I own a time machine. This isn’t something you hear every day, but it’s true. I teach at a university and one of the great things about the job, other than drinking beer with scientists, is that it’s not only okay to own things like a time machine, it’s somewhat expected. The scientists and I bought our time machine through a grant. Yes, you can get grants for this sort of thing.

The Hyper Dimensional Resonator.

The reason for a university-sanctioned grant to buy a time machine actually makes some sort of sense. At the time of the purchase, I taught Paranormal Journalism, a class I’d designed for the sole purpose of showing young journalists how to cover paranormal-based news events with a straight face (if I hear the term “little green men” in a newscast about a UFO sighting just once more, I’m going to punch someone). I would use the machine in class and, hopefully send a student off to 1897 for some serious extra credit. My friends in the Department of Chemistry and Physics were going to open the machine and write a paper on it.

These were legitimate academic reasons for buying a time machine. It’s not our fault the damned thing didn’t work for us.

The Hyper Dimensional Resonator

In 1981, Steven L. Gibbs, a farmer from Clearwater, Nebraska, received an interesting message – from himself. This new Steven L. Gibbs was apparently from another dimension, and he had a diagram for a time machine called the Sonic Resonator, which he gave to our dimension’s Steven L. Gibbs. After building and testing the device, our Gibbs, who now lives in Lyndon, Kansas, improved upon the device and renamed it the Hyper Dimensional Resonator, which he began to sell as a time machine, astral projection generator, and healing device.

The inner workings of the Hyper Dimensional Resonator, apparently purchased from Radio Shack.

Patricia Griffin Ress, author of the book “Dangerous Information: The Further Time-Travel Experiments/Studies of Steven L. Gibbs,” met Gibbs in 1989. “I happened to meet someone who says, ‘you should contact this guy,’” she said. She did, and invited Gibbs to bring his device to her home in Omaha, Nebraska. What she experienced made her realize there was something odd about the Gibbs device. When he turned it on, clouds formed in the room, and sparks danced around the chandelier.

Although no one time travelled, the experience changed Ress’s life. The next time she watched her favorite movie, “Shane,” something was wrong. Dialogue she’d memorized was altered or spoken by different characters. It was the same movie, but it wasn’t. “It scared me to death,” she said. “If you ask me to see the movie ‘Shane,’ I’d say no thanks.” She said she believes Gibbs’ HDR unit somehow altered her reality.

Testimonials from HDR users include trips to the past and future. Some travelers have claimed to return with objects from the past, but the objects have a short shelf life. “If you have something from a different time frame, it disintegrates,” Ress said.

People using the HDR have reported going a few years into the future or past, being transported to Venezuela, dropped onboard a UFO, and have been thrown into a parallel dimension. The key to this type of travel, according to Gibbs, is to activate the device over a place of great power, such as a ley line, or vortex. Trouble is, the Auto Club doesn’t really show those on a map.

This is all pretty impressive for a man who’s never studied physics (which, if he had, would have known science has yet to discover ley lines or inter-dimensional vortexes). “You have a guy who in every way is an average farmer, now all of a sudden there’s this average farmer studying quantum physics,” Ress said. “This has all been very fascinating. I’ve reported on it and Steve asked me to write a book so he’d have something to sell when he’s on TV.”

A User’s Story

I interviewed Ress twice, but I never got in contact with Gibbs. It’s not like I didn’t try. His mailing address, email address, and cell phone number are online. I emailed him about purchasing an HDR, wrote a physical letter to him, called and left messages. He never got back with me. Strange behavior for someone who knew I wanted to give him money.

It gets even weirder. A friend and HDR user Craig Miller had no problem buying a unit from Gibbs. Miller made the time machine handoff to me in the parking lot of a convenience store in a small rural town. I got there early, so I bought some beer and a slice of pizza.

Although radio interviews I’d heard of Gibbs’ HDR had intrigued me for a couple of years, Miller’s stories are what made me want to try it. After purchasing his first HDR, Miller discovered this device doesn’t work like time machines do in the movies. “You have to use the HDR a lot,” he said, “to build up like a resonance.” Miller thinks the device tunes the human body to a frequency where strange things happen. “I’ve talked to other consistent users who have said it increases your psychic abilities and also makes you feel more spiritual,” he said.

The device, to the people he’s spoken to, seems to work best over a place of great energy, just like Gibbs said. “If we are going to give credence to these peoples’ claims, what has to then occur is that after using the device enough, that it raises your personal frequency, and you use it over a natural earth vortex, then you are able to traverse the vortex to another reality or time.”

That doesn’t seem to happen much with the HDR, but weird things still occur. Although Miller used the HDR often for a while (he doesn’t use it any more , it never sent him to another time. However, much like Ress and the movie “Shane,” Miller experienced something he can’t explain. “I used it one day, and nothing happened,” he said. “But soon after I got really, really tired, just out of the blue.”

So Miller took a nap; then the fun began. “I had some strange dreams, and when I woke up, it was like I didn’t know where I was. It took me a minute or two to get back to normal,” he said. “I’d never felt like that after a nap. It felt like I was almost in the wrong place somehow.  It was a really strange feeling.”

He got up and walked into the kitchen. “The night before, I had seen in the fridge a tub of peanut butter cookie dough,” he said. “My daughters were going to be home on the bus in like 45 minutes or so. I thought I would cook some cookies for their snack, and a nice snack for me, too.”

Miller opened the refrigerator and the cookie dough was gone. “I had eaten a scoop from it the night before, so I know it was there,” he said. “And I had been in the fridge that morning and I swear that I saw the tub there that morning in the fridge, and this was after everyone else had left for the day. I was the only one home. I swear it was there.”

But after using the HDR, the dough was gone, a lot like the dialogue from Ress’ movie. “I called my wife about it, and she was like, ‘what cookie dough? I don’t remember any cookie dough in the fridge,’” Miller said. “Okay, so did I jump realities somehow?”

Could be. A fellow HDR user warned Miller to focus on the details. “He and Gibbs both told me to pay attention to everything in your house just before using the HDR and after, because I would start to notice either something missing after using the HDR, or that something new was there,” Miller said. “So, is this what explains the missing cookie dough?”

My Experience

The Hyper Dimensional Resonator is a small box with dials, ports for the “time coil” and “electromagnet,” and three small switches. To program it for time travel, dial in the day, month and year desired, although there are only two dials and they both go to 10. I haven’t figured that one out. The directions were confusing, and a bit frightening. Typed in all caps on a typewriter, the directions indicate that as the user I must put a quartz crystal and some of my DNA into a hole called a “witness well” (spit, hair, but not blood. The instructions say blood brings demons), wrap a coiled electric cord around my head, place a strong electromagnet between my legs, and rub a finger on a flat plate on the front of the machine.

This typewritten instruction manual and catalog describes how to use the HDR, and where you can buy related materials. It also contains valuable information, like how to avoid summoning demons.

I sat in my office chair rubbing my index finger in circles on this time machine that looked suspiciously like the one in the movie “Napoleon Dynamite.” As electricity whirled around my head, and the heavy electromagnet wedged between my legs hummed like it was alive, I realized two things:

1. vasectomies make a guy brave, and
2. this isn’t how Captain Kirk time travelling on “Star Trek.”

Unfortunately, my patience level is that of a toddler and I didn’t use the HDR with enough frequency to, well, change my frequency. I didn’t travel in time, nor did I experience anything strange. I was a bit light headed after the first time I used it, though. Although Gibbs’ HDR unit didn’t work for me, it did something odd to my friend, and HDR users have reported many cases of physical travel. I don’t know if it works, but I don’t know if it doesn’t.

My scientist friends have the machine now. I just hope if they get it to work, they don’t run into anything scary in the future, like zombies, or Morlocks.

Spiders, snakes and the Bogeyman: each can be terrifying, even when not on a plane! And being scared of a poisonous arachnid or a six foot snake isn’t too unusual (especially in Australia). But what about phobias of the more freaky things; fears which spur the tales of the monstrous and mysterious? 

The world is filled with skeptics, naysayers and disbelievers, but whatever’s lurking out there in the shadows has become real enough to cause legitimate psychological constructs. But what do we call these? What names have been given to these cases of paranormal induced paranoia?

Uranophobia & Stygiophobia

The fears of Heaven (Uranophobia) and Hell (should be obvious now). Not much is really known about what causes either of these two fears, other than an apparent combination of brain chemistry and past experiences. Although, it may not be unreasonable to postulate that a fear of Hell could be derived from certain religions out there (I’m not naming names). These fears just go to show that it’s the journey that counts, because the destination might just suck!

Necrophobia

Frankly I feel that those not afraid of the dead need help. Necrophobia should be a fear that we all share because unless the dead are in the ground, they shouldn’t be around. Ever. This phobia also extends to incorporate the fear that the spirits of the dead will return to inhabit or haunt the living. All the more reason to not have them around!

Xenophobia

Often over-simplified as the fear of strangers, xenophobia is also the irrational fear of the extraterrestrial. Now, I predict that many of you out there in this mysterious universe of ours (see what I did there?) are much more cool, calm and collected when it comes to our visiting space travelers. But that doesn’t negate the fact that the history of film and television has collectively depicted inter-stellar beings as violent and ruthless, and this depiction may be enough to alter and scar the minds of many. Pray that they’re wrong, and E.T just wants to hang out.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Spectrophobia

Ghosts, spirits, phantoms and spectral beings of all kinds; none are liked by the spectrophobe. Characterized by a fear of mirrors – which, by spectrophobes, are often believed to be gateways to another world or plane – spectrophobia is primarily caused by a traumatic event from the sufferer’s childhood.

“When they say ‘ghosts’, do they mean us?”

Fred Lusebrink from Cummings, Kansas, drove home from work at about 1:05 a.m. in early spring 2010 when he saw something strange in the sky about two miles northwest of Potter, Kansas. “Temperature 35 to 42 degrees Fahrenheit, skies 100 percent clear,” Lusebrink said. “Wind south to southwest, zero to four mph. Moon phase was dark, but starlight was very bright.”

See the detail? All UFOs should be seen by former military personnel.

“Triangular shaped and large; I estimate 90 to 125 feet wing span,” he said. “Center warning light was bright white, square but slanted aerodynamically, and large; four feet by four feet. Above it one dim small red light that blinked in four- to five-second intervals.”

Dim blue lights flashed from left to right under the white light and ran for about 20 feet on each side of the craft and, “flashed from left to right then in a complete change right to left, and as quickly back. No sequence but flashed very quickly. The speed of craft and two smaller trail craft 30 to 35 mph. Altitude approximately 500 feet.”

The blue-black color of the craft, Lusebrink said, was similar to the B-2 Stealth Bomber. “I did see riveting or very fine fitted seems clearly on the belly of the craft,” he said. “Little to no audible jet blast or other sounds of turbines, etc., either before flyover, during, or after.”

The two smaller craft flew about 70 yards behind the larger craft on either side. “The trail aircraft were barely discernable and gave no hint at their shape but did emit some, maybe one-15^th the sound of a normal jet trainer during flyover. These trail craft had only one dim red safety light each that did not flash. I believe they were on their left wing.”

The craft flew east-to-southeast in the Stranger Creek bottoms between rows of small hills. “The craft flying over the valley helped outline and magnify, making my observation more dramatic,” he said.

Lusebrink initially stopped his pickup because he thought the bright, white light from the larger ship was from a medical helicopter responding to an accident; the slow speed due to the pilot looking for a safe landing spot. “I turned my truck off and shut my headlights off so as to not blind the pilot’s night vision goggles,” he said. “I got out of my vehicle and knew within two seconds it was not a helicopter. It was a great show that lasted approximately 20 to 25 seconds from first sight till flyover.”

Lusebrink knows aircraft. “I spent 20 years in the US Army serving in Korea, Germany, Central America, and the Middle East along with various stateside assignments,” he said. “I have flown in many transport aircraft both fixed and rotary. I have been up close to and witnessed flyovers and takeoffs of B-2s, A-10s, F-16s, B-52s, C-130s, C-141s, C-5s, etc. This craft was none of the above, nor any modification of these.”

Since military personnel have to make split-second decisions in combat situations, they are trained to be good observers. And what Lusebrink observed was strange, but is it from another world? No. He’s certain it’s from the United States government. “It is the nation’s next generation Angel of Death,” he said. “After watching it fly twice I said those exact words both times.”

And, yes, he’s seen it twice.

“I was cooking over a spit with two friends in rural north Leavenworth County (Kansas) around 12:45 a.m. last May 2012 on a moonless clear night,” he said. “Again, little to no wind. We were partaking of cereal malt beverages and generally having a good time.”

Then the craft appeared. “I pointed to the apparent hovering of a craft three to five miles out,” Lusebrink said. “After much kidding they finally shut up and watched it fly over at approximately 600 to 700 feet with what appeared to be two trail craft. This time the aircraft flew slower, and it did a little show for us.”

The craft flew directly over them, and one friend shouted, “Man, what was that?”

“My hypotheses: still in the ‘be damn careful with it phase,’” Lusebrink postulates. “It only flies in very, very mild weather conditions, it’s gotta have trail aircraft lest some jerk in a go-cart glider chases it, and it seems to always come from the west with general flight direction towards Whiteman Air Force Base.” Whiteman, in central Missouri, is home to the B-2 bomber.

“I’m 100 certain the craft is experimental and military in nature,” he said. “Although I have not seen it since but look forward to seeing it again. UFO? Nah, just something 30 years beyond the B-2. I herby name the craft The Bat Plane III version 2.0. I know what I saw and, man, it was awesome.”

Reality dictates fiction; fiction becomes reality. It is the way of things. Except sparkly vampires. Sparkly vampires aren’t a thing (go away, Twilight). But one genre above all is more important and influential – and dangerously captivating – than all others: science fiction. Always seemingly generations ahead of their time, sci-fi writers and innovators have been paving the way to an illustrious future which we….haven’t quite gotten to yet (I won’t be happy until I have my hover-board). However, have no fear, because although we haven’t gotten there yet, the blueprints to our technological utopia have been drawn, edited and streamlined. Obviously, there are  literally hundreds of concepts that are important – some arguably – so here are some of the more important concepts to come from some of the most influential stories of all time.

Space Colonization

Apartment Available: 3 bedrooms; 2 bathrooms; scenic view of planet Earth. Or so the rent ads might read in the ‘Lunar Daily Mail’. Yes, first off the bat on our far-out futuristic ideas is the good old fashioned Moon Base. Or a Mars Base. Or a sprawling multi-leveled space station orbiting Saturn. Whatever you’d prefer, really.

Popularized by the “Red Mars” trilogy and a common theme in sci-fi novels by writers such as John Scalzi, James S.A. Corey and Jack Vance, the idea of large inter-stellar cities and space metropolises has been a popular one. And with the Earth’s population growing exponentially, which in turn results in the fastened depletion of resources, our green planet may not be able to sustain the bustling communities and expansive urban areas for much longer, so it seems that the desire to colonize other worlds isn’t so ridiculous. Of course, there are flaws. Oxygen, being one of the larger ones. To this end, space colonization gave birth to other concepts, such as Terra-forming. However, the largest threat to our outer-space lifestyles still looms: space hipsters!

 Artificial Intelligence (And Robots)

For the educated among us, whenever anybody mentions robots our minds are instantly transported to Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot”. For the uneducated, perhaps the big screen adaptation starring Will Smith. I will not acknowledge the film. The Three Laws, Artificial Intelligence – also an idea from Arthur C. Clarke’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”, which was kind of a big deal -, and robot “feelings”, were all made popular by Asimov’s novel, which was a collection of short stories focusing on different aspects of the ‘evolution’ our robot brethren.

Why is this important? Because your iPhone is almost there! The last twenty or so years have seen the technology we use change infinitely, becoming everyday necessities; objects and items to which we have become dependent. The question is: Is this a good thing?

“Hello Dave” – The Future of Siri

Cloning

We all know the story: Man makes clone, clone gets smart, clone tries to kill man and then man kills clone. Or does clone kill man? The idea of replicating ourselves is an old one (I remember watch Dr Smith clone himself in an old episode of Lost In Space), and it is an idea which is almost always wrought with complications, and inevitably, a life threatening situation. Whether it be cloning the cells of long extinct species (Jurassic Park), or cloning the only New Zealander in the galaxy to construct an army (Star Wars), the prospect of cloning and it’s potential uses is one that has interested minds for generations. Of course, there are numerous ethical considerations to be taken into account, such as, “When is it okay to form a travelling folk-band with your clones?”

“Wait…are we still clones?”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Endeavour, Utility, Ease; Three words which spring to mind when someone utters the holy name of “science”. The desire to improve technology has long been one of man-kind’s favorite past-times, and when left in the capable hands of the professionals, it’s one of the most beneficial. However, if history has taught us anything, it’s that sometimes even the professionals get it wrong. Here are 5 of the worst – and somewhat unnecessary - inventions of the last century.

The Monowheel

Apparently two wheels was one wheel too many. The Monowheel has had many incarnations since its original conception in the late 19th century, all of which demonstrated the similar design of a single large wheel with the driver situated within.

In 1932, the Monowheel received its first electric-powered adaption, the Dynasphere, developed and tested in the U.K by a man named John Archibald Purves, and reached a top speed of 30 miles per hour. Needless to say, the Monowheel idea didn’t really take off.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ridiculous.

The Emergency Folding Bridge

Chances are that at least once in your life someone has told you to “build a bridge”. Well, with the Emergency Folding Bridge, there’s no need! Developed in the Netherlands in 1926, the easily transported Folding Bridge could be carried by travelers in hand-carts or wagons. The real question is: Why not just build an actual bridge and leave it where it is?

Curved Barrel Machine Guns

As it turns out, watching all those cartoon military instruction films really paid off in WWII. Known as ‘Krummlauf’ in the Germanic tongue, the Curved Barrel attachment for the Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifle (also German, who’d have thought?) was first developed in WWII as a way of shooting targets around corners in close combat. Each attachment had a limited amount of uses, however, and so proved ultimately inefficient during war time. The concept has most recently been adapted by the Israeli Special Forces, however the only similarity is its purpose.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Quick Draw Robots

You’d be forgiven for thinking that cybernetic gun-slingers exist in Michael Crichton’s ‘Westworld’ and that’s the end of the matter. However, it turns out that 13 years prior to the 1973 sci-fi thriller’s big-screen debut, the notion of wild wild robots had already been explored. And built. And tested against real live people! Giving robots guns is proof enough that scientists love to tempt fate.

T.V Goggles

Science has never been about style (Not just style, anyway). Invented in 1963 by the father of the sci-fi magazine, Amazing Stories, Hugo Gernsback’s T.V Goggles never quite got the attention or praise of the scientific world. But have no fear, it looks like Hugo’s concept is just now taking to the stage in the 21st Century, with the advent of 3D TV goggles. Is it only a matter of time before the technology is perfected? Or is this something that will just never become fashionable?

The Apocalypse is nigh! Okay, so not really. We’re now well into 2013, and I’m sure that most of you have realized by now: The world did not end in 2012. And while we all celebrate our continued existence – and put the whole Mayan Calender incident behind us – what world-ending theories are left? 

The Expansion of the Sun

A giant, burning, mass of hydrogen and helium, the Sun is the source of energy (both direct and indirect) for most life on the Planet. Yet scientists have determined that our Solar center might one day expand so far as to engulf the Earth.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s theorized that – in roughly 5 billion years – our yellow sun would have finally exhausted the hydrogen fuel at its core, and that at this point, it will begin to expand. Although the sun will expand to where the Earth’s orbit will pass directly through the molten ball, the Sun’s transformation into a Red Giant (as a result of the expansion) means that it will only be about half the temperature it is today. Will our greatest source of energy spell our slow-burning doom?

Nuclear Holocaust

Click here to view the embedded video.

Although at times the idea of large scale nuclear fallout seems more like the illegitimate love-child of the Cold War and a Tom Clancy novel, and less like a prophecy for Armageddon, pushing the Big Red Button could still very well mean the end of the world as we know it. It’s a scary thought, but as political tensions continue to grow, the looming threat of the mushroom cloud persists.

Judgement Day (No, not the machines)

Okay: maybe this one has a few flaws. For generations, the ever-present “fear of God” has been felt among certain secular organisations (I’m not naming names). And although not based on ANY form of science (or even pseudo-science, for that matter), the Last Judgement theory still has its fans.

The belief that eventually the Earth will be destroyed in a blaze of hell-fire and damnation is an old one, and the desire for the pious to be ‘saved’ from the doom is equally so. However, it’s the similarities between the latter and ‘ascension’ which is truly interesting. Something to think about, New Agers.

On the silver screen, and in the printed pages, it has felled death-dealing aliens and marauding robots, and has even destroyed worlds and entire galaxies. It is easily the most awesome weapon of mass destruction, and is one of the most recognizable motifs within the annals of sci-fi. It is the death-ray. One of the earliest examples of the usage of such a weapon, in the form of what was described as a “Heat-Ray” device, appeared in H.G. Wells’ novel of Martian invasion: The War of the Worlds. As a result of the overwhelming popularity and success of Wells’ novel, many early sci-fi authors picked up on his highly original premise, and the deadly ray technology was often graphically shown in pulp magazines of the 1940s and 1950s as one accompanied by giant electric arcs, lightning-style flashes, and thunder-like crashes and roars.

With the advent of the laser in 1960 and its accompanying famous pencil-thin red light, however, the death-ray was quickly modified within sci-fi (partly as a result of the usage of such a device in the 1960s movie version of Ian Fleming’s James Bond story Goldfinger) and gained a new and more popular relation: the ray gun, perhaps most universally recognized in the form of the Phaser from Star Trek. Indeed, the American Heritage Dictionary defines a ray gun as: “A gun that fires a ray of energy, especially as depicted as a destructive weapon in science fiction.”

There are countless examples of the utilization of such technology in sci-fi circles: In the movie Aliens, soldiers are armed with a shoulder-carried weapon called the Plasma Gun. In the popular television series Babylon 5, the similarly named Phased Plasma Gun appears regularly. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, a spin-off of the sci-fi meets horror computer game of the same name, features a device called the Paracelsus Sword, which is essentially a huge cannon that fires an all-destructive energy beam. And, of course, in Star Wars, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker possessed their trusty light-sabers.

According to some, however, the classic death-ray of sci-fi is not merely, or specifically, a tool of fantasy writers. Rather, it is a very real, and very deadly, technology that has attracted the attention of the highest echelons of government agencies, and the scientific community, that have attempted to harness such deadly devices for their own, Top Secret, reasons. In some cases, decades ago.

Indeed, evidence exists to show that research into so-called death ray-type devices was undertaken in both the pre-Second World War era and in its aftermath, too. A media press release of June 6, 1934 begins: “A death ray machine was conspicuously absent today from the exhibition room of the National Inventors Congress, presumably at the request of the Federal Government. Its death-dealing potentialities were described to the congress last night by President A.G. Burns of Oakland, California. The machine, an invention of Dr. Antonio Longoria of Cleveland, resembles a motion picture projector, Burns said.”

The story continues: “I witnessed a demonstration of the machine in Cleveland last October,” Burns said. “Several Government scientists were there. Dr. Longoria turned the ray on rabbits, dogs and cats. They fell over, instantly killed, their blood turned to water. The same thing happened to pigeons. They fluttered to the ground and were dead when picked up. Because of the ray’s death-dealing possibilities, Burns said that Dr. Longoria readily agreed with Government scientists that the machine will be suppressed.”

On the same day, the following article appeared in various newspapers in Cleveland, Ohio:

“An electric ray, whose death-dealing potentialities are said to be almost unlimited, will be suppressed until such time as it is needed for American defense, its inventor indicated today. Dr. Antonio Longoria, Cleveland physician and electrical engineer, informed that a report of his death ray had been made to the Congress at Omaha, said details of the machine would remain a secret until a foreign invader entered the United States. Dr. Longoria, who perfected an inexpensive violet-ray machine and the first electrical device to measure the speed of an airplane, declined to comment on reports that his ray had been suppressed by governmental request.”

Whether or not Dr. Longoria did indeed hand over the designs for his weapon to the US Government is debatable; however, according to Popular Science of February 1940, the doctor had decided that mankind would be far better off without the benefit of such a weapon: “Pigeons on the wing killed by death rays from a machine from four miles away – that is the feat reputedly accomplished by a deadly apparatus developed by Dr. Antonio Longoria, of Cleveland, Ohio, who recently announced that he had deliberately destroyed the lethal machine for the good of humanity.”

Possibly of some relevance to this kind of research is the following, February 15, 1957, extract from the FBI’s extensive file on Albert Einstein: “In May, 1948, [Einstein] and ’10 former Nazi research brain trusters’ held a secret meeting to observe a new beam of light secret weapon which could be operated from planes to destroy cities, according to the ‘Arlington Daily,’ Arlington, Virginia, May 21, 1948. The Intelligence Division of the Army subsequently advised the Bureau that this information could have no foundation in fact and that no machine could be devised which would be effective outside the range of a few feet.”

Was the story simply a rumor and nothing else? Or, was the military’s hasty dismissal of the Einstein issue evidence that certain secret research of a death ray variety had been compromised and, as a result, had to be swiftly denied as being of no consequence? Maybe one day we will know for sure. In a future post, I’ll focus my attentions on where present day research into death rays is at…

I thought, for my latest post, I’d get into matters conspiratorial and of a definitive “secret file” kind. So here goes! There can be very few who can forget the frenzy that accompanied news from Russia that, over the Christmas period in 2000, contact was lost with its Mir space-station for a terrifying 20 hours. As the 140-tonne station hurtled around Earth, speculation was rife that Mir would spiral out of control and a disaster was imminent.

A calamity was averted when, as mission-control chief, Vladimir Sololyov, revealed on December 26, contact with, and control of, Mir had been re-established. “Mir will not fall on your heads on New Year’s Eve,” he said. “We have a plan to bid farewell to Mir in a civilized and organized way.” He said Mir would be brought down in a controlled descent in the Pacific between February 27 and 28. Ultimately, however, Mir broke up on March 23, 2001, as it hurtled through the Earth’s atmosphere.

Throughout one of the tensest moments in the history of Russia’s space-programme, officialdom was quick to state that the possibility of Mir crashing to Earth and wreaking untold havoc was remote. Perhaps. It was while all this was going on I learned that the British Government had been acutely aware of the threat posed by satellites and space-stations in Earth’s orbit, and has since at least 1979 had secret guidelines in place should the unthinkable occur.

Indeed, I was given access to an eight-page document that detailed how the Government, the military and the emergency services would respond if a satellite crashed on Britain. Classified at Restricted level, and later upgraded to a higher level of security, the document, titled Satellite Accidents with Radiation Hazards, was prepared in 1979 by the British Government’s Home Office and was circulated to every Chief Officer of Police, every Chief Fire Officer and every County Council in England and Wales. “Similar circulars are being issued by the Scottish Office and the Northern Ireland Office,” said the author of the paper.

An examination of the file makes it clear that the Home Office’s decision to circulate the document on such a large scale was, ostensibly at least, because of an event that had occurred twelve months previously – as the following extract from the file reveals: “Following the descent of a nuclear-powered satellite in Canada on 24 January 1978, consideration has been given to contingency arrangements for dealing with the possibility of a similar incident in the United Kingdom.”

The Home Office added that the possibility of a nuclear-powered satellite crashing within the British Isles was “remote.” However, it was careful to add that “the special considerations that affect the use of nuclear materials and the safety standards applied to them make it prudent to devise plans to deal with such an incident.”

According to the file, one of the hardest predictions to make was when and where a stricken space vehicle, possibly spiralling wildly out of control and at hundreds, or even thousands, of miles-per-hour would impact. On this issue, the author of the document stated:

“Although it is likely that knowledge of changes in the orbital pattern which might lead to premature return to Earth would be available many hours or even days before re-entry occurred, it would not be such that a reasonably accurate prediction of the final orbit over the Earth could be made until 12 to 24 hours before impact. Even then forecasts of the precise point of re-entry along this track might still be in error by thousands of kilometers. It is possible accurate warning would not be available till a few minutes before impact and it is possible there might be no warning.”

The document also makes it very clear that the Home Office was well acquainted with the more technical aspects of satellite technology: “Some satellites are designed in such a way that they will disintegrate on re-entry; others are so designed that fairly large components will remain intact on entering Earth’s atmosphere.” And, if a space vehicle were to impact on the British Isles, what would be the outcome? The author of the document had a few ideas:

“Although the parameters of the orbit of a crashing satellite can be fairly closely defined, debris might fall over an area 2,000 kilometers wide. It would not be possible to alert police forces on a selective basis. In the event of a warning that a satellite might crash in or near the UK, all police forces would be alerted.”

In other words, official authorities all across the nation would potentially be put on stand-by to deal with the crash and recovery of exotic, space-based technologies. And that would only be the beginning, as the file demonstrates:

“The crash of a nuclear-powered satellite would present problems such as: There would be a possible radiation hazard; debris from the crashed satellite might be scattered over a very large area, perhaps the greater part of the country; and the individual pieces of debris might be very small, yet each might present a small radiation hazard.”

Most significant of all, however, is a section of the document that refers not to when, but if the public should be informed of such a disaster: “A Government decision would then be sought on whether the police should be alerted and whether a public statement should be made. If such actions were to be decided upon, overall responsibility for the measures to deal with an incident would be exercised from a central point in Whitehall, in a manner similar to procedures already established to handle a terrorist incident.”

And who, precisely, would play a role in such recoveries? The list is intriguing, to say the least, and focused primarily upon the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) at Aldermaston; the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB); the Ministry of Defence; and representatives from NAIR: the National Arrangements for Incidents involving Radioactivity. The Home Office then turned its attention to what would happen in the event that a crash was fully confirmed:

“When reports of suspected or actual locations have been received, the police should take such steps as may be needed locally to prevent people entering areas which may be dangerous because of radioactive material. All persons should be told to keep well away from possible radioactive debris. Although highly unlikely, some large pieces of debris might have radiation fields of significance over distances the order of 100 meters and some limited evacuation might be necessary; widespread continuous contamination is, however, unlikely.”

In the wake of such a crash, the Home Office realized, the identification and collection of highly-hazardous debris would be a painstaking process:

“Since much of the debris would be very small, many of the fragments would not be sighted and unnoticed irradiated debris might well be scattered over thousands of square kilometers. A major search operation might have to be mounted to locate radioactive fragments. Whether to mount a search, and if so what area should be covered, would be decided by the central control point.

“Arrangements would be made to deploy the resources of every available technical support service, including teams from the Ministry of Defense, National Radiological Protection Board, United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, British Nuclear Fuels and Electricity Generating Boards, using specialist aircraft and vehicle search techniques. In rural areas, the most effective initial search to locate major sources of radioactivity might be from the air.”

Two further sections of the document stand out as being worthy of comment. The first, titled Public Warning About Radioactivity, provides further insight into the British Government’s position on informing the populace at large of a disaster involving the crash of a contaminated spacecraft on British soil:

“It is for the Government to decide whether, and by what means, a public warning of danger from radioactivity should be given. In reaching that decision, the need to prevent unnecessary alarm would be carefully considered. Chief Officers should therefore ensure that nothing is done locally to anticipate a Government statement.”

So much for the public: but what of the media? Under the heading Press and Publicity, we learn the following:

“It is essential that those dealing with a satellite accident and the Government team in Whitehall should not issue inconsistent statements. Chief Officers should ensure that all local press enquiries are directed to a senior officer at force headquarters, who is briefed to deal with them, working in close liaison with Government information officers who would make appropriate arrangements to coordinate the national dissemination of information from Whitehall.”

In essence, that is the document. And although the leaked paper is now more than three decades old, there are several points worthy of comment. First, the Home Office was – and, logic dictates, still is – very concerned by the possible scenario of a radioactive space vehicle crashing on British soil. Second, the fact that the public might be kept in the dark, if circumstances dictated, is highly worrying.

One might ask: what gives the Government the right to decide whether members of the public are informed of the possibility that radioactive space debris might rain down on their heads? Should not such information be made public at the earliest opportunity? Yes, it should!

Back in 1955, the late Morris K. Jessup’s book, The Case for the UFO, was published. It was a book that delved deeply into two key issues: (a) the theoretical power-source of UFOs, and (b) the utilization of the universal gravitational field as a form of energy. Not long after the publication of the book, Jessup became the recipient of a series of extremely strange missives from a certain Carlos Miquel Allende, of Pennsylvania. In his correspondence, Allende commented on Jessup’s theories, and gave details of an alleged secret experiment conducted by the U.S. Navy in the Philadelphia Naval Yard in October 1943. Thus was born the highly controversial saga of what has become known as the Philadelphia Experiment.

According to Allende’s incredible tale, during the experiment a warship was rendered optically invisible and teleported to – and then back from – Norfolk, Virginia in a few minutes, the incredible feat supposedly having supposedly been accomplished by applying Albert Einstein’s never-completed Unified Field theory. Allende elaborated that the ship used in the experiment was the DE 173 USS Eldridge; and, moreover, that he, Allende, had actually witnessed one of the attempts to render both the ship and its crew invisible from his position out at sea on-board a steamer called the SS Andrew Furuseth.

If Allende was telling the truth, then the Navy had not only begun to grasp the nature of invisibility, but it had also stumbled upon the secret of teleportation of the type demonstrated – decades later, in fictional, on-screen format – in Star Trek and The Fly. On these very matters, Allende made the disturbing claim that not only did the experiment render many of the crew-members as mad as hatters, but some, he said, even vanished – literally – from the ship while the test was at its height, never to be seen again. Others reportedly suffered horrific and agonizing deaths.

Of course, as students of this very weird affair will know, the tale of Allende and the vanishing ship (or non-vanishing ship, depending on your perspective!) has been denounced as much as it has been championed. But, few are aware of the U.S. Navy’s official stance on the matter. Many assume – quite incorrectly – that the Navy’s position is that nothing whatsoever occurred at all. But their assumptions are wrong.

Contrary to what you might think, the Navy does believe the story has a basis in fact – albeit of a far more down to earth nature.

While there is certainly no official endorsement of the stories that the USS Eldridge was rendered invisible in October 1943, that it was teleported from one locale to another and then back again, or that crew-members were injured, killed, or outright vanished into oblivion, the Navy does admit that, in all likelihood, the story has a basis in something of real, secret significance.

The Navy’s current position reads as follows: “Personnel at the Fourth Naval District believe that the questions surrounding the so-called ‘Philadelphia Experiment’ arise from quite routine research which occurred during World War II at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Until recently, it was believed that the foundation for the apocryphal stories arose from degaussing experiments which have the effect of making a ship undetectable or ‘invisible’ to magnetic mines.”

Degaussing, in simple terms, is a process in which a system of electrical cables is installed around the circumference of a ship’s hull, running from bow to stern on both sides. An electrical current is then passed through these cables to cancel out the ship’s magnetic field.

“Degaussing equipment,” says the Navy, “was installed in the hull of ships and could be turned on whenever the ship was in waters that might contain magnetic mines, usually shallow waters in combat areas. It could be said that degaussing, correctly done, makes a ship ‘invisible’ to the sensors of magnetic mines, but the ship remains visible to the human eye, radar, and underwater listening devices.”

Just to confuse things, however, the Navy has offered a further theory, too, to explain what might lie at the heart of the story:

“Another likely genesis of the bizarre stories about levitation, teleportation and effects on human crewmembers might be attributed to experiments with the generating plant of a destroyer, the USS Timmerman. In the 1950’s this ship was part of an experiment to test the effects of a small, high frequency generator providing 1000hz., instead of the standard 400hz. The higher frequency generator produced corona discharges, and other well-known phenomena associated with high frequency generators. None of the crew suffered effects from the experiment.”

That the Navy first denounced the Philadelphia Experiment as having any basis in reality, but today is seemingly happy to offer no less than two theories to explain what might have been behind the legend – involving verifiable, secret projects – has inevitably raised suspicions that we are still not being told the full story of what really occurred all those years ago at that mysterious naval yard, regardless of how one views the strange saga of Carlos Allende.

The Defense Intelligence Agency was created in 1961 by United States Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and brought together the military intelligence branches of the US Army, Navy and Air Force. Currently, the DIA satisfies the foreign intelligence and counter-intelligence requirements of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, various components of the Department of Defense and provides the military intelligence contribution to national intelligence. In other words, the DIA is a highly respected and vital component of the US Government and the Intelligence world. And, it has crossed paths with some decidedly weird and paranormal matters in its time…

An examination of files that the DIA has declassified under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act reveals that, in the Cold War environment of the 1970’s, the Agency spent considerable time researching the existence (or otherwise) of extra-sensory perception and psychic phenomena. Not only that; the DIA was predominantly troubled by one particularly nightmarish and nagging scenario: that the Soviets would succeed in using ESP as a tool of espionage and that the secrets of the Pentagon, the CIA and just about everyone else would be blown wide open for Kremlin and KGB psychic-penetration.

Acting on this concern, the DIA (along with the CIA and the Army) began to seriously address the issue of whether or not the powers of the mind would one day prove superior to – or at the very least, the equal of – conventional tools of espionage and warfare. And it was as a result of its intensive study of Soviet research into psychic phenomena for espionage purposes, that the DIA learned of some of the notable advances made by both Russian and Czechoslovakian scientists whose attention was focused on the links between psychic phenomena and the animal kingdom.

In a September 1975 document, Soviet and Czechoslovakian Parapsychology Research, the DIA reveals its findings on animals and psychic phenomena in the former Soviet-Bloc countries. Interestingly, the Defense Intelligence Agency learned that Soviet research into the world of psychic powers in animals began decades previously and focused on attempts to determine the validity of mind-to-mind contact between human beings and dogs. One section of the document is titled Telepathy in Animals. It begins thus:

“Soviet research on telepathy in animals in the 1920s and 1930s was devoted largely to proving that telepathy between man and animals did indeed exist. A good example of the early Soviet approach was research conducted by V.I.M. Bekhterev of Leningrad University, in collaboration with a circus performer, V.L. Bekhterev reported that Durov’s trained dogs successfully solved arithmetic problems and identified or retrieved objects solely on the basis of their trainer’s mental suggestion. The results of these tests were controversial, since the dog’s performances were good when Durov was present and supplied the ‘suggestions,’ but deteriorated markedly when he was absent and another individual attempted to mentally control them.”

The DIA’s observations that the results of the tests were largely dependent on whether or not a trained circus performer was present should not be ignored. If telepathy is a real phenomenon, as the DIA suspected it was, then it is entirely possible, of course, that Durov had indeed succeeded in generating a mind-to-mind link with his dogs. That the results should have deteriorated markedly when Durov was absent, however, is a matter that must leave this aspect of such research open to question.

The DIA continued: “Bekhterev’s original objective was to demonstrate that telepathy between man and animals was mediated by some form of electromagnetic radiation (FMR), but by 1937, he and other Soviet parapsychologists had concluded that no known form of EMR was the carrier of thought transmission. The EMR theory of information transfer is still unresolved by the Soviets, but is still the major basis underlying much of their research.”

Three decades after Bekheterev’s original research, the Soviets were still working hard to make advances in this intriguing area. In 1962 B.S. Kazhinskiy advanced the theory that animals are capable of visual and aural perception and reflex understanding of the behavior of other animals or humans. He postulated that this ability resulted from the capacity of one animal to detect (via its nervous system), analyze, and synthesize signal-stimuli given off by another animal.

According to Kazhinskiy, the signals were transmitted in the form of a “bioradiational sight ray” and analyzed by the percipient animal as a result of its Pavlovian conditioning. The term “bioradiational rays” is still used by some Soviet and Czech parapsychologists to refer to focusing and concentration of biological energy by the brain and the optical neural channels.

If Kazhinskiv’s research into visual and aural perception was, and still is, considered valid, then it offers the possibility that the entire animal kingdom of our planet may somehow have the ability to utilize highly-advanced mental tools that, largely, elude human beings. But, you don’t need to be a mind-reader or a scientist to know that – as anyone who has ever owned a pet will tell you!

Nine times out of ten, when I’m approached by somebody about my interest in subjects like ufology and the supernatural, I can expect a fairly typical response: “Oh, so you’re a believer, huh?” While I obviously believe there is something going on out there when it pertains to UFOs, or any other variety of so-called “paranormal” or unexplained occurrence, I certainly don’t conform to the general sorts of time-tested preconceptions that exist with regard to most strange phenomena.

I had a nice exchange about this during a recent appearance on the popular online program “Spacing Out!” with Maureen Elsberry and Jason McClellen of Open Minds. Jason had asked me what evidence I’ve found, in my own UFO research, that may seem to support the presence of extraterrestrial visitation. I had to admit that, while I’ve found some intriguing instances of something clandestine and truly incredible in the various accounts I’ve come across, I can’t say with honesty that any of these show us, without question, that we’re dealing with alien visitors. My hosts graciously accepted my skepticism, even praising the cautious approach I had maintained (which, arguably, the folks at Open Minds have built a fine reputation for doing in this field in recent years).

However, not everyone seems to willing to accept a careful, skeptical approach when it comes to such things; in truth, there seems to be a general trend in most spheres of phenomenology that precludes any honest (and therefore sound) judgement at all, unless the information in a given instance fits someone’s rather narrow ideological viewpoint.

Indeed, while a majority of UFO reports seem to indicate that there could be some otherworldly presence in our midst, in recent years I have begun to shy away from the supposition that UFOs must be equated with some presumed extraterrestrial intelligence. While I am continually amazed at the sorts of reactions that this gets, I have nonetheless managed to find what I like to call “reasoned skeptics” out there who, like myself, try not to commit themselves to belief in anything without the proper factual data to support it first.

I had a very nice email exchange recently with blogger Haley Stevens of the Hayley is a Ghost blog, whose work, in my opinion, exemplifies this sort of reasoned skepticism. “I try my hardest to remain objective in my research,” Hayley told me. “I balance somewhere between the skeptical non-believers and the believers. But I get thought of as an evil skeptic by believers, and a bad skeptic by the skeptics for giving paranormal subjects even an moment of my time, so it’s wonderful when people appreciate my approach to paranormal phenomena.” Indeed, when one doesn’t commit to some sort of belief, it often seems that those around us project their own preconceptions onto us, and make us what they want to see or hear… could it be that these sorts of folks do the very same thing with strange phenomena in general?

My colleague Scotty Roberts of Intrepid Magazine also tried to tackle the issue recently, writing for the Intrepid Magazine Blog. In a piece titled, “The Politics of the Paranormal,” Scotty recounted a recent situation where rather harsh preconceptions of the sort I’m outlining here led to outright dismissal of one of our current projects:

“Just today, I learned that a high ranking official of a national ufological organization – of which I am a member in good standing – offhandedly dismissed with a backhanded brandish, the Paradigm Symposium and the cumulative decades of study represented by it’s cadre of iconic researchers and authors. “We don’t need to be associated with their ‘goblins, ghouls and 2012-ers.’”

He goes on to explain the obvious problems with this kind of intellectual skullduggery:

“That single phrase embodies the ignorantly dismissive view indicative of the stunted expansion of philosophy and thought innate to those who eschew any brand of rationalism beyond the boundaries of what is accepted within the sphere of their doctrine. Thusly belying a certain religious train of thinking that permeates their mission, despite representing a field that is already anathema to the sciences and academia with which they seemingly wish to position themselves.  Holding to immovable reasoning and concrete modes of traditional methodology has left them bereft of the wonder and exuberance of exploration and discovery. The politic of personality and private posture has eroded, for them, the soul of the brilliant universe and its veritable cornucopia of possibilities.”

Indeed, it is a shame how often very unfounded and rather unfair attitudes, espoused by those who may feel they’ve reached the apex of intellectual growth, actually only work to stifle our progression forward with research of the known universe. Arguably, we would do better to come to no conclusions at all, rather than to commit ourselves to the truly unknown in an absence of anything to justify it; and thus, commit ourselves also to a kind of proverbial blindness that disallows creative thought of any kind.

When it comes to study of the strange and unusual, in the absence of certainty, we may indeed do better to come to no conclusions at all!

Here at Mysterious Universe we are always browsing Reddit for weird and wonderful things that you guys might like and as we all know, Reddit.com has a subreddit for nearly every topic and taste. I stumbled across two fantastic little subreddits called Imaginary Monsters and Imaginary Technology.

Both of these subreddits feature fantastical creatures and creations in illustrative form which I know that the Mysterious Universe audience will love. Here are a few of my favourites from the past couple of weeks…

Imaginary Monsters – /r/ImaginaryMonsters

Nimbus Viper by Brent Hollowell

Chronos by Verehin

Chilly Willy by Brent Hollowell

Beyond Menzoberranzan by RalphHorsley

Call of Cthulu by sancient

Search for Mother by Donato Giancola

Planetary Life Form by TheStealthNinja13

Power of the Mind by Simon Cowell

Imaginary Monsters – /r/ImaginaryTechnology

Mech by Progv

Anti Armour Mech by Trevor Claxton

Air Combat by Progv

V for Victory by Jukka Korhonen

Space Elevator by GryphArt

Touchdown Confirmed by Entroz

The Sighting by Steve Burg

Three Armed Sloth? by Trevor Claxton

So, do you have a favourite? Check out the two subreddits above and post a link to your favourite in the comments below!

Edit: This is for you Red Pill Junky

It has become a recurring theme in science fiction movies over the last half century; ever since George Pal’s film adaptation of the H.G. Wells classic, The Time Machine, the incredible notion of lapsing epochs through space and time has riddled our sciences and the best fictional representations of both future and past. In fact, the theme of  is so often used today that, after decades of spin on the silver screen, it’s hard to imagine what time travel might really be like in the absence of aliens, robots, and dudes with laser blasters and the like, returning to the present from some post-apocalyptic future era to save the unsuspecting past from a future robotic hell.

My obvious reference to the Terminator film franchise here is not intended to preclude other classics, such as the Back to the Future trilogy, as well as the Fortean favorite, The Philadelphia Experiment (1984), starring Nancy Allen and Michael Pare. But how much would “real” time travel be like what we see in the movies? Perhaps more importantly, would the real-world counterpart to what we see in theaters be at all like what we would expect, or might there be other modes of “travel” through time that hardly involve any travel at all?

Part of what gets me thinking along these lines has to do with the apparent connections between UFO phenomenon and time travel. While many abductees report experiencing what they would refer to as “missing time,” there are at least a few camps that seem to believe that the entire UFO enigma is actually he result of literal, trans-human visitors from our future, which pilot advanced craft capable of impressive movement through not just space, but literal time just as well. This concept is further addressed in my upcoming book, The UFO Singularity, which is scheduled for release this December 22, 2012.

But rather than the hypothetical scenarios surrounding time travel and UFOs, let’s get down to the actual science behind perception of past, present, and future, where I’ve often wondered if the changes awaiting future generations might not cause radical shifts on not just our technology, but also human levels of perception itself. This might perhaps result in the ability to seemingly “look” across memories of not only our temporal past and the immediate present, but also of future events; but if so, how might this sort of thing be achieved, and would it be intentional at all? In other words, might humans stumble onto the beginnings of being able to shift the way we think (whether achieved technologically or otherwise), eventually leading to things like functional psi and, perhaps most important of all in the present discussion, stranger avenues for “travel” through time?

What we’re talking about here may not directly involve the use of some variety of apparatus used to travel through time. Instead, it seems more logical that levels of human perception, with the advent of more complex and miniature brain science applications, might begin to blur the lines between past, present and future altogether, on a perceptual level. In his book A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking argues that the natural flow of entropy amidst the course of all things in space-time influences the way that humans think and, most importantly, remember. In other words, our cognitive functions obey natural laws where entropy causes a trend toward chaos (well, for the most part, all you psychics out there reading this). However, in the event that such a thing as “reverse entropy” were indeed achieved, should we consider whether nanotechnology and other advanced miniature sciences may one day be applied to it’s incorporation into the human body just as well? Not only might perceptual levels of space and time be changed drastically in the coming years, and enough to allow perception of future as well as past, but humans may even achieve functional immortality one day on down the road.

It’s food for thought, for the time being… and while it may not really constitute what our films of today would help define as “time travel,” there may indeed be a time when the human mind (or some trans-human modification that comes along thereafter) could result in something more akin to “mind travel” instead.

What will humanity’s future be like, and what sorts of technological innovations will it entail? While there are indeed many doomsday forecasts among the projections of leading futureologists today, there are also a host of radical offerings with regard to what future science will bring to mankind, many of which seem to blur the lines between science fiction and religion itself.

The concept of “technological singularity” is certainly something that fascinates me, and in previous posts at this blog, I’ve focused on how this concept may relate to the serious study of ufology; in fact, my upcoming book The UFO Singularity (New Page Books, New York) will also deal with how the study of future science and UFO phenomenon are interrelated. However, there are also aspects of the so-called “Singularitarian” ethos that do seem, as I suggested previously, to border on the spiritual and metaphysical.

Indeed, with the idea of technological singularity as proposed by the movement’s preeminent de facto leader, Ray Kurzweil, we see a revolutionary new kind of emergent interrelationship between man and machine, in which we are not only joined in this world by manufactured intelligence that will eventually surpass our own, but also by innovative systems that will enhance the human existence to a point that our species will become literally capable of super-human feats such as telepathic communication, shape-shifting, and of course, eternal life. The latter of these, rather obviously, entails the most overtly spiritual aspect of the entire quandary: if the technology we create doesn’t destroy humanity as we know it, then it will likely grant us life everlasting. In other words, with technological singularity humans are afforded many of the same offerings that Judeo-Christian teachings have instilled in Western society already… albeit in the absence of a divine creator who dictates such eventualities.

All this taken into consideration, it’s a bit strange how guarded the “Singularitarians” seem to remain when approached by those of us who study phenomenology and the unexplained (yes, the two areas do bear many similarities). Over at the Secret Sun blog, Christopher Knowles accurately noted this odd dichotomy, particularly among advocates of singularity and transhumanism, with regard to their futuristic beliefs, when compared alongside the unexplained and those things considered “fringe.”

I wrote to a Transhumanist blogger in hopes of getting an interview and he refused, claiming that The Secret Sun was “too fringe” for him. Because Transhumanism is so mainstream. Right.

What he really meant is that he didn’t want to risk a seat on the Kurzweil gravy train by being associated with anyone outside the faith who isn’t part of the officially sanctioned media.

Knowles hits the nail right on the head (albeit sarcastically, which in this case I think is warranted), in that here we see the pot calling the proverbial kettle black. With the exception of the very wise (and gracious) Ben Goertzel Ph.D., most of the scholarly Singularitarians (no wait… all of them, actually) that I have approached in recent months refused to be interviewed for The UFO Singularity, on the grounds that they wished not to engage in the debate over speculative subjects. As one budding young Singularitarian put it to me recently, “I do not wish to engage in speculative conversation when there are so many fruitful scientific pursuits within the Transhumanist realm.”

Ahem. No room for speculation, huh?

Good thing we have so much empirical data to support the emergence of artificial intelligence (or more importantly, how it will emerge) in the coming years, as well as the swarms of nanobots that will eventually comprise most of our bodies, and the functional telepathy humans will achieve utilizing future technology, and an entire host of other things that the hopeful Singularitarians hold true in their vision of a better future humanity. Indeed, in many ways, what we seem to be dealing with here is a new kind of “fringe” religion, of sorts… the majority of what Singularity entails, while backed by a few facts and promising trends, seems to be largely faith-based.

All that said, I don’t think that careful and reasoned speculation (yes, calling a spade a spade here) is such a bad thing. Perhaps we can actually learn from, or even stand to gain from the study of things like Singularity. But if that’s the case… couldn’t we also open our minds to the possibility that the same might hold true for reasoned, skeptical study of spirituality, metaphysical sciences, or even UFOs? Maybe in this case, the open-minded among us will get to have our cake, and eat it too.