Last week on MU311, Ben and Aaron reported the Royal Astronomer’s observation that ET may be within spitting distance, although he didn’t use those exact words. What he said was “I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can’t conceive. Just as a chimpanzee can’t understand quantum theory, it could be there as aspects of reality that are beyond the capacity of our brains.”
Hmmm? When he references the intelligence of “chimpanzees” is he really talking about untutored types (like ourselves) who believe there are flying saucers from outer space visiting Earth? I’m guessing he thinks we’ll never be as wise as he is, but I suggest that he is dead wrong about our chances to best the chimps. In fact, allow me to posit that we are learning more about ET and UFOs than the Royal Stargazer could even imagine.
After listening to Ben and Aaron’s debate on the nature of the UFO phenomena, I began canvassing the paranormal blogs to get a snapshot of prevailing opinions on the subject. The inescapable truth is that UFOs are raining down from the heavens like Australian spangled perch.
On any given Google search you’ll find UFOs low , silver, and smokey morphing in the morning and glowing by night.
While one deadly serious group calls for yet another press conference , this time on the danger of UFO incursions at U.S. nuclear weapons sites over the past six decades, others contend that the aliens are not only among us, they rule us (coincidentally, by using the same institutions humans do to rule). Or, they’re not among us but above us, watching with angelic superiority but refusing to engage in our pathetic groveling . Or relying on “experts” to prove UFOs are real and then inexplicably offering “testimony” that proves nothing of the sort:
Like this from Stephen Hawking:
“Of course it is possible that UFO’s really do contain aliens as many people believe, and the Government is hushing it up.”
Or this from the Director of the Vatican Observatory, The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes:
“The vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.”
Nonetheless, the internet compendium of inconclusive photographic evidence, uncorroborated eye-witness accounts, conspiracy theorizing and wide-ranging speculation is confusing, overwhelming and confounding. Yet one can’t help but come away with the idea that we’re on to something even if we don’t know exactly what it is we know.
Not long ago the NPR radio show “This American Life” ran a story about storage-locker auctions. They are places where people store their excess stuff, businesses cache their inventory, and where people hide the evidence of their secret lives.
When folks fail to pay their rent because they’re broke, or dead or decide the stuff they’ve stored is worth less then the back rent, the property is auctioned off.
The people who frequent these auctions know the drill: the auctioneer opens the shed door and allows a glimpse of what’s inside. The bidders can’t enter the unit, or touch the contents much less move things around. However, after a few auctions they become adept at sizing up the value of what’s inside on the basis of this brief examination. For instance, if the boxes are sturdy, taped securely and stacked neatly it means the owner valued the contents; ergo, it’s worth a bigger bid. If the stuff was tossed in garbage bags, well, it’s most likely garbage inside with little resale potential.
That’s not to say that the regular bidders don’t get taken in by their own greed (“I’ll bet there’s room for a car behind all this junk.”) or miss a treasure because they couldn’t see past their own prejudice, but the bottom line is that given enough experience they can glean a lot of valuable knowledge from very little information.
Astrophysicist and UFO icon Jacques Vallee speculates that antiquated views of how information works may be key in understanding UFOs and similar phenomena. In Messengers of Deception, UFO Contacts and Cults, Vallee writes:
“Time and space may be convenient notions for plotting the progress of a locomotive, but they are completely useless for locating information….Modern computers retrieve information associatively. You ‘evoke’ the desired records by using keywords, word of power: You request the intersection of microwave and headche and you find twenty articles you never suspected existed. …If we live in the associative universe of the software scientist rather than the sequential universe of the space time physicist, then miracles are no longer irrational events. The philosophy we could devrive would be closer to Islamic ‘Occasionalism’ than to the Catesian or Newtonian universe. And a new theory of information would have to be built. Such a theory might have interesting things to say bout communication with the denizens of othe physical realities.”
Of course, people who receive information in this unorthodox are rarely given credit for their insights. Intellect-wise, critics might even equate them with our ape ancestors.
For example, you’ll remember in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind (in which Jacques Vallee himself was “evoked” by “Lacombe” the French-scientist character ), Richard Dryfuss’ character digs up his front lawn and deposits it inside his living room where he proceeds to create a holy mess of dirt and debris. His family flees for fear he’s gone ape.
It turns out that although his methods may have been somewhat destructive and entirely unconventional, the map he molded out of that mud pie took him exactly where he needed to go. And maybe that’s where we UFO watchers are right now, stuck in the mud. We’re bogged down in random data that makes no sense from a linear perspective, but byte by byte, I think the meaning will begin to emerge from our collective molding of the data will finally we’ll figure out what we been getting at all these years.
