'Teorija
inflacije oko implikacija ekstraterestricne posjete'
hr.alt.paranormal
POŠILJATELJ = Giuliano Marinkovic (uforadio@hi.htnet.hr)
Datum: Fri
7 Jan 2005 12:29
Nakon Sturrockove
studije, COMETA reporte i Disclosure projekta,
nastavlja se progres ozbiljne ufologije na rubovima mainstream
znanosti. Novi kljucan clanak pod nazivom 'Teorija inflacije oko
implikacija ekstraterestricne posjete' objavljan je u znanstvenom
glasilu 'Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol 58, pp.
43-50, 2005.' sto ga je toliko izdvojilo da je cak isti clanak
stavljen na uvodnu stranicu www.ufoskeptic.org sa predgovorom urednika
Bernarda Haischa, a to je je frapantno. Jedan od autora clanka je i
dr. Bruce Maccabee koji je nedavno sudjelovao u analizi (report
objavljen prije nekoliko dana takodjer) famoznog Mexickog UFO
incidenta sluzbeno objavljenog i od mexickog Ministarstva obrane (2.
sezona UFO_NAUTICE www.uforadio.cjb.net). U clanku se dobro pretresa
updejtana ufologija sa posebnim naglaskom na Condonovo izvjesce i
Sturrockovu reviziju (2. sezona UFO_NAUTICE) sa novim raspravama oko
argumenata fermijevog paradoksa. Sve glavne stavke ozbiljne ufologije
su uklucene o cemu se moglo dosta slusati u prethodnim sezonama
UFO_NAUTICE; GEPAN/SEPRA istrazivanja, zrakoplovni incidenti,
sluzbeni odbori, CEFAA istrazivanja itd.
Vezano za fermijev paradoks, o cemu smo dosta aktivno nedavno
raspravljali i na grupi hr.alt.paranormal, upravo se sada sve cesce
uzima u obzir vec spominjani argument 'egoisticne antropocentricnosti'
tj. povlacenje zakljucaka oko ponudjenog rjesenja fermijevog paradoksa
ad hoc bez argumentiranih uzoraka i realnih mogucnosti da jos uvijek
apstraktiramo potencijalu 'ET etiku' (naravno ukoliko postoji).
O svemu detaljnije naravno u trecoj sezoni UFO_NAUTICE koja krece
krajem sijecnja. U donjem tekstu je predgovor Bernarda Haischa, a
nakon toga pejstam cijeli clanak.
Giuliano Marinović
http://www.uforadio.cjb.net
___________________
Source: http://www.ufoskeptic.org
An information site on the UFO phenomenon by and for professional
scientists.
Skeptic - One who practices the method of suspended judgment, engages
in rational and dispassionate reasoning as exemplified by the
scientific method, shows willingness to consider alternative
explanations without prejudice based on prior beliefs, and who seeks
out evidence and carefully scrutinizes its validity.
"Advances are made by answering questions.
Discoveries are made by questioning answers."
Bernard Haisch
New: links at bottom
JBIS article
Vallee article
Dear Colleagues,
We are in the curious situation today that our best modern physics and
astrophysics theories arguably predict that we should be experiencing
extraterrestrial visitation, yet any possible evidence of such lurking
in the UFO phenomenon is scoffed at within our scientific community
(see the JBIS article linked below for details).
To give some background, I have been an active professional astronomer
since earning my doctorate in 1975. I have published a respectable
number of scientific papers in most of the right journals (including
our favorites, Science and Nature), have been Principal Investigator
on several NASA studies, have served as referee and proposal reviewer
for NASA and NSF, belong to half a dozen professional societies, have
chaired international conferences, i.e. I've engaged by and large
successfully in all the usual activities of a busy professional
scientist. For those of you who want the full details, click here for
my CV.
During my career I have had the responsibility and privilege as an
editor of accepting or rejecting somewhere in the neighborhood of a
thousand articles in a prestigious astrophysics journal. This does not
conclusively prove, but certainly indicates, that I recognize good
science when I see it. I have also had the responsibility of accepting
or rejecting papers on the UFO phenomenon in a quite different
refereed journal, the Journal of Scientific Exploration (JSE). For 12
years I served as editor of JSE (as an unpaid public service) because
I believe that examining evidence that may challenge prevailing
scientific dogma is good for science and a necessary part of searching
for the truth. The road of discovery may have 99 deadends in the
thicket for every new path winding its way up the peak, but that is
just how it is. Curiosity and tenacity are equal prerequisites for a
scientist... as is an open mind.
I have learned quite a bit about the UFO phenomenon over the years
(certainly more than I had bargained for) and have met many of the
leading figures, some credible, some deluded. When Prof. Peter
Sturrock, a prominent Stanford University plasma physicist, conducted
a survey of the membership of the American Astronomical Society in the
1970s, he made an interesting finding: astronomers who spent time
reading up on the UFO phenomenon developed more interest in it. If
there were nothing to it, you would expect the opposite: lack of
credible evidence would cause interest to wane. But the fact of the
matter is, there does exist a vast amount of high quality, albeit
enigmatic, data. UFO sightings are not limited to farmers in backward
rural areas. There are astronomers and pilots and NASA engineers --
and others who have been around the block a few times when it comes to
observing natural phenomena -- who have witnessed events for which
there is no plausible conventional explanation.
Recently astrophysicist Ken Olum at Tufts University argued
(gr-qc/0303070) that anthropic reasoning applied to inflation theory
predicts that we should find ourselves part of a large, galaxy-sized
civilization, implying that the "We are alone" solution to Fermi's
paradox is inconsistent with our best current theory of cosmology.
Beatriz Gato-Rivera, a physicist at the Instituto de Matematicas y
Fisica in Madrid, followed up on this (physics/0308078) with the
hypothesis that Olum is correct, but that by design we would be kept
unaware of a greatly advanced surrounding civilization. She also
argues that modern superstring and M-brane theory further aggravate
Fermi's "missing alien" problem. It is quite strange that while
our
best modern physics and astrophysics theories thus predict that we
should be experiencing extraterrestrial visitation, any possible
evidence of such in the form of a subset of UFO reports is ignored or
ridiculed.
There is another aspect to the UFO phenomenon that involves politics
and secrecy rather than observational evidence. I do not currently
have a ticket to any SCI program, but over the years I have gotten to
know individuals who for one reason or another would be aware of the
existence of relevant black programs. From such sources, certain
possibilities have made it through my credibility filter and now
reside -- like Schroedinger's cat -- in kind of an unresolved mental
superposition of quantum states having both the eigenvalues "true"
and
"false" and no operator around to collapse the wave function.
My
credibility filter is a function of several parameters such as my own
knowledge of physical laws, state of technology and history of its
origin, some personal experience with government agencies and security
classification systems, but mostly the filter is tuned to the
questions: Which people have I learned over the years to be
trustworthy, sensible and knowledgeable? How would they be in a
position to know the things they do? Why and to what extent would they
tell me anything, even based on long-time friendship? Do they have
anything to gain by telling stories or making claims? What consistency
and convergence is there among various people's claimed information?
I see myself a bit like the kid standing next to the kid looking
through the hole in the big tall fence at the baseball game. This
means that the closest I am getting to inside information will be a
recounting of what is going on in there. I myself am definitely not an
insider, but contacts I have acquired and/or befriended over a long
period of time seem to be on the periphery of some kind of inside
which appears to contain at least remarkable information, and
apparently more than that. Let me be (somewhat) more specific. I now
have three completely independent examples of individuals whom I trust
reporting to me that individuals they trust have admitted to handling
alien materials in "our" possession in the course of secret
official
duties. (The special access level in the one case for which I know it
is R, a not widely known SCI level whose existence was finally
verified for me by someone who himself had a very high access level,
though short of that one, as being "reserved for someone at the very
top." I do not know, however, whether it is specifically reserved
or
designated for this topic.) And in yet two mores cases, I am similarly
one (trustworthy) step removed from a former head of a federal
government agency who was involved with a special access program
reporting decades-long extraterrestrial reverse engineering efforts
and a head of state of a G8 country who also said he had been
officially briefed on that program. Now the Air Force Project Blue
Book of the 1950s and 1960s did have both a public and a classified
side. I suspect that after the public half of Blue Book closed up shop
following the Condon Report, its classified half may have continued,
existing today as a black special access program (see below).
Could such things possibly be true? While I am intrigued by what I
have learned over the years, I can't be absolutely certain. It is
interesting that from the clandestine intelligence world perspective
the scientific community, for all of its technical and theoretical
sophistication, is viewed as remarkably naive in certain respects. We
scientists tend to think that we know better than anyone else what is
possible and what is impossible, and that we of all people could
surely not be kept in the dark for very long. Over the course of time
I have learned how it would indeed be possible to maintain
decades-long secrecy on this topic and why this might be justified,
concepts I myself once dismissed. (See Black Special Access Programs,
also Some Thoughts on Keeping It Secret. And for some insight on the
origin of this situation see the book UFOs and the National Security
State: An Unclassified History. Vol. 1: 1947-1973 by Richard Dolan;
also The Missing Times by Terry Hansen which documents the history of
ties between the national media and the intelligence community. I am
aware that these two books have been criticised for over-reliance on
secondary sources. More scholarly work is available, such as that of
Jan Aldrich, but I think that Dolan and Hansen present a useful and
eye-opening introduction to the situation in general, especially for
someone first approaching this topic.)
The above is, of course, short of any kind of proof, but all in all I
have now gotten to the point in my exposure to the subject at which I
think it somewhat more likely than not that something not merely
delusional, but real and important may be going on with regard to the
UFO phenomenon. If so, I would like to discover what it is, or what
the ensemble of phenomena are if it is a multiplicity of things. My
estimation of the probable reality of the subject puts me somewhere
between the majority rejectionist view of the mainstream scientific
community and the majority accepting view of the general public
(depending on how the issue is presented in opinion polls).
I propose that true skepticism is called for today: neither the
gullible acceptance of true belief nor the closed-minded rejection of
the scoffer masquerading as the skeptic. One should be skeptical of
both the believers and the scoffers. The negative claims of
pseudo-skeptics who offer facile explanations must themselves be
subject to criticism. If a competent witness reports having seen
something tens of degrees of arc in size (as happens) and the scoffer
-- who of course was not there -- offers Venus or a high altitude
weather balloon as an explanation, the requirement of extraordinary
proof for an extraordinary claim falls on the proffered negative claim
as well. That kind of approach is also pseudo-science. Moreover just
being a scientist confers neither necessary expertise nor sufficient
knowledge. (I wish it did, sigh.) Any scientist who has not read a few
serious books and articles presenting actual UFO evidence should out
of intellectual honesty refrain from making scientific pronouncements.
To look at the evidence and go away unconvinced is one thing. To not
look at the evidence and be convinced against it nonetheless is
another. That is not science. Do your homework!
This website is a work in progress. It is certainly no statement of
any "truth" but in that regard it is worth keeping in mind something
Winston Churchill once said on that topic: "Men occasionally stumble
over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if
nothing had happened."
Bernard Haisch
Palo Alto, California
a...@ufoskeptic.org
INFLATION-THEORY IMPLICATIONS FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL VISITATION
J. Deardorff, B. Haisch, B. Maccabee and H.E. Puthoff
Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol 58, pp. 43-50,
2005.
download pdf file
(This appears to be the first article on the UFO topic published in a
mainstream scientific journal since the 1979-1980 articles in Applied
Optics by Maccabee on the New Zealand sightings.)
__________________
Source: UFO Skeptic
http://www.ufoskeptic.org/JBIS.pdf
Inflation-Theory Implications for Extraterrestrial Visitation
JBIS, Vol. 58, pp. 43-50, 2005
J. DEARDORFF1, B. HAISCH2, B. MACCABEE3 AND H.E. PUTHOFF4
1. 1689 S.W. Knollbrook Pl., Corvallis, Oregon 97333, USA.
2. National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena
(NARCAP), Post Office Box 1535, Vallejo, California, USA.
3. Fund for UFO Research, Post Office Box 277, Mt Rainier,
Maryland, 20712, USA.
4. Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin, 4030 W. Braker Ln.,
Suite 300, Austin, Texas 78759, USA.
Email: puthoff.nul
It has recently been argued that anthropic reasoning applied to
inflation theory reinforces the prediction that we should find
ourselves part of a large, galaxy-sized civilisation, thus
strengthening Fermi's paradox concerning "Where are they?"
Furthermore, superstring and M-brane theory allow for the
possibility of parallel universes, some of which in principle
could be habitable. In addition, discussion of such exotic
transport concepts as "traversable wormholes" now appears in
the
rigorous physics literature. As a result, the "We are alone"
solution to Fermi's paradox, based on the constraints of earlier
20th century viewpoints, appears today to be inconsistent with
new developments in our best current physics and astrophysics
theories. Therefore we reexamine and reevaluate the present
assumption that extraterrestrials or their probes are not in the
vicinity of Earth, and argue instead that some evidence of their
presence might be found in certain high-quality UFO reports.
This study follows up on previous arguments that (1)
interstellar travel for advanced civilizations is not a priori
ruled out by physical principles and therefore may be
practicable, and (2) such advanced civilisations may value the
search for knowledge from uncontaminated species more than
direct, interspecies communication, thereby accounting for
apparent covertness regarding their presence.
Keywords: Fermi paradox, extraterrestrial hypothesis,
extraterrestrial visitation, UFO phenomenon, Condon Report, SETI
1. Introduction
The ever recurring question of why Earth has seemingly not been
visited by extraterrestrials (ETs) has received considerable
discussion under the topic of 'Fermi's paradox'. The problem
originated as a quip by Enrico Fermi to colleagues in Los Alamos
over lunch one day in 1950. Whether one assumes the existence of
only one other civilisation or of many alien civilisations in
our Milky Way galaxy, and whether one assumes colonisation
involving interstellar travel at near-light speed or far below,
diffusion modeling predicts colonisation or at least visitation
of all habitable planets in the galaxy on timescales of tens of
millions of years, far less than the approximate 13 x 109 year
age of the galaxy itself. Thus the paradox: Where are they [1]?
Theoretical possibilities unknown to Fermi make the paradox even
stronger today. One can now rationally conjecture about
prospects afforded by adjacent M-brane universes [2]. Indeed, if
the multidimensions underlying superstring and M-brane theory
are correct, there could be inhabited universes separated from
our own by minute, orthogonal distances. Also, anthropic
reasoning has recently been applied to inflation theory,
arriving once again at the conclusion that we should find
ourselves within an enormously larger galactic civilisation [3].
While the 'We are alone' solution to Fermi's paradox was once a
seemingly valid one, this answer is now incompatible with the
infinite universe and random self-sampling assumption consistent
with inflation theory. We thus find ourselves in the curious
position that current cosmological theory predicts that we
should be experiencing extraterrestrial visitation. At the same
time, current physics and astrophysics suggest that such
visitation may not be as impossible as had been thought.
2. Recent Scientific Advances
In recent astronomical discoveries, over 100 exoplanets have
been catalogued, with detection sensitivity now increased to the
point where, in one instance, a Jupiter-sized planet was deduced
to be in a Jupiter-like orbit around a Sol-like star [4]. In the
field of exobiology, much recent activity suggests that some of
the building blocks for life may originate in space as well as
be transported by meteorites [5- 6]. The possibility of
widespread panspermia has received new impetus [7-8]. These
findings and studies make plausible the hypothesis that there is
intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. This is, of course,
the fundamental assumption made by the proponents of SETI, the
Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence using microwave or
optical means of detection.
The extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH), that intelligent life
from 'elsewhere' in the universe could be visiting Earth, has
become less implausible through suggestions that the velocity-
of-light constraint=97 'they can't get here from there'=97is not as
restricting as had been assumed previously. This restriction has
its origin in the special theory of relativity, which we do not
question. However, within the context of general relativity (GR)
there are three approaches which may permit legitimately
bypassing this limit, given sufficiently advanced (perhaps by
millions of years!) knowledge of physics and technology.
One approach popularised by Thorne and Sagan concerns the
possibility of wormholes, or cosmic subways, a form of shortcut
through the space-time metric [9]. Using the standard GR as a
basis, certain mathematical requirements for traversable
wormholes have been derived and published in the scientific
literature and it appears that there is the possibility of
engineering a wormhole metric, at least in principle [10].
A second more recent approach published in the GR literature has
been dubbed the 'Alcubierre Warp Drive' [11-12]. Unlike the
speed of light limit through space, there is no limit to the
speed at which space itself might stretch. Faster than light
(FTL) relative motion is part of inflation theory, and
presumably the universe beyond the Hubble distance is receding
from us faster than c. It was shown that a spaceship contained
in a volume of Minkowski space could in principle make use of
FTL expansion of space-time behind and a similar contraction in
front, with the inconvenience of time dilation and untoward
accelerations being overcome. A related approach involves
constructing a 'Krasnikov tube' [13] to connect spatially remote
locales. Of course so-called exotic matter would be required for
either case.
If GR itself were to be reinterpreted in terms of a polarisable
vacuum as first proposed by Dicke [14], this would open the
possibility of a different type of metric engineering in which
the dielectric properties of the vacuum might be altered in such
a way as to raise the local propagation velocity of light. In
effect one would be creating a local index of refraction of less
than unity [15].
Finally, there is the conjectured possibility of making use of
the additional dimensionalities of M-brane and superstring
theory to transfer into adjacent universes where the speed of
light limit may be quite different and reentering our universe
at the desired location. This is by far the most speculative
possibility.
Clearly when it comes to engineering warp drive or wormhole
solutions, seemingly insurmountable obstacles emerge, such as
unattainable energy requirements [16] or the need for exotic
matter [17]. Thus, if success is to be achieved, it must rest on
some yet unforeseen breakthrough about which we can only
speculate, such as a technology to cohere otherwise random
vacuum fluctuations [18]. Nonetheless, the possibility of
reduced-time interstellar travel by advanced extraterrestrial
(ET) civilisations is not, as naive consideration might hold,
fundamentally ruled out by presently known physical principles.
ET knowledge of the physical universe may comprise new
principles which allow some form of FTL travel. This possibility
is to be taken seriously, since the average age of suitable
stars within the 'galactic habitable zone', in which the Earth
also resides, is found to be about 109 years older than the sun
[19] suggesting the possibility of civilizations extremely
advanced beyond our own.
There are further reasons why the 'We are alone' solution to
Fermi's paradox should perhaps be set aside in favor of the ETH.
A previously preferred solution, that biogenesis is an
exceedingly rare event in conjunction with both panspermia and
interstellar travel being inoperative [1], is now scarcely
tenable in light of the cosmological considerations already
discussed. The ETH appears to be the most viable remaining
solution, where 'ET' is taken in a general non-Earthly sense
that could include extra-dimensional realms, as in M-brane and
superstring theory. Given the highly advanced ET science and
technology to be expected in considerably older civilisations,
coupled with the many observational reports since WWII of highly
advanced technology seemingly operating at will within Earth's
skies, it is only logical to search for evidence of ET
visitations in at least a fraction of the ongoing, unexplainable
reports popularly referred to as 'UFO sightings.' Reluctance to
do so could result in our failure to realize that observations
of 'genuine' ET visitations have been occurring. This approach,
which we follow here, explores the likelihood that 'we actually
do belong to a large civilisation but are unaware of that fact'
[3].
3. U.S. Air Force Response (1947-1969)
Reports of unknown objects in the skies, appearing
as some sort of flying craft and exhibiting extraordinary
manoeuvres, first became known to the general
public in 1947. The first publicised sighting occurred
on June 24 of that year, after which there were many
hundreds of sightings during the following months.
The phenomenon has been continuing ever since
[20-24].
At first the U.S. Air Force collected the sighting reports for
analysis in its operation Project Sign (1948-1949). This was
succeeded by Project Grudge (1949-1952) and then Project Blue
Book (1952-1969) [20,25] . Some 20% of Project Blue Book's
sightings from 1953-1965 were left unexplained, if their
'insufficient data' category is included [22]. The Battelle
Memorial Institute (BMI; Columbus, Ohio) discovered, in their
study of 3,201 reports from 1947 through 1952, that the
percentage of unknowns (unexplainable sightings) increased with
increasing quality of the sighting information and reliability
of the observers [21]. A surprisingly high percentage, 30%, of
the civilian sightings, and an even more surprising 38%, of the
military sightings rated as excellent in quality were listed as
unknown. On the other hand, only about 15% of the civilian and
20% of the military sightings rated as poor were unknown. The
increase in the percentage of unknowns with increasing quality
of the report is an unexpected result if sightings were all
explainable as mistakes (failure to correctly identify the
sighted phenomenon) by either the observer(s) or the scientists
who analysed the sightings. In this collection of 3,201
sightings none were listed as hoaxes and only 1.5% were listed
as caused by psychological effects. This result discovered
during the several year long BMI study refutes the claim, made
in the Condon Report [22], that UFO reports are from 'less well
informed individuals,' who are 'not necessarily reliable.' It is
worthy of note that Condon had access to the results of the BMI
study but there is no reference to it in the Condon Report.
Project Blue Book culminated in 1969 with the government
sponsored Condon Report [22]. In the opening section of the
Report its director concluded that, after years of
investigation, the U.S. Air Force had found nothing truly
new=97nothing that supported claims of new physics or the ETH=97and
that continued investigation probably would not find anything
truly new in the future. The Report recommended that the Air
Force end its investigation project, which it did in late 1969.
4. The Condon Report (1968)
In the late 1960's, the U.S. Air Force issued a contract to the
University of Colorado to carry out a scientific study of
evidence concerning the UFO phenomenon. The director of the
project was Prof. Edward U. Condon, a distinguished and
influential physicist who made no secret of his opinion even at
the outset that no substantive evidence for extraterrestrial
visitation was liable to result. The study was relatively brief
(2 years) and had a notably low budget (app. $500K) for a
serious scientific study. When the Condon Report was released in
1968, the American scientific community accepted its apparently
negative conclusion concerning evidence for extraterrestrial
visitation in a generally uncritical way, and to some extent
even an enthusiastic way since it offered an end to a
troublesome situation. An endorsement of the Report by the
National Academy of Sciences took place following an unusually
rapid review and the Air Force quickly used the Report as a
justification to terminate any further public involvement with
the topic.
The negative conclusion of the Report is more apparent than real
however, since there is a substantial discrepancy between the
conclusion in the "Summary of the Study" written by Condon
singlehandedly, and the conclusion one could reasonably draw
from the evidence presented in the main body of the Report. Such
a dichotomy was possible because the study was a project for
which the director, Condon, had sole authority; it was not the
work of a committee whose members would have to reach some
consensus conclusion. An analysis of the Condon Report by
Sturrock [26] details the many disagreements between Condon's
dismissive summary and the actual data.
Given the thousand-page length of the Report, one can safely
assume that very few in the scientific community would have
devoted the time necessary to read the entire document. The
impact of the Report was thus largely due to Condon's leveraging
his prestigious scientific reputation into an acceptance of his
own personal views as representing the apparent outcome of a
scientific investigation. Indeed, as Sturrock documents, Condon
actually took no part in the investigations and indicated the
conclusion he intended to draw well before the data were
properly examined, hardly a scientific approach.
The portion of the Condon Report that contains its sighting
analyses does not support the "Summary of the Study" written
by
Condon [26]. Many of the events presented within its Case
Studies section do fall into the 'unidentified' category of
UFOs, for which the Report's definition was, in essence: 'A
puzzling stimulus for a report of something seen in the sky or
landed on the earth that could not be identified as having an
ordinary natural origin.' In a detailed review of this Report,
however, it was noted that 'The sheer bulk of the report, much
of it "scientific padding", cannot conceal from anyone who
studies it closely that it examines only a tiny fraction of the
really puzzling UFO reports, and that its scientific
argumentation is often unsatisfactory. Of roughly ninety cases
that it specifically confronts, more than thirty are conceded to
be unexplained' [27]. Four of the cases, reanalysed and reported
in detail at the 1969 AAAS Symposium, disclosed how unscientific
the Condon Report's treatment of them had been; the reanalyses
have since gone unrefuted. Hence we cannot agree with the Condon
Report's assertion that the phenomenon provides no new subjects
for science to explore, given that many sightings were left
unexplained. Furthermore, in many of the cases that the Report
claimed to have identified, that goal was achieved merely
through assuming that the witnesses had seen something differing
in detail from what they had reported. Also, a committee of the
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1971 found
'it difficult to ignore the small residue of well-documented but
unexplainable cases that form the hard core of the UFO
controversy'[28]. Clearly, the Condon Report was left in an
unsatisfactory state [20,24-26,29-30].
The primary conclusion of the Condon panel sidestepped the main
issue, the failure to explain every sighting, by saying: 'The
evidence presented on Unidentified Flying Objects shows no
indication that these phenomena constitute a direct physical
threat to national security' [22]. This is not inconsistent,
however, with some fraction of unexplained reports representing
actual ET visitations.
5. Re-Evaluation of the Phenomenon Needed
5.1 Sightings Since the Condon Report
The self-inconsistency of the Condon Report, along with the
strengthening of Fermi's paradox through recent developments in
cosmology, physics, astronomy and astrobiology, are but two
reasons to reevaluate the UFO phenomenon. Another reason is that
remarkable sightings did not cease with the publication of the
Condon Report in 1969. Many detailed sightings since then have
become available for examination. Scientists should not feel
reluctant to study these inasmuch as the Report's executive
summary stated that 'any scientist with adequate training and
credentials who does come up with a clearly defined, specific
proposal for study [of UFO reports] should be supported.'
One example of sightings worth studying are those that occurred
on December 31, 1978 off the northeast coast of South Island,
New Zealand. These involved several channels of information
recorded on tape and film during the sightings, correlated
visual air- and ground-radar detections and light phenomena
recorded on colour movie film as well as reports by the eight
witnesses who were involved. Analysis of the recorded data and
of the witness testimony indicates that unknown objects emitting
bright light were detected on radar, filmed and apparently moved
in response to the motions of the airplane carrying the
witnesses. The sightings have defied all mundane explanations
[31-32].
Some investigations of unexplainable sightings have been
sponsored by governments outside the U.S. Since 1977 the French
Space Agency has carried out an official investigation of UFO
reports with its project GEPAN, later called SEPRA. In the
Belgium sighting wave of 1989-90, civilian and military
officials cooperated in sharing eyewitness, radar and video-
image data of triangular-shaped craft.
5.2 Withheld Information Now Available
The Condon investigators did not have full access to the
information and analysis compiled previously by the U.S. Air
Force Office of Intelligence (AFOIN) or to all the information
collected by Project Blue Book.
Much of this information has been disclosed in the years since
1968. The information release has come about on five fronts.
First, the U.S. Air Force released the complete files of Project
Blue Book in 1975. This release included the previously
unavailable files of the Air Force Office of Special
Investigation (AFOSI).
Second, the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, which went into
effect in the mid 1970s, resulted in the release of relevant
information from other agencies (Federal Bureau of
Investigation: FBI, in 1977; Central Intelligence Agency: CIA,
in 1978; etc.), though often in a censored form [23-24].
A third new source of information is the collection of
previously withheld reports and analyses carried out by the
AFOIN in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This information has
been released in the last 20 years as a result of standard
declassification requirements for old documents. It shows that
Air Force intelligence privately concluded that as many as 5% of
the sightings were unexplainable even though they were
apparently accurate reports made by credible observers, thus
contradicting the public statements of the Air Force that all
sightings could be explained. The documents provide an
explanation as to why Air Force intelligence told the FBI in
August and again in October, 1952, that some top Air Force
officials were seriously considering the 'interplanetary'
explanation [33].
Fourth, governments of countries other than the United States,
over the last 25 years, have released relevant information
collected by their armed services and police. Not only has the
French government, through GEPAN and SEPRA, released sighting
documents but also England's Ministry of Defense recently
released a number of documents. The governments of Spain and
Canada also released documents in the 1970s and 1980s. Moreover,
some governments besides that of France have official
investigative groups on this topic. In 1997, in response to
civilian and military sightings over the previous years, the
Chilean Air Force formed the Committee for the Study of
Anomalous Phenomena (acronym, CEFAA in Spanish) directed by a
former Air Force general and headquartered in the Technical
School of Aeronautics in Santiago. One of us (Maccabee) was
invited to Chile in 1999 to lecture at a symposium sponsored by
the CEFAA and to discuss the sightings. The Peruvian Air Force
set up a similar group in 2001. Brazil and Uruguay also have
comparable investigative groups.
A fifth new source of information not available or utilised by
the Condon group consists of the many witnesses to events in the
1940-1960 decades who had worked for the government or the
military and after reaching retirement age, have come forward to
divulge their first-hand knowledge [34]. They have felt it was
more important for the citizens to know what has been taking
place than to continue to obey instructions to maintain silence
about it. A reluctance to report UFO events arose because of a
curtain of ridicule which, since the 1950s, had settled over the
subject. It was induced in part by the CIA's 1953 Robertson
panel that recommended a debunking programme against the reality
of the phenomenon [20,22-23].
The debunking is most often implemented by an authority figure
asserting, at his own volition and without interviewing the
witnesses, that whatever was observed and reported as
extraordinary was instead the misidentification of something
mundane. This is demeaning to sincere, credible witnesses. The
major news media quickly picked up on sarcastic phrases like
'little green men' and 'UFO buffs', then gradually weaned
themselves away from the topic=97reporters, editors and corporate
owners fear ridicule, whether just or unjust, as much as do
scientists and politicians. The refusal of the U.S. Air Force in
the 1950s and 1960s to release sighting data it had collected
only added to the problem, since evidence collected by the
government was not available to support the witnesses [33].
The first director of the CIA assessed the situation in 1960 as
follows: 'Behind the scenes, highranking Air Force officers are
soberly concerned about UFOs. But, through official secrecy and
ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying
objects are nonsense=85 to hide the facts, the Air Force has
silenced its personnel' [35]. The Condon Report also added to
the problem, since it demonstrated that men of science could
simply allege that witnesses are mistaken or dishonest and they
would be believed by most of their colleagues even though they
had no evidence to back up their allegations. This in turn led
to greater reluctance on the part of witnesses to come forward.
As a result, 'the most credible UFO witnesses are often those
most reluctant to come forward with a report of the event they
have witnessed' [27]. This ridicule factor has prevented many
serious investigators from even attempting to report their
findings within the journals preferred by most scientists.
Therefore, one of the recommendations made by the moderator of a
1997 panel of scientists is that journal editors should change
their policy of refusing to even seriously consider publishing
articles related to the UFO phenomenon, so that this difficulty
may be alleviated [36].
6. Inferring an ET Strategy
If one allows that at least some unexplainable sightings may be
manifestations of extraterrestrial intelligence, then there is
yet another reason for reevaluation: a growing recognition over
the past two decades that a large part of the behavior
manifested can be viewed as being quite rational. The topic of
ET behavior has received considerable discussion in connection
with SETI in the past three decades. SETI has proceeded on the
assumption that Fermi's paradox is to be solved through
continued and enhanced searching of the sky for electromagnetic
signals indicative of ET communications [37]. Several possible
reasons for lack of success to date have been proposed [1,37-
38].
Since the 1970s advocates of a covert ET presence in our
vicinity have also been advancing their hypotheses or scenarios.
They reject as improbable the assumption that space-faring ETs
must be dominated by the most evil and aggressive of their kind=97
an assumption whose consequence would be that we should not be
existing as a freely developing civilisation within a fully
colonised and/or explored galaxy. Contact optimists instead
presume that many advanced ET groups are at least as ethical as
we are, while still attending to their own safety and security.
The ET motivation for space travel could be to increase their
knowledge through exploration of space rather than to colonise
and seek domination [39]. Thus hypotheses have been set forth
regarding why such ETs would be aware of our presence but not
yet have contacted us overtly. Among these are the zoo, nursery
and quarantine or embargo hypotheses [1,38,40-42]. Most of these
posit that the ETs involved have frequently scouted us out semi-
covertly and have concluded that we are either not yet mature
enough for open contact, or not prepared for it, since any
abrupt, overt contact could cause societal chaos and
governmental downfalls. Also postulated is that ET interference
with our society would prematurely bring an end to our
civilisation's continued development if it occurred before our
knowledge has progressed to the point that we could understand
where the aliens could have originated and how great their head
start over us could be [39].
A serious inconsistency in this reasoning, however, is that
maintenance of total ET covertness towards Earth and the solar
system would still lead to societal chaos whenever the
covertness or embargo was eventually lifted, unless the ETs
carried out a programme of gradual disclosure=97a 'leaky' embargo
[1,43]. Although the zoo or embargo hypothesis may be
unverifiable, the leaky-embargo hypothesis may be verifiable if
the UFO evidence is taken into account. Much of this evidence
appears to constitute just such a leak in the embargo: a grass-
roots educational programme in the form of the phenomenon, which
has been in operation since 1947, if not before.
Many sightings have been of a nature to attract attention to
their craft and let isolated groups of witnesses know that its
occupants are aware of us [24,44]. A key category of such cases
involves reports wherein persons within a traveling vehicle
frantically witness an object pacing them even though their
automobile or aircraft makes turns that rule out the sighting of
an astronomical or other ordinary object as any explanation.
Similarly, in a number of the aircraft cases the unknown object,
which was either pacing the aircraft or presenting itself to it,
was detected on radar as well as visually [23-25,27].
The object's extraordinary appearance, manoeuvreability and oft-
times coincidental interference with the vehicle's electrical
system additionally rule out mundane explanations [23-25].
Although individual, localised and usually brief sightings may
have provided sufficient evidence to be convincing to the
observers and sighting analysts, the fact is that, since the
widely-reported sightings began in 1947, no event has persisted
in a prominent place a sufficient number of hours at a time, or
demonstrated its abilities to enough witnesses at a time, for
the news media to congregate and publicise it to the world. Nor
have they left quite enough evidence behind to be totally
convincing to very many scientists [25]. We suspect that this
chary behavior may be no accident.
To put it another way, from the viewpoint of investigators
studying such phenomena, individual close-encounter and other
sightings can be very intrusive and overt. However, from the
viewpoint of the scientific community and society as a whole,
this is not the case, because of the relative rarity in time and
space of convincing sightings and because of the limited numbers
of witnesses in most instances. The inference is that, by not
providing sufficient evidence to make their reality totally
obvious to scientists and society in general, the ETs are
following a strategy or programme that avoids inflicting
catastrophic shock to society as a whole, which any overt
contact could cause, while preparing us for eventual open
contact. This could say something about their level of ethics.
Proposing a certain level of ET ethics is not new; it was
suggested in 1981 that advanced ETs may abide by a Codex
Galactica that would require them to treat emerging
civilisations delicately [1,45]. Such a standard of behavior is
consistent with reality of the UFO phenomenon and the fact that
not in the past 56 years, nor in past millennia, have we been
colonised, conquered or exterminated, nor has society been
traumatised by any ETs or by their sometimes postulated robotic
probes [1,41]. It is also consistent with the failure of
investigative panels to find that UFOs constitute any direct
threat to national security. On the other hand, it appears all
too evident that ETs have not intervened in world affairs in any
benevolent manner that would have forestalled human warfare,
famine and disease. In fact, ample cases exist wherein the
witnesses, when too close, were injured or harmed. Other cases
exist, however, in which a witness was healed of some injury or
medical condition [46]. All this suggests that ET interactions
with humans are based on a neutrally benevolent ethical level
overall.
7. Conclusions
Despite the UFO phenomenon having continued now for over two
generations, the huge technological head start of the presumed
ETs would still come as a great shock to many scientists as well
as citizenry, as the Brookings Report indicated [47]. It could
be so great as to seriously challenge our consensual reality, a
not insignificant danger. The implication that we would be
powerless relative to their presumed capabilities and
evolutionary advantage may be most unwelcome, with it being no
surprise that science would have difficulty coming to terms with
the situation [48]. Nevertheless, the reality of the phenomenon
and of our having long since been discovered by advanced ETs now
may be more probable than that Fermi's paradox is to be resolved
through either the non-existence of advanced ETs or their
inability to explore or colonise the galaxy. Hence open
scientific research on the subject is needed with special
attention paid to high quality UFO reports exhibiting apparent
indications that ET intelligence and strategy are involved.
8. Acknowledgments
We thank P. Sturrock of Stanford University and T. Roe of the
National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena
(NARCAP) for suggested improvements.
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