Roswell: ET vs. Project Mogul: Part Three

Here are some further thoughts about that July 1947 Roswell “flying saucer” that crashed or crashed-landed outside of that town, with some additional emphasis on the prosaic Project Mogul explanation that explains all – not.

Continued from Part Two.

Other Stuff: Reports and scuttlebutt of a second crash and crash site and alien bodies, while interesting, are actually surplus to needs and contributes nothing further to evidence provided by the Roswell incident that extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) exists, or at least existed in July 1947. They just muddy the waters with extraneous information. A second crash site and alien bodies go beyond the information given in the original Lt. Haut press release which is the actual smoking gun document. In fact given the history of deliberate misinformation and disinformation being fed to all and sundry by the powers-that-be, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if information regarding a second crash site and alien bodies were deliberate misinformation and disinformation feeds from those powers-that-be to help discredit the original Roswell story by tainting the entire topic as so over-the-top as to have it lose all credibility in the eyes of all and sundry. 

Some sceptics might argue that the prime document doesn’t exist since all copies of Haut’s press release were ordered to be confiscated, or otherwise collected back from which they had been distributed. That retrieval done, the offending document copies were then destroyed. However, the original Roswell information didn’t get into the media (local, national and international), both in print and audio (recording of radio broadcasts exist) by magic. The media didn’t dream this up as an April Fools Day prank. The press release existed; Colonel Blanchard ordered it; Lt. Haut wrote it up on information provided by Colonel Blanchard and then hand-carried and delivered it to the two local Roswell newspaper offices and the two radio stations where it took off with a life of its own. You can’t get the worms back into the can once the can is opened (or the cat back into the bag).

Museum Pieces: If the Roswell debris were just the remains of a weather balloon, or the now declassified remains of a Project Mogul balloon, there’s absolutely no reason why the powers-that-be shouldn’t put those actual remains on display in a museum, say the Air Force Museum or the Air & Space Museum. It would make a really popular attraction given all the publicity Roswell has generated. I’ve never seen any documentation that the debris was ever disposed of in the rubbish bin. It still should exist.

However, if the Roswell debris were actually the remains of extraterrestrial technology then it should be obvious to Blind Freddy why it’s not on public display. Since it’s not on public display, well you can come to your own conclusion as to why.

I bring up the topic of museums because it has been asked of me what definitive piece of UFO evidence would I see fit to put into a museum as an exhibit and evidence, even proof of extraterrestrial visitations for the whole wide world to see. As to what I would put in the Powerhouse Museum, or the Air Force Museum or the Air & Space Museum, etc. it would be the debris from the Roswell incident – if I had it. I don’t, but the American Government does, so why don’t you folks out there kindly ask the powers-that-be to place it there – assuming they are through with it of course. I bet if they did it wouldn’t be anything that originated from Project Mogul.

Scepticism & Double Standards: Can anyone show me the evidence that Roswell actually is (not might be) explainable by Project Mogul. No one can do it. People who accept the Project Mogul explanation have to rely 100% on the say-so of others. They (Roswell sceptics) appear to have swallowed hook, line and sinker the (third version of the) official Roswell explanation without raising a single sceptical eyebrow. They just have to (and they apparently do) take officialdom’s word for it. Why - obviously because they are so biased against Roswell having any ETI connection (they say there’s no evidence that Roswell = ET) that any alternative explanation no matter how absurd it is, is preferable even though that explanation also lacks any evidence. Professional sceptics tend to be old enough and worldly enough not to be so naïve as to believe that the powers-that-be (and that’s ANY administration of any country) always tells people – including Roswell sceptics - the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Might I cite the U-2; the Pentagon Papers; the recent NSA eavesdropping issue, etc. as just a few case histories where the powers-that-be didn’t give a stuff about anyone’s right to know.

There seems to be a philosophy regarding Roswell that it is perfectly acceptable to be sceptical in the extreme when it comes to an ET explanation, yet exhibit not one sceptical body bone or issue one sceptical peep when it comes to alternative explanations given by officialdom. They just put their otherwise sceptical brains into neutral gear. Scepticism, even for the professional sceptics, flies out the window when something comes along that is compatible with or reinforces whatever philosophical worldview that person has.  

Of course in other times and places skeptics no doubt would have substituted UFOs for something like ‘can black holes actually and not just theoretically exist’ (“no”) or debated against those who advocated the existence of atoms or of antimatter or of neutrinos (all once very theoretical and iffy). In biology would skeptics have argued against the survival of the coelacanth into the present or in archaeology against the reality of Troy? Probably yes. Why? Guess what? Scientists are human beings with deeply entrenched worldviews just like you or me. They have vested interests. They can’t for years and years publicly say X and then suddenly turn around and say not-X. They are subjected to peer-pressure. To get grant money they have to tow the establishment line. Surely most of you have heard of the philosophy that science only really advances because the old farts finally die off making room for the next generation with different worldviews, who in turn become the entrenched old farts who eventually get replaced by another generation, etc.  

One Final Puzzlement: One thing puzzles me in a funny-peculiar not funny-ha-ha way.  It’s a discrepancy I’ve never seen anyone else pick up on. If you read the original Roswell AAF press release or read the first accounts in the media (say the Roswell Daily Record, 8 July 1947) you will get phrases like “flying saucer”; “flying disk”; “disk was recovered”; “found the instrument”; “recovered the disk”; “inspected the instrument”; “saucer’s construction, or it’s appearance”; “gain possession of a disk”; “the flying object landed”; “the rancher stored the disk”; “the disk was picked up at the rancher’s home”, etc.  Note that the words “crashed” or “crashed landed”; “debris”; “wreckage”; “pieces”, etc. never appear. That’s odd and I’m not sure what to make of it since how do you ascertain something is a “disk” if everything is in bits and pieces. It may have absolutely no significance at all.

Summary:

The Roswell incident is on the public record and has ample documentation.

You have numerous prime adult witnesses that handled the Roswell debris.

You have multi secondary witnesses (involved but who didn’t see or handle the debris).

No sceptic has ever demonstrated that any witness has been anything other than a solid citizen – many being officers in the US Army Air Force.

No sceptic, not even the USAF can say with 100% assurance and give absolute proof that a non-extraterrestrial explanation is the be-all-and-end-all of the Roswell case whether that prosaic explanation is a weather balloon or a Project Mogul balloon. 

The essential question is, IMHO, if Roswell really happened the way it did according to Brazel, Blanchard, Marcel, Haut, etc., if Roswell has a bona fide extraterrestrial explanation, what are the implications?

Conclusion: Roswell = Mogul? Mogul is a nonsense answer. No matter how you slice and dice it, it’s still balloon material. If you find one scrap of balloon material or stuff that pretty much gives the game away, no matter what else is attached. Keep in mind it was the purpose of the mission, not the materials that was classified. I repeat, if senior military personnel cannot distinguish balloon debris from a crashed metallic disc, something is screwy somewhere. It’s like an astronomer not being able to distinguish the sun from the moon – pretty implausible. Further, why did the powers-that-be wait until 1995 to come out with the Mogul theory as the ultimate Roswell explanation? You can’t possibly tell me that the project was only declassified some fifty years after the fact when its usefulness and purpose was worthless the minute the U-2 and then orbiting satellites started monitoring the Soviet Union. No, Mogul is pure bovine fertilizer; deliberate misinformation.



Roswell: ET vs. Project Mogul: Part Two

Here are some further thoughts about that July 1947 Roswell “flying saucer” that crashed or crashed-landed outside of that town, with some additional emphasis on the prosaic Project Mogul explanation that explains all – not.

Continued from Part One.

The General Ramey Photo-Op: The whole photo-op that was staged in Forth Worth was clearly to reinforce the new official line that Roswell wreckage was just balloon material, and any book about Roswell will contain one or more of the official photographs taken by both civilian photographers and a base photographer. As far as the photographers were concerned, it was an all look but don’t touch quickie session – in and out ASAP. Present were of course Brigadier General Roger Ramey; Ramey’s Chief-of-Staff Colonel Thomas J. DuBose; Major Jesse Marcel (who wasn’t allowed to say one word; just pose and smile for the camera and grin and bear the embarrassment); and Warrant Officer Irving Newton, the base weather officer whose presence was just to confirm for the record that the wreckage displayed was that from a weather balloon.

It should have been sufficient IMHO for General Ramey to just issue a press statement downplaying the Roswell event with the weather balloon cover-up, or cover story, and ordering all other relevant RAAF personnel to back up that weather balloon tale if asked (an order which of course General Ramey, well, so ordered), and thus letting the story quickly fade away as having been explained by something mundane.

Instead, General Ramey goes over-the-top at far greater expense (and exposure) to strut the public stage and demonstrate the (apparent) reality of the weather balloon story or explanation with actual weather balloon materials and actual photographic ‘evidence’ of same. Of course you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that what was photographed in General Ramey’s office may not had any connection whatever with the actual Roswell debris. The photo-op wasn’t really evidence since there was ample opportunity to substitute real weather balloon debris for the Roswell wreckage before-the-fact. You don’t have to watch too many whodunits to realise the numerous ways of the slight-of-hand.

But that exposure wasn’t all positive. If Ramey had not of staged that photo-op there would be a lot less meat on the Roswell bone since it has given the pro-Roswell faction a whole lot of ammo, a whole separate avenue to attack from. Obviously once out of the clutches of the military, Marcel denied that what was photographed in Ramey’s office had anything to do with what he and others found outside of Roswell. It was chalk and cheese. Independent verification for the deception comes from Ramey’s former Chief-of-Staff, Colonel DuBose (who retired as a Brigadier General).  In a signed affidavit (16 September 1991 – after he retired from the military) DuBose stated “The material shown in the photographs taken in Gen. Ramey’s office was a weather balloon. The weather balloon explanation for the [Roswell] material was a cover story to divert the attention of the press.” It’s on the public record.

Despite claims to the contrary, if you go with the philosophy that if you weren’t someone who saw and handled the debris then you weren’t a primary witness, then the photographs taken of the ‘wreckage’ in General Ramey’s office is not primary evidence for Roswell = balloon given the chance for substitution of debris materials to conform to the new official ‘weather balloon’ line.

Transport of Roswell Debris: How Much Stuff Was Removed?

For starters, the amount of Roswell material or wreckage according to the original discoverer W. W. “Mac” Brazel, confirmed by Major Jesse Marcel, well Brazel noted that the debris field was about 200 yards wide and 3/4ths of a mile long (or some 240,000 square yards), the entirety of that massive area covered with this stuff that Brazel couldn’t identify and he had previously found a couple of downed weather balloons on the property (of which he was the foreman, not the owner). That Brazel couldn’t identify the stuff was the stimulus that set in train the chain of events that led to him calling the civilian authorise (local law enforcement) hence they in turn alerting the military at the nearby RAAF. And the rest as they say is history! A Mogul balloon train is at best only 600 feet long – assuming that’s the reality behind Roswell. Alas, that’s not hardly sufficient quantity of stuff to account for the size of the debris field as related by Brazel. Okay, once the debris was discovered and collected, it was transported.   

To Fort Worth: A B-29 was half-loaded or half-filled with crated Roswell wreckage, along with a separate satchel for General Ramey and along with Major Marcel transported to Fort Worth AAF for that General Ramey photo-op. A half-filled B-29 amounts to an awful lot of stuff but that’s what Major Marcel claimed to be the case, and he was there. Apparently then the Roswell material was reloaded onto a B-25 and hence continued on to Wright Field with the bulk of the Roswell cargo. Marcel returned to RAAF the following day.

To Wright Field: Both an FBI-telex (evening of 8 July 1947) and statements by Brigadier General Arthur Exon who was stationed at Wright Field in July 1947 and later became the base CO, an officer in a position to know what went on, confirmed that Roswell debris was sent to Wright Field for analysis. In fairness of course neither the FBI nor General Exon actually examined the debris at Wright Field (because of that military and otherwise official policy of ‘need to know’ officially called compartmentation). The flight from RAAF to Wright Field was via a C-54 piloted by Captain Oliver W. “Pappy” Henderson, which, to be honest, doesn’t make Henderson either an actual eyewitness to the debris itself (that ‘need to know’ again). Regarding your need to know, even if you have a need to know you are only given as much knowledge as you need to have in order to do your job – no more, no less. Most people albeit in the loop rarely see the Big Picture.

To Washington, D.C.: That Roswell debris was forwarded onto Washington, D.C. was confirmed by Ramey’s Chief-of-Staff, Thomas DuBose, in DuBose’s affidavit referred to above. DuBose stated that “The entire operation was conducted under the strictest secrecy.” The orders to immediately ship Roswell debris via Fort Worth to Andrews Air Field (Washington, D.C.) was given by the Deputy Commander of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), Major General Clements McMullen, stationed at the Pentagon. General McMullen’s orders were given directly to Colonel Blanchard at Roswell and also given directly to Colonel Thomas DuBose (Chief-of-Staff to General Ramey) at Fort Worth AAF according to DuBose himself in that 16 September 1991 signed affidavit.  

To Los Alamos: On 9 July 1947 three C-54’s carried Roswell debris from RAAF to Los Alamos, New Mexico via Kirtland Field.

So we have Roswell debris material distributed between four separate locations via six separate military aircraft – that’s a lot of aircraft, especially four C-54’s, to transport the remains of one balloon, even a Mogul balloon. Not even the Roswell sceptics deny that Roswell wreckage was sent to Fort Worth AAF, Wright Field and Washington, D.C. which is all very mysterious if the Roswell wreckage was just run-of-the-mill terrestrial-in-origin balloon stuff.

Why Was Roswell Stuff Transported? We know the Roswell debris was ordered removed from the RAAF premises and ordered transported to Fort Worth Army Air Field; Wright Field (now Wright-Patterson AFB); Los Alamos and Washington, D.C. Why? If the debris material(s) were routine terrestrial balloon and foil type stuff, what was the point? Okay, a satchel full of the material went to General Ramey at Fort Worth for his photo-op PR stunt instead of Ramey going to Roswell AAF (rank has its privileges), but why Wright Field; Los Alamos and Washington, DC?  Of course if the debris wasn’t routine terrestrial stuff but potentially out-of-this-world stuff, well, mystery solved. Wright Field and Los Alamos have the technical labs for out-of-this-world analysis; Washington, D.C. is of course where officialdom has its HQ.  

Timeline Discrepancies: A great deal has been made of some timeline discrepancies given by relevant Roswell witnesses in testimony. I’m not too worried about these slight discrepancies in recollections that constitute a definitive timeline. The Roswell events only seriously resurfaced in 1980, some 33 years after the fact and from those relatively few witnesses still alive. Again, all that testimony was at least 33 years old or greater, often much greater (it’s not always easy to track down witnesses so long after-the-fact). Let’s just say that I’d be hard pressed to recall exact ordering of important/unique events in my life 33 years on. I’d be sure to be slightly off when placing specifics into a broader context.

While on all things fodder for the sceptics, while any one or two facets regarding the Roswell incident can be debated and disputed (other than Roswell personnel confusing balloon material for a crashed disk that’s just too far beyond the pale so that point is not up for debate), there’s collectively just too many bits and pieces when taken together that the total package can not be dismissed or disputed. One quickly begins to butt heads against pure improbability that all facets are pure bovine fertilizer.

Was There A Roswell Cover-Up? Apart from the General Ramey photo-op (which we now know for certain was a cover-up since Roswell has now been ‘explained away’ as a Project Mogul balloon), and because of public pressure for answers to the bona fides behind the July 1947 Roswell event, the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the US Congress, requested all relevant government records and documentation, especially those RAAF records, only to find and so reported in their July 1995 findings that all RAAF administrative records from March 1945 through December 1949 had been inexplicably destroyed, as had been outgoing messages from October 1946 through December 1949. These were documents that by law should not have been destroyed, but from the point of view of officialdom, how very bloody convenient they were. And by the way, the GAO document is a publicly available document which any Roswell sceptic can check. It goes under the title Results of a Search for Records Concerning the 1947 Crash Near Roswell, New Mexico.     

Eyewitness Testimony: UFO skeptics always hammer home the point that eyewitness testimony is about as reliable as a $7 bill. While total rubbishing any and all eyewitness testimony is more than just a slight exaggeration on the part of skeptics that is a valid point as any courtroom lawyer will affirm. In any event, eyewitness testimony regarding points of lights in the sky with no frames of reference is one thing – eyewitness testimony about physical stuff you are actually holding in your hand (like Roswell’s debris) is quite a different matter.

The Nature of the Debris: The eyewitness description of the found and recovered Roswell wreckage doesn’t seem to be at face value something that’s very alien and exotic, not that we collectively have a lot of firsthand experience dealing with alien stuff.

The debris seems to sort itself into three categories. There’s aluminium foil-like stuff that is frequently noted as two-sided; foil on one side; rubberish or leatherish on the other. The anomaly is that this ‘foil’ was extremely strong; it couldn’t be torn or cut; it wouldn’t burn; it wouldn’t permanently crush but would return to its original shape. Then there’s ‘I-beams’ or bamboo-like or balsawood-like sticks. The anomaly is that these had strange hieroglyphic-like or petroglyph-like. Lastly there was a brittle plastic-like stuff, like Bakelite. It doesn’t seem anomalous. All the three categories were lightweight.

Misidentification: There has got to have been tens of thousands of large balloons (weather, secret and other) that have been launched and come back down to terra firma and been found by your average Joe & Mary Citizen, yet there’s only been one Roswell type event where a balloon was allegedly misidentified as a “flying saucer” by not just one but a potful of military officers from the US Army Air Force. If Joe & Mary Citizen don’t ever misidentify downed balloon material for alien spaceships, it’s pretty absurd that military offices in the US AAF would. As we have read from statements by those who actually handled the stuff, there was no chance of a misidentification of the Roswell stuff for balloon materials.

To be continued.



Roswell: ET vs. Project Mogul: Part One

UFO sceptics in general and Roswell sceptics in particular have embraced with relish, or was that swallowed hook, line and sinker, the most recent explanation for the July 1947 Roswell, New Mexico UFO (only it wasn’t called a UFO back then) incident. The Roswell debris was just the remains of a Project Mogul balloon train. However, the Mogul balloon theory suffers equally the faults of the previous weather balloon explanation. 

Here are some further thoughts about that July 1947 Roswell “flying saucer” that crashed or crashed-landed outside of that town, with some additional emphasis on the prosaic Project Mogul explanation that explains all – not.

Firstly, I consider any bona-fide UFO that remains a UFO after investigation by those qualified to do so as bona-fide evidence that something extraordinary – and therefore of scientific interest – is going on. That’s even more the case when the numbers mount up into the hundreds, even thousands worldwide. Every bona-fide UFO case, every solid unknown, is a “WOW” event in the same way that that “WOW” event in SETI circles is cited again and again as something extraordinary.

Secondly, when it comes to UFO incidents, the earlier the better in order to minimize all of the cultural and social related stuff that now goes with the subject and taints it.

There are dozens of excellent bona-fide cases from 1947 through 1952 (especially Washington, DC – July 1952). After that, things get potentially more tainted but there are still lots of good unknowns.

Here’s a case and quote from the Condon Report that skeptics put so much stock in – that Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects - regarding the McMinnville, Oregon UFO photographs taken 11 May 1950.

“This is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric, psychological, and physical appear to be consistent with the assertion  that an extraordinary flying object , silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight of two witnesses.”

Then we have footage from the two classic UFO films from Great Falls, Montana (August 1950) and Tremonton, Utah (July 1952) both of which to this very day still carry the tag “unidentified”. One could go one and on with UFO “WOW” cases.

But if one wants THE case, let’s start with Roswell.  

So, even though the following case is ‘explained’, the very fact that it happened so early on in UFO lore and the major participants are no nonsense military officers, and there’s material on the public record that cannot be dismissed or disputed, I’d have to go with Roswell as the cream of the crop (I can see readers rolling their eyes up now).

Roswell Is Boring: Apparently Roswell is not regarded by most of the UFO experts in America as an interesting case. Roswell seems to be considered a very weak case by UFO investigators.  Some prefer this case (like Rendlesham Forest) or that case or some other case as the bees-knees of ufology but not Roswell. However if Roswell is such an uninteresting case, why are more books devoted to that case than any other UFO case? I bet if I Google “Roswell” vs. “Rendlesham Forest” I’d get way more hits on the former! In any event, Roswell is the only bona-fide UFO case I know of where the US military admitted publicly it was in possession of an actual “flying saucer” (and they have been back-pedalling furiously ever since). That alone, IMHO, makes it unique and therefore highly interesting.

Relevant Roswell Personnel: The buck obviously stops with Colonel Blanchard, the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) CO, who dictated and ordered the issuing of the initial Roswell press release. According to the sceptical Roswell UFO tome authored by Kal K. Korff, The Roswell UFO Crash: What They Don’t Want You To Know [Prometheus Books, Amherst, N.Y. 1997; p.28], “Ramey telephones Colonel Blanchard and conveys to him both General [Lt. Gen Hoyt S.] Vandenburg’s and his own ‘extreme displeasure’ over the fact that a press release was issued without proper authority.” However, Colonel Blanchard was never officially reprimanded, and eventually rose to the rank of a full four-star general in the USAF. That Colonel Blanchard was not reprimanded is puzzling since it was because of his ‘mistake’ that he created a major headache for officialdom, one which persists down to this very day. The obvious question was whether this rise in rank and lack of a reprimand was payment for Blanchard to keep his mouth shut over the reality of the Roswell event. It has been reported (Korff – p.49) that Mrs. Blanchard has allegedly stated that following the death of her husband that he had believed the Roswell debris had an out of this world origin, for what that’s worth.

Former Lt. Walter Haut, the RAAF PIO Officer in July 1947 who wrote up (under the direction and orders of Colonel Blanchard) that press release, stated in a signed affidavit dated 14 May 1993 that “there is no chance that he [Colonel Blanchard] would have mistaken it [“a flying saucer or parts thereof”] for a weather balloon. Neither is there any chance that Major Marcel would have been mistaken.” Haut also stated that “In 1980, Jesse Marcel told me that the material photographed in Gen. Ramey’s office was not the material he recovered.” [See also The General Ramey Photo-op section below.] Haut continued that “I am convinced that the material recovered was some type of craft from outer space.”

W.W. ‘Mac’ Brazel, who discovered the wreckage is on record (Roswell Daily Record, 9 July 1947) as stating that he had previously discovered two downed balloons (presumably weather) on the property and that this new debris did not correspond to that type of artefact.

The 1995 USAF Report: As a result of public and congressional pressure, the USAF reopened the Roswell case in about 1994, publishing their findings in their 1995 document The Roswell Report: Fact vs. Fiction in the New Mexico Desert. There’s a whole potful of points to be made with respect to this document and findings, which in brief that Roswell is explainable by a downed Project Mogul balloon.

Point One: The USAF searched internally for relevant documents or records regarding Roswell. They found nothing unusual had occurred involving extraterrestrial materials or alien bodies that was officially documented. Of course that search only could have extended to unclassified or declassified records. And that’s the whole crux of the matter. If Roswell had something to do with or involved extraterrestrial materials and/or alien bodies, and that had been documented, that material and documents would still be classified and hence not be available to those doing this reinvestigation for official historical records. Thus, their findings via a document search that the Roswell case as far as ET was concerned was lacking documentation hence validity and thus incorrect resulted in their ‘final word’ on the matter, a ‘case closed’ conclusion, is bogus. Even if the compilers of this 1995 report knew about classified Roswell documentation involving ET, they couldn’t say so in an unclassified public report.

Point Two: Their search for documentation was confined to what records the USAF had under their control. Omitted from the search were documents that other agencies might have held, including the US Army. That’s a major flaw in that in July 1947 there was no USAF, only the US Army Air Force.    

Point Three: A big deal was made over the fact that there appeared to be no nationwide heightened military alert or operation or security activity during that immediate post recovery interval. There was no higher tempo of operational activity or messages going to and fro, etc. which the report says is highly suggestive that nothing unusual was going on. Well, why would there be, heightened activity that is. We’re not talking “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers” or “Independence Day” here. We’re talking wreckage from just one location here, not nationwide invasion by Bug-Eyed Monsters with heat rays and ray guns a-blazing. Was the military going to declare war on ET based on some alien debris?

Point Four: The only thing they found were records about a then ultra Top Secret Priority 1A project called Mogul, instrumentation lofted high into the atmosphere by balloons to detect above ground Soviet nuclear testing. These flights were launched from New Mexico in June and July of 1947. Ah! What goes up must come down; two plus two equals four; Roswell case solved. Roswell wasn’t a weather balloon; that WAS a cover-up story. Roswell was a Mogul balloon! At least the USAF admitted that something out of the ordinary happened.

                                                                                                         

Point Five: The 1995 USAF report did state or conclude was Roswell was not. Roswell was not an airplane crash. Roswell was not a missile crash. Roswell was not a nuclear accident. Roswell was not an extraterrestrial craft. Of course they would say that, even truthfully if no unclassified or declassified documents said otherwise – it’s all that classified stuff that might let that Roswell cat out of the Roswell bag.

Point Six: We finally get around to the official conclusions which in a quickie version amounts to a whopping big MAYBE when it comes to Mogul. Let’s quote the quotes and see where the chips fall. “The Air Force research did not locate or develop any information that the ‘Roswell Incident’ was a UFO event” [Obviously for reasons already gone into]. “All available official materials, although they do not directly address Roswell per se [their italics], indicate that the most likely source of the wreckage recovered from the Brazel Ranch [sic – actually the Foster Ranch; Brazel was just the foreman, not the owner] was from one of the Project Mogul balloon trains.” [Reference: page 30 of the 1995 USAF report.] Of course there was no identification of exactly which one of those Mogul balloon trains.

So in other words, no established causality was found between Mogul and Roswell, its all conjecture. So, no cause and effect was established and Mogul is concluded to be only a “most likely source”. That’s hardly proof beyond reasonable doubt. However, if one turns back to page 22 of the 1995 USAF report, you’re led to believe under the section “WHAT THE ‘ROSWELL INCIDENT’ WAS” was that Mogul was the be-all-and-end-all of the matter. It wasn’t they; it isn’t now.  

Point Seven: I can’t really accuse the USAF of an initial cover-up as most pro-Roswell buffs do since their cover-up orders would have come from even higher authority. I can’t say this 1995 report is a cover-up since for reasons noted above the report, to drive the point home, could not reveal the existence of anything that was still classified.

 Lost and Found: Isn’t it absolutely amazing that the team responsible for operating (launching and recovering) those top secret Project Mogul balloon flights lost one somewhere outside of Roswell, N.M. That’s rather gross, in fact absolute negligence IMHO. And apparently they made no effort to recover their lost top secret property from the RAAF immediately the Roswell incident broke out in the press. In fairness, some of the Mogul flights were “service flights or test flights and thus the powers-that-be might have been more nonchalant about them and losing one. Now Mogul balloons were tagged with whom to contact (University of New York) if found, along with a reward offered and reimbursement for time and trouble taken. No doubt the powers-that-be thought that there was no real chance Joe & Mary Citizen would have figured out the real top secret purpose of the stuff. To Joe & Mary Citizen it would have just been a weather balloon. That misidentification was reinforced on the “to be contacted” tag which clearly noted (that misinformation) that this was “weather equipment”. So, with all that Roswell debris recovered, the RAAF personnel never did find that “please contact if found” Mogul tag, logical if the debris wasn’t from a Mogul balloon flight.

If the Roswell debris collected by the RAAF [Roswell Army Air Field] personnel proved not to be the property of the RAAF they seemed not to have gone through any official channels to find out the proper owners (and maybe get financial compensation for cleaning up their mess). Why’s that? Of course if the materials were from ‘out of this world’ that might explain that.

Here’s a contradiction. Even the 1995 USAF report on Roswell stated it was only probable that a Project Mogul balloon was the cause of the Roswell incident, yet the Roswell debris was in the hands of the AAF (now USAF) and should have been easily identified as the debris from the missing (lost) Mogul flight and therefore there should have been no probability involved in the Roswell explanation, rather instead a certainty.

To be continued.



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…



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.



Neil DeGrasse Tyson on UFOs: Some Comments

Sooner or later, nearly every astronomer, especially if they have a relatively high public profile, has got to face the UFO issue and expound upon whether there is any scientific credibility to the idea that some UFOs are bona-fide alien spacecraft. One such astronomer, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson of the Hayden Planetarium, New York City, has indeed made his point of view known. He doesn’t deny the theoretical possibility, but that is about as far as the credibility goes. I take issue with some of his opinions as this essay details.

When it comes to the emotive subject of UFOs (as in alien spacecraft), scientists just don’t want to know or enter into the debate if it can be possibly be avoided, for the prime reason that those who make the UFO = alien spaceship equation fail to either put up or shut up. That’s ‘put up’ in terms of the sorts of evidence that scientists tend to have to ‘put up’ when they make claims. If they have to ‘put up’, they expect in turn that others will ‘put up’ evidence to them. The scientific consensus is that UFO = alien spaceship buffs haven’t done an adequate job in the ‘put up’ department. One such scientist with that point of view (POV) is the fairly well known astronomer, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. While overall reasonably correct in that POV, some of his arguments are flawed and lack credibility in my POV.

When it comes to evidence for this or that explanation for a UFO sighting, especially the UFO = alien spacecraft explanation, eyewitness testimony is suspect. Or so relates astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson via several YouTube clips relevant to his take on UFOs. But wait, there’s more!

Dr. Tyson quite correctly points out that the “U” in UFO stands for “unidentified” and that’s as far as anyone seeing, what to them is an Unidentified Flying Object, can expound upon. One should not jump to the conclusion that “U” equals alien spacecraft. No argument there. However, he also points out, an equally valid comment, is that we don’t like mysteries like things that are unidentified and so therefore we do tend to jump the gun and jump to unwarranted conclusions in order to identify the unidentified and maybe unidentifiable. No argument from me there either other than to point out that we leap to the conclusion of UFOs = alien spaceships in favour of some other explanation probably because there must be something suggestive of that possibility; there’s something in the observational date that points to alien ships and not to something else.

He notes that there exist natural phenomena and conditions which can befuddle someone not familiar with those phenomena. No argument on that observation either.

HUMAN PERCEPTION

But he goes slightly off the rails by suggesting the least likely form of bona-fide evidence is human perception or eyewitness testimony. Optical illusions are a case in point as he delights in pointing out. However, relative to manmade or designed optical illusions, there are not all that many natural ones, although there are some of course, like mirages or that ‘sinking’ ship as it passes beyond the visible horizon.

I get the impression from Dr. Tyson’s comments that eyewitness testimony has as much reliability as a $7 bill. Human perception is absolutely 100% fallible. Although eyewitness testimony is a cornerstone in legal proceedings, courtroom lawyers have a field day in discrediting eyewitness testimony. Experiments by psychologists prove overwhelmingly that any sudden and unexpected event witnessed by ten people will result in ten different versions of what happened, but not drastically so. I mean ten witnesses will differ on the height, weight and attire of the person in the unexpected happening, but they won’t differ on the fact that it was a human and not an elephant!

Humans are actually pretty good when it comes to the details, otherwise why would law enforcement officials ask you to point out the criminal in a police line-up or the news reporters question witnesses to some unusual news happening? To take just one of thousands of possible examples, you can easily tell your face from your parent’s faces and from the face of every other person you know (in person) or have frequently seen (like Dr. Tyson’s on YouTube). You know a new and different face when you see one. You can tell a human face from say a reconstructed one of Homo erectus. You can distinguish a primate face from a feline face from a canine face from a bovine face. You can tell apart the face of a penguin or an eagle from their ancient ancestor, the T-Rex. If you can’t tell apart a frog face from a crocodile face from a shark face from a spider’s face, there’s something seriously askew. Assuming there’s nothing askew; you can tell apart all these examples of faces despite the fact that they are all faces.  

Therefore, in your day-to-day life, 99.9% of what other people tell you they saw (i.e. – Joe Blow drinking down at the pub) you’ll believe them. Human perception is flawed, but it’s all you got for all practical purposes – despite zillions of smart-phone cameras around snapping anything and everything. People don’t tend to tell you they saw Joe Blow at the pub AND show you their smart-phone camera picture of Joe Blow at the pub since you obviously wouldn’t believe them without the pictorial backup. 

In any event, perception in humans usually tends to be more than adequate, say when driving a car or playing a game of baseball. Humans have an excellent innate ability to judge height, depth, colour, direction of sound, types of sounds, motion, velocity (speed plus direction), etc. We’d better have those skills if we are to survive day-to-day; week-to-week; month-to-month; etc. from birth through death.  

THE GAME OF TELEPHONE

Dr. Tyson makes much of the child’s game of ‘telephone’ and how that relates to evidence of how unreliable eyewitness (or ear-witness) testimony is. It’s that version of someone who told someone, who told someone, who told someone, who told someone, who told someone, etc. etc. That story that goes in ear number one ends up usually bearing little relation to what the last person in the chain relates what they were told. Cases where someone who told someone repeated many times over on down the line are indeed suspect, but that’s not usually the case with UFO sightings. ‘Telephone’ is actually pretty irrelevant to UFO reports since the chain is usually just a chain of one link between two individuals – the UFO witness relates firsthand their story to the UFO investigator. There’s no twenty-something someone who told someone links here. Direct first-person testimony is written down or otherwise recorded for posterity.

THE INEXPERIENCED LAYPERSON

Dr. Tyson makes the point that average Joe Blow citizen isn’t usually all that familiar with astronomical and meteorological and optical phenomena and thus sightings of lights in the sky are frequently misinterpreted – Venus becomes an alien spaceship. However, not all UFOs sighted are reports of dot points of lights in the sky. UFOs have been seen close up on the ground and often exhibit a substantial disc when seen in the sky. That’s why the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek (who was a pioneer in the scientific study of UFOs while also an astrophysicist like Dr. Tyson) came up with that category of UFO sightings called “close encounters” where misidentification of say a star for an alien spacecraft is unlikely since a star never exhibits a substantial 2-D or 3-D geometric shape.

ABDUCTIONS

Dr. Tyson also suggests (tongue-in-cheek?) that if you are abducted, you grab (steal) something off the alien’s shelf in order to back up your claim with something that can be put on the slab in a lab for independent testing. That’s flawed for several reasons. Assuming you’ve been abducted by aliens, you’ve got to think of it at the time under rather trying circumstances. That’s if you’re not naked on the slab being poked and prodded – you have no pockets available in which to squirrel something away, assuming there is anything in arm’s reach to squirrel away in any event. That’s also assuming you are not being watched. Even if you do nick off with something, elements and compounds tend to be uniform across the cosmos so an alien ashtray or knife could be made of the same stuff as a terrestrial ashtray or knife. Any alleged alien artefact would clearly have to be of such a nature as to rule out any terrestrial origin or a hoax. It’s a sensible suggestion but a way more likely bet is that any alleged UFO abductee would pick up alien micro-organisms which might be detectable and cultured as evidence.  

ALIEN PSYCHOLOGY

One obvious flaw in Dr. Tyson’s reasoning is that, according to Dr. Tyson, if UFOs are alien spacecraft, why should said aliens land in a farmer’s field as opposed to something more visible like touching down in Times Square (New York City). Well, aliens, by definition, are alien and will have alien motives; an alien psychology. We cannot determine before the fact how aliens should behave since we have no studies to hand on alien wetware, alien neurochemistry and alien motivations.

INEPT ALIENS: SHIT HAPPENS

Dr. Tyson also ridicules UFOs as alien spacecraft by noting the [Roswell] crash. How can advanced high-tech aliens navigate and travel across the galaxy then end up crash-landing? They must be pretty stupid inept aliens. Actually, it is in this case, an unusually inept example of reasoning by Dr. Tyson. Dr Tyson - shit happens! How many UFOs (if alien spacecraft) haven’t crashed? Nearly all would be an appropriate answer. And how many of our Mars-bound probes have coasted safely through the relative vastness of interplanetary space only to crash onto the Martian surface at the final moment.  Sometimes, albeit rarely, we have aircraft crashes. Most times aircraft don’t crash. If terrestrial shit happens, extraterrestrial shit happens. These are fallible aliens, not infallible deities.

In conclusion, Dr. Tyson’s various YouTube presentations are clearly his standard answer to the UFO question and his well rehearsed monolog on the subject. They were pure showmanship – witty, highly entertaining, but, alas scientifically barren. His presentations contributed nothing to furthering the coming to terms with the bona-fide UFO phenomena. As the saying goes, “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”.

P.S. By the way, Dr. Tyson also made a big issue of why UFOs would need runway lights as in the film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. I need remind people here that the movie was a science fiction film and not a documentary. Any fault in logic lies solely and squarely on the shoulders of those who made, produced and directed the movie.