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.



Carl Sagan On UFOs

Many a well-known scientist, because they are well known, often have to venture outside of their area of expertise when say interviewed or pontificating within a broader arena of which their speciality is just a tiny niche. As such, they are on far shakier ground and thus subject to rebuttal by others who are more knowledgeable in that other part of that broader arena than the famous scientist in question. One prime example is the late astronomer Carl Sagan waxing lyrical about but out of his depth on the subject of UFOs.

The following commentaries are on a trilogy of YouTube videos featuring the late astronomer and science populariser Carl Sagan on the subject of UFOs. While these clips doesn’t limit his philosophy on the subject, anyone reading this can easily access the videos relative to finding his books or articles which would be more time intensive. His videos should reflect his points of view as expressed in other forms of media.

INTRODUCTION

With respect to UFOs, in Dr. Sagan’s favour, he admits that advanced extraterrestrial technological civilizations could be vastly more advanced than our own and therefore he doesn’t deny the possibility that extraterrestrials could have or could be visiting Earth. In fact, he’s on record, do to his interest in extraterrestrial life, that he would be delighted if UFOs = Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH), except that there is no actual evidence linking the two, or so he claims.

But against that grain that he believes that there are highly advanced technological alien civilizations out there, he frequently reinforces that lack of evidence claim that connects UFOs and those highly advanced technological alien civilizations. In that analysis he makes a cardinal scientific boo-boo (IMHO) by making one of his oft repeated and therefore trademark statements that “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence”.  UFOs that equate to alien spaceships is an extraordinary claim according to Dr. Sagan. So Dr. Sagan demands extraordinary evidence from those making such extraordinary claims.

That seems on the surface to be reasonable, but, if I claim my best friend from high school is sitting on the couch in my living room – that’s an ordinary claim. If I claim a little green ‘man’ from Mars is sitting on the couch in my living room – that, according to Dr. Sagan is an extraordinary claim. Yet, the exact same amount of evidence will confirm or refute either claim equally. That’s why it’s a really significant cardinal scientific boo-boo. The word ‘extraordinary’ is in the emotional mind of the beholder and isn’t a hardcore scientifically valid concept, unlike the word “claim”. However, Dr. Sagan frequently also uses the phrase that’s there “no compelling evidence” (i.e. that UFOs = ETH). That suggests that Dr. Sagan feels there must be at least some evidence, just not compelling evidence, which he acknowledges. In any event, Dr. Sagan should have taken note of another profound saying that “absence of evidence does not of necessity translate into evidence of absence”.

CARL SAGAN 1966 INTERVIEWED ABOUT UFOs [Interview With Walter Cronkite]:

* Commuting Issues: Dr. Sagan doesn’t apparently have any problem in accepting an alien spacecraft arriving in our local neck of the woods, say once every 10,000 years or so. That’s pretty much in keeping with the Fermi Paradox which notes that the time it takes an advanced technological civilization with interstellar space-faring capability to cross interstellar space and hence explore every nook and cranny of our galaxy is but a small fraction of the age of our galaxy. This is akin to saying that the time it takes the human species to explore every nook and cranny of Planet Earth is just a tiny fraction of the age of Planet Earth.

Okay, that’s fine. However Dr. Sagan has a decided problem with aliens from a distant star system visiting our local neck of the woods two or three times a day, which is the case according to “flying saucer cultists”. And admittedly, it’s a bit of a stretch to think a fleet of extraterrestrial UFOs would travel dozens of light years back-and-forth between say Sirius and Sol every day. Except that argument shows a high of illogical thinking in the extreme. Would an astronomer like Dr. Sagan commute back-and-forth every day between Cornell University (New York) to a telescopic site in say Chile, every day-in-and-day-out for weeks on end? - Of course not. He would undergo one long-distance hop-skip-and-jump (Cornell to Chile), set up camp at appropriate facilities cheek-by-jowl with the telescopic site and commute daily the relatively tiny distance between his camp site or hotel or other accommodation and the telescope; two or three times a day even as necessary. When finished, he would then return back to Cornell.

And thus, so logical might suggest, would aliens from Sirius, having travelled light years to Earth, set up camp (say on the Moon) and do their now short distance exploration thing for whatever duration required and when finished, return home. You have your two or three UFO visits a day without the issue of an illogical light years daily commute. 

* Contactees: For the bulk of the interview, Dr. Sagan expounded on the extreme fringe elements of the UFO phenomenon, the Contactees. Contactees are those quasi-religious cultists who claim to have been contacted and befriended by the ‘Space Brothers’, quasi-Nordic or quasi-angelic types of extraterrestrials who give forth cosmic wisdom and give rides in their Flying Saucers on tours of the solar system and their home planets like Venus to the fortunate few Contactees found to be in the good graces of said ‘Space Brothers’. It’s all very akin to New Age philosophy and spiritualism, and Dr. Sagan concludes therefore that the entire UFO field is just a quasi-religious one revolving around the myths spun by the Contactees with ultimately as much solid evidence as there is for anything mythological or religious, which is for all practical purposes, zero. It’s all psychology and theology, not physical science. Now I have little issue with Dr. Sagan giving the verbal middle finger to the extreme fringe elements within the UFO field, except that he by implication and association paints with as broad a brush as you can imagine possible the entire UFO field and UFO investigators as equally part of the lunatic fringe. There was absolutely zero mention of all the solid UFO cases that remained UFO cases after investigation by the United States Air Force and other equally hardcore no nonsense organisations and individuals. That, IMHO, is absolutely an exercise in intellectually dishonesty by focusing on the extremists and ignoring the middle of the road. It’s like bucketing the entire Republican Party via some association of theirs with the Tea Party even though many, even most Republicans aren’t part of the Tea Party movement. It’s called guilt by association. But just because Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Ted Cruz, Bryan Fischer, Cindy Jacobs, Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum and Pat Robertson (to name just a few on the extreme religious right and/or extreme political right) are a few nickels and a dime short of a dollar doesn’t mean your local congressman or local clergy, pastor, padre, priest or rabbi, etc. is.    

* Terminology: As an interesting aside, I note that Dr. Sagan used exclusively the putdown or mocking or deriding phrase “flying saucers” or “saucers” in the interview. He did not use the more neutral term “UFOs” or the equally neutral phrase “unidentified flying objects” even though these were coined way more than a decade before 1966 and were in common usage. Dr. Sagan was clearly in ridicule mode, something rather unbecoming for a professional scientist IMHO.

Dr. Sagan, were he alive today, should be absolutely and totally ashamed of that interview.

CARL SAGAN ON UFOs:

* Close Encounters of the Third Kind: One YouTube video focuses on the “Cosmos” segment that featured the Betty and Barney Hill Close Encounter of the Third Kind (CE3K). There are a few bones to pick with Dr. Sagan’s overriding commentary while a re-enactment was shown, but at least this time around he does use the term “UFOs” and the phrase “unidentified flying object”.

Firstly, he makes much of the point, several times over, that we have only their word that they saw a UFO and alien beings all close up and personal – as if a mature-aged but interracial couple (this is 1961 remember) would invent such a horrific experience drawing unnecessary attention to themselves. In fact their story didn’t become public until years later so there was no immediate cashing in on their story for financial gain (not that Dr. Sagan implied that – he didn’t. I’m just noting or saying there was no financial incentive for the Hill’s story). Dr. Sagan later notes that “their word” was also recorded while Betty and Barney Hill were separate and apart put under hypnosis and under the direction of a professional psychiatrist. That IMHO, enhances the credibility of “their word”.

Further, this was the first American case of a CE3K (one earlier foreign case was unknown outside of specialist circles) making an invention out of whole cloth by Betty and Barney Hill rather unlikely since there was no general public perception at the time that there even was such a thing as a CE3K or abductions by little grey aliens. 

Several times in this segment Dr. Sagan goes back to variations on his “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” philosophy. He then details the ‘extraordinary evidence’ for the Hill’s CE3K, which he cites as the Betty Hill ‘Star Map’, a map the aliens showed her and her alone with lines connecting some of the stars representing alien ‘trade routes’, etc. Dr. Sagan then explains in way more detail than was necessary why the ‘Star Map’ was not extraordinary evidence.

That is one point I do agree with Dr. Sagan on and that’s with respect to the degree of evidence Betty Hill’s ‘Star Map’ provides. I’m not saying the ‘Star Map’ isn’t evidence, or isn’t a bona-fide ‘artefact’ of the CE3K, just that numerous dot points drawn at random can be made to match, given the vastness of space and the numbers of stars out there, with some specific number of them, and that lines connecting the dots can be drawn in vastly numerous ways. It’s interesting, but as evidence, far less proof, it’s meaningless.

Dr. Sagan says there is no collaborating evidence (apart from the ‘Star Map’) which is not quite true since the Hill’s vehicle had strange and unaccounted for markings and magnetic anomalies which Dr. Sagan fails to mention.

* Photographs: Dr. Sagan also comments on UFOs photographs noting how many look like hubcaps and how photos can be faked. There was no mention of UFO photographs (and motion pictures) that have passed muster when examined and analysed by experts in photographic techniques, optics, etc. He does correctly suggest that just because there is an unidentified light in the sky, photographed or otherwise,  doesn’t make it automatically an alien spaceship.

CARL SAGAN TALKS ABOUT GOD, UFOs AND ROSWELL

* Roswell: Dr. Sagan’s Mistake Number One was that the stuff that fell or crashed near Roswell in July 1947 wasn’t collected by “Air Force” personnel. The Air Force hadn’t yet been established as a separate branch of the US defence establishment. In July 1947 it was still the “Army Air Force”.

Dr. Sagan swallowed hook line and sinker the idea that photographs of the Roswell debris made publicly available a day or so after the fact but roughly at the time showed the actual bona-fide debris that was collected, a comment immediately following his acknowledgement that the debris was according to the military just a weather balloon (see next entry)! My comment here is that if an intelligence officer of the then Army Air Force couldn’t tell the difference between a crashed metallic disc and the materials from a common weather balloon, well, translated into our times, such military incompetence suggests America might as well surrender to North Korea now and be done with it.   

Dr. Sagan then parrots the most recent (of several) now USAF explanations for Roswell, a top secret balloon operation to detect clandestine Soviet nuclear testing. I have to note that even if that were the case, it was the purpose of the balloon that was top secret, not the materials it was constructed out of. There was no reason not to call a spade (a balloon) a spade (a balloon) from the get-go instead of a crashed disc. There is really no wriggle room here. It’s on the public record that the Roswell debris was first described as a crashed metallic disc and not as a balloon, secret or otherwise.

* Generalities: Following on from Roswell, Dr. Sagan does quite correctly note the “U” in “UFO” stands for “unidentified” and one shouldn’t therefore leap to a conclusion that unidentified equal’s alien spaceship. He notes, also quite correctly that the bulk of UFO reports end up having prosaic explanations. But then he screws up by saying that only if you can’t identify the UFO sighting in question can you then start thinking outside of the box as in aliens and the ETH. However, Dr. Sagan doesn’t acknowledge that there are UFOs that remain UFOs after having been put under the investigative microscope, and that therefore, the extraterrestrial hypothesis is a valid one.

Of course Dr. Sagan’s love of the word “evidence” or phrase “extraordinary evidence” comes into play again and again in this YouTube segment.

As noted in the beginning, it’s interesting that another common thread in Dr. Sagan’s comments is that he sincerely believes that not only is there a strong probability of extraterrestrial life, but highly technologically advanced alien civilizations exist that are millions of years in advance of our own with technologies we can’t even begin to comprehend. Yet he just can’t seem to make that leap that therefore UFOs could be the very evidence that would validate his scientific judgment or opinion or expectation. He goes out of his way to downplay the possibility and accents the negative instead of embracing the possibility and advocating serious study of the issue.



SETI versus the Trickster Gods: Part Two

Life, the universe and everything is full of paradoxes, puzzles, anomalies, and just a host of other weirdness often seemingly deliberately designed to toss wicked curve and knuckleballs at us ever scratching-our-heads humans. SETI doesn’t seem to be immune from this mischievous wickedness. Is the cosmos, Mother Nature, just a real bitch, just naturally perverse, or is there some sort of intelligence at work here tossing us those wicked curve and knuckleballs? 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Let’s start off assuming that there currently exist extraterrestrials monitoring Planet Earth in their spaceships – call them UFOs.

Let’s further assume that these extraterrestrials have been monitoring Planet Earth for multi-thousands of years.

Let’s further assume that way back then those extraterrestrials were known collectively as the polytheistic gods.

Every culture had a mythology that had at its base a motley collection of polytheistic ‘gods’. At least one of those ‘gods’ was known as a ‘trickster god’. It might have been called Loki in Norse mythology or Raven and Coyote in Native American Indian mythology, or Hermes and Prometheus in Greek mythology or Krishna in India but tricksters they were. These trickster gods were mischievous practical jokers, but often not in a funny ‘ha-ha’ vein. In fact at one time or another most of the ‘gods’ liked to play practical jokes on their peers and on us lesser mortals too, again, not always in the funny “ha-ha – gotcha”  mode.

So, fast-forward to the present, I can well imagine some extraterrestrial(s) up there in orbit around Earth in their flying saucer(s) having a bit of fun. They’d beam down a quickie artificial radio signal, say to some radio telescope of other, and then turn off the signal. While the poor SETI radio astronomers were busy trying to verify this ‘wow’ event, the extraterrestrial(s) were laughing their antenna off at their trickster prank!

I’m sure humans aren’t the only intelligent species who like to play practical jokes and invent puzzles, paradoxes and riddles. The trickster ‘gods’ would perfectly fit the bill as cosmic jokesters.

Yet another trickster-related phenomenon could be the mystery of the LDE’s – Long Delayed Echoes. If you send off a radar pulse to the Moon say, you’d expect a return within a few seconds, not say a minute or an hour or a day later. If you did, an addition to the expected principal’s echo’s time interval, it would be a scientific anomaly of the highest order with the delayed echo having a decidedly unknown or uncertain origin. Well, such sporadic LDE’s have in fact happened starting in 1927 (through to the present) with no apparent consistency. It’s like sending a radar signal to the Moon at noon getting the expected few second echo and then another secondary echo one minute later; repeating the exercise at one pm with the principal few second delay echo received, but another unexpected delayed echo coming now five minutes later. In short, the phenomena is fleeting and non-repeatable and (shades of the ‘WOW’ signal) non-verifiable. Though various hypotheses have been suggested, none can adequately explain the sum total of LDE’s. An alien space probe (often termed a Bracewell probe) within our solar system is one of those hypotheses whereby the probe sends back a terrestrial radar/radio signal in order to attract attention to itself and therefore the existence of ETI. Of course the space probe could be a ‘manned’ spaceship, with at least one crewmember a trickster ‘god’.

Now I’m not making this LDE - sometimes termed long-delayed radar or radio echo - phenomena up. It’s well documented in the scientific literature.

But why stop there? If trickster ‘gods’ wanted to have a bit of relatively harmless fun with us humans, well perhaps they’re behind the crop circle business! Now the absurdity of ET coming across light-years of space away with a motive just to dabble in agricultural (crop circle) graffiti has been pointed out by others. I quite agree. But, if ET were already here (and agricultural graffiti wasn’t the motivation) and some ET’s have a wicked sense of humor and like to befuddle the humans, well that’s a motive!

Then too there are all those outrageous flying saucer tales spun by the ‘contactes’ mainly in the 1950’s though not confined to just that decade. Not only were they rubbished by the mainstream UFO skeptics, they were rubbished by most nuts-and-bolts UFO researchers. At best the ‘contactees’ were delusional; at worse fraudsters – though nobody was ever charged and convicted with any intent to defraud. So, are we to believe their tales of rides in flying saucers to the home abodes (like Venus and Saturn) of the angelic-like ‘Nordics’ – the Space Brothers whose cosmic message preempted those of  the 1960’s Hippies?  Probably not you’d say because the ‘contactees’ were obviously delusional or fraudsters. Or, might the ‘contactees’, and through them their readers, have been the victims of cosmic pranksters – our trickster ‘gods’? The ‘contactees’ could easily have been relatively innocent victims of a massive hoax. You can hear the tricksters now – “ha, ha – fooled you – again”.

And so not to discriminate here, there are also tricksters among the various mythologies’ fairy-folk that range from just slightly mischievous to downright malevolent. Depending on who or what you want to pin the blame on, well, there’s a vast population of the potentially guilty to point fingers at!

The Otherworlds: Other Worlds That Are Out Of This World?

If it’s plausible to speculate on the actual existence of the apparently mythical polytheistic god, by postulating that there were not really supernatural gods but flesh-and-blood ‘gods’ – technologically advanced extraterrestrials in other words – then it open up a can of worms. What about the rest of the apparently mythical menagerie like the Fairy-Folk and their realm of the Otherworld? Okay, let’s give them a fair-go too because fairies, like dragons, are nearly universal throughout all cultures – from Polynesia to Asia to the American Indians to, and of course, the Northern Europeans.  Fairies and elves (Fairy-Folk in general) equal the modern UFO ‘Greys’, or the modern UFO ‘Greys’ equate to the mythological but actual and historical Fairy-Folk, to unite past and present.

A fairly common thread in mythology is someone coming across or visiting or being taken (kidnapped even) to some sort of magical land or place inhabited by exotic, even supernatural, beings, often god-like deities and/or often the Fairy-Folk types. However, upon return to their natural world, there’s no apparent similarity between the interval of time that person thought they spent in that enchanted realm and the elapsed time between that person exiting their normal abode for enchantment-land and re-entering their natural world later on down the line. For every day or week or month that person spends in the land of enchantment, perhaps a year or more of their natural world time passes. For example, we have the mythological (or is it?) enchanted land of the Otherworld.

The ‘Other World’ (Slavic) or ‘Otherworld’ (Irish, Welsh and Celtic) in mythology tends to be a mysterious, enchanted, fabulously wealthy land, a land of fantastic pleasures, the land of (usually dispossessed*) gods, goddesses, and Fairy-Folk that is literally out of this world. It’s sort of like the Promised Land that resides towards the west, located in the oceans or beyond the seas. Note it’s the ‘Otherworld’, not the ‘underworld’ – two different concepts.

The Otherworlds (in general – they’re quite a few of them) tend to be places of rebirth where the dead get resurrected back to the land of the living. Call those rising-from-the-dead, sort of like what Jesus Christ (an extraterrestrial ‘god’) did, though he’s but one of many ‘gods’ with that talent according to mythology.

While fairies are known throughout the cultures and mythologies of the world, such as with the Maoris of New Zealand, they tend to be most associated with the Irish, Celtics and Welsh.  Further, Fairy-Folk tend to be extremely long lived (quasi-immortal, like the mythological gods), maybe even really immortal (or as close to it as makes no odds) in their Otherworld, again depicted as a land of eternal youth.

The Celtic / Irish / Welsh Otherworld is kind of like the ancient Greek Elysium (or Elysian Fields), a land of paradise also situated just somewhere to the West, but without the bit about being dead, although apparently some get to Elysium without dying. Regardless, in Elysium you’re granted immortality or become immortal, which is kind of like a rebirth, although death and rebirth were certainly Otherworld themes – part of the Otherworld environment.

My general or overall interpretation of the Otherworld(s) is that it’s a high-tech, quasi-utopian planet in another (probably not too far away in astronomical interstellar terms) solar system, inhabited by quasi-immortal, shape-shifting beings we tend to call the modern UFO abduction era ‘Greys’ or the equivalent, the historical Fairy-Folk, perhaps even home to some of the more traditional ‘gods’ associated with our mythologies.

Relevant to the case history immediately below, it’s worth noting that the Fairy-Folk (as well as the gods) have the ability to be seen only by those who they want to be seen by, just like the Norse Valkyries can only be seen by a Viking warrior about to die in battle before being escorted to (a sort of Norse Otherworld called) Valhalla. There the Viking warriors are resurrected and live to fight another day for the Norse gods like Odin in the coming final battle known as Ragnarok. This ability by Fairy-Folk and the gods and associated hangers-on to be visible to only those they wish to be visible to have a parallel in modern UFO abduction lore. Abductions can take place right under the nose of those who aren’t participants. They see and hear nothing, though by all rights they should have. The abductees usually are made unaware of the experience – some sort of mental block – though such deliberate attempts at amnesia haven’t been entirely successful, otherwise the UFO abduction phenomena or scenario wouldn’t be such a major and ongoing topic.

Case History #1: An unseen woman (obviously a Fairy-Folk or ‘goddess’ of some sort) except to an Irishman called Conla, lures him away to the Otherword in a ship of glass, a crystal coracle, never to be seen again. Now a coracle is normally a small round boat composed of wickerwork or interwoven laths covered with skin or canvas – it’s not made of glass or crystal! The ‘boat’ used by Conla in his voyage with the invisible woman to the Otherworld sounds a lot more like a shiny metallic round UFO IMHO.

Now people disappear all the time, and I’m sure that applied in our ancient past as well. A few (more probably back then than now) disappeared through some sort of natural mishap – being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most people voluntarily disappear themselves be they criminals on the lam, people dropping out of society, children running away from home, parents running away from each other and their kids and family responsibilities, political refugees, etc. That accounts for probably 99.9% of people seemingly vanishing. But there is a residue, perhaps like Conla above, of people who do vanish under rather mysterious circumstances. In the UFO/abduction area, take for example the October 1978 case of Frederick Valentich, a young pilot flying a private plane on a short trip from Melbourne to King Island under ideal flying conditions. He and his plane vanished from sight while he was in radio contact with Melbourne flight controllers, reporting a UFO hovering over his plane. His transmission ceased at that point – go figure. But to this day, neither he nor his plane has ever been seen again.

Case History #2: The Scottish Thomas of Erceldoune, otherwise known as Thomas the Rhymer was escorted by the Queen of Elphame to fairyland (Otherworld) for an apparently brief period, but upon leaving found that seven years had passed.

Case History #3: An Irishman named Oisin had a bit of a fling with the fairy princess Niamh in the mythical Irish land of Tir na nOg (Land of Youth), the land of fairies and elves (Fairy-Folk), a land of eternal youth. It was a mystical place, an island (planet?) that lay beyond the edge of any known maps (outer space perhaps?). Oisin lived with Niamh in the Otherworld for three years, but when longing for, and finally returning home to old Mother Ireland, found that he had returned 300 years later – all his friends and family were dead, surviving himself long enough to relate his tale to Saint Patrick. 

Now in any sort of modern context or interpretation, regarding those latter two case histories, that’s nothing more than Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity’s time dilation effect – the Twin Paradox. The closer you travel towards luminal (speed of light) velocities, the slower time (rate of change) ticks over for you relative to those you left behind who are not travelling at close to luminal velocities. Thus, when you return home, you’ve aged less relative to those who stayed at home.

To continue with modern parallels, I might broad-brush alien races here which may (or may not) be in cahoots or at least in some sort of association or alliance. We have the ‘chosen few’ and the ‘victims’, in modern terms called the ‘Contactees’ and the ‘Abductees’, and their associated extraterrestrials, which are… 

The modern UFO abductees are associated with the UFO ‘Greys’ which in turn might be akin to the mythological Fairy-Folk (lumped collectively together), which might have an association with the Incubi/Succubi and related types prevalent in the Middle Ages.

In the TV show “Stargate: SG-1”, the ‘Greys’ were shown to be the Asgard race, well the Norse. But that’s okay for the real Norse too had their elves or Fairy-Folk – Their Muspelheim was the land of dark elves; Svartalfeim their world of (run-of-the-mill everyday) elves.

UFO abductions (via the ‘Greys’) have Fairy-Folk kidnapping parallels. And just as Fairy-Folk have been associated with the abduction of humans (like say to Otherworld), that applies ditto to the gods who could abduct you and take you ‘upstairs’ or ‘downstairs’. You could also often be abducted for sexual purposes by the gods. Modern abductions (as in UFO abductions) have a common theme of sex. Sex with, unwilling human victims is nothing new, like in the Middle Ages. 

In the past, like around the Middle Ages (though the track record goes all the way back to Mesopotamia around 2400 BC), you had similar tales with respect to the Incubi and Succubi - legend claims that demons both male and female sexually prey on human beings, generally during the night when the victim is sleeping. Incubus/human and Succubus/human couplings are sometimes said to be able to conceive children. The half-human offspring of such unions are sometimes referred to as a cambion. There are exact parallel tales of infant hybrids between humans and the ‘Greys’ of UFO abduction fame.

The modern (1950’s) flying saucer Contactees are associated with the ‘Nordics’ otherwise call the ‘Space Brothers’ which might have an association with Jesus Christ like varieties of angelic-like ‘gods’.

The question is, where stand the standard pantheons of the polytheistic gods or extraterrestrial ‘gods’ in this scenario? IMHO, somewhere in-between the angelic-like ‘Nordics’ as physically perfect specimens and the ‘Greys’ in terms of their personalities and actions, which can be rather callous and uncaring.

In conclusion, Otherworlds as other worlds, and out of this world, is a part of mythology that’s relevant to all those interested in astrobiology, ancient astronauts and UFOs.

*Presumably by the rise of Christianity and monotheism forcing the polytheistic ‘gods’ to pack up their bags, exit stage left, and return home – to their Otherworlds.

Jesus Christ: Ancient Astronaut: Part Two

The mythological and supernatural gods, even the monotheistic God, have been stripped of their mythological and supernatural status by those proposing that they were actually ‘humanly’ flawed flesh-and-blood beings ‘who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men’ (apologies for stealing Superman’s introduction). In other words, the gods (including God) were ‘ancient astronauts’. One being not usually cited in the ‘ancient astronaut’ literature is Jesus Christ. However, I see no reason to exclude him from consideration and speculation. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Now it maybe impressive for J.C. to have miraculously healed someone of, say cancer. But, it would have been far more impressive for J.C. to have come up with an overall cure for cancer – surely within the powers of a supernatural (but maybe not an extraterrestrial) being. In any event, there’s no stunt or miracle that J.C. pulled off that you can’t also find in the annals of the various polytheistic gods. Raise the dead? That’s old hat stuff – that trick don’t impress me much anymore!

One other thought at this particular juncture comes to mind. One often repeated theme in mythology when it comes to the gods is the conflict between father and son. Sooner or later, the son grows up and ultimately poses a threat to daddy and daddy’s power. Gods were known to plot against their own kids, sometimes swallowing their newborn in order to prevent any further on down-the-track rivalry for power with their legitimate heirs. Daddy gods could be and often were jealous of their own offspring. So what about the relationship between J.C. and God?

Well our monotheistic God is indeed a jealous God by His own admission via the Ten Commandments, so it stands to reason that He’s going to be miffed that His son J.C. has stolen His limelight. That is, J.C. had achieved better P.R. overall and perhaps a greater following than God Himself commanded 2000 years ago.  However, God laughs last and best because obviously J.C. didn’t get to follow Dad home, alive at least, since he of course met his waterloo nearly 20 centuries ago. One would think that an all-powerful God could have easily saved His son from execution via The Cross, if He had wanted to. However, allowing the execution to go ahead was a really easy and guilt-free way of eliminating a future rival. Actually our extraterrestrial ‘God’ wasn’t totally without compassion for His executed son (the straw that broke the camel’s back?), so before departing He no doubt ‘beamed’ J.C.’s body aboard His Starship Heaven, and in so doing explains J.C.’s resurrection and his empty tomb!

What I’m speculating here is that God has left the building. The basis for suggesting this is that even if you take the evidence for God’s existence as revealed in the Bible at face value – burning bushes, pillars of salt, universal floods, etc. there has been nothing one can hang one’s hat on for the past several thousand years in the way of evidence for God. No interviews, no photographs, no new Commandments, no verified miracles that God and only a God could preform, total and apparent wilful ignoring of the pope’s prayers for all the sorts of things popes go on and on about (like praying for world peace – a futile gesture if ever there was one), etc. Now, if God were really not God, but ‘God’, an extraterrestrial, well Starship Heaven and crew might have left the building (Planet Earth) eons ago and sought greener pastures. I mean God’s Old Testament temper tantrums got Him nowhere; we still take His name in vain and curse Him “God damn it”; His Ten Commandments are often ignored by the great unwashed; J.C. seems to get more press coverage and positive P.R. as noted above; God has lots of competition from other deities, as well as other goods and services that rival His. I mean God can no more compete with prime time reality television and rap music and cell phones and iPods and the Internet’s MySpace and Facebook, than J.C. can now compete with consumerism and commercialism on the 25^th of December! No, I think ‘God’ (the extraterrestrial since I don’t believe the supernatural God exists) has voluntarily give humanity the ‘big finger’ and taken his bat and ball and gone home to sulk. Or perhaps ‘God’ has been involuntarily exiled. I mean if ‘God’ exists, then perhaps the ‘gods’ must also exist, and because there are many, many ‘gods’, (in this context God is outnumbered many thousands upon thousands to one) well I mean even the schoolyard bully can be sent packing with tail tucked between legs if enough of the bullied gang up and fight back. There’s no love lost between God and the gods since God ascended the Top Dog throne and Commanded that the gods be considered persona non-grata.

However, that aside, J.C.’s ‘mission’ seems to have been somewhat akin to our terrestrial missionaries who spread out to the four ‘corners’ of the globe, including way too often knocking on your door; spreading the ‘good word’ (although often that’s often different words for different missionaries). So, J.C. comes to Earth (probably via Dad’s Starship Heaven) to spread the good news about intelligent life in space, our ‘space brothers’, which was totally misinterpreted and moulded into a supernatural context by our ancient ancestors. That’s understandable – J.C.’s strutting his high tech stuff wouldn’t be comprehensible to the masses 2000+ years ago.

I’ve deliberately used the phrase ‘space brothers’ above, because I want to make a connection between J.C. as an angelic-like extraterrestrial being, and the way more recent (1950’s) contactees who claimed to have had personal contact with and messages from angelic-like extraterrestrial beings, often called by the contactees our ‘space brothers’ who have come to Earth in their ‘flying saucers*’. 

The contactees were often bucketed as total loonies back then (in the 50’s) by the mainstream, even mainstream people interested in extraterrestrial life and UFOs, including myself. That’s no less so today if someone is still foolish enough to mention them – like me here and now. But a question remains on the grounds of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, did the contactees (collectively) invent these angelic-like extraterrestrial beings with the intent of fraud; or to have some fun and hoax the public and pull the wool over their unsuspecting eyes; or perhaps they just, collectively, had some serious mental issues, say delusions of sorts. Or, perhaps the contactees were relating the truth as they thought they had experienced it, when perhaps the angelic-like extraterrestrial beings were being less than 100% honest with them for reasons best known to themselves, though one can speculate.

In the light of J.C. as a role model, passing himself off as a deity acceptable to the populace rather than as a technologically advanced extraterrestrial which might be beyond the comprehension of that same populace, so too in the 1950’s our ‘space brothers’ only told as much of their story as would be comprehensible to the relatively simple people of that era. Now truthfully, the contactees (George Adamski say as an example of the general contactee stereotype) were relatively simple folk. They weren’t university deans, or theoretical physicists, or four-star generals, or diplomatic statesmen and legal eagles and MD’s, etc. That brings up an obvious question, why would our ‘space brothers' bother with the great unwashed when they could just as easily land on the White House lawn and be addressing Congress within hours? Well, back to J.C. as template, the contactees, simple folk, were the sort of folk that – if you believe traditional Biblical J.C. mythology – J.C. would have associated with. However, the contactees were fed enough bovine fertilizer that their idealistic philosophical messages got buried along with their tall tales of trips to Venus and Saturn, etc., where the ‘space brothers’ lived. Although then again, you have that angelic-like ancient Near Eastern goddess Inanna or Inana (Ishtar) identified with the celestial planet Venus, so who knows where the ‘gods’ have actually set up camp!

Or did those 50’s idealistic ‘space brother’ philosophical messages really get buried? Perhaps our ‘space brothers’ are a bit more clued than given credit for.

I can’t help but wonder, maybe it’s no coincidence that almost immediately following the heyday of the contactees came the era of the Hippies and counterculture with their idealistic philosophical concepts (influences which have filtered down to this very day and age) of “hell no, we won’t go”; burn your draft card; bra-burning; flower-power; love; peace; brotherhood (and sisterhood); the dawning of the Age of Aquarius; free love, drop out, tune in, etc. You can’t help but feel that the Biblical J.C. as generally described, would have fitted right into that picture. J.C. might have been more at home with people who smoked pot and attended Woodstock than lunching with politicians and generals smoking cigars, drinking scotch-on-the-rocks and sanctioning the dropping of napalm and Agent Orange on Vietnam.   

As an interesting, but possibly irrelevant aside, the Visoki Dečani is a major Serbian Orthodox Christian monastery located in Kosovo. Within are various murals. On the "The Crucifixion" (of J.C.) fresco, painted in 1350, objects similar to UFOs can be found. They represent two comets that look like space ships, with two men inside of them, and are often cited by those interested in ‘ancient astronauts’. The images are certainly striking and again, Google Images can bring up the relevant pictures. You have to decide for yourself, but if not representing really real ‘ancient astronauts’, well then I’m pretty well stumped. 

So, was J.C. an ‘ancient astronaut’? Only you can be the judge. But if you interpret J.C. related events of roughly 2000 years ago firstly as having been embellished, but secondly when viewed in light of current and projected terrestrial technologies, then it’s not that hard to view J.C. not a saviour, but as an ‘ancient astronaut’ – a dead ‘astronaut’. But if J.C. really was an ‘ancient astronaut’, that just might give a whole new credibility to those 50’s contactees.

*Contactees didn’t use the term UFOs or the phrase ‘unidentified flying objects’ because to them there was nothing unidentified about them.

Aliens: The New Religion?

Aliens, as in extraterrestrials, are popular. The number of sci-fi novels, short stories, films, TV shows, factual documentaries, and the popular non-fiction literature (books and articles) must number in the multi-thousands. Are our interest and belief in, and search for, aliens, just a way of a substitution for a lack of belief in God? Do we have to believe in a higher power (advanced technology?), and if it’s not God, then extraterrestrials?

There are those who suggest that our obsession with ancient astronauts, UFOs, SETI (the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence), and the like is nothing more than a religious fever under a different disguise. Instead of looking towards the heavens for salvation and ultimate truths in God, we reject God and instead we look towards the heavens and seek out new intelligences and new civilizations to boldly lead us on the path to a universal brotherhood; aliens that in their eternal wisdom will show us the one true path and give us all the benefits of their experiences and knowledge, knowledge that which gives us warp drives, a universal truth and justice, and the golden brick road that leads towards the cosmic way (the way of the cosmos?).

Balderdash! Well, sort of. 

God, assuming a God, is about supernatural explanations for creations like the origin of our planet and of us.

God is supposedly about good vs. evil; heaven vs. hell, salvation vs. damnation, and a warm fuzzy eternal afterlife.

God is about morality (never mind the lack of His own).

We don’t look to aliens for creation mythology; the afterlife; and our moral codes.

Certainly SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) scientists do not sit in worship at their radio telescope cathedrals that great alien in the sky that they seek. Seek they do, but not to worship. However, some do go a bit over-the-top in suggesting the types of societies they are likely to find and communicate with – it’s their version of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. See below for more elaboration.

Assuming ancient astronauts, and assuming ancient astronauts were aliens, then the peoples of those ancient times obviously worshiped said ancient astronaut aliens. However, people interested in ancient astronaut aliens today hardly worship that what takes their interest. It’s just another facet of SETI (even if traditional SETI professionals would be horrified at having the study of ancient astronauts lumped in with what they do).

UFOs are slightly different kettles of fish to SETI (well, sort of) or ancient astronauts; different horses of many other colours. One such colour – at least to most people - is the cultist ‘giggle factor’ or ‘silly season’ colour. To the minority of others, well, they (cultists) believe in the ‘space brothers’ and are usually called contactees and they form various - for lack of a better phrase - New Age themed UFO societies. They do indeed worship, if not quite as gods, at least as ultra advanced supreme beings, who, for all practical purposes are as close to godlike and perfect as makes no odds. All is peace and harmony and enlightenment and utopia and perfect health and beauty and eternal rainbows in and on the worlds (including Venus and Saturn, etc.) of the ‘space brothers’. The ‘space brothers” collectively make even our most saintly of saints look like hardened criminals behind bars if not on death row!

UFO ‘space brother’ contactees or cultists often ‘preached’ their sermons of gloom and doom while offering salvation and enlightenment to the great unwashed via the messages they conveyed from those uppity-up pure-in-heart-and-mind aliens. Somehow the ‘space brothers’ offered us the one true pathway away from our destruction, often literally, as in the end of the world.

If I had some $$$ for every time the end of the world had been predicted, lets just say my bank manager and the tax office would both be pleased. I’m sure not a year goes by, probably not even a month, without someone (not always by any means UFO cultists) calling out loud and clear that ‘The sky is falling; the end is here; prepare to meet thy doom’.  For those misguided beings who take one such ever ongoing prophecy seriously, it might, I guess, be more logical to put your salvation eggs in an extraterrestrial basket carried around by UFOs. There’s way more evidence for the UFO ETH (ExtraTerrestrial Hypothesis) than for God. God hasn’t been seen (for at least 4000 years or so), tracked on radar, left physical trace marks on our environment, nor has He been filmed or photographed.

But some of these New Age Themed UFO societies can be hazardous to your health. The Heaven’s Gate group in 1997 were going to hitch a ride with this UFO concealed in the Hale-Bopp Comet as it swung around the Sun. There was one catch however - to get from terrestrial ground zero, to Hale-Bopp, you had to do yourself a fatal mischief. According to the “M*A*S*H” theme song, suicide maybe painless but it is still suicide. [There have been several other instances of mass suicide among the membership of religious cults – the Branch Davidians (Waco, Texas) and followers of Jim Jones and his People’s Temple (Guyana) – but these had nothing to do with aliens.]

Other New Age themed UFO societies are more harmless to your physical health (not sure about your mental health however), like the Unarius [Educational Foundation] Society; the Etherean Society; the Aetherius Society, and dozens more, both major and minor.

It has got to be said that bona fide UFO investigators dislike these cultists for muddying the UFO waters and turning what should be serious study into a joke within the larger general community. Riding with your racially pure white ‘space brothers’ in their UFOs to visit their home worlds (which either no one has ever heard of or which scientists have proven to be hellish enough, way beyond incapable of supporting complex life) and delivering their New Age words of cosmic truth and wisdom is going to generate a lot more column inches in the tabloids than serious investigations will in the major metropolitan press.

Fortunately, these contactees, and the New Age contactee movement were primarily a 1950’s fad. While there are those still around, they now have little real impact or influence today. However, their damage has been done, and the UFO field can not totally shake off their immense contribution to the UFO ‘silly season’ ‘giggle’ factor. 

In general however, serious UFO investigators who take the phenomena, well, seriously, most certainly do not worship whatever aliens, if any, may pilot said UFOs. I’ve never seen any evidence that UFO investigators are any different from the general population in terms of religious affiliation or church attendance.

However, part of the overall perception problem doesn’t lie solely with UFO contactees spreading the word about their ‘space brothers’. Some of the ‘aliens as the new religion’ perception must rest with some of the more serious scientist ‘alien hunters’ who seek out new intelligent life forms and their civilizations.

Some of these scientists are partly to blame for this mythology citing as a rational, caught up in their enthusiasm, for their SETI quest, that contact and communication with extraterrestrial intelligence could lead to a Golden Age where we would be given the Encyclopaedia Galactica, the cure for cancer, and pollution free energy. They would, by being their own best example, show us how to avoid war and nuclear Armageddon; give us the ways and means of achieving global peace and disarmament – double balderdash, squared (well, sort of). It’s almost a (albeit slightly tuned down) version of the messages contactees spread.

Personally, I don’t think aliens are going to lift us up by our bootstraps – we’ve got to do that, all by our lonesome. So, whether it is contactees and New Age UFO Cult societies or SETI scientists promoting the salivation-from-the-skies ideas to help justify their work, it’s, IMHO, pure pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking.

What of the general public? There is widespread interest in, and believe in the existence of, advanced extraterrestrial life. Does that mean that millions are leaving their religion; not attending church, instead setting up telescopes at home or go UFO hunting? The truth may be out there, but I seriously doubt its any threat to either organised religion or people’s supernaturally-themed religious convictions.

Okay, so balderdash (well sort of) aside, yes, there is some truth to the perception that belief in aliens can be taken as a form of religion, well quasi-religion, but I see no real evidence that this is in any way detracting from societies’ established supernatural-based religions. I imagine many individuals believe in both aliens and God. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Some people believe in God, not aliens. Others, like me, suggest aliens are infinitely more a probable viability than a supernatural creator God.

Finally, any organisation trying to claim aliens as the centrepiece of their ‘church’ is going to find getting those standard religious tax concessions rather hard to come by!

At least believers in aliens don’t have a history of imprisoning, torturing, murdering or executing, exiling, ridiculing, etc. those who have interests and beliefs more focused in a down-to-earth direction. Alien hunters don’t demand you have some of your private parts snipped off or that you have to observe various foods, dress, time of day/day of week, sexual or other personal relationship ritual do’s and don’ts. SETI scientists have no ‘thou shall or shall not’ demands; ufologists demand no animal sacrifices or attendance at Sunday weekly UFO conventions. There is no such a thing as an infallible alien bible. No hymns are sung in praise of ET. You don’t have to, every hour on the hour, face towards the constellation of Orion, bow down, and give thanks to the Chancellor of the Klingon Empire for your very existence. And nobody wears the Southern Cross on a chain around their neck.

SETI scientists don’t engage in a Holy War against UFO buffs or vice versa; ancient astronauts enthusiasts don’t hold an Inquisition against SETI scientists or vice versa; UFO buffs don’t have Crusades against those who like the idea that ancient aliens assisted a fledging human race thousands of years ago or vice versa. Alien hunters may not always be one happy family, but compared to organised religion(s).

Also, alien hunters don’t go doorknocking trying to convert the unbelievers!

Alas, alien hunters won’t get to heaven (not that there is such a place) by discovering ET, but at least they won’t go to hell (no such place either) if they don’t! There is no 11^th Commandment along the lines of ‘Thou shall seek out my other creations among the firmament’; nor a 12^th, ‘Thou shall not worship my other creations among the firmament’!

Absolutely finally, if aliens are the new religion, well, they have light years left to travel before overtaking God, and Company as a force to be reckoned with.

But wait – an afterthought. Popularity isn’t the same thing as worship or belief, but in terms of perceptions of the God vs. alien possibilities, despite church attendance, we probably spend more time interacting with aliens than with God – if one interacts with God at all. Of course unless you are a professional astrobiologist or SETI scientist or an avid ufologist or one of those UFO abductees, you probably don’t interact with real aliens (or the concept of real aliens) either. However, over the course of a period of time, we tend to be exposed more to the concept of extraterrestrials than things Biblical; more often as not through films and TV shows. Certainly the amount of shelf space in book stores and libraries (home as well as public) devoted to aliens (usually sci-fi in the main) vis-à-vis the section devoted to religion – well, more people buy and read sci-fi than study their, or any other, religion. I know the Beatles got into hot water for claiming they were more popular than JC, but I’d bet a TV series featuring aliens gets higher ratings than one featuring Christianity.

Further readings:

Curran, Douglas; In Advance of the Landing: Folk Concepts of Outer Space; Abbeville Press, New York; 1985:

Lewis, James R. (Editor); The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other Worlds; State University of New York Press, Albany, New York; 1995:

Reece, Gregory L.; UFO Religion: Inside Flying Saucer Cults and Culture; I.B. Tauris, London; 2007:

Thompson, Keith; Angels and Aliens: UFOs and the Mythic Imagination; Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts; 1991:

Exobiology: UFOs: The Contactees

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. Say ‘hi’ to those pesky UFOs. The Big Question is, have anyone in those UFOs, UFO occupants or Ufonauts, said ‘hi’ to any of us? Well, according to the willing contactees, ‘yes’. 

Angelic-like UFO related extraterrestrial beings were a staple of the (1950’s) contactees who claimed to have had personal contact with and messages from said like angelic-like extraterrestrial beings, often called by the contactees as our ‘space brothers’ who have come to Earth in their ‘flying saucers*’. 

It was unfortunate that such claims tarnished the wider subject of UFOs (as possible evidence that extraterrestrial intelligence existed). However, in some degree of historical hindsight, when perhaps tarnished then, that clearly might not be quite the case now.

The contactees were often bucketed as total loonies back then (in the 50’s) by the mainstream, even mainstream people interested in extraterrestrial life and UFOs, including myself. That’s no less so today if someone is still foolish enough to mention them – like me here and now. But a question remains on the grounds of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, did the contactees (collectively) invent these angelic-like extraterrestrial beings with the intent of fraud; or to have some fun and hoax the public and pull the wool over their unsuspecting eyes; or perhaps they just, collectively, had some serious mental issues, say delusions of sorts. Or, perhaps the contactees were relating the truth as they thought they had experienced it, when perhaps the angelic-like extraterrestrial beings were being less than 100% honest with them for reasons best known to themselves, though one can speculate.

Let’s start with the assumption that the contactees were in fact innocent and told their stories as perceived or as it seemed by them.

In the 1950’s our ‘space brothers’ only told as much of their story as would be comprehensible to the relatively simple people of that era. Now truthfully, the contactees (George Adamski say as an example of the general contactee stereotype) were relatively simple folk. They weren’t university deans, or theoretical physicists, or four-star generals, or diplomatic statesmen and legal eagles and MD’s, etc. That brings up an obvious question, why would our ‘space brothers' bother with the great unwashed when they could just as easily land on the White House lawn and be addressing Congress within hours? Well, the contactees, simple folk, were the sort of folk that our gentle hippy-like ‘space brothers’ would have associated with. However, the contactees were fed enough bovine fertilizer that their idealistic philosophical messages got buried along with their tall tales of trips to Venus and Saturn, etc., where the ‘space brothers’ lived. Although then again, you have that angelic-like ancient Near Eastern goddess Inanna or Inana (Ishtar) identified with the celestial planet Venus, so who knows where the ‘gods’ have actually set up camp!

I mean here that any advanced technological civilization can boldly go and thwart Mother Nature’s hostile environments with a bit of can-do effort. Obvious terrestrial examples show how humans can now live on the polar icecaps; under the ocean; in extremely arid regions; even on the lunar surface. So, who’s to say the ‘space brothers’ didn’t have an HQ on Venus or Saturn or the far side of the Moon? 

Now about the messages from the ‘space brothers’; dead and buried hogwash, or did those 50’s idealistic ‘space brother’ philosophical messages really get buried? Perhaps our ‘space brothers’ are a bit more clued than given credit for.

I can’t help but wonder, maybe it’s no coincidence that almost immediately following the heyday of the contactees came the era of the Hippies and counterculture with their idealistic philosophical concepts (influences which have filtered down to this very day and age) of “hell no, we won’t go”; burn your draft card; bra-burning; flower-power; love; peace; brotherhood (and sisterhood); the dawning of the Age of Aquarius; free love, drop out, tune in, etc. You can’t help but feel that the ‘space brothers’ as generally described, would have fitted right into that picture. Our ‘space brothers’ might have been more at home with people who smoked pot and attended Woodstock than lunching with politicians and generals smoking cigars, drinking scotch-on-the-rocks and sanctioning the dropping of napalm and Agent Orange on Vietnam.   

There might be an historical connection. It’s been speculated that the ‘gods’ (including ‘God’ were really ‘ancient astronauts’ – presumably that would have to include Jesus Christ. So, was J.C. an ‘ancient astronaut’? But if J.C. really was an ‘ancient astronaut’, that just might give a whole new credibility to those 50’s contactees. J.C. was a near clone of the 50’s ‘space brothers’.

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

*Contactees didn’t use the term UFOs or the phrase ‘unidentified flying objects’ because to them there was nothing unidentified about them.

Exobiology: Intelligent Life in the Solar System

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. To investigate life-in-the-Universe perhaps we should start a bit closer to home and look to our own solar system. Apart from Planet Earth, we have no absolute proof positive to date that any simple life (i.e. – microbes), exists within the confines of our solar system. But what of intelligent life?

Over the years, there have been some speculations that our solar system plays host to advanced intelligent extraterrestrial beings.

The Moon (Luna): The Hollow and Inhabited Moon Theory: Once upon a time, not all that long ago in fact, there really wasn’t a satisfactory scientific explanation for the natural origin of our satellite, Luna. All the three major theories had fatal flaws. And thus, the possibility that the Moon wasn’t natural at all, but some sort of hollow world, perhaps a UFO base and colony ship, wasn’t all that implausible to some. However, some scientific genius came up with a fourth natural explanation that satisfied all the previous scientific stumbling blocks. Thus, using Ockham’s (or Occam’s) Razor as a guide, me-thinks the hollow Moon theory has proved to be a bit, well, hollow. Pity! However, if UFOs should prove to be space vehicles, the products of alien intelligence, then it logically follows that E.T. will have explored our Moon, maybe even have a base of operations there. That might account for part of the various Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLP) witnessed over many centuries.

The Moons of Mars: For a brief while there was some serious scientific speculation that the tiny twin Martian satellites, Deimos and Phobos, were, based on their orbital characteristics, hollow, and thus artificial. Well, close-up photography has put that to rest. It was the observations that were out of kilter, not the actual orbits of the Martian moons. 

The Face on Mars: An apparently gigantic ‘human’ face was photographed by the Viking Orbiting spacecraft. Alas, however wonderful this would have proved to have been, an obvious alien artefact, it really was just a mirage – a trick of light and shadow as shown by later photographs from other orbiting Mars spacecraft. It proved to be a case of wishful thinking, like the canals of Mars were, and a case of a mountain made unnecessarily out of a molehill.

The Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) hasn’t just focused on trying to detect artificial radio transmissions from E.T. There have been searches of the asteroid belt for obvious signs of astro-engineering (like aliens mining the asteroids for the resources they contain). No luck. There’s also been searches made of the Earth-Moon Lagrangian points – those areas of space where an object can ‘hover’ indefinitely in a fixed position relative to both the Earth and the Moon – sort of like being in geostationary orbit. Anyway, searches have been done at those locations for obvious alien relics or ships, but again, no dice.

I can’t quite leave this area without making reference to that way far out sub-genre of UFO buffs from the 1950s (their heyday) – the contactees. The contactees claimed to have had personal contact with and messages from angelic-like extraterrestrial beings, often called by the contactees our ‘space brothers’ who have come to Earth in their ‘flying saucers’. 

The contactees were often bucketed as total loonies back then (in the 50’s) by the mainstream, even mainstream people interested in extraterrestrial life and UFOs. That’s no less so today if someone is still foolish enough to mention them. But a question remains on the grounds of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ - and none of the contactees were ever convicted and imprisoned for outright fraud. But did the contactees (collectively) invent these angelic-like extraterrestrial beings with the intent of fraud; or to have some fun and hoax the public and pull the wool over their unsuspecting eyes; or perhaps they just, collectively, had some serious mental issues, say delusions of sorts. Or, perhaps the contactees were relating the truth as they thought they had experienced it, when perhaps the angelic-like extraterrestrial beings were being less than 100% honest with them.

In any event, the contactees spun the tale that these angelic-like ‘space brothers’ came from the other planets and bodies in our solar system (some we haven’t even discovered yet). Our Moon, Venus, Saturn, etc. were all home to these advanced extraterrestrials. The contactees rode in the ‘space brothers’ ‘flying saucers’ and visited their planetary homes, however preposterous that seemed back even then. Although then again, you have that angelic-like ancient Near Eastern goddess Inanna or Inana (Ishtar) identified with the celestial planet Venus, so who knows where the ‘gods’ have actually set up camp! Venus might be pure fire-and-brimstone hell to us, but then too we, using our technology, can survive in environments previously lethal to us – say under the sea or on the Antarctic icecap.

Just because there’s no obvious evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence in our solar system now doesn’t mean there wasn’t in the past, or of course they could be here now, hiding in plain sight – those pesky UFO events!

UFOs: Bits and Pieces: The Contactees

With both the existence of pure theory and applied evidence supporting the plausibility of the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) – where the UFO remains a UFO after appropriate expert analysis has failed to find a more terrestrial explanation – lets look at a few snippets of the phenomena this time with another famous, or infamous, part of the UFO subculture – the Contactees.  

If the subject of UFOs brings embarrassment to the scientific community, then the subject of the contactees brings embarrassment to the UFO community! Shortly after the dawn of the modern UFO era (1947), an offshoot appeared; humans claiming to have been contacted by the extraterrestrials of those UFOs. Unfortunately, those making the claims, the contactees (as they came to be called) told such outlandish tales that not only did they discredit themselves, but took nearly the whole UFO subject down the gurgler with them. Perhaps it’s now time for a reassessment or reevaluation of the contactees: perpetrators or victims? Did the contactees knowingly try to hoodwink the public with tales of the “Space Brothers”, or did real “Space Brothers” hoodwink the contactees, at least in part, into telling on the surface rather outlandish tales?

Certain privileged humans (called ‘contactees’) have claimed to have had personal and/or mental (psychic; channeling) contact with friendly, completely human-appearing space aliens – at least claimed by their own admissions. These angelic-like UFO related extraterrestrial beings, fully human in appearance, were pretty much a stand alone staple of the (mainly 1950’s) contactees who claimed to have had personal contact with and feel-good cosmic messages from said like angelic-like extraterrestrial beings, often called by the contactees as our ‘space brothers’ who have come to Earth in their ‘flying saucers*’. Of course many contactees were further privileged to have been taken for rides in these ‘flying saucers’, and traveled into space and to other planets, usually the home abodes of their angelically-human hosts, most often Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. Well actually the ‘flying saucers’ were more akin to Star Trek’s shuttlecraft; the real alien vessels were the orbiting ‘Mother Ships’, akin the Star Trek’s NCC 1701 Enterprise, and it was these ‘Mother Ships’ that usually zipped our contactee passengers on a grand tour of our solar system and their home planet.

It was unfortunate that such claims tarnished the wider subject of UFOs (as possible evidence that extraterrestrial intelligence existed). However, in some degree of historical hindsight, when perhaps tarnished then, that clearly might not be quite the case now.

The contactees were often bucketed as total loonies back then (in the 50’s) by the mainstream, even mainstream people interested in extraterrestrial life and UFOs, including myself. That’s no less so today if someone is still foolish enough to mention them – like me here and now. But a question remains on the grounds of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, did the contactees (collectively) invent these angelic-like extraterrestrial beings with the intent of fraud; or to have some fun and hoax the public and pull the wool over their unsuspecting eyes; or perhaps they just, collectively, had some serious mental issues, say delusions of sorts. Or, perhaps the contactees were relating the truth as they thought they had experienced it, when perhaps the angelic-like extraterrestrial beings were being less than 100% honest with them for reasons best known to themselves, though one can speculate.

Let’s start with the assumption that the contactees were in fact innocent and told their stories as perceived or as it seemed by them.

In the 1950’s our ‘space brothers’ only told as much of their story as would be comprehensible to the relatively simple people of that era. Now truthfully, the contactees (George Adamski say as an example of the general contactee stereotype) were relatively simple folk. They weren’t university deans, or theoretical physicists, or four-star generals, or diplomatic statesmen and legal eagles and MD’s, etc. That brings up an obvious question, why would our ‘space brothers' bother with the great unwashed when they could just as easily land on the White House lawn and be addressing Congress within hours? Well, the contactees, simple folk, were the sort of folk that our gentle hippy-like ‘space brothers’ would have associated with. However, the contactees were fed enough bovine fertilizer that their idealistic philosophical messages got buried along with their tall tales of trips to Venus and Saturn, etc., where the ‘space brothers’ lived. Although then again, you have that angelic-like ancient Near Eastern goddess Inanna or Inana (Ishtar) identified with the celestial planet Venus, so who knows where the ‘gods’ have actually set up camp!

I mean here that any advanced technological civilization can boldly go and thwart Mother Nature’s hostile environments with a bit of can-do effort. Obvious terrestrial examples show how humans can now live on the polar icecaps; under the ocean; in extremely arid regions; even on the lunar surface. So, who’s to say the ‘space brothers’ didn’t have an HQ on Venus or Saturn or the far side of the Moon? 

Now about the messages from the ‘space brothers’; dead and buried hogwash, or did those 50’s idealistic ‘space brother’ philosophical messages really get buried? Perhaps our ‘space brothers’ are a bit more clued than given credit for.

I can’t help but wonder, maybe it’s no coincidence that almost immediately following the heyday of the contactees came the era of the Hippies and counterculture with their idealistic philosophical concepts (influences which have filtered down to this very day and age) of “hell no, we won’t go”; burn your draft card; bra-burning; flower-power; love; peace; brotherhood (and sisterhood); the dawning of the Age of Aquarius; free love, drop out, tune in, etc. You can’t help but feel that the ‘space brothers’ as generally described, would have fitted right into that picture. Our ‘space brothers’ might have been more at home with people who smoked pot and attended Woodstock than lunching with politicians and generals smoking cigars, drinking scotch-on-the-rocks and sanctioning the dropping of napalm and Agent Orange on Vietnam.   

There might be an historical connection. It’s been speculated that the ‘gods’ (including ‘God’ were really ‘ancient astronauts’ – presumably that would have to include Jesus Christ. So, was J.C. an ‘ancient astronaut’? But if J.C. really was an ‘ancient astronaut’, that just might give a whole new credibility to those 50’s contactees. J.C. was a near clone of the 50’s ‘space brothers’.

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

*Contactees didn’t use the term UFOs or the phrase ‘unidentified flying objects’ because to them there was nothing unidentified about them.