both men. Two others on board, one an aircrew the other a military ‘hitchhiker’, Sergeant Elmer L. Taft and Technical Sergeant Woodrow D. Matthews survived by parachuting from the airplane after it lost its left wing and the tail section due to a fire in the left engine.

An FBI report into the incident noted that investigators from McChord Field near Tacoma had investigated the wreckage and were convinced there was no sabotage involved. It’s noted that one of the leading USAF UFO investigators, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, chief of Project Blue Book in the early 1950s, wrote in his 1956 book “The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects” that he was convinced that the entire UFO sighting story was a hoax. The initial FBI field report concluded the story was a hoax as well. Regardless whether the incident was true (as some still believe), the cover-up of an advanced, classified but nevertheless terrestrial aerospace craft, or a hoax, the death of Capt. Davidson and Lt. Brown was real enough.

MANTELL INCIDENT (1948): If there was ever a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, then the Mantell Incident qualifies.

On the afternoon of the 7^th of January 1948, Godman Army Airfield (at Fort Knox, Kentucky) was notified by the state highway patrol of a strange circular object they could not identify some 250 to 300 feet in diameter that was flying along a westward course. Being conscientious officers, they saw it as their duty to notify the nearest military base – Godman Field.

Military personnel, including the Commanding Officer, spotted the unknown object in question from the airfield’s control tower. It was also witnessed from other Army Airfields (Clinton County Army Air Field and Lockbourne Army Air Field, both in nearby Ohio). Witnesses collectively described the movement of the object ranging from stationary to 500 mph; ranging in altitude from near ground level to 10,000 feet. The lone object appeared to be white, but with a reddish fringe on the bottom.

Unfortunately, a formation of four P-51 Mustangs of the Kentucky Air National Guard just happened to be in the air and in the vicinity – that vicinity being the wrong place; wrong time for one of the pilots, the flight leader, Captain Thomas Mantell, an experienced pilot (over 2000 flying hours) and veteran of World War II.  Anyway, the P-51 flight was directed to get up close and personal and determine what this unknown object was.

Not all of the P-51’s were able to comply with that order to the maximum extent possible. One was low on fuel; two others didn’t have an adequate oxygen supply and had more sense than to climb too high though they kept pace with Mantell for as long as they could. Mantell, without an oxygen supply, however, being the flight leader and no doubt an alpha male, threw caution into the wind, boldly went ahead, outdistancing his wingmen when he shouldn’t of. He kept in hot pursuit, stating the object was moving at only half his speed and he was closing in for a better look. He allegedly described the object as metallic and of tremendous size, in contrast to some of his wingmen who described it as small and indistinct. 

To make a long story shorter, Capt. Mantell climbed too high, blacked out from lack of oxygen, and the rest, as they say, is history. His plane began spiraling back towards the ground. A witness later reported Mantell's Mustang in a circling descent. His plane crashed at a farm south of Franklin, Kentucky, on the Tennessee-Kentucky state line. Some interested parties have suggested that while Mantell was an experienced pilot, he was rather new to the P-51 Mustang, and that this relative inexperience could have been a factor in the crash. Regardless, Captain Mantell was, as of 3:18 p.m. that date, the late Captain Mantell.

So what was the object that ultimately led to Mantell’s death? Well the first half-hearted explanation was that everyone had sighted, and the P-51’s had chased, the planet Venus! It’s obvious that no plane can climb high enough to get up close and personal with a planet that’s millions of miles away, so if Venus it was, it’s no wonder Mantell failed to close in on it. Desperate in the attempt, he climbed too high and passed out from lack of oxygen, that being the major factor in the resulting crash and his death. So went explanation number one.

Now Venus, depending on where it is in its orbit, can been seen in daylight, if one knows exactly where to look. However, it’s going to be quite faint as a daylight object at the best of times, and 99.999% of people, while quite familiar with Venus as the celestial object called the morning or evening ‘star’, have never seen the planet in broad daylight. I know I haven’t. That all of a sudden so many people, the highway patrol, other civilians, ground based military personnel, Capt. Mantell and his wingmen, zeroed in on Venus is absolutely astounding – too astounding to be credible. In any event, what Venus would look like in the daytime sky, and the description of the object in question, just don’t mesh. Scratch Venus.

The next best option was, at that time, a top secret US Navy Skyhook weather balloon. Why a weather balloon should be top secret is beyond me, but classified it was. The general characteristics of the Skyhook are reasonably consistent with the appearance and movements reported by Mantell and other witnesses, the sticking point being no particular Skyhook balloon could be conclusively identified as being in the area in question during Mantell's pursuit according to some; facts disputed by the skeptics who said that multiple Skyhooks had been launched that day about 150 miles away.  Regardless, if the object was a Skyhook, it’s little wonder nobody could identify it as such seeing as how it was a classified project and object. Of course it wouldn’t have been very politically correct to admit that a secret American military program resulted in the demise of an American military pilot!

The cause of Mantell's crash remains officially listed as undetermined by the Air Force.

In 1948 flying discs or saucers were still pretty unique and so the first death directly attributed to a flying saucer was Big News and it was widely reported in the press. Unfortunately, some more lurid sections of the press suggested that Mantell had been shot down by the UFO and/or that his body was riddled with holes and/or his P-51 aircraft was found to be radioactive. These reports were false.

In the end, it matters little what the object was – bona-fide hardcore UFO or something more prosaic like Venus or a Skyhook weather balloon – Mantell was just as dead.

To be continued...

Parallels Between Terrestrial Intelligence and Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Part Two

The existence, behaviour, motives, abilities of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI), given ETI is behind the UFO and ancient astronaut phenomena, is way more convincing if there are parallels with our own (TI) existence, behaviour, motives and abilities.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Universal Mythology Number Two: We were created to serve the ‘gods’ (now often termed ‘ancient astronauts’), to be their domestic servants and make their life easier and more meaningful (like having worshippers).

Human analogies abound. History is full of emperors, empresses, pharaohs, kings, queens, dictators, presidents, ministers, religious officials of every type who demand our loyalty and our labour and our taxes, and who erect monuments to themselves, or rather have others erect those monuments on their behalf.

Fast forward to more modern times, like say 1947, when the ‘gods’ or ‘ancient astronauts’ have now morphed into ‘aliens’ who buzz around in their UFOs. One argument against there being real UFOs buzzing around is the following:

Every cubic inch of the sky is monitored from above and below 24/7/52 by highly sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment, always on the lookout for sneak attacks and to track satellites and space junk. The orbits of thousands of bits of space junk are known with high precision, even if that bit is no larger than a ham sandwich! Any alien spaceships that large or (obviously) larger that’s up there, well, we’d know about it.

However, IMHO, advanced stealth technology rules; okay anyone? It’s a major and ever ongoing R&D into stealth technologies that are of interest to the military, the intelligence community and law enforcement agencies on Earth. What might an advanced alien civilization 1000, 10,000 years in advance of our have in the way of such camouflage? They’d obviously use that technology to prevent being shot at by trigger-happy generals! In ‘Star Trek’ terminology, we’d call this sort of technology something akin to a ‘cloaking device’.

My bit above about UFOs and stealth technology or ‘cloaking’ devices’ is nothing more than drawing a parallel between with we humans (the military in particular) do R&D on, and have adopted, and will continue to do R&D on and continue to adopt for obvious reasons. If stealth technology exists, then it would surprise me that ETI wouldn’t have discovered this as well and adopted same, if for no other reason, assuming UFOs are the products of ETI, than it would be useful to often cloak themselves from human observation. ETI is here on a scientific mission, IMHO, and like say wildlife biologists hide in the bushes so as not to disturb the objects of their study; or why a hunter uses camouflage in the woods so their prey doesn’t spot them. If humans, why not ET?

There’s an association been made between the phenomena of animal mutilations and aliens for reasons that aren’t totally clear but might be related to the abduction phenomena (see below). Regardless, from the point of view of terrestrial livestock humans slaughter for meat; frogs dissected in biology classes by humans; humans who do biological and medical research, well often it is less than a bed of roses for the animal subjects who go under the knife.

Another argument against the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) is the absolute absurdity of UFO-related alleged abductions by alien beings.

I’d like to think that their agenda, the alien’s motive for being here is science. As noted above, Planet Earth is really interesting real estate in the cosmos since we have a biosphere. And like our wildlife biologists and anthropologists, etc. go out of their way so as not to disturb the objects of their study in their natural environment, so too might any ETI associated with UFOs try to keep to a minimum disturbing the natives (see stealth technology above). The aliens are ‘harmless as kittens on Xanax’ (a phrase used by a well known SETI scientist) by deliberate design. Of course even wildlife biologists have to occasionally capture, study (maybe dissect), tag and release their subject – perhaps a parallel with the abduction phenomena?

One question immediately leaps to mind – if abductions are imaginary, why? Abductions, as reported by the alleged abductees aren’t overly pleasant experiences. Humans by their very nature like pleasant experiences – warm sunshine, gentle rain, red roses, hot chocolate, a loving relationship with a partner, a nice view, your own home, no job related stress, sufficient finances to pay all your bills, and overall the good life, including in that the philosophy according to Peanuts, ‘happiness is a warm puppy’.

Of course most humans, at some time(s) or other, have nightmares – very unpleasant. However, we apparently have built-in defence mechanisms that jolt us awake if things get too intense. However, you don’t wake up from an abduction nightmare, if nightmare it be, so you’re probably not dreaming.

Humans might like the occasional nasty horror movie or TV show, but though we may hide behind the sofa, or leave the room for a TV snack just when the horror element reaches a peak, we are ultimately in control and can turn the TV off.

So what’s the parallel with the alien UFO abduction phenomena? Alleged UFO abductions aside (and that in itself presents all manner of issues, not the least of which are social and/or psychological if there’s no UFO ETH) are the central point. I mean human scientists, with all good intentions, abduct and perform nasty experiments on wildlife or laboratory animals. If wildlife (and mice and rats used in medical research) could talk, what a gruesome tale they would tell about what ‘harmless as kittens on Xanax’ we humans are. So, we abduct animals for all manner of experimentation; aliens return the favour and abduct us for similar reasons. Why?

If my interpretation of mythology is correct, aliens ‘created’ humans via genetic engineering from our primate ancestors for reasons noted above. Aliens also, via genetic engineering, created the hybrids of mythology – those half-human half-animal, or half-animal-half other form of animal ‘half and halves’, like for example the sphinx.

Now if UFO abductees are to be believed, aliens are really interested in furthering their genetic experiments. They’ve ‘created’ humans from primate stock – artificial selection; they’re created terrestrial hybrids; now their next step is creating alien-human hybrids. Exactly why this should be so, whether for purely academic reasons, or because they have a practical goal in mind – well, time will tell the ultimate tale. I think the jury is still out on that scenario. However, I must point out that if there is an ETI behind some of the UFO phenomena, then we must remind ourselves that we are dealing with aliens. By definition that means an alien mind, alien behaviour, alien psychology, alien emotions, and alien motives. The parallels between human mental processes and alien mental processes might not be one-on-one.   

It’s just as important IMHO to consider what they (the aliens) don’t do as well as what they do, do. An important argument against the UFO ETH is that aliens would obviously make contact with us, for diplomatic and trade related reasons. Why would they come all this way and then not openly interact with the lords and masters on this planet – the presidents and prime ministers and associated powerbrokers?

Well, we humans don’t come up to a troop of primates or a pod of dolphins (intelligences in their own right) with a “take me to your leader” or “let’s establish diplomatic and trade relations”.

Aliens, way back then or here and now, didn’t and haven’t adopted traditional Hollywood invasion scenarios. Aliens don’t want our planet the way Hitler did. And although history is chockfull of one nation(s) invading another nation(s), on balance, most nations leave most other nations alone most of the time. There’s probably no resources, minerals, water, real estate, etc. that aliens need Earth for that they couldn’t just as easily get closer to their home and from uninhabited abodes. What resources they want appear to be biological ones (animal mutilations; abductions) and for those they do require being here, but don’t actually have to do Hollywood-style ‘War of the Worlds’ conquest to get what they want or need.

In summary, aliens, like humans, have motives. In the case of our ‘gods’, ‘ancient astronauts’ or today’s aliens, it’s clear that if bona-fide UFOs (past or present) somehow equate to ETI, then ETI doesn’t have extraterrestrial invasion as an agenda, nor a diplomatic ‘take me to your leader’ scenario. Not after some six plus decades. Again I note that alien invasion, a staple of Hollywood like “Independence Day” and hundreds of other similar films, isn’t apparently their agenda. Also, diplomatic contact and setting up trade relations isn’t on their agenda either apparently. I guess it could be tourism and R&R, but I’d like to think the agenda, their motive is science.

Humans have explored ever since we had the ability to explore. We’ve boldly gone, in person or via machine surrogates, to the depths of the ocean, to Antarctica, to the Moon, and to all of the planets (actual, or in the case of Pluto, on route). All this exploration for all practical purposes has been for the sake of just science, pure science, and nothing but the science. Of course there’s usually an ulterior motive in the back of the mind – exploration leads to exploitation. We explore, we like what we see, we colonize, we exploit, we build resorts for R&R, we migrate to escape various forms of environmental/political pressures, we mine for resources, and we farm for food and do more besides. Today the Moon is for science; tomorrow we may exploit its resources. Why should the ET-Earth relationship be any different?  Keep watching the skies – we might be in for a rough time of it yet!