Aaron John Gulyas on View 902

In the debut episode of my View 902 Podcast last December, I chatted with my friend historian Aaron John Gulyas. We covered an eclectic range of subjects, including  the strange life and times of Albert K. Bender and his role in creating the Men In Black mythos (the subject of Aaron’s presentation at the 2016 East Coast Paraconference in Liverpool, Nova Scotia), why people gravitate towards the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis as the go-to explanation for UFOs, Ornette Coleman as a metaphor for consciousness, and some 19th century American history, including a debate over who really won the War of 1812. We also fielded a couple of questions from a message forum on The Paracast radio show, and conclude with a shocking revelation about President-elect Donald J. Trump.

Aaron is an historian, author, lecturer, and sci-fi nerd. He is an associate professor of history at Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan, and also serves as a faculty technology consultant for the college’s Center for Teaching and Learning. His books include The Chaos Conundrum: Essays on UFOs, Ghosts, and other High Strangeness in our Nonrational and Atemporal World, The Paranormal and the Paranoid: Conspiratorial Science Fiction Television, Extraterrestrials and the American Zeitgeist: Alien Contact Tales Since the 1950, and Conspiracy Theories: The Roots, Themes and Propagation of Paranoid Political and Cultural Narratives.

The Cryptoterrestrials - A Review

When you exclude the peripherals, from the table of contents and acknowledgements, to the foreword and afterward written by Nick Redfern and Greg Bishop respectively, The Cryptoterrestrials, the final work by the late Mac Tonnies, comes in at a slim 98 pages. However, in a prime example of quality over quantity, Mac has left us with an impassioned and thought-provoking clarion call for a new way of thinking, not just about the UFO phenomenon or even the paranormal in general, but about ourselves.

The UFO phenomenon is the focus of The Cryptoterrestrials, at least on the surface. Mac takes direct aim from the beginning at the purveyors of ufological orthodoxy, namely those people who are convinced that the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis is the Extraterrestrial Fact (a subject I've written about here). He pulls no punches, skewering the majority of ufology both for their blind adherence to the ETH, and for their willing self-marginalization.


"The ufological 'community' suffers from creative anemia," he writes. "While its luminaries might noisily claim otherwise, ufology collectively wants to be marginal. With the lamentable exception of a few spokesman who feel the need to 'explain' the phenomenon's intricacies to a wary public (often in the guise of would-be political discourse), the ostensible UFO community remains afraid of stepping into the rude glow of widespread public attention. And it has a right to be afraid." (p. 25)

It's not that Mac rejected the ETH - indeed, in the book he writes that it remains a viable, if shopworn, hypothesis. What he rejected, and what people like Nick, Greg and I reject, are those who say that the ETH is the only answer, or even the best answer. After all, how can one say any hypothesis is the "best" hypothesis when faced with something as weird as the UFO phenomenon? With the ETFacters, it isn't a matter of science anymore, or logic, or following the evidence to where it leads - it's become all about the perpetuation of their belief system within an ever-shrinking community of flying saucer evangelicals. People like Stan Friedman have done more to undermine the cause of the ETH within the broader public than a hundred Seth Shostaks or James McGahas, not necessarily because they are wrong, but because they are so convinced that everyone else is wrong. Mac rejected, as Greg, Nick and I do, their intellectual rigidity, as well as their lack of any true sense of wonder, or appreciation for the mystery of it all.

If Friedman et al have spent the last few decades hunkered down in the ufological equivalent of an intellectual Jericho, then Mac is the guy standing at the walls with the trumpet, and The Cryptoterrestrials is the blast that should bring the whole decrepit edifice of certainty crumbling down. In his foreword, Nick compares Mac to the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, the brash and liberating antidote to what had become a stale status quo. It's a perfect metaphor, for there will indeed be more than a few people who read The Cryptoterrestrials and think Mac is the ufological version of the Anti-Christ. But if anything could use some anarchy, it's ufology.



In the end, however, it doesn't matter whether people within ufology "get" what Mac is saying, because he was aiming his sights a lot higher. Rather than just reinforce existing views, or rehash old ground, Mac takes the foundations that have been built by writers and researchers as diverse as Jacques Vallee, John Keel, Whitley Strieber and David Jacobs, and expands upon them, even as he points out the flaws in their theories. His goal is not to find a definitive answer, or to create an alternative orthodoxy, but rather to ask as many questions as he could, and try to come up with some ideas about where we may find the answers. He was a true revolutionary, a New Light for the paranormal.

So, what are the cryptoterrestrials? In Mac's hypothesis, they are a race of indigenous humanoids who share this planet with us. Technologically superior in many ways (but not, perhaps, all ways), they are on the decline, even as we continue to ascend - they are, if not a dying race, then one whose time has passed. And we are the noisy, and in many ways dangerous "new" kids on the block. Unlike Vallee or Keel, Mac does not sidestep the physical reality of the UFO phenomenon - in his hypothesis, they exist in this world, literally.

I interviewed Mac in Kansas City in 2006 about a number of subjects while filming Best Evidence, including the cryptoterrestrials.







Does the cryptoterrestrial hypothesis make any sense? Anyone who reads The Cryptoterrestrials will be hard pressed not to admit that it makes as much sense as any of the other theories on offer, and perhaps even more. What began as a thought experiment for Mac (I know, because I was there when he first started thinking about it seriously, on a trip to Los Angeles) became in the end a thorough review of the evidence and the literature, and some pretty grounded speculation about what it all points to. But it wasn't Mac's intention to write a definitive conclusion to the discussion about the UFO phenomenon, or the paranormal; rather, it was his intention to get that discussion started again, and to get people thinking, for the first time in a long time, about what really might be going on - including the possibility that we are being visited by beings from another world.

Unable to disprove a negative, I have no choice but to concede that some UFO encounters may originate in space. And it would be the height of arrogance to proclaim that the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis and the Cryptoterrestrial Hypothesis are mutually exclusive. And of course, cryptoterrestrials don't preclude "inter-dimensional" travelers either. (p. 52)

What was important to Mac, at least at this stage, was to ask the correct questions, because only then might we be able to get back on the road to finding some answers, if not about the phenomenon itself, then about ourselves, and our almost symbiotic relationship to it. "If we're dealing with a truly alien intelligence," Mac concludes, "there's no promise that its thinking will be linear. Indeed, its inherent weirdness might serve as an appeal to an aspect of the psyche we've allowed to atrophy. It might be trying to rouse us from our stupor, in which case it's tempting to wonder if the supposed ETs are literally us in some arcane sense."

Earlier in this review, I called Mac the "New Light of the paranormal." Most readers won't understand the reference. Let me explain. In the late 18th century, in the Maritime colonies, religion was dominated by the Congregational Church, which maintained a rigid, Calvinist orthodoxy. In 1776 a young preacher, Henry Alline, began to travel amongst the communities of the colonies, talking about a better way - free will, an almost mystical view of faith, and a personal experiential relationship with the divine. Most important, he rejected all of the man-made conventions that he called "non-essentials," over which various denominations argued incessantly, as nothing but hindrances to the central message - the redeeming love of God. Like Mac, Alline died far too young (in 1784, at the age of 36). He was derided by the guardians of the old order, who called him the "ravager of churches," in much the same way as I suspect Mac will come to be viewed as the ravager of the ET orthodoxy. Finally, like Mac, he presented a simple, concise, and transformational message. He was a true "New Light" - and so was Mac, who insisted that we must not lose sight of the central message: that we are dealing with a non-human intelligence which remains a mystery. Amidst the noise, that is the signal.



In a world where hyperbole has become the lingua franca, The Cryptoterrestrials is that rare work which merits the appellation "a must read." It represents a true paradigm shift in our understanding of the mysteries of the paranormal. This is a book that deserves to be read and discussed far and wide, and which offers up an opportunity to revitalize the UFO subject, and make it relevant again - but only if we are courageous and intellectually honest enough to embrace it.

Paul Kimball

The Myth of the ETH as ETFact

The last column I wrote for Alien Worlds before it folded.

Paul Kimball

Above and Beyond
The Myth of the ETH as ETFact

Of all the non-terrestrial theories that have been offered to explain the UFO phenomenon, the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) has always seemed the most plausible one to me. I don't think it's been proved, but I think it's a better bet than the others on offer when one looks at the evidence, and the science.

The evidence seems to indicate that at least some UFO cases represent a non-human intelligence at work. The science now tells us that there are almost certainly other intelligent beings in the galaxy, and if they are more advanced than us, there's a reasonably good chance that they could make their way here.

However, it’s critical to remember that the key letter in ETH is the "H" - it's still just a hypothesis, and anyone who tells you that they can prove that aliens have visited Earth beyond a reasonable doubt, or even on the balance of probabilities, is putting the cart well before the horse.

Beyond that, however, I think the biggest problem with the ETH supporters within ufology is that they're so... "limited" in their outlook. They are convinced that aliens have visited Earth, and in many cases they are convinced that they are still visiting Earth, and interacting with humans in all sorts of ways, some good and some bad. They are of the "nuts and bolts" school of thought, i.e. Joe Alien made his way to Earth in a flying saucer, in much the same way that Captain Kirk and all of our other science fiction icons make their way about the galaxy.

This is what I call "Keyhoe-ian" ufology, because it is based directly on the way of thinking that Major Donald Keyhoe first put forward in the 1950s. It is out-of-date, and badly out-of-touch with modern science. It presumes that aliens are only a few decades, or maybe one or two hundred years or so more advanced than us, which is highly unlikely. It presumes that the aliens are preoccupied with us, and that we are somehow important to them, which is also highly unlikely. In short, it is a point of view that is based on what people who grew up in the pioneering days of sci-fi and the space race expect of their aliens, and not the point-of-view that modern physicists and astrobiologists take.

The pro-ETH as ETFact stance of people like Keyhoe and his successors, the most prominent of which has been the flying saucer physicist, Stanton Friedman, is a relic of a different time and place, which is ironic when one considers that these people often criticize scientists for not being open-minded about the UFO phenomenon, and for being stuck in the past.

If aliens are here, it is probable that they are far more advanced than we are, by an order of thousands of years, not hundreds. We would be to them as ants are to us - beneath their notice. This might well explain the inherent weirdness of many UFO sightings - things that appear to us almost as magic, or something that in a different era would have been framed in religious terms. As physicist Michio Kaku has noted, there may well be a galactic conversation going on, but in a "language" that we are thousands of years from being able to truly comprehend.

Of course, ETFact ufologists would quickly point out that there are at least a few humans who do indeed study ants - entomologists, which is true enough. But for them I have the following question: How many entomologists spend 60 years - or longer, if you are a proponent of the notion that ET has been coming here for centuries - studying the exact same ant hill?

That idea strikes me as ridiculous. It's a desperate attempt to force fit our own way of thinking onto potential life forms that would be far more advanced than we are - and they would have to be much more advanced in order to get here from there (ignore someone like Friedman, who will try to tell you about how it's actually relatively easy to get to our local galactic neighbours, if only we would try harder, and spend more money).

Again, I'm not saying that the ETH isn't a good hypothesis... indeed, as I noted before, I think it's the most plausible one amongst the various paranormal hypotheses on offer. It's the claim by nuts-and-bolts ufologists like Friedman and Keyhoe - and hucksters like Billy Meier - that ET is making his way here aboard flying saucers and acting like we do that I take issue with, because that contention is far more science fiction than science fact.

ETFacters Friedman and Keyhoe who try to convince you that aliens are basically just like us are no different from religious fundamentalists who portray God as a kindly, white-haired anglo saxon. Such portrayals tell you a great deal about the people who put those images and beliefs forward, but absolutely nothing about the possible entity or entities under discussion. The ETFacters are flying saucer fundamentalists, and in their own way they have done as much damage to the serious scientific study of the UFO phenomenon as people like Dr. Edward Condon, Dr. Donald Menzel, or Philip J. Klass.

By focusing on the idea that little green / grey men have been coming here in nuts and bolts spaceships, ETFacters have done a grave disservice to the search for truth about the UFO phenomenon, and its possible alien origins, in the same way that thousands of years of religious leaders have undermined the search for the true nature of God by force-fitting it into a limited paradigm that simply served to reinforce their own worldview. They have not sought wisdom, nor understanding - they have simply proclaimed an "answer" which has been no answer at all.

The reductionist approach that has been adopted by the ETFacters, which seeks to make potential alien life over unto our own image, lacks vision. It is more concerned with what they see as the destination, and their need to get there now, when what we should really be focusing on is the journey, and the wonders we may discover along the way. That's the real signal in all of this. Everything else is just noise.

The worst thing about all of this, however, is the hypocrisy that you find with many of the supposedly more serious members of the “ETFact group”. They are convinced that aliens are here, and interacting with humanity, but they are vocal critics of “exopolitics”, which simply takes the ETFact position to its logical conclusion.
Exopolitics, according to Dr. Michael Salla, one of its best known proponents, is:
“is the study of the key individuals, political institutions and processes associated with extraterrestrial life... exopolitics focus[es] on the political implications of an extraterrestrial presence known to clandestine quasi-governmental entities that keep knowledge of this presence secret from the general public, elected political officials & even senior military officials. The supporting evidence is overwhelming in scope and shows that decision making is restricted on a strict 'need to know' basis.”

Take the word "exopolitics" out of the equation, and that sounds like something Friedman would say. Indeed, if you've heard Friedman speak as many times as I have, you'll note the similarity in the main themes - aliens are here, government is covering up the knowledge of that fact, and we the people have a right to know the truth. At Salla's website for his "exopols courses", he even uses the motto "preparing for our cosmic graduation", which directly echoes Friedman's decades-old mantra that perhaps someday we will be ready to qualify for the cosmic kindergarten.

Friedman's biggest issue with exopolitics, at least in public, seems to be the fact that they are not terribly fussy about vetting their so-called witnesses and whistleblowers. In that respect, he's quite right. However, as more than one exopol has pointed out to me, Friedman has a history of touting his own very flawed witnesses (Gerald Anderson pops to mind right off the bat, followed closely by Glenn Dennis), and cases (Aztec, Flatwoods, flying saucer air wars in the 1950s, perhaps even Roswell).

Frankly, while I disagree with the very premise that underlies the exopolitical belief system (that at least some UFOs have been proved to be alien spacecraft), the more I think about it, the more I find the exopols to be more intellectually honest than people like Friedman, who agree with them on the big picture, but have done little or nothing to try and effect actual political change. The exopols have it right - if you believe aliens are here, and the government is covering it up, then that is a political issue of the highest order, and no longer a scientific one.

Friedman is the de facto Godfathers of Exopolitics - in large part, he created the "family" that is modern ETFact, "Cosmic Watergate" ufology, but like Vito Corleone, he is incapable of taking what he has created and moving it into its next logical phase. Indeed, like the Don, it is a phase that he wants nothing to do with, even as others around him, whom he has inspired, recognize the logical and inevitable implications of what he has been saying all of these years, and are prepared to act on it, no matter how much he protests.

The real scandal, however, is that Friedman, like other serious ETFacters, employs a double standard with absolutely no sense of irony when they run into people who question their position. Anyone they favour who is subjected to critical examination is a victim of “character assassination”, while people the ETFacters don't like, or whom they don't support, like Bob Lazar, or Philip Corso, or even Dr. J. Allen Hynek, are fair game (in Friedman’s universe, Hynek is "an apologist ufologist"). When you mention Dr. Jacques Vallee to them, they become even more desperate in their attacks. Anything that threatens to undermine the belief system they have constructed results in the ufological equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition.

People looking for the real scientific approach to the UFO phenomenon, the kind that was championed over the years by Hynek, Vallee, and Dr. James McDonald, should look elsewhere. Why? Because Hynek, McDonald and Vallee left us with myriad case investigations, new theories and ways of looking at the UFO phenomenon, sighting classification systems, and other important legacies. Even people like Friedman’s old classmate, Dr. Carl Sagan, left us with a sense of wonder about the prospect of ET life, even though he was no proponent of the ETH. On the other side, the ETFacters have left us with Roswell, MJ-12, Aztec, tales of massive flying saucer wars between the USAF and UFOs, and other stories that belong in a science fiction anthology, not a serious discussion of what the UFO phenomenon might or might not represent.

The shame is that someone like Friedman could have done so much more – if only he, like his ETFact fellow travelers, had not let their will to believe overwhelm their critical faculties. Those people who want the old time flying saucer / conspiracy gospel will feel right at home with them, because what they offer is comfortable, and provides a sense of continuity and familiarity, and even fraternity. What it does not offer, however, is an honest search for the truth about the UFO phenomenon.

It never did.

Wishful Thinking

Assume for the sake of argument that the Extra-terrestrial Hypothesis is correct, and that at least a few UFO sightings are the result of extraterrestrial visitation to Earth.

Are they friendly?

Many ETH advocates would say "yes, of course they're friendly" - they run the gamut from the more serious types, like Stan Friedman, who talks of the day when we may qualify for some benevolent "Cosmic Kindergarten" of higher awareness, and the less serious types, such as Steven Greer and most of the exopols.

They usually base this second assumption on a line of reasoning that goes something like this: aliens are obviously more advanced than us, in order to be able to get here from "there", so they must have survived their own nuclear age, or equivalent, which means they must be peaceful.

This kind of wishful thinking has pervaded "ufology" ever since the days of the original Contactees, and their pals the Space Brothers.

But why would an advanced civilization necessarily be benevolent, or peaceful?

Perhaps they did indeed survive their nuclear age, but for a different reason - they fought a nuclear war, and someone won. It could have happened here. Oh, sure, it wouldn't be a win for the people at the time, but in the long term, depending upon who your leaders are, maybe it would be a win in a strategic sense. Wipe out the rest of the Earth, and wait it out underground for a while, or something like that. There are people who would see in that scenario a victory, and in the long run, say a thousand years or so, maybe they would be right.

Or maybe that advanced civilization is a technologically-based fascistic society, where human (er... alien) rights have been slowly done away with, not by war, but by the same kind of slow erosion that we sometimes seem to be dealing with today.

Or maybe they had their equivalent of a Second World War, and the bad guys won. It could have happened here.

Or maybe their species is just plain bad, or at the very least amoral, as far as we would be concerned.

Or... well, you get the picture.

Ufologists aren't the only ones making this inherently naive assumption - anyone sending a signal out into the galactic ether looking for contact is making the same assumption, based on the same wishful thinking... and someday could be in for the same rude awakening.

For those who think I'm too pessimistic, I can say only that I've found it wise to live my life by the following maxim: better to be pleasantly surprised than rudely awakened.

Paul Kimball

Flying Saucer Fundamentalists

In Why the ETH supporters probably have it right... and wrong I used an analogy - that we would appear to advanced aliens as ants appear to us - that ruffled a few feathers amongst some nuts-and-bolts types, who pointed out that at least a few humans do indeed study ants - entomologists.

Quite so.

But for them I have the following question:

How many entomologists spend 60 years - or longer, if you are a proponent of the notion that ET has been coming here for centuries - studying the exact same ant hill?

That idea strikes me as ridiculous. It's a desperate attempt to force fit our own way of thinking onto potential life forms that would be far more advanced than we are - and they would have to be much more advanced in order to get here from there (ignore someone like Stan Friedman, who will try to tell you about how it's actually relatively easy to get to our local galactic neigbours, if only we would try harder).

Again, I'm not saying that the ETH isn't a good hypothesis... indeed, as I noted before, I think it's the most plausible one amongst the various paranormal hypotheses on offer. It's the claim by nuts-and-bolts ufologists like Friedman and Keyhoe - and hucksters like Billy Meier - that ET is making his way here aboard flyings saucers and acting like we do that I take issue with, because, despite the misleading title of Friedman's new book, that contention is far more science fiction than science fact.

Ufologists like Friedman and Keyhoe who try to convince you that aliens are basically just like us are no different from religious fundamentalists who portray God as a kindly, white-haired anglo saxon. Such portrayals tell you a great deal about the people who put those images and beliefs forward, but absolutely nothing about the possible entity or entities under discussion.

They are flying saucer fundamentalists, and in their own way they have done as much damage to the serious scientific study of the UFO phenomenon as people like Dr. Edward Condon, Dr. Donald Menzel, or Philip J. Klass.

Paul Kimball

Why the ETH supporters probably have it right... and wrong

Of all the non-terrestrial theories that have been offered to explain the UFO phenomenon, the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) has always seemed the most plausible one to me. I don't think it's been proved, but I think it's a better bet than the others on offer when one looks at the evidence, and the science.

The evidence seems to indicate that at least some UFO cases represent a non-human intelligence at work.

The science now tells us that there are almost certainly other intelligent beings in the galaxy, and if they are more advanced than us, there's a reasonably good chance that they could make their way here.

So, you might ask, why am I always so hard on the ETH supporters amongst ufologists?

First, I think it's important to remember that the key letter in ETH is the "H" - it's still just a hypothesis, and anyone who tells you that they can prove that aliens have visited Earth beyond a reasonable doubt, or even on the balance of probabilities, is putting the cart well before the horse.

Beyond that, however, I think the biggest problem with the ETH supporters within ufology is that they're so... "limited" in their outlook.

On the one hand, they are convinced that aliens have visited Earth, and in many cases they are convinced that they are still visiting Earth, and interacting with humans in all sorts of ways, some good and some bad. They are of the "nuts and bolts" school of thought, i.e. Joe Alien made his way to Earth in a flying saucer, in much the same way that Captain Kirk and all of our other science fiction icons make their way about the galaxy.

This is what I call "Keyhoe-ian" ufology, because it is based directly on the way of thinking that Major Donald Keyhoe first put forward in the 1950s. It is out-of-date, and badly out-of-touch with modern science. It presumes that aliens are only a few hundred years or so more advanced than us, which is highly unlikely. It presumes that the aliens are preoccupied with us, and that we are somehow important to them, which is also highly unlikely. In short, it is a point of view that is based on what people who grew up in the pioneering days of sci-fi and the space race expect of their aliens, and not the point-of-view that modern physicists and astrobiologists take.

If aliens are here, it is probable that they are far more advanced than we are, by an order of thousands of years, not hundreds. As Michio Kaku stated in the video I posted here earlier today, we would be to them as ants are to us - beneath their notice. This would explain the inherent weirdness of many UFO sightings - things that appear to us almost as magic, or something that in a different era would have been framed in religious terms. As Kaku noted, there may well be a galactic conversation going on, but in a "language" that we are thousands of years from being able to truly comprehend.

The pro-ETH stance of people like Keyhoe, and his successors, like Stan Friedman, is a relic of a different time and place, which is ironic when one considers that these people often criticize scientists for not being open-minded about the UFO phenomenon, and for being stuck in the past.

The ETH supporters may well have it right about aliens being here... but they are almost certainly wrong when it comes to the how, and why, of that presence. If you doubt that conclusion, ask yourself this question - when it comes time for humanity to travel to the stars (as opposed to the Moon or Mars), many hundreds or thousands of years hence, what will we look like as a species, and how would we view another species that we may find on some distant planet that is at our current level of technology? Does anyone really think we would care, anymore than we care about those ants crawling around in our backyard?

By focusing on the idea that little green / grey men have been coming here in nuts and bolts spaceships, ETH supporters like Keyhoe have done a grave disservice to the search for truth about the UFO phenomenon, and its possible alien origins, in the same way that thousands of years of religious leaders have undermined the search for the true nature of God by force-fitting it into a limited paradigm that simply served to reinforce their own worldview. They have not sought wisdom, nor understanding - they have simply proclaimed an "answer" which has been no answer at all.

If the truth behind the UFO phenomenon is that at least some cases represent an alien intelligence, then like God that truth is probably beyond our comprehension, at least at this time in our development. This makes things more exciting, because it shows us a direction to the future, and a reason for getting there someday.

The reductionist approach that has been adopted by the nuts-and-bolts crowd, on the other hand, which seeks to make potential alien life over unto our own image, lacks vision. It is more concerned with what they see as the destination, and their need to get there now, when what we should really be focusing on is the journey, and the wonders we may discover along the way.

That's the real signal in all of this. Everything else is just noise.

Paul Kimball

UFOs: Too Weird to be Extraterrestrials?

Mac Tonnies has a well-written and interesting new post at his SETI blog titled Reconciling UFOs and the Singularity: Part I.

One of the points he raises, however, which is a reflection of what Dr. Jacques Vallee has been saying for decades now, is problematic. Mac comments:

As noted by acclaimed researcher Jacques Vallee, the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH) typically embraced by ufologists fails to account for the phenomenon's enduring weirdness.

I have to admit, while I remain a healthy agnostic on the question of extraterrestrial visitation to Earth, I have never understood this particular reason for rejecting the ETH as the most logical of the non-prosaic explanations.

Yes, many UFO sightings are weird in terms of our understanding of what is happening. One of my favourite of the "high strangeness" types of cases happened here in Halifax (see: High Strangeness in Halifax). But that weirdness is not a reason for rejecting the ETH, unless one is viewing possible alien life and through the prism of human understanding. By doing so, both Tonnies and Vallee evince a very 1950s / 1960s sci-fi outlook of what alien life would be like. In short when they state that the weird behaviour of some UFO cases seems to rule out ET as the cause, they are assuming that aliens will more or less act like us, or at least in ways that we can understand. Since the UFOs are not acting in a way that makes sense to us, as aliens presumably would, then they must be something else - extradimensionals, or cryptoterrestrials.

The problem is that this assumption flies in the face of our own human experience when different cultures meet each other. For example, when the first European explorers reached the south Pacific islands, neither they nor the natives even remotely understood each other. History is replete with similar examples.

This happened on a frequent basis when it was different cultures coming in contact with each other, where one was more technologically advanced than the other, but not by a significant degree - decades, or perhaps centuries, but in either case, a drop in the bucket where development is concerned. Even after prolonged exposure to other cultures, profound differences of understanding and perception would remain, which in part would explain the not infrequent colonial disasters that would befall European military expeditions when led by men who had no understanding of the local terrain, or how the natives waged their own style of warfare.

And that's just a difference in understanding and perception between cultures within the same species, all of whom are singing from the same proverbial hymn book, if not the same page. What about differences between different species of vastly different levels of intelligence? How do cats perceive humans, for example, or how do ants perceive humans? Can they understand our behaviour; can we understand theirs?

The point is that just because UFOs might behave in ways that we cannot understand is no reason for concluding that they are too weird to be extraterestrials on the grounds that an extraterrestrial would never behave in such a weird manner. The truth is that we have no idea how an extraterrestrial would behave, or what their motives would be for coming here. This works both ways - they might not be able to understand us, in the same way as we don't fully understand what's going in with various animals when they do certain things. In fact, I would argue that any alien life is likely to be so different from us that we should expect that it will behave in a manner that is completely... well, alien to us.

Does this mean that UFOs might not be extradimensional beings, or cryptoterrestrials? Of course not. But when one tries to determine which of these explanations seems more likely, one should always be careful of basing their conclusions, whether in whole or in part, on the anthropomorphic assumption that because UFOs sometimes behave in ways that seem "weird" to us, it is less likely that they are extraterrestrial beings that cryptos or extradimensional beings.

Paul Kimball

What Would ET Do?

One of the most annoying phrases I hear from Christians comes when they ask the question, in response to some dilemna (whether it's a biggie, like whether or not to go to war, or a small one, like whether or not to buy Captain Crunch or Fruit Loops):

What would Jesus do?

My answer is usually, "what a stupid question to ask".

However, in my current friendly "blog-war" with Mac Tonnies re: alien contact, I'll ask the same question, in a slightly different way, with regard to whether or not humanity is ready for knowledge of ET's presence.

In other words: what would ET do?

Let's assume for the moment that ET exists. Let's further assume that ET is here, and has been for some time. Finally, let's assume that ET is more or less benevolent (and if they weren't, I probably wouldn't be writing this). That's a lot of assumptions (all of which remain unproven to me, but as I said, "let's assume), but they're ones made by the supporters of the ETH as the ETFact, and those who advocate the government come "clean" about ET's presence on Earth.

Given those assumptions, and given the state of affairs vis-a-vis ET (i.e. no public revelation), one can but assume that ET agrees with me. In other words, by not yet revealing themselves publicly for all of the world to see, ET has indicated that, in their view, we're not ready for contact.

Perhaps they have some version of Star Trek's "Prime Directive". Who knows?

What I do know is that they show more common sense, and understanding of the state of affairs on Earth, than the "disclosure" advocates.

Besides, if ET is smart enough to get here, and wise enough that people are willing to pin their hopes for a better future on contact with them, who are we to argue with them when it comes to the question of when that contact should take place?

In other words, if ET is out there, we'll meet them on their terms, when they figure we're ready to do so, and not a moment sooner.

Good for them.

Paul Kimball

Are We Ready for "Contact"?

My good friend Mac Tonnies has responded to my recent post "Truth Embargo? Good" at his blog (read it here).

He writes, in part:

A large part of me is convinced that we need our paradigmatic bars rattled -- and if that means enduring the sociological sea-change likely to occur in the wake of ET "disclosure," I think it's worth the ride.

I understand where he's coming from, but I think on this issue he's naive, and wrong. I replied:

Mac:

You and others view "contact" through that Western, educated, middle-to-upper class point of view I discussed. The vast majority of the world does not share that point of view, including many in the West. A "contact" event would, in my opinion, be disastrous in the short term, with unpredictable consequences in the long-term. We just aren't ready for it as a species, and it is the height of cultural imperialism and hubris for us to suggest that because some of us may be ready (indeed, may even want that change), the rest of the world is, or at the very least should be forced along for the ride.

If I was in charge, and knew about ET on Earth, and could keep it secret, all the while slowly seeding the technology into society as well as the "knowledge", through the media (i.e. films), I wouldn't hesitate to "cover it up".

I'm pretty sure the Aztecs would have done the same if they could have.

Does anybody really think that the global reaction would be one of universal joy, where people who have hated each other for centuries would suddenly toss down their weapons and embrace each other as brothers and sisters? I don't.

Perhaps the aliens, should they prove to be benevolent, would enforce peace upon the world. They would no doubt have the means to do so, at least in broad strokes. But is that how we really want to solve our problems? And where would that lead us?

How would radical religious zealots (of any faith) react?

Does anyone for a second believe that the established order would just slip away - or is it far more likely that it would further entrench itself, paritcularly if the "contact" event was not a landing, but simply a signal that confirmed what Mac and I already suspect, i.e. that we're not alone?

The one thing I am certain of, as I look around, is that we're not mature enough as a species to face that future, at least not yet.

Maybe, someday, when we grow up and solve our own problems, we'll be ready for admission into the Cosmic Kindergarten. But for now we're still stuck in the crib.

Guys like Mac, and Stan Friedman, and Steven Bassett all mean well. They all want the best, and that's truly admirable. The problem is that when they say they would welcome a landing on the White House lawn, or that they want "disclosure", they are looking to the skies for salvation, when we should be looking to ourselves. We're the problem, but we're also the solution.

To think otherwise is to be no different than the people who have spent two thousand years waiting for the return of Jesus to save us from ourselves.

Paul Kimball

Truth Embargo? Good!

You often hear pro-ETH UFO researchers in the West state something along the lines of, "It's time to end the cover-up of the ET presence on Earth - it might have made sense 60 years ago, but we're a more mature society now, and we could handle the news". Stan Friedman has said words to that general effect at almost every lecture I've ever heard him give, for example.

I think that they're wrong. I think if we were really faced with certain proof of the existence of ET (like a flying saucer landing on the White House lawn), things would pretty much go to hell in short order. The view that things would be just fine (a few hiccups, perhaps, but we would adjust quickly) is informed by an educated, middle to upper class, very Western way of looking at the world - in other words, guys like Stan. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the planet's population is not educated to the degree someone like Stan is, and they're not members of the middle or upper classes, and they don't live in the relative comfort (both physical and ideological) of postmodernist and largely secular Western society.

The view of people like Stan that we're ready for the knowledge of ET's existence (should ET exist and be here) is also at odds with human history, where every time an advanced society came into contact with a less advanced society, there was chaos, with the end result that the less advanced society suffered greatly as a result of that contact.

I think Stuart Miller, in a recent post at his blog Alien Worlds Magazine, hits upon the more likely outcome. Here is an excerpt:

My opinion is that there would be substantial elements of world wide hysteria which couldn’t be ignored, for it would inevitably impinge on the calmer elements. The most un-endearing quality within the psyche of the human spirit is arrogance. Our world is full of strutting little despots, be it militarily, politically, administratively, the religious realm, or even in our personal lives. People full of their own self importance and power, without humility or empathy, who would seize the opportunity to terrify and manipulate. Martial law in some quarters would be a real possibility. After all, this would be an event of a life time. [Full article here]

Bingo - and as Stuart notes later in the column, this is what would probably happen if we just got a signal from SETI. It would be far worse if ET was actually here, and even worse again if ET was hostile.

Guys like Steven Bassett talk about a "paradigm shift" should the "truth embargo" ever be lifted. They're absolutely right, but for the wrong reasons. They see a sunnier future for humanity - a leap into a brave new world, where we would happily walk hand in hand with our space brothers and sisters, and all would suddenly be fine on Planet Earth.

Like Stuart, I see a different result, because I've spent years studying the world and its people, not as we might like them to be, but as they actually are. If the "government" is really covering up the "truth" about an ET presence here on Earth, I say "good - keep it up". Because as I look around, the truth is that we're not ready for it. We're not even close. And to reveal it now would be as disastrous as it would have been sixty years ago - perhaps more so.

We don't need alien "gods" to come down and solve all of our problems - we need to solve them ourselves. Only then, when all people are capable of seeing the world like Stan Friedman sees it will we be ready for First Contact, with any ET species, either here or "out there".

If ET really does exist, and is smart enough to get here from there, and is as benevolent as some people think, then I'm pretty sure they see things the same way I do, and that's why they choose not to reveal themselves. And if they aren't that benevolent, and resemble more an ET version of Cortez, then eventually we're all screwed, aren't we?

Does this mean that people should stop investigating UFO cases? No. Does it mean people should stop writing and talking about UFOs? Of course not. Because at the moment, the idea of ET UFOs are like the idea of God - maybe they exist, maybe they don't, who can say? You can believe if you want, or not. You can believe in one type of alien, or another, or none at all. You can explore other theories if you want. You can ignore the whole subject, as the vast majority of people do. You can even pretend that you're practising "citizen diplomacy" with aliens if you want. To each their own.

You can even pester the "government" for the "truth", but you'll find that it's a pretty futile slog, because they either don't know the "truth" (which is the far more likely answer, in my opinion), or, if they do and the truth is "ET is here", they aren't going to reveal it, for the reasons outlined above.

Good reasons.

Paul Kimball

How is it that we can "see" Extraterrestrials?

While one can argue endlessly in favor of a literal extraterrestrial interpretation, a holistic approach leads us to consider that the UFO intelligence not only wants to perpetuate itself via dramatic encounters with ostensible "occupants," but intends to discredit its own machinations: it stages exciting UFO events that infect both the research community and the popular imagination, knowing that the phenomenon's inherent absurdity will eventually undermine attempts to arrive at an indictment.

Interesting stuff as always from Mac Tonnies.

One question that doesn't get asked enough by ufology is this: if the UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin, with all of the advanced technology that this would involve (memo to the ETHers: it isn't as easy as you think it is to travel between the stars), why do they allow themselves to be seen, as surely they must, given their technological prowess?

Are we the equivalent of rats in a lab experiment, with our reactions being studied by alien scientists? If so, how long does this experiment last? Shouldn't they be done with it at some point or another?

The typical answer - Stan Friedman uses it all the time - is that "they're aliens, so we can't presume to know why they're here, or why they do the things they do."

Which is no different than a religious person who, when asked why God lets good people die in horrible ways, answers, "well, it's God, so we can't possibly understand His will. We must just accept it."

The more you look at the various aspects of the Extraterrestrial hypothesis, the less likely it seems - both technologically and, perhaps more important, sociologically and anthropologically. Like the traditional mainstream view of God (i.e. the one drilled into the heads of kids at "Jesus camps"), the ETHers view of extraterrestrial life is more a reflection of their view of themselves than the potential reality - and complexity - of an extraterrestrial visitation.

Of course, as Jason Gammon and others maintain, ET could really be a form of AI. In that case, all bets are off, because who knows how sentient machines would behave.

Unless you think that human beings are really just meat-based machines... which brings us back to Mac, and his idea that the explanation for the UFO phenomenon may lie closer to home (like many other, non-ETH explanations). Who knows - it may well lie inside of us.

Paul Kimball

Mac Tonnies: CTH or ETH... Which Makes More Sense?

Mac Tonnies explains why he thinks the CTH makes as much sense - or maybe even more sense - than the ETH

Here's the funny thing about the CTH brouhaha as it concerns the ardent ETHers - all of the criticisms they level against Mac's hypothesis are the same ones that can be levelled against the ETH, and have been for decades by mainstream science.

For example:

Average CTH critic - "The CTH is preposterous, because there's no evidence of this civilization, and there would surely be some because to become that technologically advanced they would have to leave signs, traces, and they would have travelled to the stars and established bases,etc., etc."

Average ETH critic - "The ETH is preposterous, because there's no evidence to support it, and the problems of interstellar space travel are insurmountable, or for all practical purposes insurmountable. Further, any civilization advanced enough to get here would have colonized the galazy by now, yet we see absolutely no sign of this, etc., etc."

Average CTH or ETH proponent's answer?

"Well, they're obviously more advanced than we are, so they can do things we can't understand, and that explains everything."

I'm not saying either hypothesis is right - indeed, the ETH still makes more sense to me than the CTH, at least what I've seen of it so far (I remain open-minded, however), and any discussion of just the two of them ignores all of the other possibilities. What I am pointing out is the inherent hypocrisy and irony of much of the knee-jerk criticism of the CTH by the ETHers, at least at this stage.

Paul Kimball