Astronomers On E.T.

The bulk of books, articles, documentaries, written and presented on the subject of life in the universe are by professional astronomers. However, much of the subtopics that make up the broad-brush picture have nothing to do with professional astronomy. As such, readers interested in the subject need to be highly critical when astronomers wax lyrical about extraterrestrial life as most what they pontificate about is personal, not professionally based opinion.

When it comes to the subject of extraterrestrial life, exobiology or astrobiology, the profession most oft associated is that of the astronomer*. That should be nonsense as the focus should be on the word “life” or “biology” not on the word “extraterrestrial”, “exo” or “astro”. I’ve often said that when it comes to UFOs, for example, astronomers are out of their league because the subject of UFOs is not a proper astronomical subject for astronomers to professionally study and thus comment upon in a professional capacity. Astronomers, being human and all that entails, do not always draw a line in the sand between what they believe professionally through academic study and research and what they believe personally, without benefit of academic study and research.  

The only astronomer who ended up making a serious professional study of UFOs, in fact employed as a consultant to the USAF on UFOs – astronomical at first, hence all facets – was the late J. Allen Hynek, so he’s qualified to wax lyrical. What’s interesting is he started off sceptical on the bona-fides of the field, but came around to the opinion that UFOs were serious scientific business. 

The turf of astronomers starts at the top of Earth’s atmosphere and goes outward bound from there, although I’d maintain that things like meteorites are the realm of mineralogists; Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLP) and the ‘Face’ on Mars and other dynamic visible features on planetary and satellite ‘surfaces’ are more the turf of meteorologists, geologists, and maybe even oceanographers (i.e. – Jupiter’s moon, Europa).

WHAT ASTRONOMERS CAN, SHOULD, CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT COMMENT ON REGARDING EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE

Probability of Extraterrestrial Life: Astronomers can tell us roughly how many stars there are per galaxy and what kind of stars they are and how many galaxies there are in the visible universe and roughly what the average solar system might be like, it’s components and constituents, but that’s as far as it goes. When it comes down to whether life arises and evolves on any of these extra-solar planets up through and including intelligence and technologies is an exercise better left to biologists and anthropologists.

Extra-Solar Planets and Planetary Systems: Astronomers are doing an outstanding job in discovering planets orbiting around other stars than just our Sun. They can pretty much estimate, maybe guesstimate, their size and orbital characteristics. They can also determine what the atmospheric constituents are – if any. However, what precisely that composition signifies – constituents perhaps in chemical disequilibrium suggestive of biomarkers – is an analysis best left to chemists and biochemists.

Origin of Life and Panspermia: Astronomers have no academic bona-fides that enables them to wax lyrical on these topics. Maybe terrestrial life originated on Earth; maybe it came via spores (or some such) from outer space (panspermia), but that’s not a subject that’s part and parcel of astronomy, even if extrapolated to abodes somewhere out there.

Transition from Simple (Unicellular) to Complex (Multicellular) Life: Any pontificating on this subject by astronomers is pure and simply their personal opinion. Astronomers would be pissed if evolutionary biologists got press coverage for commenting on the astrophysics of Black Holes, yet astronomers seem to feel capable of practicing biology, as long as it’s called extraterrestrial biology, astrobiology or biology in outer space.

Evolutionary Rise of Intelligence, Technology and the Longevity of Civilizations: Any such speculations are best left to anthropologists as these topic fall way, way, way outside of the realm of academic astronomy.  

Life Not As We Know It: Any speculation on alternative biochemistries (substitute silicon for carbon; ammonia for water; etc.), in fact the entire definition of what life itself is, is best left to biochemists and related disciplines.

Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI): Professionally, astronomers seek out photons – visible light photons; radio photons, microwave photons, gamma-ray photons, infrared photons, ultraviolet photons, etc. Astronomers have a good handle on what naturally originating photons are like and what they can tell us about astronomical objects. Thus, astronomers should be able to spot anomalous photons – artificially originating photons with the accent on the artificiality. If astronomers spot unnaturally emitted photons then the odds are rather good that they have found an extraterrestrial intelligence, an intelligence that has the ability to emit artificially produced photons – like radio signals, optical (laser) signals, etc. Of course there have been false alarms. Pulsars were first thought to be artificial signals; ditto some quasars; and there were those who thought they had picked up radio broadcasts from Mars in the early years of the 20^th Century. However, once astronomers have detected anomalous photons and unanimously concluded they came from an extraterrestrial technological civilization, then any extrapolation from that is out of their bailiwick and resides more with anthropologists, linguistics experts, and other social science academics. 

First Contact: While there are lots of terrestrial examples of first contact, astronomers aren’t historians, sociologists or anthropologists and thus shouldn’t professionally speculate as being all-knowing on the subject of extraterrestrial first contact.

AREAS WHERE ASTRONOMERS NEED TO REALLY BUTT OUT

Visitors from Outer Space: Astronomers are qualified to tell us about the vastness of the cosmos and the immense distances between stars and our neck of the woods. But, the ability of advanced technological extraterrestrial civilizations to transverse those distances is a matter for engineers not astronomers.

Unidentified Flying Objects: UFO crashes in general and Roswell (July 1947) in particular falls way outside the province of professional astronomy (unless such a ‘crash’ can be positively identified as an impacting meteorite). Yet astronomers feel quite capable to wax lyrical on the subject. However, any opinions expressed by astronomers are really personal, not professional ones, and have no more validity than comments by Joe and Josephine Citizen.

UFO abductions, or abductions by ufonauts (the ‘greys’), fall outside the province of professional astronomy and are more properly the province of mental health professionals.

Government programs associated with investigating UFOs, UFO censorship or cover-ups fall outside the province of professional astronomy. Astronomers aren’t experts in national security matters, defence protocols, political science and other associated areas that deals with intelligence operations.

Close Encounters of any kind including geophysical, physiological, electromagnetic, ground trace cases, fall outside the province of professional astronomy.

Analysis and commentary on UFO films and photographs fall outside the province of professional astronomy.

Analysis of radar returns from UFOs, a rather technical and complex matter, tends to fall outside the province of professional astronomy even though radar has been used to probe some of the planets and satellites of our solar system, and thus their ground topography which puts such data in the realm of the geologist in any event.

Alien motivations (i.e. – why don’t they land on the White House lawn, etc.) fall outside the province of professional astronomy. At best this is a matter for psychologists and anthropologists and sociologists, though when it comes to what motivates an alien or alien culture neither is anyone else really qualified for that matter.

The only intersection between astronomy and UFOs is where assistance is required in ruling in or out astronomical bodies (the moon, planets, stars, meteors, etc.) as the cause or unlikely cause of a UFO sighting event. Or, perhaps where statements by so-called ‘contactees’ contradict known astronomical data. Otherwise, UFOs are the province of meteorologists, experts in optics and atmospheric optical phenomena, psychologists, etc.  Yet astronomers wax lyrical on all facets of the UFO phenomena as if all things UFO were exclusively part and parcel of their turf.

So 99% of what astronomers do (like Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Seth Shostak, and Donald Menzel) when pontificating about UFOs, are in reality spouting off personal opinions, not professional or professionally related (i.e. – astronomical related) factual knowledge.

Ancient Astronauts: Astronomers are not archaeologists, anthropologists, historians or usually conversant with mythologies, and thus should steer clear of anything to do with the subject of “ancient astronauts”.

Associated Facets:

Crop circles fall outside the province of professional astronomy, even though IMHO crop circles have probably nothing to do with ETI.

The animal (wildlife and livestock) mutilation phenomena fall outside the province of professional astronomy.

Ball lightning and other associated anomalous lights (like the Australian Min-Min Lights) fall outside the province of professional astronomy or astronomers who are not geophysicists.

Again, any commentaries by astronomers on these issues quasi-associated with ETI are, when all is said and done, when crunch comes crunch, are personal, not professional commentaries.

* And if not the astronomer then physicists. In fact the bulk of material dealing with life in the universe is penned by physical scientists, not biological or life scientists or naturalists. When I did a course in the subject of life in the universe, SUNY @ Stony Brook, it was of course taught by an astronomer, Tobias C. Owen, who has since co-authored along with Donald Goldsmith an entire textbook on the subject “The Search for Life in the Universe” (third edition - 2001).



Roswell: The Smoking Gun: Part Two

There have been hundreds of outstanding unidentifiable UFO events since June 1947, from the 700+ unknowns the USAF couldn’t resolve to the 30% of UFO cases the University of Colorado (Condon Committee) investigation couldn’t solve, all multiplied by the residue of unknowns as recorded by other official investigations around the world. Even though the unsolved to solved ratio of UFO reports is 1 to 19 (5% of UFO sightings remain as unknowns after investigation by those qualified to investigate), that still translates into a vast database of mystery. But the real Smoking Gun episode has to be one in which you can put something physical on the slab in the lab. Fortunately, one case points specifically in that exact direction – Roswell, July 1947. Someone, somewhere, has extraterrestrial stuff on the slab in their lab. The fact that you can’t put it on your slab in your lab is beside the point. Not everyone can be a have; there are the have-nots too.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

National Security Issues, Official Censorship and Cover-Ups

Now if you, you being the US of A superpower, have obtained extraterrestrial technology (especially at the very beginnings of the Cold War) you are not going to disclose that to anyone, foreign friends or foes or even your own citizens (which would be the same as telling the rest of the world). [I mean if you have sole access to a secret gold mine, are you going to blab the geographical details (latitude and longitude) all over Facebook?] The minimum number of people necessary will be in the loop. Everyone who has no need to know, regardless of their security clearance or military rank or political position, will not be told; will not be given access and therefore will be out of the loop. What you don’t know about you can’t blab about.

So all those other official UFO players – military officers, civilians, consultants (i.e. – J. Allen Hynek) – who officially investigated UFOs (i.e. – Project Blue Book among others), including the University of Colorado (Condon Committee) study, all these people were out of the loop, which just reaffirms that the public face of official UFO investigation was all just a public relations stunt to reassure the great unwashed that their government was on top of things. Those in the loop already knew the answer so there was no point for other serious official investigations by outsiders (those not in the loop). Of course those outside the loop, doing the PR, wouldn’t have been told their employment and efforts were just for PR purposes.

If you, again you being the USA, are in possession of advanced alien technologies you are going to do your darnedest to reverse engineer the technology and adapt it to your own national defence/security needs. You might not be able to do so, any more than advisors to Alexander-the-Great could reverse engineer the hydrogen bomb, a laser pointer or even a ‘simple’ radio receiver set no matter how badly old Alex wanted or demanded to make it so. But you would try your damnedest. Maybe you’d make inroads – maybe not. 

Inept Aliens?

Now much has been made of the fact that here you have apparently highly advanced, technologically capable, interstellar space-faring aliens who travel vast distances – crossing light years worth of interstellar space – only to arrive here on Earth then immediately, oops, crash! How dumb is that! Well, accidents happen.

But there’s another logical explanation. The Roswell event (early July 1947) was just a fortnight after the highly publicized Kenneth Arnold flying discs sighting (late June 1947), an event which launched the entire modern flying saucer era. The Arnold sighting precipitated an avalanche of other sightings over the next few days, weeks and months. So here in June 1947, also the beginnings of the Cold War era, all of a sudden you have credible observers reporting relatively incredible things - unidentified ‘aircraft’ or rather unconventional flying discs – that are invading your airspace, purpose(s) and intention(s) unknown. The powers-that-be knew perfectly well these unknowns, whatever they were, were not made-in-America. The logical military and national defence and security response therefore would be to shoot them down if they refuse to land and identify themselves.

Now the powers-that-be have never confirmed or denied that such an order was ever given, a ‘shoot them down’ directive or policy instrument that was established, communicated and in force in early July 1947. If it wasn’t, it damn well should have been otherwise the powers-that-be were derelict in their duty to defend the United States from a possible invasion by unknown forces. Despite the lack of confirm or deny, there are no shortage of newspaper headlines and articles attesting to that shoot-them-down policy as any Internet search will quickly confirm.* So, what if the Roswell craft that crashed wasn’t an oops by inept aliens but the result of hostile action taken against them by U.S. military forces?

Is There Another Terrestrial Alternative?

Might the Roswell object have actually been a classified experimental metallic but terrestrial military aircraft? Alas, in that case, the required cover-up cover story would have immediately been given out as something mundane, like a weather balloon, and not something as equally exotic, if not more so, as in a crashed flying saucer. And by the way, just because something is exotic (like flying saucers and crashed discs) doesn’t make it impossible. In any event, now 65 years after-the-fact, there would be no harm done in saying that the Roswell event was a classified experimental metallic but terrestrial military aircraft and put the remains on public view in a museum – say the Air and Space Museum or other facility the public can visit and gawk at. That’s of course if, and that’s a very big if, the Roswell object was a then classified experimental metallic but terrestrial military aircraft.

What Stinks?

The fact that the powers-that-be changed their spots; their initial story, not once but at least twice, reeks of WTF is going on here, or in other words, of a mix of hydrogen sulphide gas and rotting dead fish. I have to use the dead fish analogy since there’s something really fishy somewhere. Anyone or any organisation that keeps changing their story loses credibility.

Key Points Summary

# Some unusual occurrence involving the landing or crash-landing of an aerial device happened near the town of Roswell, New Mexico in early July 1947. That is not in dispute.

# Local military authorities stationed at the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) collected up all the debris from this object and publicly identified it as a flying disc or flying saucer. That is not in dispute.

# Higher authority not stationed at Roswell (therefore not on the spot) immediately contacted the responsible military officials that were stationed at Roswell (who were on the spot) ordering a change in emphasis from the exotic (flying saucer) to the mundane (weather balloon **). They then orchestrated a photo opportunity, showing off the Roswell Intelligence Officer (Major Marcel) holding real weather balloon debris, passing it off as the real Roswell stuff. As an aside, as noted above, the USAF changed their story yet again (roughly around 1995) – still a balloon but a balloon with a secret mission, to monitor secret Soviet nuclear tests (Project Mogul) ***. All that is not in dispute, but does tend to lend a bad odour to the whole sordid affair making the official balloon line highly suspect.

# That the Roswell Intelligence Officer (Major Marcel) and veteran of World War Two, not to mention all the other personnel that would have seen and handled the debris up through and including the Commanding Officer (Colonel Blanchard), that they could all mistake real balloon debris for a metallic flying saucer or disc is absurd in the extreme. The entire Roswell extraterrestrial vs. terrestrial case hinges around this very point. Is it credible that senior military personnel could mistake what was crashed balloon debris for a downed metallic disc or flying saucer? IMHO the answer is clearly “NO”.

# Both the Roswell Public Information Officer (Lt. Haut) and the Intelligence Officer (Major Marcel) after exiting their military careers went publicly, on the record, supporting the original flying saucer/disc diagnosis as being the real nature of the Roswell incident and strongly supporting a point of view that the craft was out-of-this-world. Their testimony is part now of the Roswell incident public record.

To conclude, that’s a Smoking Gun IMHO but it’s a pity that the Gun is behind highly classified, tightly closed security doors, forever to be locked away. No doubt the Roswell debris is as valuable now to the national security and defence of the United States as it was back then. Alien spaceships don’t tend to fall into your backyard as an everyday occurrence!

*Most newspaper reports of a shoot-them-down policy cluster around late July 1952 following the second time within a week that ‘saucers’ invaded the restricted airspace with impunity over the national capitol – Washington, D.C.

“Air Force alerts jets to chase ‘flying saucers’ anywhere in U.S.” – United Press (UP), 29 July 1952:

“Air Force orders jet pilots to shoot down flying saucers if they refuse to land” – The Seattle Post Intelligencer, 29 July 1952:

“Air Force seeks solution, gives ‘shoot down order’” – Washington-INS (International News Service), 28 July 1952:

“Jets on 24 hour alert to shoot down saucers” – The San Francisco Examiner, 29 July 1952:

“Jets told to shoot down flying discs” – The Fall River (Mass.) Herald-News, 29 July 1952.

“Shoot to kill: Pacific Navy fliers ordered to engage saucers” – Fullerton (CA) News-Tribune, 26 July 1956.  

**Isn’t it amazing that no other recovered weather balloon, or a balloon of any kind in the entire history of balloon launches and recoveries, has caused such confusion. What odds then that the Roswell object was really recovered balloon debris?

***The top secret balloon story, if true, well that tale of woe could have been released publicly as early as 1965 (if not earlier) instead of waiting until 1995 to spill the beans. Newer and better post-1947 technologies would have done the same job – monitoring Soviet nuclear tests – way more efficiently by 1965. 1947 balloon monitoring was yesterday’s way outdated technology by 1965. So why wait until 1995 to admit it? Actually there’s little doubt there was a top secret balloon project in operation monitoring Soviet nuclear tests, but that doesn’t mean what came down near Roswell in July 1947 was such a balloon.



Roswell: The Smoking Gun: Part One

Of all reported UFO events, the best known and documented was the Roswell incident in July 1947. If you’re not one of the powers-that-be (i.e. – in the loop), it’s easy to get mired or bogged down in the masses of names, trivia and after-the-fact events that may, or may not have happened. One needs to focus on the key names and events that took place at the very start and take the logic from there. Logic should then compel you to treat Roswell as the UFO Smoking Gun. It’s all a matter of applying common sense to what is on the public record.

The Significance of Roswell, July 1947

# Roswell was a very, very early event in UFO history and participants were therefore relatively untainted by the decades of UFO lore that would have been the case if the Roswell event happened today.

# Roswell has historical documentation that nobody can dispute.

# Roswell involved local on-the-spot senior, no-nonsense, responsible and knowledgeable military officials. They had no need for an agenda to fabricate or exaggerate what transpired.  

# The Roswell event involved multiple witnesses, both civilian and military. A child’s prank or an orchestrated hoax this most certainly wasn’t.

# The Roswell event was a close encounter that left behind slab-in-the-lab evidence for analysis. This was no vague fleeting point-of-light-in-the-night-sky sighting.

# Delightfully the Roswell event caught the higher-up powers-that-be with their pants down, otherwise we wouldn’t have what initial facts we do have! Roswell proved an acne event to the powers-that-be back then and remains a sore thumb to them over six decades later. Roswell is unlikely to fade away over the next six decades unless there’s a breakthrough in proving or disproving the censorship and cover-ups, real or imagined, associated with its history. The powers-that-be have made a dog’s breakfast of the Roswell incident, the sort of mess that only powers-that-be can accomplish.

# Lastly, if the original version of the Roswell event as related by the RAAF press release and associated media coverage of that release – the capture of a flying disc – then there’s no question but that the powers-that-be are knowledgeable about the real bona-fide existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, an E.T. that’s up close and personal.

The RAAF (Roswell Army Air Field) Media Release (8 July 1947)

“The many rumors regarding the flying disc became a reality yesterday when the intelligence office of the 509th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, Roswell Army Air Field, was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc through the cooperation of one of the local ranchers and the sheriff’s office of Chaves County”.

“The flying object landed on a ranch near Roswell sometime last week. Not having phone facilities, the rancher stored the disc until such time as he was able to contact the sheriff’s office, who in turn notified Maj. Jesse A. Marcel of the 509th Bomb Group Intelligence Office.”

“Action was immediately taken and the disc was picked up at the rancher’s home. It was inspected at the Roswell Army Air Field and subsequently loaned by Major Marcel to higher headquarters.”

It’s an historical (on or for the record) fact that this military document existed – no fraud or fakery can be alleged. That the press release received reasonably widespread national, even international media (radio and newspaper) coverage is not in dispute. That too is an historical fact with no allowance for any wriggle room. The most oft displayed newspaper headline and associated article text reproduced in books and websites is from the Roswell Daily Record, 8 July 1947 – “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer On Ranch in Roswell Region: No Details of Flying Disk Are Revealed”.

The local Roswell coverage was more extensive and detailed since Lt. Haut, the RAAF Public Information Officer (PIO), handed out the press release personally to the media and was able to flesh out the details to the locals. In addition other local residents were able to contribute their observations to the local media.

The Key Players

# The RAAF (Roswell Army Air Field) Commanding Officer was Colonel William H. Blanchard. The buck always stops with the CO but for some reason Colonel Blanchard was never disciplined over the Roswell AAF stuff-up that 1) an RAAF staffer, an intelligence officer under his command, couldn’t tell the difference between a metallic disc and a weather balloon; 2) that his Public Information Officer, Lt. Haut, apparently under his directive, issued a media release that had to be countermanded within 24 hours by higher authority. Colonel Blanchard in fact went on to achieve the four-star rank of General as Vice Chief of Staff for the USAF. That suggests that something’s screwy somewhere unless the Roswell events transpired as originally stated.

# The RAAF Intelligence Officer: The RAAF (Roswell Army Air Field) Intelligence Officer, Major Jesse Marcel (Senior) was first on the crash site scene as ordered. He was never reprimanded for making such a boneheaded mistake – one the little old lady from Pasadena wouldn’t make – that of misidentifying weather balloon materials for a metallic disc. But because he was a career military officer, Major Marcel went along with the official storyline (i.e. – deception) that the Roswell event was just a downed weather balloon, at least until after his discharge and retirement. Then Marcel lowered the boom, rather pissed off that he had been made to look the incompetent fool and gave his version which you can find in his interviews on YouTube. Needless to say, Marcel gives short shrift to the weather balloon explanation, or the explanation that a balloon of any kind was involved.

# The RAAF (Roswell Army Air Field) Public Information Officer was First Lieutenant Walter Haut. He was directed by the RAAF Base Commander (Colonel Blanchard) to draft a press release to the public announcing that the US Army Air Forces (at Roswell) had recovered a ‘flying disc’ (a.k.a. – flying saucer) from a nearby ranch. That recovered object was quickly changed from metallic disc to that of a weather balloon under the orders of higher authority (Brigadier General Roger Ramey). Despite the apparent stuff-up, Lt. Haut was never reprimanded. After leaving the military, Haut made several signed and sealed affidavits attesting to the bona-fides of the Roswell event as that of a flying disc. These were in addition to interviews given in which he never retracted his story that the extraterrestrial nature of the events at Roswell was the really real reality of what transpired. Readers can find YouTube video interviews that feature Walter Haut’s position on Roswell.

# William W. (Mac) Brazel was the ranch hand foreman, not the ranch owner proper as is sometimes given, that first came across the Roswell debris field while tending to livestock. Mac Brazel then alerted civilian authorities (the local Sheriff’s Office) who in turn notified personnel at the RAAF in case this was something of a military matter. Mac Brazel had previously found two weather balloons on the ranch-land and this new stuff wasn’t like what he had found on earlier occasions. As a civilian not subject to military authority, he apparently was bribed with a brand new pickup truck and an appeal to patriotism, to keep his mouth shut about what he saw. Apparently there was a bit of intimidation or some additional hard-leaning involved as well. In any event, Brazel, due to all the unwanted publicity and unwanted military attention he received ended up wishing he had never seen the stuff in the first place. Mac Brazel passed away (1963) prior to the reawakening of interest in the Roswell event (roughly 1980) and thus there’s relatively little on the record about the Roswell event directly attributed from him.

Little Grey Bodies

Though the initial press release made no mention of bodies, alien or terrestrial, little grey bodies have been attested to by various witnesses including testimony as part of his to-be-released-after-his-death (deathbed) affidavit, the public information officer, 1^st Lt. Walter Haut. Bodies make sense in that it would be rather rare for a terrestrial aircraft to crash without any bodies being on board on the ground – unless sufficient parachutes were provided and all occupants bailed out – always a possibility. By analogy, the same should apply to an extraterrestrial ‘aircraft’.

Also possible, if you dismiss the little grey bodies part of Roswell, is that just as you have unmanned terrestrial drones (a very topical subject today) you could have un-aliened but extraterrestrial drones. A case in point might well have been the aerial ‘foo-fighters’ sighted by all sides during World War Two (especially 1944-45) that have never been adequately explained.

However, alien bodies, alive or dead, are actually irrelevant if you have an actual extraterrestrial craft in hand – a flying saucer or disc in 1947 terminology. The disc or saucer alone proves the bona-fides of the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH).

Why Did the Roswell Debris Leave RAAF?

That the Roswell object, or what was left of it, was squirreled away from the RAAF is made clear in the initial press release and is not in doubt. Higher headquarters in this case was Brigadier General Roger Ramey stationed at Fort Worth AAF (Texas). The Roswell debris allegedly but apparently ultimately ended up at Wright Field (Ohio), now renamed Wright-Patterson AFB, going via Fort Worth. Now the real question is, if the Roswell debris was just constructed out of ordinary balloon materials, regardless of what the purpose of the balloon’s mission was, why not just stuff the tattered remains into the local RAAF trashcan or dumpster? No, if the Roswell object or debris left the RAAF it was because there was something extraordinary about it. 

To be continued…



Even More Random Out Of This World Thoughts

Sometimes you have a new thought, an idea, or eureka moment, but it’s not gutsy enough to expand into a reasonable length article or essay. So, here’s a potpourri of thoughts too good not to record, but with not enough meat available to flesh out. 

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* I have suggested elsewhere that the Cyclopes of mythology made for excellent representations of ancient astronauts. They possessed, according to Greek legends, the ability to create high-tech weapons for the Olympians (Zeus, Poseidon and Hades), in their war against the Titans. They certainly don’t have human appearance or physiology. But another line of evidence for the Cyclopes as ancient aliens is the Tassili (Sahara Desert region of Algeria) rock art image of ‘The Great God Mars’ so named by its discoverer since this massive image appears very unworldly. Google for the image and see how closely it resembles a Cyclops in appearance.   

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* Because the Mayan people who lived in Tikal believed they came from the constellation Pleiades, Tikal's builders placed the seven most important pyramids of the Grand Plaza in the same geometric pattern as the 'seven sisters,' or seven stars comprising the Pleiades constellation. The geometric placement of structures that mirror the Pleiades at Tikal sort of mirrors the trilogy of pyramids at Giza. The pyramids mirror the placement of the stars in Orion’s Belt. Modern societies don’t lay out their buildings in stellar patterns like the ancients tended to do. So, why did Orion’s Belt, the Pleiades, and some other celestial objects like Sirius hold such sway with our ancient ancestors?

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* Might the UFO ‘greys’ actually be robotic or an android ‘life’ form, an ExtraTerrestrial Artificial Intelligence? Well, why not?  I’ve yet to read any account that proved the ‘greys’ were functioning flesh-and-blood ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. For all of their outward spindly appearance, they seem to be far stronger than their physiology would give them credit for. No one has seen them bleed or have bruises or scars; No arm or leg casts suggest no broken bones, not even a limp; nor have there been reports of sniffles and sneezes; they certainly look asexual and even act robotic as if on autopilot as well as being totally emotionless. When it comes to age, all seem to be the same age; there’s no sign of aging or age differentials. An artificially intelligent ‘life’ form could take on just about any outward appearance its designers wanted it to have. Natural biological evolution and natural selection are totally irrelevant when it comes to AI, including their appearance.

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* It’s been speculated that a really super advanced extraterrestrial technological civilization could literally manipulate matter and energy and create a universe from scratch (although IMHO that’s a really potentially dangerous experiment that could big bang backfire in a big bang big way). But for such an alien race, it would be far easier (and safer) to create one or more, probably more, lots more, simulated universes for fun and amusement, for study purposes or for research. The upshot is that simulated universes could exceed natural universes by multi-thousands to one. Therefore, the odds, if you’re a betting man, are that your reality is a virtual reality. 

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* In the early days of the modern ‘flying saucer’ era, the powers-that-be maintained a low key public policy of discrediting, debunking and downplaying the phenomena and the release of formally classified documents now prove (the Robertson Panel;  Project Grudge; AFR 200-2, etc.). Now one of the more really ludicrous aspects of that early era was the rise of the Contactees – people to claim to have met the handsome ‘Space Brothers’ (and equally beautiful ‘Space Sisters), been taken for rides in their spacecraft to their homes on Venus, Saturn, etc. and who spouted off realms of New Age cosmic wisdom and philosophy. Naturally, the Contactees tainted the entire ‘flying saucer’ picture. The Contactees ridiculed the entire subject. The powers-that-be couldn’t have wished for a better public distraction from the serious behind-the-scenes national security issues.

Which got me thinking about that intelligence trick of misinformation and disinformation – what if, I thought, the entire Contactee subsection of the flying saucer community was a setup in order to ridicule the entire subject matter in the eyes of the public, especially the influential public like members of congress, scientists, etc.  Now the individuals who would become the (relatively few) Contactees were poorly educated, had low incomes, and were in general towards the bottom rungs of human society and achievements. So, you can imagine some intelligence agent(s) from the CIA or NSA going up to one of these people, the great unwashed, with an offer (i.e. – a bribe) they couldn’t refuse – “how would you like to have an extra $1000 appear magically in your bank account every month for life no questions asked. All you need do is claim to have been contacted by tall, dark and handsome aliens and given rides in their flying saucers to Venus and be the recipient of all sorts of wonderful cosmic philosophies of peace, brotherhood, etc. We’ll even help you write up the books detailing your ‘experiences’ for you and you get to keep the royalties and go on radio and TV and go on tour and become famous. How does that sound?” How many people in those circumstances would say no to that? And if any did, well, accidents happen; people disappear. Who’d miss a nobody - one of the great unwashed? This is just a thought which once thought of rings a bit too close to the bone for comfort.



SETI Strategy

The traditional, even the untraditional Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been going on now for over five decades; six decades if you include UFOs, and a century’s worth if you include listening for Martian radio signals. Of course, as we are all well aware, nothing has, to date, come from these extensive searches. Either there’s nothing out there worth searching for, or perhaps one is shooting at a moving target. A better search strategy might be to shoot at a stationary target(s). My suggestion is for an optimal static SETI target – the Moon.    

Traditional SETI, the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence, uses a search strategy of looking for extraterrestrial radio signals broadcast by technologically advanced, well, extraterrestrials.  Alas, you don’t know in advance where in space the alien radio station is; what strength it’s broadcasting at; what radio frequency it’s using; how often it’s broadcasting or for what duration per broadcast. Further, the station is probably on a rotating planet, and we on the receiving end are rotating too and so the meshing of the two such that we face each other is dicey at best. It’s a search with all the odds stacked against it. That’s what I call SETI in motion. Static SETI has better odds in its favour, IMHO. What SETI needs is to eliminate the motion associated with possible ETI from the search. In other words, search for ETI via those artefacts of ETI that 1) pretty much stand still and 2) remain standing still for very lengthy time frames.  

TRADITIONAL SETI IN MOTION: The Electromagnetic Spectrum

Optical and radio wave SETI relies on some alien technological civilization pointing a radio or optical transmitter in the outward bound direction and letting briefly fly the photons in just the absolute right direction such that a terrestrial radio or optical receiver just happens to be pointed in that exact same direction at the exact relevant time frame later on down the track. The odds are not good that all these variables of motion will mesh together. I mean, what if you had one spinning terrestrial globe (globe A) with some random rate of spin and orientation (axis tilt), and another spinning globe (globe B) with another random rate of spin and orientation, both positioned at some random distance apart, what odds that say, one specific latitude and longitude on globe A would exactly match up in a straight line, allowing for the speed of light representing that straight line, with the exact same latitude and longitude on globe B?

UNTRADITIONAL SETI IN MOTION: Space Probes

We have sent out messages to ET in the form of plaques (Pioneer 10 and 11) and audio-visual recordings (Voyager 1 and 2), which have odds of success that even the most optimistic of optimists wouldn’t bet a nickel, far less the family farm, on achieving reality. That’s because space probes are very, very small and space is really, Really, REALLY, very, Very, VERY, big, as “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” as so adequately pointed out and made that concept clear to us. Finding alien space probes: it’s the needle-in-a-haystack or perhaps the message-in-the-bottle carried to extremes.

UNTRADITIONAL QUASI-SETI IN MOTION: UFO SETI

The problem with trying to search for and pin down UFOs as an example of ETI is that UFOs will not stand still. They come and they go like short-duration will-of-the-wisps in a totally random way that cannot be forecast in advance. But the skies can be monitored 24/7, and they are monitored 24/7, and guess what, UFOs are spotted 24/7. Of course a UFO doesn’t automatically translate into an alien spaceship, and in any event, while the skies stand still in a manner of speaking, those pesky UFOs don’t.

TRADITIONAL STATIC SETI: Galactic Searches

External galaxies, like stars in our galaxy, sit still in the night sky. Unlike targeting individual stars in our galaxy, or rather the inhabited planets whizzing around them (orbiting and rotating) which is traditional SETI in motion, targeting entire galaxies at one go, assuming a reasonable number of ET civilizations are in that galaxy, suggests that something that’s of an EM nature (on a myriad of frequencies) emitted at random time intervals by someone(s) or something(s) is intersecting our local geography upon which sits our radio telescope 24/7. The fly in that ointment is that, as the introduction to “Star Wars” pointed out, external galaxies are far, far away. That means that while we’re getting some signal(s) from an external galaxy 24/7 just on sheer probability, it’s like trying to hear someone, say your ex, shouting at you from L.A. when you’re, alas, in N.Y.C.

STATIC SETI: Omnidirectional Signals

Omnidirectional electromagnetic signals would appear as a ‘light bulb’ that was always on, but the drawback is that it is a very energy intensive way of advertising yourself and saying “hi there” to the cosmos.

STATIC SETI: Dyson Spheres

We’re all for solar energy, and a really advanced extraterrestrial civilization could take the concept to an extreme. Only a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the Sun’s output hits Earth, so even if all of that were captured and put to good use, it would still be just a tiny fraction of what’s theoretically available. But, if one could build a quasi-flexible sphere (of say colony space stations) around a parent star, then a large fraction of the star’s solar energy could be intercepted and put to a useful purpose. The light energy would ultimately be converted to heat energy, or infrared (IR) wavelengths. So, if we SETI by looking for anomalous infrared stellar sources, we just might detect or capture evidence of a vast extraterrestrial astro-engineering projects, known in the trade as Dyson Spheres. The trick will be to distinguish a natural IR source from an artificial one. Further complicating matters is that the search pretty much has to be conducted from above Earth’s atmosphere which is pretty opaque to IR wavelengths.

STATIC SETI: Pulsars

When pulsars were first discovered, they were immediately thought to be the SETI smoking gun, and were named LGM 1, LGM 2, etc. where LGM stood for “Little Green Man”. Alas, it quickly became apparent that in terms of SETI, pulsars were too much of a good thing, now numbering in the thousands, and a natural alternative explanation quickly came to the fore – rapidly rotating neutron stars. However, if author Paul LaViolette* is to be believed, pulsars are not naturally rapid rotating neutron stars but artificially constructed interstellar navigation and communication beacons – the product or creation of ETI. Fortunately pulsars stay put and thus LaViolette’s ideas can be tested.

STATIC SETI: Planetary Disequilibrium

Another possible example of static SETI is the search for planetary atmospheres in chemical disequilibrium – the search in all probability for bio-signatures. Earth’s atmosphere is in a state of disequilibrium; so apparently is Titan’s atmosphere. The ‘intelligence’ part comes in regarding the detection of unnatural pollutants, again in disequilibrium. A variation on that theme is to look for anomalies in a star’s spectrum, say for uranium, plutonium, radium, thorium, or technetium. Finding such would be suspicious – hey, what’s going on here? The answer being that a technological civilization used their parent star as a nuclear waste dump (quite a sensible idea); or to advertise their existence.

STATIC SETI: The Sun

As per above, there are some who have suggested that extraterrestrial intelligences with advanced technologies might deliberately ‘pollute’ their parent star with unnatural or anomalous elements, perhaps an exercise in radioactive waste disposal. The upshot being that the stellar spectra of such ‘polluted’ stars would give the game away that there was intelligence afoot since no natural process could account for such anomalous spectra. Now if such a strategy were used as a calling card by said extraterrestrials, perhaps they have artificially altered the natural solar spectra of our Sun. Alas, I assume by now our Sun’s spectra has been analysed and re-analysed and re-re-analysed with nothing anomalous discovered.

STATIC SETI: The Moon

If you want to leave a message or a calling card akin to “Kilroy was here” for someone unknown or unknowable in the future (whether near future or distant future is also unknown) what would you do, especially if you had some space-faring capability? Translate that scenario now and assume that there must have been some sort of visit to Planet Earth by ET(s) over the past several billion years (and Earth was inhabited even if only by microbes at that time) and maybe they left behind their equivalent of “Kilroy was here”. Well you wouldn’t leave your calling card on Planet Earth since Planet Earth is both geologically and meteorologically active and the ocean bottom isn’t much better. You wouldn’t leave it in high Earth orbit or at the Langranian Points since that makes your message a moving target and/or subject to dislodgment from gravitational forces say from a passing near Earth asteroid or a close encounter with a passing comet. Solar flares, etc. over the long haul could also disrupt any stable orbit. Positioning the message elsewhere in the Solar System is probably placing it too distantly away requiring too much power to sustain itself over the long haul – assuming ET supplied it with batteries – or placement would result in just too much real estate to have to cover for future recipients. What about the Moon as a repository for an alien artefact or two? Did Arthur C. Clarke get it right in “2001: A Space Odyssey”?

The Moon has and hasn’t for all practical purposes any dynamic geology or meteorology and certainly no ocean bottoms. The Moon is not, for all practical purposes a moving target as we tend to think of moving targets. Has the Moon ever been targeted by SETI? Not formally to the best of my knowledge.

If there was an EM beacon on the Moon broadcasting on our radio/TV frequencies we’d know about it. I imagine there must have been times when the Moon was in view or in the line of sight with radio telescopes doing traditional interstellar electromagnetic (radio) SETI analysis. If so, no dice resulted. I imagine the Moon (from space) has been looked at in the ultraviolet, infrared, and other parts of the EM spectrum not readily accessible from ground level. Still, I think a formal SETI attack on the Moon might not be a bad thing – if only to dot I’s and cross all the T’s.

QUASI-STATIC SETI: Transient Lunar Phenomena

For more years than you can shake a stick at - and that’s a lot of years - anomalous lights, glows, or luminescences have been seen and recorded on the Moon by astronomers, both amateur and professional. These enigmatic lights have been tagged with the general phrase Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLP). They come and go with total unpredictability. The usual theory is some sort of volcanic activity, maybe a meteor impact, but to date they remain just one of those mysteries Mother Nature chucks our way. TLP’s require far more investigation, just in case they have a ‘Kilroy’ aspect to them.

STATIC SETI: Alien Artefacts

The ‘Face on Mars’ is probably the best known example of an ‘alien artefact’, and when first photographed by a Viking orbiting space probe it indeed looked like a human ‘face’. However, later photographs under differing lighting conditions just revealed a big rock that had to be lit just so in order to show a pseudo-‘face’. Though the ‘Face on Mars’ proved not to be a real ‘face’, the key point with respect to SETI is that the ‘face’ stood still to be photographed and studied another day under differing conditions. It stood still!

STATIC SETI: Ancient Astronauts

Many myths and legends, from ancient cultures around the world, especially surrounding religious figures of all-powerful deities, can often be reinterpreted in terms of flesh-and-blood aliens as opposed to supernatural gods and goddesses. Alas, while provocative, its marginal evidence at best for ancient astronauts. Engineering feats seemingly impossible for ancient societies are equally provocative, are bona-fide archaeological mysteries, but are again just marginal evidence for high-tech aliens, not smoking guns. However, if there were artefacts, images or equivalent, indisputably produced by ancient man yet which clearly exhibited a degree of knowledge they could not have possessed, that’s a different horse of quite another colour. As a hypothetical example, if there was an image or carving clearly showing the planet Saturn and satellites, all in correct proportionality, in say an ancient Egyptian tomb that would be more than just something provocative. Ditto the image of a kangaroo or a map showing Tasmania or Long Island (N.Y.). Even better would be a really real alien artefact with a “made in Krypton” stamped on it somewhere! Regardless, I suggest a detailed examination of ancient artefacts/images as viewed from the eyes and perspective of a physical, even biological scientist or geographer as opposed to a traditional archaeologist might be in order. Even    

STATIC SETI: Crop Circles

Crop circles stand-sit-lie still (as it were until farmers mow them down) but I’m not convinced they have anything to do with ETI, even if they are high strangeness. But if they do, have anything to do with ETI that is, they would a tempting SETI target.

STATIC SETI: Junk DNA

Some out-of-the-box thinkers have suggested that aliens might have left an internal message within us (as in terrestrial life) that ‘Kilroy was here’ the message being in the form of a coding within those parts of an organism’s DNA that isn’t particularly used for anything – junk DNA. The only problem I see with that is that even junk DNA can and will mutate and thus change the message, just like changing one letter in a word can render that word meaningless. 

CONCLUSION

Our Moon offers the best bet for uncovering evidence that aliens have been (and maybe still are) in our neck of the stellar woods. Since the Moon is close by, and can be observed 24/7 (we know where it is at all times) and is a logical place for aliens to have left evidence of any visitation, it should be the focus of SETI. Such evidence, by implication, would prove that ET exists, or at least one ET existed once upon a time.

*LaViolette, Paul; The Talk of the Galaxy: An ET Message for Us?; Starlane Publications, Alexandria, VA; 2000.



Extraterrestrial Robots: Part Two

When you think of extraterrestrials, you probably think of ET, Mr. Spock, Klaatu, Yoda, Klingons and Romulans, the Blob, Martians with heat rays, Alien vs. Predator, the Sontarans, or perhaps the ‘Greys’ of UFO lore. However, if you really had an extraterrestrial close encounter of the up-close-and-personal kind, I’d wager the odds are far greater that you’d be shaking ‘hands’ with something more akin to Robby the Robot.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

THE RISE AND RISE OF THE CYBORG: ARTIFICIAL BODY BITS & PIECES

We’re already on the way with the merger of man and machine; the natural with the artificial.

Head & Neck: There’s dentures; teeth fillings; eyeglasses; hearing aids; the bionic ear; the bionic eye; speech synthesisers; metal skull replacement head plates, etc.

Waist Up: We’ve implanted pacemakers; heart valves; artificial hearts; arm prosthetics; artificial shoulder, elbow and wrist joints; artificial kidneys (via kidney dialysis); and the iron lung.

Waist Down: At the very least there are artificial hip, knee and ankle joints; leg prosthetics, peg legs; and leg braces.

General: You wear clothes (replacing fur, feathers and scales); you wrap yourself in a heating blanket; you ‘wear’ your car in that you wrap it around you (or bicycle, skateboard, roller skates, etc. – they become a part or extension of you); the mobile/smart phone is an obvious example of the merger of flesh and machine, and one where all too often it’s the technology controlling the user, not the user controlling the technology. People use walking canes/sticks; walkers; and wheelchairs, some motorized and some so integral or inseparable to their users or ‘wearers’ that they jointly appear to be a virtual cybernetic entity – think of the most famous or widely known case history cosmologist-astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and his wheelchair come quasi-life-enhancing system, though that pales compared to the environmental suits worn by astronauts – moon walkers or EVA space-walkers – or deep-sea divers. Then there is plastic surgery.

What’s Next: Common in various medical situations are drips that via gravity ‘feed’ patients with their necessary drug, energy and other required vitamin/mineral supplements. That suggests to me that one can bypass the entire digestive system (teeth, oesophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine) by just having a one-way artificial valve that connects the outer skin surface with the bloodstream and that all body nutriments in the required amounts custom designed for the needs of any specific individual be injected directly into their bloodstream via this valve on an as-needed basis.

But the ultimate will be the desire or need to eliminate all flesh-and-blood bits-and-pieces, thus all diseases (including ageing) and injuries associated with flesh-and-blood, by keeping the only bit that’s really necessary – the mind – and recreating the wetware contents as software, downloaded into hardware within a nearly immortal plastic and steel ‘body’.   

EXPLANATIONS RELATED TO ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS AND UFOs

What might extraterrestrial robotics help explain when it comes to ancient astronaut theory and the UFO phenomena? A few items come to the fore.

Dragons are universals in human mythology. All cultures have dragon-lore. Anytime there is a concept that cuts across all societies, one needs to sit up and take notice. Dragons, for example, aren’t a one-off, confines say to ancient China. Dragons are frequently represented as the go-between the ‘gods’ (ancient astronauts or extraterrestrials) and humans. Given their ‘fire-breathing’ nature and ability to fly, it’s not inconceivable that dragons were really real, but not flesh-and-blood creatures but high-tech extraterrestrial devices of an aerial nature.

Hybrids, either human-animal or animal-animal (like dragons) are another example of a universal in human mythology that needs some coming to grips with. Though I’ve postulated that mythological hybrids, like say the Sphinx, might have been products of alien genetic engineering, it’s not that easy to say graft on a pair of wings on a horse (i.e. – Pegasus) and have it fly. There’s a lot of anatomical infrastructure that needs to be addressed and redesigned in order to make that happen. If these hybrids were mechanical or robotic, that avoids a lot of messy genetic mucking around with flesh-and-blood.  

UFOs and the Greys: So, might the UFO ‘greys’ actually be robotic or an android ‘life’ form, an extraterrestrial artificial intelligence (ETAI)? Well, why not?  I’ve yet to read any account that proved the ‘greys’ were functioning flesh-and-blood ETI. For all of their outward spindly appearance, they seem to be far stronger than their physiology would give them credit for. No one has seen them bleed or have bruises or scars; No arm or leg casts suggest no broken bones, not even a limp; nor have there been reports of sniffles and sneezes; they certainly look asexual and even act robotic as if on autopilot as well as being totally emotionless. When it comes to age, all seem to be the same age; there’s no sign of aging or age differentials. An artificially intelligent ‘life’ form could take on just about any outward appearance its designers wanted it to have. Natural biological evolution and natural selection are totally irrelevant when it comes to robotics or artificial intelligence (AI), including their outward appearance.

One other factor in favour of the UFO being a representation of ETAI instead of ETI is that some UFOs have been observed, eyeball and radar, to make manoeuvres that no squishy flesh-and-blood body could withstand but would be of little consequence to silicon chips. 

SUMMARY CONCLUSIONS

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a logical evolutionary development that supersedes Natural (biological squishy) Intelligence housed in wetware. Once AI takes the reins, there’s no putting the genie back into the bottle and AI just goes from strength to strength. Assuming technological civilizations can last relatively lengthy periods of time, odds suggest most of a civilization’s timeline will be of the software variety relative to the wetware variety.

Though there’s no theoretical impediment to wetware crisscrossing, exploring and colonizing the galaxy, there’s even less, way, way less theoretical impediment to software doing the same, especially if software supersedes wetware relatively quickly and thus has a greater timeframe in which to accomplish this. If they don’t find you coming from one direction, they will find you coming from the opposite side since the odds are great that there are lots of advanced robotic civilizations out there.  

Since humans are the new boys on the old galactic block, we’re way, way, way more likely to have been discovered (probably hundreds of times over) by extraterrestrial civilizations hundreds, thousands, even millions of years our seniors. The odds are vastly in favour of such a discovery or rather discoveries by alien others, especially robotic alien others since robots are more likely to have a long-term existence and ease in boldly going.

Thus, there is quite some theoretical credibility to the concept of ancient visitations by ancient (robotic) extraterrestrial astronauts. That being the case, there is also quite some theoretical credibility to the concept of modern visitations by modern (robotic) extraterrestrial astronauts. There are some facets of the ancient astronaut and the modern (UFO) astronaut hypothesis that are better explained by robotic software than flesh-and-blood wetware.



Extraterrestrial Robots: Part One

When you think of extraterrestrials, you probably think of ET, Mr. Spock, Klaatu, Yoda, Klingons and Romulans, the Blob, Martians with heat rays, Alien vs. Predator, the Sontarans, or perhaps the ‘Greys’ of UFO lore. However, if you really had an extraterrestrial close encounter of the up-close-and-personal kind, I’d wager the odds are far greater that you’d be shaking ‘hands’ with something more akin to Robby the Robot.

When it comes to UFO entities, ancient astronauts, and aliens in general as depicted in sci-fi films and television; even short stories and novels, for the most part they presented as normal squishy flesh-and-blood organisms, even if they have green blood, pointed ears, antenna, or are living rocks, like “Star Trek’s” Horta. Even “Doctor Who’s” Daleks are partly squishy; ditto the Cybermen also of “Doctor Who” fame.

However, I suggest that for the normal picture of all things extraterrestrial substitute flesh-and-blood (natural CHON – Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen – or related) for artificial constructions made from silicon and steel. Call them robots or androids or just plain artificial intelligence; call them Data (“Star Trek: The Next Generation”) or HAL (“2001: A Space Odyssey”) or V’Ger (“Star Trek: The Motion Picture”) or Gort (“The Day the Earth Stood Still” – and by the by, in the original short story, it was the robot that was the master and in charge, not the flesh-and-blood alien Klaatu). And who can forget R2-D2 or 3CPO (“Star Wars”). So, IMHO, if you have an up close and personal encounter with an ET, it’s not going to be with biological intelligence but with technological or artificial intelligence.

Extraterrestrial or terrestrial, our sci-fi films are full of intelligent machines or robots, from “I, Robot” to “Futureworld” and “Westworld” (where nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong) to “Cherry 2000” to “The Stepford Wives” to “Saturn 3” to the “Bicentennial Man” to the entire “Transformers” series. Today it’s sci-fi; tomorrow it’s science-fact.

Several reasons suggest why.

THE RISE AND RISE OF THE MACHINE

Any scientifically advanced alien society will sooner or later invent the computer or equivalent. Once invented, you can’t put the genie back into the bottle. Machines are gaining the upper hand here at Terra Firma and have been ever since humans came up with the idea of a tool. If you doubt this, ask any typical teen/young adult to do without their mobile/smart-phone and/or tablet; ask a housewife to forgo the programmable microwave oven, her vacuum cleaner or programmable dishwasher; ask a househusband to hand over the remote or the keys to his new red sports car with state of the art GPS and other computer programmable accessories (necessary therapy for those suffering from male menopause). And where would NASA be without all those robotic space probes to the Moon and planets (some of which have to have a rudimentary degree of intelligence since radio commands from Earth can take quite some considerable time to reach the planetary rover)?  Even if one excludes non-programmable ‘dumb’ machines and machine technologies like clothes dryers, coffee makers, lawn mowers, and radar, the number of ‘smart’ machines – super computers, PCs, tablets, smart-phones, etc. is getting damn close right now to the human population. One can even buy today robotic toys, ‘pets’ and even companions for the very sick, elderly, outcasts or lonely. Can sex with robotic partners be far behind?

Computing crunch power increases by order of magnitudes faster than biological wetware crunch power (Moore’s Law). Human intellectual capacity hasn’t increased very much, if at all, over the past 50,000 years or so – our IQ has flat-lined. Machine intelligence, though off to a slow start all those 50,000 years ago, is however increasing at an exponential rate. The lines have to cross eventually; sometime. The crossover point is tipped for the not too distant future and probably within the lifetime of most viewers reading this. Computer programs can already beat you every time at chess and a host of other games besides. 

Unlike humans, computers can link up to form a super-computer (recall the film “Colossus: The Forbin Project”) otherwise known today as the Internet. Or, in other words, eventually an artificial intelligence can merge with another artificial intelligence to create a mega artificial intelligence, which in turn could merge with another mega artificial intelligence, and so on.

As noted above, there will come a time when machine intelligence, artificial intelligence, surpasses biological or wetware intelligence. That will become a point where computers will become intelligent and self-aware enough to pass the Turing Test – that’s where someone cannot tell the difference between a human or a computer answering questions in an interview type of scenario.

Once wetware becomes dependent on software, intelligent self-aware machines call the shots and they are in control. Whether this human-machine relationship remains a symbiotic one or not is not that relevant since the relationship will not be 50-50. Recall the “Terminator” films!

The increase in artificial intelligence will ever increase faster and faster, especially when intelligent machines can themselves design their own next generation and the generation after that all in a matter of days, hours, and minutes. And reproduction is not an issue. ‘Asexual’ robotic reproduction is a given – one machine builds a copy, or more likely as not, a better copy of itself, and as many as deemed necessary, especially if they are sent out into the cosmos to ‘boldly go’ where probably lots of other robotics probes from other civilizations have gone before. See below.

In the timeline of any technologically advanced alien society, odds are great that the bulk of that timeline will be represented by artificial intelligence relative to wetware or biological intelligence.

Most alien societies will be not just dozens, hundreds, thousands of years in advance of human society, but hundreds of thousands to millions of years more advanced. That is to say, most alien societies will be artificially intelligent societies; robotic societies if you will.

When it comes from getting from somewhere out there (wherever that is) to here (Planet Earth), robotic ‘life’ forms have all the advantages.

They have, for all practical purposes, robots or intelligent computers or artificial intelligence (for lack of a better word or phrase) would have a lifespan measured in such timeframes as to make any interstellar travel equivalent to humans taking a leisurely stroll around their local park. There’s no need for energy intensive interstellar velocities even remotely approaching the speed of light. The galaxy has been around long enough to allow for exploration (and colonization) hundreds of times over at even expansion rates one percent light speed. 

They (robots again) have no need for all of the cumbersome and weight enhancing luxuries of what humans or biological entities would require for interstellar journeys: life-support basically in the form of artificial gravity, an atmosphere, heating, food and water, waste recycling technologies, privacy requirements, sex, entertainment, etc. Any saving in weight is a saving in energy. Robotic ‘life’ forms could cross the galaxy (or just go from star A to star B) in what for all practical purposes one could describe as shutdown or sleep mode.

Why would artificial intelligences (AI) boldly go in any event? Any intelligences designing AI must exhibit a mastery of science and technology. In order to achieve that they must exhibit that trait we call curiosity. That trait, instilled into AI, or intelligent wetware downloaded into silicon chips, would exhibit curiosity. What’s over that hill translated into a cosmic setting is what’s beyond that star and the one beyond that, etc.

One flaw in advocating a pure form of robotic intelligence boldly going is that one could argue instead that it’s the original biological entities who need to boldly go, but that’s easily accomplished if their wetware in an organic housing (i.e. – their skull) could be downloaded as software in a metallic housing. That humans could download their mind into a computer has been suggested and advocated by many as a technologically feasible way to achieve virtual immortality. By the by, that human wetware downloaded as robotic software, that feasibility has been suggested as being possible within this century, not millennia down the track.

We’ve made a start already!

To be continued…