Upon checking my newsfeeds this morning, I read an article in the Irish Timesrecapping an interview with a Turkish guard. In it, he casually discussed his many sightings of UFOs, and the growing popularity of UFO watching in his country.
The article went on to review the many different “alien encounters” that celebrities and farmers alike had experienced in Turkey, including a friendly, “prawn-coloured” alien who plucked one women from her bed and gave her a “whistle-stop tour of earth [sic],” complete with telekinesis.
With a quick Google search, I found different sources linking Turkey to alien life, including an impressive collection of “aliens and Turkey” videos in the History Channel’s archives. Two examples:
A god-like intelligence wanting to understand the workings of our civilization might not be content with occasional “reconnaissance missions” or eavesdropping on our broadcasts. Perhaps nothing less than a robust, interactive simulation — with the aliens playing the roles of indigenous inhabitants — would suffice. In this case, for the simulation to bear anthropological fruit, it would behoove the aliens to think they really were Earthlings, complete with artificial memories. Only upon exiting the simulation would they remember their actual nature. So maybe Earth as we know it is actually an alien virtual reality constructed as a sort of “Jurassic Park” in which to observe human society from the inside out. Or maybe, less glamorously, we’re all amnesiac participants in a vast nonhuman chat-room or first-person video game.
As a (presumed) Earthling, I like the idea that there’s some nobler purpose to our existence, even if we’re ultimately nothing more than a flux of electrons inside from unfathomable alien computer. Just as some of us enjoy historical simulations such as Renaissance fairs, an arbitrarily advanced civilization — either alien or human — might decide to reconstruct a time-period for educational purposes. Indeed, we are fortunate (?) to find ourselves living in such a pivotal time, possibly just years away from achieving the technological “Singularity” predicted by some futurists.
Humans have existed for untold thousands of years, but only recently have we developed the capability to transcend our home planet or, conversely, extinguish all life upon it. If we are in fact experiencing the early 21st century in “real time” (and not as a VR recording), then it’s tempting to envision future scholars, endowed with immense computing power, creating a simulated version of our era — and then, just maybe, immersing themselves in it for the sake of understanding.
This scenario is unabashedly hopeful, as it implies that there is a future for humankind. On a darker note, we could be the computational spawn of alien archaeologists, doomed to simulate our own impending demise.
Some researchers maintain that “paranormal” occurrences are interlinked by an underlying syntactical logic.
Maybe we should attempt a more formal, quantitative analysis of these claims. One example that I find oddly amusing is the famous Hopkinsville, KY “invasion,” in which a family opened fire on bizarre, goblin-like beings that they assumed were alien visitors.
Many ufologists committed to the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis (ETH) exclude the Hopkinsville incident from their files because, at least in retrospect, it seems so implausible; attacking an isolated farmhouse hardly seems like the behavior expected of “real” extraterrestrials. Interestingly, journalists noted that purported psychic Edgar Cayce had grown up just south of Hopkinsville. Some Forteans wondered, not completely without justification, if there might be some sort of connection.
Enter artist Budd Hopkins, whose research has rendered “alien abductions” and the ETH virtually synonymous in the public imagination. Books such as “Missing Time” and “Intruders” (both seminal works in several respects) echo Hopkins’ belief that manipulative ETs are visiting Earth in order to engage in a long-term transgenic experiment.
Is Hopkins an unwitting player in an acausal mosaic of weird happenings? If so, it seems his nuts-and-bolts conclusions regarding the alleged alien presence comprise a kind of “punchline” to the unlikely antics exhibited by the Hopkinsville “goblins,” who behaved more like mechanized circus monkeys than Hopkins’ own methodical genetic engineers.
Skeptics will point out that “Hopkins” is hardly an unusual name. But there are enough cases of synchronicity within UFO research alone to justify a closer, more rigorous analysis. Perhaps Fortean events unfold in a barely glimpsed “Matrix,” their manifestations only partially perceptible to baseline human consciousness.
Followers of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence whether mainstream exobiology or the marginal exploits of ufology — are routinely confronted with three terms that quietly challenge assumptions of reality: skeptic, debunker and believer. In the storm of claims, hypotheses and accusations that define esoteric research, these labels are routinely misused. I’d like to take this opportunity to look a bit closer at these emotionally charged words in order to see what they really mean, and how they sculpt the epistemological landscape. (I suspect that most readers versed in forbidden science secretly know all of this already, but the public arena incessantly distorts definitions to suit its own politics; consequently, one rarely sees skeptic, debunker or believer used in proper context.)
1.) Skeptics - Skeptics are thinkers. Skeptics neither debunk nor believe — unless they are able to establish that a given phenomenon deserves to be debunked. Belief is not a luxury the true skeptic can afford; the mechanics of skeptical thought are rooted in probability and open-mindedness. Being a skeptic requires courage and intellectual flexibility. What looks like a neat idea may turn out to be unsubstantiated nonsense; conversely, it might be the real thing.
2.) Debunkers - Debunkers comprise the most virulent of contemporary self-described skeptics. There is nothing inherently unsound about debunking, contrary to the many appeals on behalf of the pro side of any given paranormal controversy. But in order to debunk, the subject being debunked must be bunk.
The term debunker is often taken as a negative word, perhaps best personified by orangutan scientist-theologian Dr. Zaius in Planet of the Apes. But there’s nothing wrong with being a debunker as long as the debunker can back up his or her claims. Of course, this doesn’t mean that some commentators won’t abuse the urge to debunk — usually in the name of skepticism. For example, astronomer Donald Menzel debunked countless UFO sightings based on his scientifically baseless conviction that there could be no such thing as an alien craft in Earths airspace. Veteran ufologist Philip Klass continued in Menzel’s role, correctly debunking many spurious UFO reports but erroneously debunking others. This is inevitable, as Klass self-stated maxim was that all UFO reports can be attributed to prosaic causes.
3.) Believers - Along with faux-debunkers, believers are the most significant fetter to open-minded inquiry. Believers have no pressing need for facts; a few vague correlations or anonymous insider remarks will suffice. Believers typically revolve around the notion that great shifts in scientific thought are usually initiated by lone eccentrics whose genius is often recognized only posthumously. Thus, their being branded as cranks by the mainstream is flaunted as a badge of honor, as if identifying them as architects of the Next Great Paradigm.
While genuine pioneers are indeed often derided in their time, this is no promise that today’s crackpot theory will be vindicated. However, this doesn’t faze believers. Nothing fazes believers. True believers will weave contradictory evidence into their own models of reality, rationalizing it with arcane philosophical acrobatics. (Try wrapping your mind around the schizophrenic cosmos conceived by Christian Fundamentalists and Creation Scientists.)
We should all strive to be skeptics. But that means taking a hard look at the principles of skepticism as relayed by the mainstream skeptical community (whose output is as flawed by what it doesn’t present as believer-oriented media is flawed by its credulity).
Mac Tonnies
April 13th, 2009 by admin | Posted in Aliens | Comments (0)
The late conspiracy theorist Jim Keith, in his colorfully titled “Saucers of the Illuminati,” makes an interesting point about the simplicity of the quintessential alien face. Could it be, he wonders, that abductees’ brains manufacture the same predictable alien visage because the close encounter experience is so devastatingly weird, crammed with unfamiliar visual cues? Conversely, the minimalist alien head may be due to a scarcity of visual information; the abductee’s mind may “fill in the blanks” to encompass something essentially faceless.
Some ufologists have noted that the eyes of the commonly depicted “Gray” alien would be anatomically impossible, if spherical like human eyes; there simply wouldn’t be enough room in the skull, no matter how outsized. It’s worth recalling that an ostrich’s eye is actually larger than its brain.
Then again, the familiar ink-black “eyes” may not be eyes in the familiar sense. If the Grays are physical beings, perhaps the eyes (with their now-famous black coverings) could be convex lenses — a sort of alien “heads-up” display. In any case, I’m virtually certain the excessively stylized alien face so common in the media is an exaggeration, an easily communicable caricature.
Whatever the nature of the archetypal alien encounter, I’m convinced there’s an hallucinatory component at play, an idea I plan to revisit in future posts.
You’re looking at a partial high-resolution image of the notorious Face on Mars, universally “debunked” by mainstream media outlets due in no small part to the baseless pronouncements of a single pseudoscientific pundit.
I suspect many readers will agree that the highlighted feature at least resembles a humanoid eye, down to the well-defined elliptical structure surrounding the central protruding “pupil.” But how do we go about testing the notion that the Face on Mars boasts an anatomically accurate “eye”? After all, aren’t we merely seeing what we want to see?
In this case, no.
Long before the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft returned provocative images of the Cydonia Mensae region of Mars, the presence of secondary facial characteristics had been predicted by proponents of what became known as the Artificiality Hypothesis. It seemed likely that the Face, if the work of intelligence, would betray traces of anthropomorphic detail when imaged by better cameras. (The “eye” was only barely visible in the best of the early Viking photos from the 1970s; certainly little or nothing about its shape or structure could be inferred.)
So when the first overhead images of the Face became available, the presence of a seemingly well-preserved “eye” became apparent vindication for proponents of artificiality on Mars. After all, it had been predicted by a testable hypothesis. Other “secondary” features were noted as well: lip-like structures that defined a broad, parted “mouth,” candidate “nostrils” and others.
While none of these features proved that the Face was the work of extraterrestrial intelligence — let alone the subject of a far-reaching NASA cover-up — they pointed to the possibility that the Face (and perhaps other anomalies in its vicinity) were more than the “tricks of light” as maintained by NASA’s public relations personnel. (To date, NASA has yet to conduct a scientific investigation that would bear out its contention that the features in Cydonia are wholly natural — an undertaking that might reasonably include the expertise of archaeologists familiar with the role of remote sensing in detecting potential sites here on Earth.)
And so we remain inoculated to the presence of the truly mysterious. The recent “Martian” found in a 2004 rover image has garnered surprisingly intense (if generally dismissive) attention from both independent bloggers and a condescending mainstream media. Meanwhile, the enigmas in Cydonia go conspicuously unremarked, dismissed as the stuff of wishful thinking or the stalwart dreams of conspiracy-mongers.
But this doesn’t have to continue — unless, of course, we let it. As I write, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft circle the Red Planet. Both wield stunning instruments that could easily be trained at Cydonia, regardless of what ultimately awaits us there. Noisy “conspiracy” claims aside, the presence of possible archaeological sites on Mars is scientifically testable — but in order to arrive at a meaningful conclusion we must cast away a host of entrenched preconceptions, regardless how attractive they might seem to an academic community weaned on the certainty that humans have always occupied a central role in the history of our solar system. (To be sure, the very presence of a human-looking visage on Mars smacks of the pervasive “will to believe” that’s infected so many astronomical inquiries throughout history, from the casual certainty of a geocentric cosmos to the illusory “canals” of Percival Lowell.)
The Face on Mars is not dead. We can continue parroting the “answers” offered by self-proclaimed skeptics or we can proceed with objectivity, caution and the knowledge that reality is seldom as abiding as we’d prefer.
I have little doubt that we share the Cosmos with other intelligent beings; in fact, I think it’s very likely that we’ve already been visited, either by ETs themselves or their robotic emissaries . . . if such a distinction can be drawn. If we have indeed been visited by extrasolar aliens, the prospect that we’re still under ET surveillance can’t be readily dismissed. Perhaps not surprisingly, some of the UFO data seems to indicate an ongoing extraterrestrial presence on our planet, albeit of an exceedingly enigmatic nature.
But while I’m sympathetic to the idea of flesh-and-blood aliens visiting from afar, I’m unsure if the extraterrestrial hypothesis (as popularly conceived) is the best explanation for the many encounters with apparent aliens that litter our folklore. John Keel, a controversial proponent of “ultraterrestrial” visitation, thinks our so-called visitors inhabit Earth alongside us, originating from different levels of a “superspectrum” of consciousness.
Keel’s many critics within the UFO community equate the concept of meddling ultraterrestrials with medieval demonology; Keel himself has dubbed ufology a “demonology of the 20th century” with no irony intended. Interestingly enough, Jacques Vallee — who by and large enjoys the respect of scientifically inclined UFO researchers — has presented ideas basically similar to Keel’s, even if they differ on certain theoretical aspects. Most significantly, both share the conviction that the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) is inadequately strange if it’s to account for the spectrum of absurdity reported by close-encounter witnesses throughout historical and contemporary times. In addition, both Keel and Vallee share a pronounced distaste for tales of crashed alien hardware a la Roswell; according to Keel’s take, a physical event as pronounced as a crippled UFO is effectively impossible, as his “aliens” are largely immune to dangers posed by the world of gross matter.
Some speculators make the mistake of thinking that the revisionist, postmodern cosmology advanced by Vallee and Keel is incompatible with the hallowed ETH. But in truth both models are anything but mutually exclusive. It’s even possible to imagine technological aliens from some distant star developing the ability to access Keel’s “superspectrum” for reasons we can only guess.
Aliens? Demons? Labels are inherently limiting, even deceptive. If we’re to make sense of our evident heritage of nonhuman visitation, we must dispense with preconceptions, foremost among them the romantic notion that “aliens” are necessarily advanced beings from space.
Mac Tonnies
April 9th, 2009 by admin | Posted in Aliens | Comments (0)
I keep returning to the late Harvard psychiatrist John Mack’s notion of “reified metaphor.”
The “aliens” may not be what they seem. Of course, to most, they don’t seem like anything . . . except perhaps a useful portal into aberrant psychology or pop-culture run riot. The “conventional wisdom”: Gray aliens are harvesting us for our genes. It’s possible. But Mack’s reasoning (which is admittedly elliptical) suggests there’s something else going on — something that transcends mere genetics. We latch onto the “genetic harvesting” scenario because it makes sense to us; we live in an age of exponentiating biotech, so it seems sensible to assume that extraterrestrial visitors will be obsessed with similar concerns. But a careful look at world folklore reveals that “aliens” have always been with us in one form or another.
There are two immediate explanations:
Extraterrestrials have been here for a long time and humans have tended to address them in terms of their own techno-mythological vocabulary. Thus the “little people” of Celtic myth were perfectly real but not “supernatural.” (Arthur C. Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology would appear indistinguishable from magic.”)
Humans have simply been projecting their fears and hopes onto the collective unconscious; yesterday’s faeries and kobolds are today’s aliens. We simply use what we know to define the notion of the Other; it’s inevitable that a technological society like our own would latch onto a scientifically informed vision of alien geneticists — even if the model rings hollow upon close inspection.
This was how Carl Sagan left matters in The Demon-Haunted World, grossly misrepresenting Jacques Vallee’s “multiverse” thesis, which posits that we are somehow involved with an unseen intelligence that camouflages itself to fit the reigning zeitgeist. According to Vallee, both “aliens” and “faeries” are equally misleading labels for something that can’t be properly addressed using a single-universe model. Are our perceptions so fragile that our brains are forced to manufacture new and better disguises for our visitors? Is the “visiting” intelligence (given that it exists) responsible for its apparent cultural camouflage, or do we effectively hide its true nature from ourselves, as reflexively as we might swat at a bothersome fly?
Mack’s concept of “reified metaphor” might help to excavate something real from the desert of illusion. Perhaps human consciousness exists on several levels at once. “Reality” — the world we think we inhabit — might represent a relatively low level of awareness, a crude virtual reality designed to keep us from over-taxing our seemingly meat-based brains. The computer I’m writing this on may only be a shade more “real” than the “My Computer” icon on my screen’s desktop. In the same way, genes might be mere symbols — elements in a “Matrix”-style consensual hallucination.
So what are the “aliens” trying to tell us? We’re told they extract ova and semen; that they’re keen on “punch biopsies” and nasal implants. Is there an intelligible symbolism at work behind the forever-rippling veil of sensationalism? If so, can we even hope to decode it?
What’s up with all of the alien talk in Turkey?
A god-like intelligence wanting to understand the workings of our civilization might not be content with occasional “reconnaissance missions” or eavesdropping on our broadcasts. Perhaps nothing less than a robust, interactive simulation — with the aliens playing the roles of indigenous inhabitants — would suffice. In this case, for the simulation to bear anthropological fruit, it would behoove the aliens to think they really were Earthlings, complete with artificial memories. Only upon exiting the simulation would they remember their actual nature. So maybe Earth as we know it is actually an alien virtual reality constructed as a sort of “Jurassic Park” in which to observe human society from the inside out. Or maybe, less glamorously, we’re all amnesiac participants in a vast nonhuman chat-room or first-person video game.
Some researchers maintain that “paranormal” occurrences are interlinked by an underlying syntactical logic.
The late conspiracy theorist 
You’re looking at a partial high-resolution image of the notorious Face on Mars, universally “debunked” by mainstream media outlets due in no small part to the baseless pronouncements of a single pseudoscientific pundit.
I keep returning to the late Harvard psychiatrist 
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