Seth Shostak On UFOs: A Few Comments: Part Three

Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in California has authored or co-authored a trio of books to date about life in the universe in general and extraterrestrial intelligence in particular. It’s difficult to address these topics without having to mention either in passing or at length the subject of UFOs and possible association with extraterrestrials. This Dr. Shostak has done, but painted with a very skeptical, perhaps in places with a misleading, paint brush. This trilogy and my abbreviations for them throughout this essay are as follows.

Sharing the Universe (STU)

Cosmic Company (CC)

Confessions of an Alien Hunter (CAH)

For complete bibliographic details, see at bottom.

While Dr. Shostak’s book trilogy isn’t the sum total of his opinions on the UFO phenomena, they no doubt represent a solid representation of his UFO philosophy, and since these tomes are readily accessible to the general public, they form as good a source as any.

Continued from Part Two.

Roswell, July 1947 (STU, CC, CAH)

Dr. Shostak is a Roswell skeptic, at least so far as ET is concerned. What Dr. Shostak doesn’t answer or otherwise come to terms with is how experienced military officers (plural) could mistake balloon materials (weather or Mogul) for a metallic crashed ‘flying disk’. I maintain they couldn’t make that oops. I would maintain that Dr. Shostak himself could distinguish between the two and he’s no military officer in the air force or a balloon expert. I’d expect even the little old lady from Pasadena would detect the difference. In fact the discovery of any bit of balloon material in that Roswell debris would give the game away immediately. See also my comments on government cover-ups/censorship above. Dr. Shostak also made a minor mistake in attributing the Roswell incident as involving USAF instead of USAAF (Army Air Force) personnel (STU).

As related above, Dr. Shostak wants hard physical stuff to place on the slab-in-the-lab. That’s the only evidence he will accept for the UFO ETH. The only bona-fide UFO case we know of for absolute certain involving hard physical stuff is Roswell. Since Dr. Shostak acknowledges that Roswell is associated with hard physical evidence that’s testable on the slab-in-the-lab (that Roswell debris or wreckage), perhaps he could politely ask the USAF to loan him some of those Roswell bits and pieces for his analysis since he knows the debris exists. Where is the Roswell wreckage now and why can’t Dr. Shostak be loaned some? 

Of course Dr. Shostak, if successful, would have to take it on pure faith and trust that he’d be getting the Right Stuff; the Real Deal; the Real McCoy to test. Not a given I’d suspect.

Project Mogul (STU, CAH)

Dr. Shostak has swallowed hook, line and proverbial sinker the new and improved 1995 USAF explanation for the July 1947 Roswell incident and debris. It was a Top Secret Project Mogul balloon (just a variation or upgrade on the previous weather balloon explanation). However, even that massive (lots of unnecessary filler of no relevance) 1995 USAF report pointing the Project Mogul finger at Roswell could only conclude that a Mogul balloon or balloon train was the most likely maybe explanation. The 1995 USAF report could not provide any actual evidence that Roswell WAS a Mogul balloon. Thus, the Roswell case is still open, although Dr. Shostak would have us apparently believe otherwise.  

Roswell: Reverse Engineering (STU, CC, CAH)

Dr. Shostak maintains that if Roswell were true, that the powers-that-be actually obtained real extraterrestrial materials and thus alien technologies, that America should be light years ahead of the rest of the world in high-tech, especially aerospace technologies, since those powers-that-be would have reversed engineered those alien technologies and put them to American use – good old American know-how strikes again. Of course Dr. Shostak assumes we could actually reverse engineer alien technologies, but that is not a given. One hundred plus years ago, even a team of Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi couldn’t have reverse engineered today’s ever present Smart Phone. 

I quite agree with Dr. Shostak however that lasers and fiber optics and the transistor, etc. were human inventions and not reverse engineered from alien technologies despite some claims to the contrary by some UFO buffs. Even UFO buffs can go a bit over-the-top with their claims.

Abductions (STU, CC, CAH)

If you stop and think about this abduction facet rationally, you’ll see a parallel with our own wildlife biologists who often (via a trap or a tranquiller dart) capture, transport, examine, measure, take samples (blood, tissues, etc.), tag, then transport back and release their wildlife specimens. Substitute aliens for wildlife biologists and humans for wildlife, and it makes scientific sense. Why millions of humans? Isn’t that overkill? Why do we do unmentionable things to millions of lab rats and fruit flies? Isn’t that overkill too?

Human-Alien Sex (STU)

Dr. Shostak notes that in the UFO abduction literature there is an emphasis on sex and reproduction and that from a biological point of view, this is as absurd as a pussy cat mating with a petunia. We’ll ignore Mr. Spock’s parentage here since he’s a fictional character.

Well actually the sex or reproduction referred to is not really akin to what happens in human bedrooms, on top of the kitchen table or in the back seats of automobiles. It’s more akin to what happens in fertility clinics. The scenario is more like aliens manipulating human eggs and sperm and genetic material that’s been removed from their unwilling human hosts than actual alien-human intercourse. Admittedly, this is still pretty far out stuff and one is hard pressed to come up with an alien motive for this behavior. What could the motivation really be? I don’t profess to understand this, but I can point out that we have a lot of trouble understanding motivation at times in our fellow life forms. I’m damned if I can comprehend at times what goes on in that brain thingy that’s housed between my pet cat’s ears. On the flip side of that coin, probably 95% of what I do is no doubt unexplainable and meaningless to the felines. Trying to comprehend alien motivations when it’s difficult to come to terms with our companion animals’ behavior is fraught with danger.  

Crop Circles (STU, CC, CAH)

Dr. Shostak likes to ridicule and poke fun at the UFO ETH by pointing out the absurdity of aliens coming all the way to Planet Earth across the void of interstellar space just to do agricultural graffiti in the crop fields of southeastern England (in particular). And some people do make a UFO/crop ‘circle’ connection. I’m not one of those people. Crop ‘circles’ are a huge anomaly. They aren’t natural formations, but while some are hoaxes, there’s sufficient evidence that not all of them could be. There really is something screwy somewhere. I just can’t figure out a motive (again, dangerous to try one’s hand at alien psychology) for ET to do crop ‘circles’ unless they share a common trait with humans – a sense of humor, a sense of the absurd, a love of pulling pranks and causing mischief for its own sake. So, to make a long story short, I just shunt crop ‘circles’ to one side as an interesting anomaly but one which probably has bugger-all to do with any ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) connection. 

The ‘Face’ on Mars (CAH)

Dr. Shostak goes on for some length about the so-called ‘face’ on Mars photographed by the Viking mission in 1976, and re-photographed in 1998, 2006 and 2007 and probably many times thereafter given all the probes orbiting Mars today. Conclusion – close, but no cigar. Mother Nature played a trick (of the lighting) on us. There is no artificially constructed ‘face’ on Mars. In this I totally agree with Dr. Shostak. But the ‘face’ is just a diversion from there real issue at hand here – UFOs.  

Hostility (CAH)

Apparently, though overall a sweeping generalization, SETI (and other physical) scientists are way less hostile to UFO buffs (a few of which are also scientists) than the other way around (and that imbalance probably applies to other ‘fringe’ buffs as well like inventors of perpetual motion machines who get cranky at the Patent Office and creationists who bucket evolutionary biologists). And I sympathize and feel for those scientists on the receiving end of nasty and personal comments just because they don’t share the exact same worldview as their antagonists. There’s no excuse for that.

However, for Dr. Shostak to suggest that UFO buffs are overly hostile to SETI and therefore SETI scientists who aren’t UFO buffs just because SETI might succeed in proving the existence of ET first, thus leaving the UFO buffs in PR limbo, can cut both ways. How would Dr. Shostak feel if after decades of fruitless dedication to traditional radio SETI along with the spending of multi-millions of dollars on sophisticated equipment, Mary Citizen holds a press conference and walks in with her arm around a bona-fide ‘Grey’ alien?

In any event, a positive SETI hit doesn’t of necessity negate the UFO ETH and Mary Citizen’s press conference doesn’t mean SETI won’t get a positive hit a day later. Even though I don’t see the UFO ETH and SETI in competition, rather as being complementary, if there’s a Nobel Prize or any other public recognition at stake, defending their turf and their claim to priority, even scientists have been known to behave badly towards each other, a trait hardly confined to recent times – scientist-to-scientist hostility goes back centuries - so I’ll cut a bit of slack, but only a bit, for the less professional UFO enthusiast.

My Personal Conclusions

IMHO, Dr. Shostak has a rather shallow comprehension of the entire UFO issue and I doubt that he has really studied the field, at least relative to many that he has debated. He apparently hasn’t gotten his hands dirty doing any actual onsite fieldwork and interviewing witnesses and doing photographic analysis. Further, based on his written works, I don’t believe he has adequately thought through many of the various facets of the phenomena and how those jigsaw puzzle pieces might fit together.

Dr. Shostak might argue that it’s not his job to be on top of the UFO topic and research same, but I suggest otherwise if for no other reason than to play fair with the great unwashed that go to him for advice and information on the subject. It is his job if he is going to write and speak on the subject for the public’s consumption and voice professional opinions for their benefit.

I get the impression that he uses his public profile and his scientific authority as a senior astronomer to convincingly wax lyrical on a subject to Joe and Mary Citizen who know less about UFOs that he does and who aren’t by nature skeptical enough or knowledgeable enough to think the issue through themselves. We tend to rely on authority figures to tell us what’s what.

That aside, there’s nothing in the “S” in SETI which specifies how to search or what to search when it comes to pinning the tail on ET. UFOs are as legit as radio telescopes, so by ignoring any active participation in UFO investigation he’s effectively tying one hand behind his back. To profess an interest in ETI and yet ignore UFOs in the same breath is strange scientific behavior IMHO.

Finally, to end on a positive note, Dr. Shostak has made some valid points as related above; he has put his ‘money’ where his mouth is and been willing to engage politely in dialog with those who hold alternate worldviews.

Bibliographic Details:

Shostak, Seth; Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life; Berkeley Hills Books, Berkeley, California; 1998:

Shostak, Seth & Barnett, Alex; Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.; 2003:

Shostak, Seth; Confessions of An Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence; National Geographic, Washington, D.C.; 2009:



Seth Shostak On UFOs: A Few Comments: Part One

Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in California has authored or co-authored a trio of books to date about life in the universe in general and extraterrestrial intelligence in particular. It’s difficult to address these topics without having to mention either in passing or at length the subject of UFOs and possible association with extraterrestrials. This Dr. Shostak has done, but painted with a very skeptical, perhaps in places with a misleading, paint brush. This trilogy, and by abbreviations for them throughout this essay are as follows.

Sharing the Universe (STU)

Cosmic Company (CC)

Confessions of an Alien Hunter (CAH)

For complete bibliographic details, see at bottom.

While Dr. Shostak’s book trilogy isn’t the sum total of his opinions on the UFO phenomena, they no doubt represent a solid representation of his UFO philosophy, and since these tomes are readily accessible to the general public, they form as good a source as any.

This is where Dr. Shostak and I start off agreeing with each other. Firstly, there exist a reasonable number of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations out in our Milky Way Galaxy. For Dr. Shostak to believe otherwise would make a farce of his chosen profession as a traditional SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) scientist.

Secondly, we both would agree that there is no physical law(s), relationship(s) or principle(s) in physics that prohibit interstellar travel and journeys from one solar system to another solar system.

Thirdly, and this is where we might start diverging, given the age of the Milky Way Galaxy and the time available for civilizations to rise and achieve a status of ‘boldly going’ (in person or via artificially intelligent robotic surrogates), it’s a near certainty that ET has been in our local neck of the cosmic woods and that we (Planet Earth with biosphere) has been noted and logged in at least one ET database, perhaps many, especially if there’s such a thing as a cosmic version of the Internet. That’s the famous or infamous “where is everybody” Fermi Paradox. That said, I maintain that once here, and once we (Planet Earth) was discovered, their presence, their monitoring, even if a token one, would be ongoing, all the more so when our biosphere got really interesting with the arrival of multi-cellular land-lubbers - terrestrial critters.

Dr. Shostak asks the question (STU) “are we really that interesting” such that aliens would pay so much attention to our little cosmic neck of the woods. He suggests that that scenario is highly doubtful. I say “yes” because biospheres are going to be relatively rare; multi-cellular biospheres rarer still and biospheres with intelligent life rarer still. Biospheres are interesting; rarity is interesting; therefore Planet Earth in the relatively recent here and now is interesting.

Public Opinion Polls & UFOs (STU, CC, CAH)

Dr. Shostak makes a point of noting that public opinion poll after public opinion poll after public opinion poll, across the board, rich or poor, male or female, elderly or young, black or white, Ph.D. or high school dropout, atheistic or Catholic, a healthy percentage of the population believe that there is a connection between ET and UFOs. He’s probably muttering under his breath something like ‘stupid people’ but really real physical scientists know better – or most of them anyway. He tends to put these polls down to an ‘it’s time’ factor. World War Two and the Cold War and the dawning of the Space Age are all involved with relatively high-tech aeronautical and astronautical stuff from ICBMs that carry nuclear payloads to the U-2 to spy satellites to Telstar to the Space Shuttle to Moon landings, etc. Since roughly the WWII era, we’re talking about the ‘high ground’ that has us all interested in and ‘watching the skies’. The popularity of sci-fi, especially aliens and alien invasions didn’t hurt and the concept of extraterrestrials is just so damn interesting. Dr. Shostak got hooked on aliens too; otherwise he’d still be doing routine radio astronomy research on galaxies. So we all got space and aliens on the noggin. 

But the conclusion I draw is that where there’s smoke, there’s at least smoke, and probably fire. In other words, there must be something really suggestive in the data that’s been presented over the past six decades to support this UFO/ET connection; that lends people to lean towards this conclusion and not some other like maybe UFOs represent human time travelers from our future or terrorist organizations that have been putting hallucinogenic substances in our water supply. 

Public Opinion Polls & Alien Abductions (CC)

Based on public surveys, millions upon millions of otherwise apparently normal and sane people believe that they have been abducted by extraterrestrials, usually the ‘Greys’. I get the impression that Dr. Shostak kind of rolls his eyeballs at that subject and those findings. He probably mutters some more about ‘silly people’ or gullible people. However, IMHO, no matter how you slice and dice those findings, what a fascinating area for scientists to research. [See also: Abductions]

Public Opinion Polls & Government Cover-ups/Censorship of UFOs (STU)

Dr. Shostak also notes that these same public opinion polls note that Americans (in this case) are highly suspicious of officialdom claims that there’s nothing to the UFO story at all. It’s all just hoaxes and misidentifications albeit honest misidentifications. There is no UFO/ET connection. The public widely suspect that the powers-that-be aren’t being 100% aboveboard on the issue. Shostak might silently mumble ‘silly humans’, but I have a different conclusion, since I say who can blame Joe and Mary Citizen for being suspicious of officialdom’s word given the track record of secret projects (like the U-2) and covert operations (incursions into other countries during the Vietnam War) and surveillance (NSA) and dozens of other case histories that have come to light (Nixon and Watergate comes to mind here).

If there is a UFO/ET connection and the powers-that-be know this, that information would be classified (therefore by definition censored from the public or in other words covered-up). Then too, every citizen knows, and respects, that proper authorities like the Defense Department and the various diplomatic agencies and departments have and need to keep some stuff classified on a need-to-know basis. It’s sometimes called being economical with the truth. Anyone who believes that any administration from any country at any time tells their people the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is living in cloud cuckoo land. Those opinion poll results are therefore hardly surprising.

But Dr. Shostak appears to have a real bee in his bonnet over the advocates that insist or at least claim that there’s a UFO cover-up or censorship. Dr. Shostak insists that a really real conspiracy would have to be global in nature and given the diversity of nations and leaderships and political systems and cultures, over six plus decades that’s as likely as winning lotto ten times in a row. Unfortunately, the logic doesn’t follow. Those relatively few, perhaps even one nation in the know, are not only not going to share that info with their own great unwashed who have no need to know, but they are not going to share that info with any other nation either, friend or foe.

It’s not the notion that ET is here that’s being censored but that they (the USA for example) have in their possession ET technologies of potential military value, and you know how the military likes to protect its secrets, as in Area 51 (Groom Lake, Nevada) which is sign posted for all to see with “No Trespassing” signs that further warn you that “Use of Deadly Force is Authorized” (i.e. - shoot to kill) for those who do enter illegally. Armed guards are visible from outside the perimeter fence as are various electronic surveillance gizmos. The US Government covered up the very existence of this top secret Groom Lake military facility (despite it being common knowledge to the relatively few locals in the area) for decades until commercial satellite photographs made the cover-up of its existence untenable and a farce. Area 51’s existence is now acknowledged by officialdom. That cover-up aside, in general, just try to enter any restricted military area and see how quick-smart you are dealt with.

By analogy, the Nuclear Club doesn’t tell its citizens how to obtain nuclear weapons grade materials and how to build nuclear weapons and neither do they share these technologies with other countries, friend or foe. They don’t share with each other since today’s friend or ally – Russia in WWII for example - could be tomorrows foe. You figure things out for yourself.

Just because UFOs are seen worldwide doesn’t mean each and every government has the Smoking Gun evidence, the sort of slab-in-the-lab evidence that Dr. Shostak craves. Most countries don’t have that sort of proof that enables them to go public that ET is here, even if they wanted to. Most, maybe nearly all countries need the corpse they don’t have. Both Uganda (1971) and Grenada (1977) tried that via the United Nations and got nowhere.

Many Explained Suggests All Are Explainable (STU, CC)

Dr. Shostak makes the point that, as even UFO buffs acknowledge, most UFO events are quickly explained and get filed in the IFO bin. Dr. Shostak suggests that if 19 out of 20 UFO incidents turn out to be solved as IFOs, then in all probability 20 out of 20 UFO incidents are theoretically solvable, there’s just some piece(s) of the puzzle missing preventing that 20^th UFO case turning into an IFO.

Mr. Spock of Star Trek fame would probably roast Dr. Shostak over Vulcan coals for logically suggesting that if 19 out of 20 UFO events weren’t really bona-fide UFOs at all but solved cases, that therefore 20 out of 20 UFO cases would be solved if only X, Y or Z data had been available. Unfortunately, that logic does not follow. If you recover from the flu 19 times in a row, that doesn’t mean that you will recover from flu round #20. If you hit 19 green traffic lights in a row, that’s no guarantee that your 20^th traffic light will be green, and the same logic applies to just about any other either/or scenarios. Of special relevance to Dr. Shostak, just because the first 19 interesting SETI signals turn out to be prosaic, mundane and ultimately terrestrial in origin, doesn’t mean #20 won’t be the real extraterrestrial deal, or so I would imagine Dr. Shostak hopes. And I hope he’s right. Otherwise, what’s the point of carrying on carrying on?    

But what would Dr. Shostak think if I adopted the Shostak philosophy on UFO cases and applied it to his profession? Clearly if 19 out of 20 SETI signals are false alarms then all SETI signals are false alarms and Dr. Shostak might as well give up the ghost and permanently retire home to smell the roses.  

To be continued.

Bibliographic Details:

Shostak, Seth; Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life; Berkeley Hills Books, Berkeley, California; 1998:

Shostak, Seth & Barnett, Alex; Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.; 2003:

Shostak, Seth; Confessions of An Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence; National Geographic, Washington, D.C.; 2009:



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.



Abducted by Aliens? A Possible Case History

From right around the world, from people from all races, creeds, cultures, ages and occupations, come their tales of alleged abductions, not by terrestrial kidnappers looking for a quick megabuck, but extraterrestrials looking for – well it isn’t cash. While no two abduction accounts are absolutely identical, there are such close similarities that the subject has to be taken seriously. Some accounts detail the experience; some just the possibility. This falls into the latter category.

What follows are the threads of evidence that individually are relatively commonplace, but when taken together are highly suggestive that something extraordinary, even an out-of-this-world experience, has happened to an ordinary person – Mr. Joe Blow Average Citizen (who has related the following to me in confidence). If you’re looking for proof positive, even a smoking gun or just plain (where there’s) smoke (there’s fire) that UFO/alien abductions are reality and not something illusory or delusional, then look elsewhere for I’m not providing it here. Instead, consider this just one more chink in an extremely long chain of UFO/alien abduction chinks that collectively add up to a facet of society that needs to be taken as seriously by the skeptics as it’s taken by the victims and their families and friends. 

Mr. Joe Blow Average Citizen is exactly that, apart from the fact that Mr. Joe Blow Average Citizen believes that the alien ‘grays’ have taken an interest in him – not that that makes him anything other than Mr. Joe Blow Average Citizen. Mr. Joe Blow Average Citizen has lots of apparent company.

What sorts of evidence leads this person to think they may have had at least one, possibly several, UFO/alien abduction experiences? Experiences they have no obvious conscious self-awareness of, but would surely have some degree of subconscious recollection of, which will play out a bit further on down the track.

Firstly, and the one piece of physical evidence that remains, is a long roughly 3 inch linear scar on the slightly right side of the abdomen. It’s not a trivial scar, the sort of one you might get and not notice or pay any real attention to. Yet, given the scenario that the receipt of any such a wound that would leave behind such a scar would have been obvious to the person concerned is not apparently the case. How very odd.

Secondly, the person concerned recalls many superficial wounds of the lower left leg noticed on one occasion as if the leg had been dragged through a thicket of brambles. The mystery is the person concerned doesn’t wear shorts; always just full length shoe-top jeans, and any such routine excursion through any sort of brambles or other sharp vegetation wouldn’t have reached the leg in question. Alas, all evidence of that has by now healed up leaving no trace. As with the abominable scar, the person concerned hasn’t a clue how these superficial ‘bramble’ wounds happened since there no such bushes on the property in any case.

Thirdly, if you pull, tear, wrench or otherwise seriously injure your musculature, it’s highly unlikely you can’t recall the event by which it happened, like say lifting a heavy object or undergoing a sudden but unnatural movement in a sports event. We’ve all experienced that sort of happening. But what about when it happens and you cannot recall the event that’s now causing your discomfort, even intense pain? The person concerned has experienced several bouts of back-wrenching discomfort without knowing the cause; in one case experienced intense and ongoing for lengthy periods right shoulder pain, as if one had a torn rotator-cuff experience, but equally being unable to associate the cause with the effect.  That sort of shoulder injury is common in baseball pitchers, but unfortunately, the person has long since retired from active baseball playing. All of these sorts of wrenching muscle injuries are suggestive of one violently resisting being dragged kicking and screaming against-their-will to their fate, like being abducted.

Another common UFO/alien abduction experience is nosebleeds, and the person concerned has experienced those. The alleged association is that aliens have implanted some sort of tiny [tracking?] device up through and behind one nasal cavity. You might argue that nosebleeds are pretty commonplace, and you would be right. However, there are three unusual facets. Firstly, they happened exclusively in one and only one nostril. Secondly, they normally happened shortly after awakening. Thirdly, if the person concerned were prone to nosebleeds, they should still be happening, but for some strange (even if welcomed reason), they’ve stopped happening, as if according to the alien ‘grays’ “that’s it – we’re now through with you – many thanks and see ya”. And it’s stating the obvious that the person concerned cannot account for them, like being punched in the nose or banging into a door, etc. 

Moving away from the purely medical, the person concerned relates how they experience at quite irregular intervals, extremely restless nights without logical explanation. Okay, we all have those off nights when sleep is elusive and we toss and turn, but usually there is some reason(s) we can assign that accounts for it – a stressful day; a dread of tomorrow; a mild case of evening meal food poisoning; an unusually experimental highly spicy meal or one you had much later than normal; mixing your drinks that you don’t ordinarily do; perhaps it’s an ultra hot-and-humid night, etc. But what if none of the above apply – you have an extremely bad night, the sheets/blankets/covers are all helter-skelter in the morning, yet the day and evening before was absolutely no different than multi-dozens of others where sleep was restful and peaceful and there was hardly a wrinkle in the sheets come morning. Translated, you cannot explain why you had a bad and extremely restless night. Well, if a collision at sea can ruin your day, a UFO/alien abduction can ruin your night’s sleep, and if you have no conscious recollection of the ‘grays’ having their wicked way with you, well then you’re stumped for a reason.   

But the clincher that pushed our alleged victim over the edge in terms of thinking quite seriously about a possible relationship with the UFO alien ‘grays’ happened without warning.

The person concerned is a regular Red Cross blood donor with over 120 whole blood donations under the belt, and as anyone who donates blood is aware, you are subjected to a pre-donation interview and medical check to make sure 1) you are fit and well and can withstand the rigors and dangers of blood donation (small, but not zero), and 2) to weed out to the greatest extent possible any possibility of a medical lawsuit against the Red Cross by someone who has received your tainted blood. In fact you have to sign a legal document that you have told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about your state of health – otherwise you could end up in the poo too.

Now part of that pre-donation medical check involves checking your weight; checking your hemoglobin levels; checking your blood pressure; and lastly measuring your heartbeat or pulse rate. It was with respect to the latter that things came to a head.

The person concerned, expecting yet another very routine pre-blood donation Q&A and medical checkup at the hands of the Red Cross inquisition, was stunned to be told that their heartbeat/pulse rate was way above normal – way, way too much above normal to be acceptable for donation purposes. Fortunately, some relaxation/meditation suggestions from the staff, like heavy controlled deep breathing, eventually reduced the pulse rate to just under the maximum allowed. The Red Cross isn’t about to give up a good blood donation without pulling out all the stops. Still, it was a quite an awaking for the person concerned.

Off to the quack, sorry the medical general practitioner – no explanation found. The pulse rate tended to be in any other set of circumstances to be within the normal range, at least normal for an old fart who’s not a superbly trained 20-something athlete. 

In the following blood donation after the initial discovery of the high pulse rate the person concerned wasn’t notified that the pulse rate was equally as high. Rather the person concerned actually had to ask. Now the point here is that it is highly likely that the person concerned had experienced very high pulse rates at blood donation interviews well prior to the one where it was first revealed. If it had been going on for quite some considerable time before that revelation then that might be a point in favor of some ongoing issue the donor was unaware of. 

The issue was the subconscious abduction experience(s) coming to the fore because the blood donation scenario was a bit too similar to the UFO/alien abduction medical procedures apparently or allegedly practiced – procedures that involve large needles. If one is terrified during a UFO/alien abduction experience, and just about all of us would be, then that stress would reflect itself by an extremely rapid pulse rate – panic stations. Placed in a situation that has strong resemblances to that (i.e. – blood donation), well it might not be too unusual to have that heartbeat rise to those sort of abnormal levels, despite being an old hand at giving blood and thus, you’d think, being always cool, calm and collected when fronting up and centre for the blood donation via the big needle experience.

I would maintain that the above bits and pieces of evidence are suggestive of, or at least compatible with, the typical UFO/alien abduction scenario.

There are however a trilogy of anomalies that need explaining.

Firstly, why hasn’t any external observer(s) witnessed, recorded, or at least reported the abduction-in-progress? The numbers of case histories where an abduction event happened and was observed by external disinterested parties (ones not part and parcel to being a participant) are extremely few and far between – too few being the facts of the matter.

Secondly, how do the aliens get in and out of the abode of their victim, with their victim, through locked doors and windows? It must be super-science of some kind or other.

Thirdly, why is there apparently no reaction from animal companions? You’d expect dogs to bark like mad; cats to hide in terror, not sleep soundly through it all. Animals tend to react as when having strange beings enter their abode. Lack of reaction is an anomaly in itself.

And that’s what makes the abduction area so frustrating. You have myriads of extremely sincere people insisting their alien abductions really happened yet the logic and the supporting evidence is lacking, as in there being any external verifications. 

There’s also the anomaly that older farts are less likely to be chosen as victims by the ‘grays’, though in this case, the pulse rate surges could be the psychological remnants of abductions many moons prior. 

One final drawback is that the person concerned happens to be independently highly knowledgeable about all things extraterrestrial, including things relating to the area of UFO/alien abductions. That alone would make any personal experiences claimed by that person in that area to be highly suspect. Being someone already saturated with that sort of knowledge, and claiming to also have firsthand experiences, is sort of bordering on a conflict-of-interest. That’s at least what sceptics would argue, and the person concerned has related that they acknowledge that.

Seven Alien Misconceptions Revisited: Part One

The scientific community and the general community tend to have differences of opinion over the topic of extraterrestrial life, especially intelligent extraterrestrial life with advanced technological capabilities. The scientific community tends to be ultra conservative; the great unwashed are way less critical since they get their news and views from the tabloids and sci-fi programs. Perhaps the middle ground is a more viable option than either side’s extremely conservative or uncritical point of view. 

An article titled “7 Huge Misconceptions about Aliens” by Natalie Wolchover has appeared recently on several websites including Space.com; Life’s Little Mysteries (prime site); and the Huffington Post (abridged to just five). It’s all about how scientists view the existence and nature of advanced ET as opposed to the more common perceptions of the great unwashed. The following comments are my addressing of the common misconceptions raised. Let’s see if I agree or disagree with the verdicts, and most important, why. Oh, of course the “THEY” referred to is our intelligent and technologically advanced ET. 

THEY MIGHT NOT EXIST: Disagree

This is the only case of the magnificent seven with scientists hedging bets. They “might” not exist. Then too they “might” exist.

Okay, we have no actual alien bodies on the slab in the lab, so the existence of aliens to date is pure speculation. When it comes to life in the universe, we have to speculate from a statistical sample of one – terrestrial life. Extrapolating from a statistical sample of one is fraught with danger. But, when crunching the numbers, so many stars, so many planets, so much time, so much space, so much of the ‘right stuff’ available for life-as-we-know-it, that very, very few scientists would bet their family farm that terrestrial life, and terrestrial intelligent life, and terrestrial intelligent life with advanced technology was the proverbial IT in the cosmos at large.

Certainly SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) scientists, one of which featured prominently in the original essay, wouldn’t adopt the “we are alone” scenario. It would make a mockery of their very own chosen profession and careers. The possible existence of ET may currently just boil down to pure statistics, but those statistics have been crunched and double crunched and tripled crunched again and again and again by the best science currently available to us. The verdict, well SETI scientists have voted to put their time, efforts and energy into, and bet on, the “we are not alone” option.

Finally, if you adopt the quantum (physics) mantra, anything that isn’t forbidden is compulsory; anything that can happen, must happen. Life isn’t forbidden; life can happen – we’re proof; therefore life must happen again and again and again.   

THEY WON’T COME IN ‘PERSON’: Disagree

By “come”, the consensus is that flesh-and-blood aliens will boldly go via silicon and metal surrogates that are themselves constructed artificially intelligent (AI), thus saving the biological aliens a lot of time, cost, effort, energy and danger. Sending out zillions of robotic AI space probes to explore the galaxy while the flesh-and-blood aliens stay at home however runs counter to what we humans do. Sure, we invest massive amounts of resources into silicon and steel. Robotic probes are often our eyes and ears from unmanned military drones to spy-in-the-sky satellites to probes to the planets and into the depths of the ocean. But, there is just something crazy enough about the human condition that humans insist on seeing and hearing for themselves, even if supplemented by technology, the wonders of, whatever.

Sure we sent unmanned probes to the Moon – but we followed by sending humans in person. Sure we send unmanned probes to Mars – but humans will go there in person eventually. Sure we explore the ocean’s abyss with robotic submersibles, but humans still go down to look up close and personal at RMS Titanic, even unto the deepest parts of the ocean trenches. Sure we can, and do, send instrumentation into the heart of massive tornadoes, but that hasn’t stopped ‘storm chasers’ from deliberately inserting themselves into the vortex of deadly twisters, sometimes as a thrill, more often as not to advance the science of meteorology and forecasting. Humans constantly put themselves at risk even though robots do the risk-taking better and cheaper. That’s the essence of the question “Why climb Mount Everest?” The answer, as always: “Because it’s there”. Now of course to do these sorts of things requires technological augmentation, from warm clothes (Mount Everest) to scuba gear (exploring the Great Barrier Reef) to reinforced steel containers that keep out the outside environment (exploring RMS Titanic or going to the Moon). But the biological entity remains cocooned inside.

If aliens evolve a high IQ and a sophisticated technology, then they no doubt will have that desire to explore and see what’s on the other side of the hill and climb their own Mount Everest. Perhaps firstly by surrogates; but if they have one tenth the curiosity and drive of humans, they will boldly go in person by hook or by crook. Robotic probes might inform ET that the third rock from a stellar body called Sol has a biosphere, but ET will want to see for itself, sooner or later.  

Now I might concede that via advanced bioengineering abilities, aliens could augment themselves with technology to such an extent that they might be nearly artificial constructions – our artificial hip joints and dentures and plastic heart valves taken to their logical conclusion. The Daleks of “Doctor Who” are a prime example. Perhaps their mind could be downloaded into something more permanent than wetware like software part and parcel of a silicon and steel computer. But the key bit is that their biological essence (their mind) remains intact and boldly goes.

THEY WON’T MATE WITH US: Disagree

Alien biochemistry wouldn’t be absolutely identical to our biochemistry, or translated, their genetics wouldn’t be absolutely identical to our genetics. Just like humans can’t mate and reproduce with petunias, though both are terrestrial life forms and share DNA, humans are even less likely to be able to mate with ET. So, why do I disagree with this most obvious of the obvious? Four reasons: 1) Genetic engineering; 2) Mythology; 3) Modern animal mutilations and 4) UFO abductions. Taking each in turn…

Genetic Engineering: If ET is technologically advanced enough to get from there (wherever that is) to here, then it’s logical to assume that they are technologically advanced in lots of areas – like genetic engineering. Okay, humans can not naturally mate with petunias. But, assuming they wanted to; couldn’t our geneticists take a human reproductive cell and the reproductive cell of a petunia, and manipulate both to such an extent that a union between the two might be possible? Okay, that’s pretty far out, but geneticists have already combined two dissimilar species genes into one – the ‘Frankenfish’, patented as the GloFish, combining the Zebrafish with various genes of fluorescence proteins from other species comes to mind as just one example. Collectively, the field is known as producing genetically modified organisms (GMO’s)! There’s much controversy that rages about GMO’s as human foods. That aside, in theory, a human-petunia combo is possible. We share some genetics and DNA with the petunia.

Mythology: One would be hard pressed to find a culture who’s mythology didn’t include examples of their ‘gods’ mating with us mere mortals. Greek mythology is a no-brainer given the ever randy Zeus. Biblical mythology also records sex between the ‘sons of god’ and the ‘daughters of men’. Now do scientists accept all of the multi-thousands of deities of the world’s cultures as supernatural entities? - Probably not. That then leaves them a choice between all of these deities being as 100% fictional as the Easter Bunny and Sherlock Holmes, or else they are aliens. To me, probability dictates that the more logical option of the two is ET – a speculation that also solves the Fermi Paradox – “where is everybody?”

The Fermi Paradox can be summed up simply enough just by postulating the existence of at least one other technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilization in our Milky Way Galaxy that’s older than our civilization by at least a few millions of years and with the same sorts of ‘boldly going’ drives as we humans have (i.e. – plain old curiosity, the “what’s on the other side of the hill?”). If that alone is taken as a given and nothing else, then just as humans explored and colonized Planet Earth in a tiny fraction of the Earth’s existence (ditto microbes, insects, birds, etc.), technologically capable extraterrestrials would have explored and colonized the Milky Way Galaxy in a tiny fraction of its existence, even at say rippling out at one to ten percent the speed of light. Planet Earth is part of that Milky Way Galaxy, so “where is everybody?”

In the case of humans enveloping Earth, we don’t need to ask “where is everybody?” We’re everywhere. In the case of ET, we do ask “where is everybody?” They should be here. Scientists say they’re not, never have been, and thus they have to explain the Fermi paradox by other means. On the other side of the fence, those who see evidence in those ‘ancient astronauts’ and in UFOs have no paradox with which to have to come to terms with.

Animal Mutilations: Animal mutilations are certainly well documented, and the cause(s) are mysterious to say the least. If human culprits, why hasn’t anyone been apprehended, tried and convicted of violations of animal welfare laws, destruction of private property (if livestock) and trespass? If natural predators are to blame – well that should be bloody obvious if true and no controversy should therefore ensue. If extraterrestrials, well that explains a lot that natural predation can’t like precision incisions and lack of blood and no hoof/paw prints and no signs of a struggle, though it also leaves mega-questions unanswered. Presumably, it has something to do with ET interest in terrestrial biochemistry and genetics.

UFO Abductions: If UFO abduction accounts are taken at face value, and I’m not prepared to call these ‘victims’ either liars or deluded, then extraterrestrials are mightily interested in the creation of more hybrids – not animal-animal hybrids like the Chimera, or human-animal hybrids like the Mesopotamian Shedu (winged bulls with human heads) but human-alien hybrids, something perhaps akin to those alien-human close encounters of the intimate kind (those ‘gods’ mating with humans) referred to above in all things mythological. If you know your mythology, you’d be aware that there are more hybrids than you can tick off on your fingers and toes –squared.

Of course “won’t mate” is not the same as “can’t mate”. If we assume advanced aliens are skilled enough to ‘mate’ with humans, why the hell would they want to? Of course this isn’t apparently mating in the traditional way, rather aliens harvesting human gametes and doing their technological thing with them, hence an alien version of artificial insemination or in-vitro fertilization. Again, if the human abduction ‘victims’ are taken at face value, some sort of alien-human hybrid program is underway. Why a human-alien hybrid program is the $64,000 question. Perhaps someday we’ll have an answer. Perhaps it’s similar to why we created the ‘Frankenfish’ or why the ‘gods’ created the Minotaur or the griffin or even demigod/demigoddess hybrids like Hercules or Helen of Troy.  

To be continued…