Time Travel - A Different Direction?

If the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis is the suburban Wal-Mart of theories about what the UFO phenomenon might represent, then time travel is the small boutique shop that's still in business downtown. Sure, it doesn't get a lot of attention, but it's got some pretty cool stuff to look at nonetheless.

Is time travel possible? Some of our smartest scientists tell us that yes, indeed, it is possible, although not for us, given the amount of energy it would take. Michio Kaku is one of the most prominent exponents of the idea that time travel could happen... someday.

Here's the thing, however - Kaku, and almost anyone else who discusses time travel as a possibility, talks about it from the persective of someone coming to our time from the future.

Things are usually no different when time travel is applied as an explanation for UFOs. It almost always comes from the same perspective - that our descendents are coming back in time to observe / interact with us.

But that creates all sorts of potential paradoxes.

Now, there may be answers to the various paradoxes that would result, but even supporters of the idea that you can travel back in time admit that it would be risky. What if you screwed up, and somehow changed all of existence?

Sure, you would wind up safe and sound in a newly created parallel universe, but there's no guarantee that any of your loved ones would still be around. Going back in time to kill Hitler and prevent the rise of the Nazis, for example, seems like a good idea, but there's no guarantee that the new world you would create would be any better. Who knows? Maybe it would be worse. One thing you could pretty much guarantee is that everything you knew would be different, or gone.

No thanks.

So even on a theoretical level, I don't buy the idea that people are traveling back in time, for any reason.

But what about people traveling forward in time?

That's an entirely different proposition, because there's no risk of altering your reality, so there are no paradoxes to worry about.

But if we don't have the technology to travel in time now, nor can we reasonably imagine having it any time soon, then how could someone in our past travel forward to our time?

The answer is that they couldn't - not from our past, as we know it. But here's the thing - our knowledge of the past is pretty dodgy. We still don't know everything that happened within the 20th century. We know even less about what happened two thousand years ago.

One hundred thousand years ago? One million years ago? One hundred millions years ago!

We might like to think we know how everything happened, but we don't. Anyone who tells you that we would definitely be able to detect remnants of a civilization that inhabited the Earth a million years ago is dreaming - particularly if that civilization was sufficiently advanced to have taken on a different form from ours, and then suffered some calamity that wiped it out. 

What if there was, as some people have speculated, and as legend would have it, a civilization on this planet that pre-dates our own, one that was indeed highly advanced, to the point where it had figured out how to travel through time? Maybe human, or maybe something else... post-human, perhaps.

So let me throw a scenario out there for you, as a thought experiment if nothing else.

One billion years ago (just picking a number), a non-human civilization arose on this planet that advanced far beyond our own, to the point where their existence was in essence virtual, not physical. At some point, they merged into a single consciousness.

With their combined intellect, they eventually discovered how to travel in time, and possessed the power to make it happen - and so off they went, to their future. Not as a physical being, however, but rather as consciousness - only their thoughts could travel through time. They could interact with whatever or whomever would follow them, but only indirectly - a burning bush that talks, perhaps, or lights in the sky that baffle us, or maybe something even more complex and interesting, that deals with us on a subconscious level.

In our dreams, maybe.

Then, once they had finished exploring the future, they decided to explore other things. The galaxy, perhaps, or other dimensions. And then, when it was all finished, they returned home for one final journey... a voyage past the "grey wall" that even they could not see beyond - the one thing, when all other things are known, that would still hold a mystery for something / someone like them.

Death.

Having seen all that there was to see, and experienced all that there was to experience, except their own mortality, they opened that final door, and disappeared forever.

As I said, it's just a thought...

Paul Kimball

Michael Persinger - No More Secrets

A fascinating lecture by Dr. Michael Persinger, in which he talks about remote viewing, shared consciousness, and other related subjects. Well worth watching.

Paul Kimball

Mac Tonnies and the "Digital Afterlife"

A nice television news piece from the NBC affiliate in Kansas City about the late Mac Tonnies, and the idea of a "digital afterlife". You can read the accompanying article by Christina Medina here.

Paul Kimball

The Last Battlefield: Pseudo-science vs. Pseudo-scepticism

There is a pathology underlying the constant fighting between pseudoscientific believers and pseudosceptical disbelievers that boggles the mind, or at least it boggles mine. Neither side ever really listens to what the other is saying, because they're so busy trying to make each other look like (a) heartless bastards with no imagination (believers to disbelievers) or (b) stupid rubes with no common sense (disbelievers to believers). It's not about a reasoned discourse or debate with these folks - it's about polemics.

What I don't understand, and never will (particularly as I only have a 1st year undergrad psychology course under my belt), is why either side invests so much time and energy into the struggle. But I'll hazard a guess. For the believers, it stems from a need to belong, and to be recognized. For the disbelievers, it stems from a need to be superior. In both cases, the insecurity underlying it all shines like a neon sign, for everyone else to see. 

Regardless of the motivating factors, neither group has anything of substance to offer to the search for the truth about the paranormal (or anything else, for that matter - politics, religion, music reviews...). Don't confuse either side with true scepticism, which relies above all else on intellectual caution and suspended judgment.



If you're genuinely interested in the possibilities of the paranormal, leave the believers and disbelievers to their respective pseudo-science and pseudo-scepticism.

Let it be their last battlefield - not yours.

Paul Kimball

Advanced Intelligence... Without Art?

Continuing my riffing on the question of a possible advanced non-human intelligence and art, as originally posed by Rich Reynolds, one can look to science fiction for some clever, and I think realistic, speculation about how such an intelligence could evolve and be totally devoid of a need or use for anything even remotely resembling what we would call the arts.

Perhaps Doctor Who has covered it best over the years, with the creation of two classic villainous races, the Daleks and the Cybermen.

And of course there are the Borg from Star Trek, perhaps the greatest villain that the series ever had, because it was the one which represented a completely alien and truly existential threat to the Federation in a way that Klingons, Romulans and the Dominion did not - at least until the writers ruined it all by trying to make the Borg more... well, human. The Borg appeared as cybernetically enhanced humanoid drones of multiple species, organized as an interconnected collective, the decisions of which are made by a hive mind, linked to subspace domain.

They were scary, because they spoke to our fears about mechaization, artificial intelligence, and our own possible future someday.

None of these sci-fi villains would have had any use for art - the Borg and the Cybermen were concerned with assimilating technology, and humans to replenish their ranks, not culture, whereas the Daleks were bent on simple conquest, and all other species were considered inferior.

The point is that if we project into the far future (or is it really that far?), we can imagine such a cybernetic reality for ourselves, or any other advanced species... or perhaps a world where our creations have superceded us.

Indeed, the late Mac Tonnies was hardly alone in his fascination with the idea that someday we may be able to transcend our humanity, and become posthuman. But would such a species have any use for "the finer things" of life, particularly art in all of its myriad forms?

What use would Debussy string quartet be to a Dalek, or a Cezanne painting to a Cyberman, or the works of Bertolt Brecht to the Borg?

There is a very real possibility that art would be of no use at all. Indeed, for beings that in all cases came from "organic" origins, one might expect that they would view any form of art, with its attendant appeal to "humanity" and "emotion", as an abomination - an affront to the perfection of being that they had achieved.

Of course, this is just one possible answer to the question Rich raised about why ET doesn't seem interested in our art and culture, should it exist "out there" and be coming here. In fact, if life "out there" has developed beyond the biological form into something that we would call "artificial", it might well be that "they" have no use for, or even concept of, art and culture at all.

A sobering thought, particularly as it might also be a portent of our own bleak, emotionless future as a species.

Paul Kimball

Blogger down

Hi folks,

Just a note to let you know that Blogger suffered a system wide crash over the past couple of days. As a result, when they re-booted everything, it seems like some of your comments on recent posts were lost. They may yet be restored (apparently Blogger is "working on it"), but I just wanted to let you know that I didn't remove them.

Allons-y!

Paul Kimball

The Road to Contactus

Of all the people who claim to have had direct contact with a non-human intelligence, regardless of the human perception paradigm through which they interpreted that experience, the most famous was undoubtedly Saul of Tarsus, better known as the apostle Paul, who went on to become perhaps the most important figure in the creation of one of the world's great religions.

In the New Testament, Acts 9 tells the story of Paul's experience as a third-person narrative:

And as he journeyed, it came to pass that he drew nigh unto Damascus: and suddenly there shone round about him a light out of heaven: and he fell upon the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: but rise, and enter into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. And the men that journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but beholding no man. And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw nothing; and they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and did neither eat nor drink.

If someone was to describe such as experience today, he or she would probably be sent along to a psychiatrist and placed on some sort of medication, particularly if they were to choose a different way of explaining the experience... as an encounter with an extraterrestrial intelligence, for example.

And yet try to get elected President of the United States without affirming your belief in the non-human intelligence that Saul supposedly encountered on the road to Damascus two thousand years ago.

It won't happen.

The question that needs to be asked is: why does Saul / Paul remain a foundational figure of faith for over a billion people, treated with respect even by people who don't believe the supernatural explanation for his experience, while modern UFO contactees receive almost nothing but scorn, even from within the ranks of "serious" UFO researchers?

When one considers the nature of "contact" throughout human history, what one really sees are distinctions that may have been drawn without a real difference. Perhaps the central narrative is the same, whether "contact" happens on the road to Damascus, or the road to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and whether the non-human intelligence presents itself as the son of God, or the pilot of a spaceship from Zeta Reticuli.

Paul Kimball

Interpreting the UFO phenomenon and Non-human Intelligence

Recent discussions here and elsewhere about how a non-human intelligence might interact with us in an artistic or cultural sense got me to thinking about how art, in all of its many forms, serves as a useful metaphor for the very idea of how we should seek to understand and interpret any non-human intelligence we might come into contact with.

Take the example of the UFO phenomenon, and the idea that it might represent in some way a non-human intelligence. For decades now, most UFO researchers, and our society as a whole, has looked at "them" from a realistic perspective, much the way that artists used to do with their paintings, which were used to portray a specific event. The death of Nelson at Trafalgar is a good example - here is the famous painting The Death of Nelson, 21 October 1805 by Arthur William Devis, who sought to recapture that historic moment.

Devis' version was painted in 1807, and of all the major portrayals from the time is the most accurate (although definitely not without its historical flaws). The Death of Nelson, a far more idealised version offered by Benjamin West, was painted in 1806. West himself admitted that this was a representation of "what might have been, not of the circumstances as they happened."

In either case, regardless of the historical accuracy, the scene is recognizable, and easy to understand. It is based on the interpretations by the artists of events that they did not actually experience, filtered through their own perceptions and ideals.

In many respects, this is exactly what pro-ETH UFO researchers have done over the past six decades. The UFO phenomenon has been reduced to the most "realistic" interpretation possible, and then put forward as a narrative that may vary in particular details and interpretations, as did the paintings of Devis and West, but in all cases stays true to the central theme. They know that we are dealing with flesh-and-blood aliens in nuts-and-bolts spacecraft, and if one person's version of the aliens or their supposed spacecraft varies from another person's version, the big picture remains remarkably constant.

In other words, it is art based on certainty - regardless of the details of how Nelson died, there is no doubt that he died on board the Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar; Similarly, to most UFO researchers, regardless of what UFOs might look like, they are physical craft that are extraterrestrial in origin.

They know...

The problem is that with UFOs in particular, and non-human intelligence in general, we don't know what is happening. All that we can do is guess... theorize... speculate... and imagine...

Which is why we should be looking to the surrealists, and the abstract artists, and anyone who has offered a view of the world, and of reality, that is open to myriad interpretations, as the artistic model for understanding any interaction we may have with a non-human intelligence. 

Salvador Dali is an obvious choice.

Jackson Pollock is another:

Whereas the paintings by Devis and West clearly show interpretations of something that remains easily identifiable, and are wonderful within their own limited terms, the works of Dali and Pollock offer something much more difficult, and challenging, and personal to the viewer.

In other words, while Devis and West give the viewer answers, Dali and Pollock offer questions, and open the door to myriad possible interpretations. I'm convinced that the latter approach is the best way to try to understand the nature of a possible non-human intelligence that may be interacting with us.

Paul Kimball

The Other Side of Paul - filmmaking

It isn't all UFO documentaries for me - indeed, as I explain almost everytime I get interviewed, the films I've made about the UFO phenomenon are only a small part of my resume.

Currently, besides Beyond Best Evidence, my company is developing a couple of feature films. I've mentioned the first, Doing Time, here before (it's based on the scifi play I co-wrote with the late Mac Tonnies in 2007). It's taken a back-seat at the moment as we press forward with the other one, a supernatural thriller called The Grey Wall.

Here is the synopsis for The Grey Wall:

The Grey Wall is a supernatural love story about two people who have to find their way out of the purgatory they have created for themselves.

On the surface, Sarah and Sam seem like the perfect young couple. But when Sarah gets her big break as an aspiring actress and begins to spend less time with Sam, he begins to wonder whether he’s good enough for her, particularly as he’s stuck in a dead-end job at a collection agency. Events develop which lead Sarah and Sam into a maelstrom of betrayal and mistrust.

Things take a supernatural turn with the appearance of Lawrence and Lorelei, two supporting characters in Sarah’s play who reveal themselves to be much more than they appear. The world that Sarah and Sam believe to be real is turned upside down, and everything they thought they knew about their lives, and each other, comes unraveled, as the evil Lorelei uses her mysterious powers to set them against each other. Meanwhile, Lawrence offers cryptic advice and help, but refuses to become directly involved for his own reasons.

Ultimately, Sarah and Sam arrive at a moment of truth, where they’ll have to look beyond the “grey wall” of the anger and hurt that they have built between themselves, to once again believe in each other and their love in order to find their way “home”.

If they don’t, Lorelei and an eternal darkness are waiting for them…

Beyond Best Evidence is probably the last film I'll make about UFOs, assuming we raise the money we need. One should never say "never", of course, but there are a lot of other things that I want to do, and at the moment I can't imagine anything about UFOs after I'm done Beyond Best Evidence that would be interesting enough to warrant the year or so that it takes to make a good film.

Paul Kimball

Beyond Best Evidence on the X-Zone

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This is an excerpt from my appearance on the X-Zone radio show with host Rob McConnell on Friday, May 6, 2011, wherein I discuss the documentary for which we're currently running a fundraising campaign, Beyond Best Evidence: The UFO Enigma. The conversation goes on from there to cover UFOs in general, and how they might relate to art in particular.

Paul Kimball

Paranormal Cafe appearance

My recent appearance on the Paranormal Cafe radio show, with host Rob Simcox.

Paul Kimball

Paul Kimball on Unified Field Radio - May 8th, 2011

A programming note:

I'll be on the Unified Field Radio program with host Justin Brown this evening, at 7:30 pm AST / 6:30 pm EST. You can tune in here. The show originally aired on CKDU 88.1 FM here in Halifax last night.

Paul Kimball

Paul Kimball on The X-Zone - Friday, May 6, 2011

My blitz of the airwaves continues this evening with a return to one of my favourite shows, the X-Zone with Rob McConnell, to talk about UFOs and Beyond Best Evidence. 1 am to 2 am EST; 2 am to 3 am AST.

You can listen here.

Paul Kimball

UFOs as performance art

At his UFO Iconoclasts blog, Rich Reynolds has recently been musing about the lack of any art exhibited by the mysterious extraterrestrial creatures who supposedly pilot UFOs from somewhere "out there" to here.

He writes, in part:

No UFO or flying saucer reports have identified music as endemic to the sightings. And no art, aside from those militaristic or corporate-like insignia/symbols, has been registered – none like that which Lemarchand thinks would be intrinsic to an advanced extraterrestrial race.

What does this tell us about UFOs? That whatever they are, or whomever “mans” them, are either not advanced in a way that would include moral imperatives (as Lemarchand articulates) nor are they as advanced in even a small way as that of the Neanderthals or early man was, as indicated by the art in the caves of Lascaux and Chauvet-Pont d’Arc.

This means, for us, that UFOs are either created by Earthlings or are artifacts without a cultural or living species origination - a physical manifestation of some kind - or UFOs belong to a race or races that are without moral imperatives (ethics) and refinements which would ameliorate contact between us and them as (we hate to note) some abduction accounts seem to warn.

While it is true, so far as I know, that no UFO or its supposed occupants has ever produced an alien Rembrandt or Van Gogh for our inspection, nor have they treated us to any alien version of Bach or the Beatles (although, as I have posted elsewhere, it is possible that they have, but only through interaction with individuals who have the ability to comprehend what the non-human intelligence might be trying to communicate), Rich misses the proverbial forest for the trees, even as he raises an excellent topic for discussion.

So, to Rich I would say - what if the UFOs themselves are a form of non-human "performance art"?

After all, one can find not dissimilar displays of the lights often shown by UFOs in our own culture.

Black light theatre is a wonderful example, and one I've been lucky enough to experience. Here's a sample:



Then, if one were to travel to Nevada for the annual Burning Man festival (something on my "bucket list"), one might see something like this:



Perhaps a non-human intelligence, whether from another solar system, or another dimension, or even another time, is doing something similar for us with UFOs?

After all, our art is capable of as many manifestations as there are human beings with imagination and creativity. Think of  how much more a non-human intelligence with the same desire to create, and a greater capacity to do so, might be capable of achieving.

Paul Kimball

Paul Kimball on UFO Encounters with Jim Harold

UFO Encounters, hosted by Jim Harold, is a subscriber-based podcast that I appeared on last week, but Jim has been kind enough to send me the link to the MP3 of the episode for posting. It was a good chat, as we discussed Best Evidence, Beyond Best Evidence, Roswell, the RB47 case, extraterrestrial life, and other subjects. Check out all of Jim's shows at his Paranormal Podcast Network.

Listen to the episode here.

Paul Kimball

Mac Tonnies in Beyond Best Evidence

In many ways, Mac Tonnies was the inspiration for Beyond Best Evidence. One of the things that we used to discuss frequently was the prospect of a sequel to Best Evidence: Top 10 UFO Sightings, and how it would be structured. My original idea for a sequel was to put together another top 10 list, with the best cases that didn't make the first one, including some of the more "high strangeness" cases. This would have taken it into different territory, but Mac was of the opinion that it didn't go far enough - that it had to leave the cases behind, and talk more about the theories and possible explanations.

While I agreed in principle, I explained to him that it would be a tougher sell to get that kind of film made by a television network, but he didn't relent - he said that I should make the right film, rather han the film that fit what some network might want "right now". I agreed, and put the project on the back-burner, always with the intent that if the time and circumstances were right, I would move forward with it as an independent documentary, with Mac involved from the beginning. He was going to be the narrator, bridging from his appearance at the end of Best Evidence, into the more theoretical realm that he preferred. It was one of the many projects we were working on prior to his tragic death in October, 2009.

Fortunately, Mac will still be an integral part of the film, and not just in the spirit behind it. I'll be digging into the archives of conversations I had with Mac about the UFO phenomenon over the years, and using them as narrative framing segments within the film. Mac was one of the few truly original and open-minded thinkers when it comes to the UFO phenomenon, and I'm happy to have the opportunity to place those views in front of the widest possible audience one more time.

Paul Kimball

The Fork In The Road

Anyone who travels along the "road" of the UFO phenomenon will sooner or later reach a fork, where they they will be faced with two choices.

The first is to follow the path of old information simply represented in a new way. George Adamski becomes Steven Greer, Aztec becomes Roswell, and Donald Keyhoe's conspiracy theories about the USAF become Stan Friedman's "Cosmic Watergate".

This is the easier path to choose, because you know where it will lead. You can follow it on a map. Comfortable and well-marked out, it winds its way to a small village inhabited by fellow travellers, kind of like a hobbit town from Lord of the Rings, with whom you can sit down, share a good meal, and tell some stories to each other. It's familiar, and has the siren call of certainty.  

This path is all about finding a place to settle.



The second path is more difficult. It requires you to take a leap into the unknown, to embrace uncertainty, and seek out new information and new ideas. There is no map, no familiarity, and no promise of a comfortable resting place at the end of the road. But there is the possibility of so much more.

This path is all about a journey.

And therein lies the difference, because only by undertaking that journey can one ever really hope to arrive at the destination of true discovery.

Paul Kimball

Carol Rainey and UFO Updates

I've been a subscriber to UFO Updates, a long-time e-mail discussion list, for a decade now. I cancelled my subscription once before, when I thought someone was poorly treated by the moderator, Errol Bruce-Knapp, and I've done so again, this time because of his banning of Carol Rainey as a result of her defending her recent critiques of Budd Hopkins and his "alien abduction research".

I consider Errol a friend, and wish him all the best personally, but this was a mistake. I know a number of researchers who support Rainey behind the scenes, including some very senior and popular ones, but they won't get involved publicly.

That's a shame. There is a real discussion to be had about the "alien abduction" phenomenon, and Ms. Rainey has been making a substantial, and documented, contribution to it, by way of her critique of Hopkin's methodology, particularly as it concerns the "Linda Cortile" case. But the Luddites of so-called "ufology" don't want anything to do with it, just as they largely ignored earlier critiques, from Dr. Susan Clancy all the way to Jacques Vallee and Kevin Randle.

In the end, UFO Updates is small beans in and of itself, but this says something about UFO research, which should be cutting edge, revolutionary stuff, full of new ideas and open minds.

In many quarters, of course, it is indeed exactly that - but not in "ufology", which has absolutely nothing to do with research into the UFO phenomenon, and whose practitioners have no understanding of what real research and discovery are about.

Like old men playing chess in the park, and swapping the same stories about supposedly better days, they are irrelevant to anyone or anything other than the pigeons who occasionally wander by to gather up the stale breadcrumbs they still toss to the ground.

Paul Kimball

Beyond Best Evidence

Join the team, and be part of the journey of discovery from the beginning!

Paul Kimball

The Doctor

It should probably come as no surprise to anyone that I am a major-league science fiction fan, to the point of uber-geekdom. Some of the best science fiction has appeared on television over the years, from the original Star Trek to Battlestar Galactica (the remake), and The X-Files to The Twilight Zone. But my choice for the best series, bar none (with an admiring nod in the direction of the wonderful Babylon 5), is Dr. Who.

Now, the Doctor has had his ups and downs over the years (that's what happens when you've been around as long as he has), but from the thrill of watching Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker as a kid, to the absolute joy of seeing the series properly re-booted in the past decade, he's never disappointed. He's made me think, and opened my mind to new worlds and new possibilities.

Thus do I appoint Dr. Who as the official science fiction series of The Other Side of Truth, which seems only fitting, as I often refer to myself, amongst friends, as the Twelfth Docor!

And now, for the record, my picks for...

Favourite Doctor - The Fifth Doctor (played by Peter Davison), with a hat tip to the Tenth Doctor (played by David Tennant).

Favourite Companion - Peri Brown (played by Nicola Bryant), with a bow to Rose Tyler (played by Billie Piper).

Favourite Villain - The Daleks, of course, with a respectful nod to The Weeping Angels.

And while I really like the Tenth Doctor's catchphrase of "allons-y", I have adopted the following as my own - "why not?"

Paul Kimball