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.

As far back as World War II, the Soviets had been experimenting with the idea of creating super-soldiers by using hypothetical inter-specific breeding processes to unite the genes of humans and chimpanzees. The resulting “humanzees” would provide field-ready super-humans that were stronger than the average man, and likely less susceptible to discomfort from pain, temperature, or other environmental stimuli, as well as the dissatisfaction from the quality of food they were given.

As time passes, some things do indeed change… but old ideas tend to die hard. Thus, while interbreeding humans with monkeys to create a hybrid may not (or, for all we know, may still) be an objective, one thing is certainly clear: the utilization of technology to “breed” different varieties of super-soldiers remains a reality. And within the next few years, some agencies are already talking about implementing this sort of advanced science on the battlefield.

A report featured in the British Daily Mail Online discussed the Pentagon’s plans for designing functional “telepathy” that would allow soldiers on the battlefield to communicate using keywords and phrases in combat. This, of course, would allow for a variety of benefits that include less equipment needed in the field, as well as a better ability to contain secret command communications (whereas technology like radio and internet transmissions can be spied on more easily).

According to the Daily Mail article the project is

“Based largely out of University of California-Irvine, in conjunction with labs in Philadelphia and Maryland, (where) scientists are trying to improve so-called ‘synthetic telepathy’ so that it could be used in a battlefield.

At this point, they have set their sights on 2017 as the year when their plan may turn into silent action. So far, 45 per cent of the commands that are transmitted from one volunteer to another- like ‘call in helicopter’ or ‘enemy ahead’- are correct.

Then again, there is an obvious down side to all of this, of course. While the benefits of utilizing non-verbal, distance communication in combat situations is of merit, there are also concerns over how, precisely, such functional “telepathy” could be achieved. Would the technology in question, for instance, allow people to read the thoughts of others while off the battle field as well? This would likely present an entire range of potential issues regarding individual right to privacy, etc.

And yet, many futurologists predict that there is a great likelihood for the implementation of psy-tech in the coming years. In fact, the trend seems to be that this sort of technology will not only become a likelihood, but that it may indeed become inevitable. For proponents of the idea that mankind has somehow slowly managed, over time, to disassociate itself from some degree of innate psychic ability, maybe things will eventually come full circle on that front. Except now, instead of having a natural ability to harness precognition, we’ll take on such abilities through the implementation of technology… what are your thoughts on this, and are we headed in the right direction, or are there more frightening potentials here than most have stopped to consider?

Our friends over at The Daily Grail brought to my attention recently that famous Skeptic James Randi has nominated researcher Daryl Bem for his annual “Pigasus Award,” on account of displaying what he believes to be unusual silliness in the parapsychological field.

Bem is best remembered in recent times for his research into what has variously been called “time-traveling pornography,” “Feeling the Future,” and perhaps, “extra-sensory sexual orientation” (what an unusual combination… must be a fun job, eh?).

Bem’s “Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect” appeared in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2011, which made a case for the presence of psychic predictions that people had apparently made in conjunction with being shown erotic imagery. According Bem, there appeared to be a small, but noticeable trend toward greater statistical likelihood for accurate predictions when participants in the study were shown, of all things, naughty photos. This sort of research, of course, doesn’t set very well with those from Randi’s skeptic camp…

According to Randi, during the official 2012 Pigasus announcement:

The winner of the Pigasus Prize in the scientist category is Daryl Bem, for his shoddy research that has been discredited on many accounts by prominent critics, such as Drs Richard Wiseman, Steven Novella and Chris French. Such examination shows very strange methods used by Bem to prove his case, which ends up unproven – though the popular media, of course, have chosen to embrace it.

Indeed, similar studies have not only sought to recreate the circumstances Bem had claimed were present in his initial experiment, but also to highlight bad procedures that may have been present at the time they were conducted. Altogether, while a number of researchers find the implication that sexual arousal could potentially “spike” the innate functions of psi to be of interest, the majority seem to think Bem and his research rank among the absurd.

Let us suppose for a moment, however, that Bem’s research, and what it purported to show, were accurate interpretations. What if having an intense connection with another individual could actually erupt as a result of some (for lack of a better term) psychic connection we might have with a potential partner? It might even stand to reason, since we’re engaging in open-minded speculation along these lines, that such an ability to be drawn toward a certain person and experience various psychic phenomenon in relation to that individual might have assisted in our success rate in terms of procreation. In other words, our bodies may have adapted some degree of psychic ability to “predict” who our partners would be, and thus, in modern times this ability to predict the appearance of an erotic image better than other kinds of stimuli could display the remnants of such an ability.

While Bem’s research will be–and rightly should be–questioned, if there is indeed merit to the study and its procedure, skeptics like Randi will almost inevitably overlook the potential merit to understanding elements of our human physiology that could result from further attempts at careful inquiry along these lines. Sadly, rather than merely trying to poke holes in an argument for the existence of psi, the very fact that Bem’s research had to do with human sexuality was a very likely factor in terms of ensuring his ultimate dismissal in the scientific community. I, for one, doubt that many have even tried to look at the deeper implications here, barring the obvious necessity for validating the rigors of the experiment itself… and if Randi’s approaches continue to dominate the field, perhaps no one will.

Many people claim to be able to perform such astounding feats as reading the minds of others, as well as seeing into the future to glimpse events that haven’t yet happened in chronological time. Claims among those believed to possess psychic abilities such as these, while remaining unproven scientifically, are still prolific enough that they have managed to permeate our culture, and have inspired numerous institutions over the decades to undertake attempts at explaining what they could be, how they could manifest, and perhaps most importantly, how others might attain the use of such “gifts.”

In truth, within the next several decades, we may begin to see technology that will allow humans abilities very similar to those which professed psychics already claim to have. But in such a world of tomorrow, could there be dangers associated with societies where virtually anyone can utilize psychic prowess to their advantage… and for good or ill, based solely on their own desire?

Recently at The Gralien Report, I wrote a piece that touched on an area that may point to the way some present technology is already tapping into people’s ability to predict things to come… and how some of us might even be able to turn a profit from doing so. The article focused on a new company called Intrade, which has created a market based on people’s predictions of events to come in the world of politics, money, sports, and a host of other areas of interest that “crowd-sources data from individuals who stand to gain monetarily from a circumstance, who thus are more likely to make educated guesses before risking their capital.”

I further speculated that Intrade’s unique process of “rewarding” those making predictions through their interface (if you’re correct about a prediction, your stocks rise in that market) could amount to the beginnings of a sort of functional “cyber-psy,” which I’ve begun to refer to as simply psybernetics. My reasons for this sort of speculation are simple: when there is a payoff on the other end of a prediction one is making (and furthermore, the risk of losing capital if they’re wrong), then we might suppose that people involved in such e-investing will be far more careful with the predictions they cast. The cumulative effect in the long run will be a likely trend toward correct probabilities among experienced users, which not only guarantees them profit, but also allows people to monitor the statistic results of information Intrade will be collecting… and thus offer “hints” of what the future may hold that are more likely to be accurate than the single guessing of any one person.

This isn’t the only area where information collected online has been examined for it’s potential use in predicting future events. A paper by Sitaram Asur and Bernardo A. Huberman of HP Labs in Palo Alto, California titled “Predicting the Future With Social Media” focused on a similar idea: that information gathered through social media sites like Twitter and Facebook may also yield information that can more accurately predict future events than major companies and market forecasts.

Could existing technology already be crowd-sourcing people’s telepathic abilities, or at very least, aggregating the most likely outcomes among people’s educated guesses to forecast the future? Taking this one step further, if trends such as these among websites begin to spill over into other new and emerging technologies in the coming years, we may very well begin to see a variety of forms of “psychic” capabilities becoming available to the masses, and perhaps not only those relegated to looking into the future.

Granted, there is always good that comes with the bad, too. In his book Grey Aliens and the Harvesting of Human Souls, British author Nigel Kerner discussed a futuristic microchip for which the proposed design would entail the gathering of data on humans. Named the “Soul Catcher 2025″ for the estimated year of its functional completion, the implanted device would allegedly “be like an aircraft’s black box and would enhance communications beyond current concepts,” allowing the recording of virtually every aspect of an individual’s existence; and perhaps even the ability to transfer that stored information to other locations. “By combining this information with a record of a person’s genes, we could recreate a person physically, emotionally, and spiritually,” according to Dr. Chris Winter of British Telecom’s Artificial Life team, who oversees the project. Indeed, while such technology might be incredible by today’s standards, it also seems that it could become inevitable in our future… and perhaps arriving packaged with certain dangerous potentials.

In essence, the very sorts of things that we might call “extra-sensory” today may become very accessible in a future world, where technological trends will continue to bridge the gap between our biological limitations, and the vast and incredible possibilities of tomorrow. Those things which still seem inaccessible to us now may indeed be well within the grasp of humanity in years to come… and with any luck, we’ll maintain the wisdom and moral capacity needed for handling such technology in ways that remain beneficial to our species.

What happens when we bear witness to technology and other “phenomena” here on Earth that we can’t explain? Science fiction writer and mathematician Vernor Vinge, credited with initiating the concept of a “Singularity” or intelligence explosion awaiting us in the near future, has often made statements along these lines, alluding to circumstances that would represent the arrival of the new super intelligent future humanity, or artificial intelligence, or maybe even a complex combination of the two.

During a recent interview with i09.com, Vinge was asked what kind of circumstances might alert us to the fact that we could have already gone through a sort of Singularity. Among his answers was this curious little tidbit: “When things begin to happen in the real world that no human has any explanation for.”

Of course, among the readers of this blog, most of us are already thinking, “wait, what do you mean when that happens? Those kinds of things are happening right now!” In truth, this has been happening for quite some time… but what, pray tell, could this actually mean? Have the aliens landed, or have interdimensional invaders finally bridged the gap between worlds? Or just perhaps… could it mean that there is a sort of divergence of intelligent species right here on Earth?

Writing for the Kurzweil Newsletter recently, Amara D. Angelica asked (though slightly tongue in cheek) about whether “a supersecret U.S. Singularity Project” might be underway. “A covert hard (fast) takeoff has already happened underground,” she presented within the context of a hypothetical Q&A, “and the resulting superintelligence has been sort of slowly leaking out, like the radioactivity at Fukushima Daiichi going into the Ocean.” While she poses her statements partially in jest, this represents one of the few times–if not the only time–that I’ve come across media associated with an idea my colleagues and I have expressed in our close circles for some time now: the notion of a localized technology explosion, carried out in secret by a small group of individuals.

Of course, I’ve postulated my own ideas regarding what I call a “localized Singularity” here at Mysterious Universe also, taking into consideration (and taking even taking heat regarding) the rather clandestine notion that suppression of certain technologies over the last several decades might have been utilized by certain groups in upper echelons. Keep in mind, this is entirely speculative, of course; but such activity could have occurred for purposes of advancing a small group of individuals toward a superhumanity, aided by the most advanced technology one could imagine that’s present here on Earth already.

But this is already old hat, of course, since we’ve been seeing these sorts of things already for decades. After all, wouldn’t UFOs fall with ease into Vinge’s justifications of things in the “real world that no human has any explanation for”? Following this logic, one is hardly provided with potential answers for mysteries like UFOs, of course. If anything, more questions begin to arise: for instance, how the hell could there ever have been highly advanced aircraft of the caliber described in many of the early UFO reports, especially those recounted by Project Bluebook, etc, if that technology had its genesis here on Earth, let alone several decades ago?

The implications, while speculative, are both thought provoking and unsettling. If there could, in fact, be some terrestrial basis for many reports of UFOs and other strange phenomenon, the underlying mystery might not be quite so simple as “secret government aircraft.” Indeed, the bigger picture might entail the emergence of an entirely different kind of intelligence… something far removed from what most of us know or could conceive at present. Far out, yes… perhaps even far fetched; but it doesn’t hurt to try thinking outside the proverbial (and frankly, quite stale) extraterrestrial box that has kept most UFO oriented minds locked away for so long already.

Ganzfeld… this peculiar word sounds like it should be the name of a prominent wizard-type character from Tolkien’s Middle Earth; and yet, the actual meaning behind the term “Ganzfeld Technique”, while far more esoteric in an rather literal way, is nonetheless quite recognizable once described… and even for those who don’t make the immediate associations between the practice and the process underlying it. 

The Ganzfeld Technique, to put it in general terms, denotes the use of ping pong ball halves placed over the eyes with hope of inducing an altered state of consciousness. This is achieved by allowing the participant to be fooled into perceiving an optical illusion, as presented by the luminous white subspace that seemingly hovers right before the eyes. The optical illusion that becomes apparent, however, can hardly comprise the essence of the experience, let alone justify it’s popularity in tests of the psychic kind over the last several decades.

Every so often, we see wholesome offerings that deal with such seldom-discussed subjects, and one recent article, appearing at the Mind Hacks website, does just this. Well, in truth, the article is really a synopsis regarding a special issue of the science journal Cortex (which deals with cognitive science), which recently featured an entire issue dedicated to “the neuropsychology of paranormal experiences.” In it, a number of different descriptions of Ganzfeld-inspired visions people have had are described, attained during these individuals’ experiences with of the sorts of hallucinatory effects the Ganzfeld technique is so famous for causing.

I should note here that I too have experimented with this simple, mind-altering technique a number of times in the past, and even recount many of these experiences in my book Magic, Mysticism and the Molecule. Arguably, part of what could have contributed to any hallucinatory circumstances in my particular case may have had more to do with the company I kept at the time. In fact, I’d wager that many of you would also see aliens and non-Euclidean geometric tesseracts if you spent enough time wearing ping pong balls over your eyes while Joshua P. Warren leaped around in his living room, brandishing colored lights in each hand and waving them over your face; I’ve had this happen more times than I’m proud to admit (and verily, such circumstances can at least partially be attributed to why the aforementioned book ended up being dedicated to Warren and his mischief, which I’ve grown to admire and appreciate more and more a time passes… but I digress).

In conjunction with many of the Ganzfeld experiments I undertook while writing Magic, Mysticism and the Molecule, I explored with equal enthusiasm the strange process of mirror gazing; specifically a setup popularized in the research of Dr. Raymond Moody, M.D., which he calls the psychomanteum. Despite having some interesting experiences using the Ganzfeld technique, the mental processes that one engages while gazing into reflective surfaces in a dark room never cease to amaze me; below is a brief recounting of one session I relate in my book, which took place in Warren’s own homemade “theater of the mind” (a.k.a. his spare bedroom, equipped with a comfortable chair and a fairly large mirror on the adjacent wall):

There
 were
 no
 spirits
 of
 the
 dead,
 no
 phantom
 wiener‐dogs,
 and
 not
 so
 much
 as
 a
 glimpse
 of
 Cthulhu’s
 dark,
 serpentine
 tentacles.
 There
 was,
 however,
 one
 interesting
 phenomenon
 that
 occurred
 during
 this
 session
 which
 may
 be
 worthy
 of
 mention:
 it
 involved
 a
 bizarre
 pattern
 of
 shapes
 and
 images
 I
 witnessed—though
 vaguely—where
 in
 a
 few
 fleeting
 moments
 I
 do
 recall
 seeing
 what
 could
 be
 likened
 to
 anthropomorphic
 shapes
 with
 enlarged
 heads.
 Even
 as
 I
 stared
 at
 these 
shapes, I 
found 
their 
silhouettes 
to 
be 
similar 
to 
that 
of 
alien
 “grays.”
 What
 were
 these
 images?
 Could
 strange,
 human‐like
 shapes of this sort indeed be an archetypal element within every person’s subconscious?

Who knows exactly what may be the cause behind such anthropomorphisms that one tends to muster while gazing into dark reflective surfaces… or in the case of the Ganzfeld experimenter, the whitewashed optical depth that is so conducive to a variety of geometric weirdness and utterly fantastic visions from the mind’s playground. Rather than to try and surmise some rationale for this phenomenon myself, I’m content for now to leave you with this meditation, penned by the French writer of tragedies, Pierre Corneille, who said that, “An example is often a deceptive mirror, and the order of destiny, so troubling to our thoughts, is not always found written in things past.”

Perhaps, then, we might guess that the order of destiny can be discerned from things written at other times–the future, for all we know–or at any other temporal junction one could imagine, so long as it isn’t that fleeting moment that so often escapes us; that which we call the present. If this weren’t the case, it is hard to understand what archaic circumstances otherwise might have drawn our predecessors toward the reflective surfaces and smoky diffusion that, to this day, yield potential for altering our conventional notions of reality… and all by merely gazing into them.

Every person spends a little time each day thinking about the future. What meeting do I have to attend later today or perhaps what will I feed the kids for dinner are among the more common thought projections of this sort; in the greater scheme of things, where will I be five years from now and how much money will I be able to save before retirement are the sorts of ideas that might involve a bit more planning.

For some people, predicting where they think they’ll be a few decades from now comes easily, and may involve not only a great deal of careful planning, but also high hopes, goal setting, and great aspirations. This isn’t exactly the case for many in the computer science and information technology fields, however. In fact, much like the event horizon of relativity theory, lying in the not-too-distant future seems to be the promise of some singular event beyond which it is difficult to predict the future progression of human evolution, both technologically and biologically. Part of what makes this impending future so difficult to ascertain is the very likely presence of artificial intelligence, and the uncertainty that surrounds what a future world will be like where humans aren’t the most intelligent beings on the planet.

Such a hypothetical future world forms the essence of what many today call a “Singularity”, believed to await humankind at some point in the early part of this century. One of the staunchest advocates for this Singularity is futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil, who addresses the subject in his book The Singularity is Near. Like many others, Kurzweil believes that artificial intelligence in the future will be a deciding factor in the future progression of the human species. In fact, according to the official definition featured at the website of The Singularity Institute, the perceptual event in question is defined as, “the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence.” However, looking at things from a perspective that incorporates various potentials such as extraterrestrials and UFOs, there may already be smarter-than-human intelligence among us here on Earth.

Indeed, if we were to assume for the moment that certain unidentified flying objects do in fact represent extraterrestrial technology, many new factors must be taken into account. For instance, the rigors of space travel a biological organism must hypothetically sustain, especially if it were to somehow travel several hundreds of light years or more in order to reach our planet, are often cited as a reason the extraterrestrial hypothesis may be unlikely. However, Singularity theorists have suggested a future post-Singularity humanity may indeed not only live alongside smarter-than-human AI, but even merge with it; in essence, we would be human in such a future, but a different breed of human from that which exists today, enhanced and improved through the utilization of “machinery” represented by technology so advanced that it is virtually indistinguishable from biology.

Thus, our own fundamental biology will likely still exist under such circumstances, but will also be supplemented and improved by advanced nanotechnologies that will emerge in the coming decades. But bringing this back to the discussion of aliens and extraterrestrial intelligence, perhaps alien civilizations (having mastered technologies required for space travel that exceed our own) would likely have gone through a Singularity themselves, resulting in biologically-oriented, but technologically enhanced beings capable of far more than what a mere biological entity could muster… this would presumably include travel through space, just as well.

But getting even stranger with this thought process, if we were to remove the notion of extraterrestrials from the equation altogether, what if we were to pose the notion (if for nothing but the sake of theorizing) that a sort of Singularity–albeit a localized one–could have occurred already on our planet? This is a difficult notion to consider, since many argue it would be entirely unlikely, if not impossible, for something so remarkable and transformational to have occurred among only a select group, without the rest of the planet’s population being affected. However, what if some secretive organization (again, just tossing theories around here!) could have, for instance, utilized suppressed technology for the last several decades, some of which likely even would have resulted in reports of advanced aircraft we call UFOs?

It sounds like science fiction, and in truth, that’s almost precisely what it is I’m presenting here. But let’s not forget how many innovative ideas have come from the pages of science fiction, whether that be the future of space travel envisioned by Arthur C. Clark, the incredible future societies of Philip K. Dick, or the mind-numbing technological intelligence explosions (i.e. Singularity) of Vernor Vinge. That said, almost without a doubt there are a variety of “secret” innovations that occur annually, and due to factors like their economic impact on a global scale, many are kept secret for purposes of not derailing existing markets (this is especially the case with the oil industry). If any one group could have access to remarkable technologies the general public didn’t know about, they might also have benefited from them in ways the populace would not.

Sure, it sounds sketchy, but in general terms this outlines the possibility, at very least, regarding how a “localized” Singularity might even occur here on Earth… and if such were to ever be the case, how might people like you or I interpret things if we did manage to catch a fleeting glimpse of, for instance, strange objects or foreign-looking aircraft buzzing through our skies?

In essence, either of these hypothetical scenarios, each involving greater than present human intelligence, could also outline the way a post-Singularity intelligence might already be present on Earth. Thus, rather than being right around the corner, evidence of a technological Singularity expected within next several decades might already be visible, on occasion, in places like our skies. The “Singularity” is actually here, given such criteria, and the evidence for a vast and strange future wildly different from our own has been right here alongside us for quite some time already.

With reports of UFOs in the United States on the rise for the summer months of 2011, a recent bookstore find has driven interest back toward the history of aviation, and how it might have actually been changed during the American Civil War.

The bizarre find, featured late last week at the news website TheBlaze.com, detailed the curious plans of a Civil War-era dentist who had his eye on the skies… with hopes of turning the tables for the Confederate army. The inventor in question–a man named R. Finley Hunt–never managed to get the project “off the ground.” Still, had his invention actually ever worked out, it would have re-written history, predating the Wright Brothers’ historic flight by several decades.

At the time, Confederate president Jefferson Davis was said to have taken some interest in Hunt’s steam-powered flying machine, but engineers at the time, reviewing Hunt’s designs, described it as having a number of flaws. Still, it was apparently a strong consideration for at least a while, since the obvious convenience of flight used for military purposes could have repositioned the Confederate Army for victory. Thus, in addition to big changes in terms of aviation history, the history of the U.S.–where the country might have remained divided until even the present day–becomes a consideration.

But stopping to consider things a bit more, if the first use of modern aviation in armed conflict had occurred during the Civil War, thus breaking the United States into two separate countries, the world today may have been vastly different. This isn’t just because of the literal state of the Union, but also the fact that spearheading the use of even crude airplanes and flying vehicles by the middle 1800s could have jump started the progression of future air-oriented innovations.

Taking things one step further, by the time many of the alleged UFO “airship” reports of the late ninteenth century would have begun to occur, Americans would have had flying vehicles already, which by that time would have been in use for decades already. Arguably, this would have reshaped the focus of at least a few of those early UFO reports from the era, thus changing our perception of modern unidentified aerial phenomenon in a variety of ways.

Or just maybe, for all we know, there actually were airships being seen back in those tender days of the ninteenth century “airship” waves… courtesy, perhaps, of inventors who liked to toy with designs for airborne transportation like Hunt did. Whether many of them got off the ground or not is, of course, a different story… but it’s fun to imagine how different things might have ended up being nonetheless.

Nobody ever said being an astronaut was easy. However, if recent news regarding the perils of spaceflight present any indication of things to come, then future manned missions into the cosmos may be difficult, at very best.

Among some of the more common afflictions astronauts may endure is the potential for atrophy to occur; this results from the lack of gravitational pressures exerted on the muscles of those spending prolonged periods in orbit. Additionally, the spacesuits worn by astronauts boarding the International Space Station have purportedly led to more than 25 arm injuries, as detailed in a recent report released by the National Academies.

Aside from these more common afflictions, of potentially greater concern is a mysterious ailment that has been reported among a large number of astronauts in recent studies. The condition, called papilledema, is known for causing blurred vision, headaches, and even eventual blindness. The reasons for the prevalence of this condition among astronauts is undetermined at present, and as the Orlando Sentinel recently described, NASA had refused to comment on the situation.

The notion that mysterious illnesses might be affecting astronauts sounds reminiscent of science fiction films, especially in keeping with the release of this Fall’s speculative fiction thriller Apollo 18. But in the very real sense, other problems astronauts are being faced with involve not just their own physical health, but that of the technology used to keep them in space. The proposed “de-manning” of the International Space Station (ISS) has been another issue to have cropped up in recent weeks, following problems associated with the launch of manned Russian Soyuz rockets. In the event that the ISS were to actually be evacuated, the Space Station, while designed to operate autonomously if needed, would remain vulnerable to problems only an on-board crew could repair. This, in addition to finding evacuation methods that are safe for the astronauts in question, leaves a number of lingering concerns.

The question of astronaut health and safety, while of utmost concern to those involved in joint U.S. and Russian space programs, has also recently become the subject of parody. In August, Wired Magazine’s Blog featured a series of darkly artistic images created by photographer Neil DaCosta, described as “fictitious last moments of a distraught anonymous, unemployed astronaut.” The photos, while directly associated and inspired by the final launch of NASA’s Space Shuttle Atlantis in July of this year, almost hint at the greater underlying problem: the many challenges future space explorers are faced with. As the present situation with NASA indicates, part of this problem has to do with merely getting off the ground.

The other half of the equation, however, is whether there will be astronauts ready and able to go once American space exploration resumes, with projected dates for craft that will follow Atlantis set to arrive in space by 2017. According to recent NASA figures and statements provided by NASA committee co-chair Frederick Gregory, the number of astronauts on hand have fallen in the last decade to by more than half. Gregory, who oversaw three shuttle missions, told the AFP last week that the specialization required of certain astronauts for their respective missions presents problems when shortages like this occur.

The majority of the problems various space agencies are facing today stem from underlying economic issues, however. With time (and luck), geopolitical conditions of this sort will hopefully begin to calm, thus providing a more solid global economy suited for investment in industries like space exploration. This process, however, might still take years. If there are prevalent risks affecting the comfort and health of astronauts in the meantime, this will only increase the potential that future conditions for spaceflight and exploration will remain out of reach.

In the classic Back to the Future film series, the slightly off-kilter (but lovable) Doc Brown manages to retrofit a DeLorean with a temporal-displacement device known famously as a “flux capacitor,” resulting in a car that, after accelerating to speeds exceeding 88 miles-per-hour, is able to travel to different predetermined points in time. At present, the notion of literal time travel–while remaining a subject that is hotly contested by physicists–is also something that has remained relegated to the realm of films and science fiction.

But according to the peculiar exploits of one Russian scientist, the creation of devices that might be literally capable of displacing time around an individual might finally be a reality. In fact, if the claims of Vadim Alexandrovich Chernobrov are anything more than rumor or hearsay, then we are being asked to believe that Chernobrov himself may have succeeded in the creation of a functional time machine.

Born 1965, Chernobrov is credited with the founding of the Russian Kosmopoisk organization (meaning “Space Search”), of which he is the leader. As described (with certain brevity) at the Wikipedia page dedicated to his life and research, Chernobrov is also known for being a meteorite hunter and advocate of UFO research. Apparently since around 1987, research involving ways that time might be manipulated has remained of particular interest to his studies, and now, after decades of exploring this most-complicated area of the physical universe, Chernobrov claims to have achieved success with bending and warping what we know as time.

Somewhat ironically, the Before It’s News website detailed a story this week detailing Chernobrov’s claims:

The device achieves travel through time, according to its inventor, by utilizing strong magnetic fields that resonate about the capsule and affect the natural flow of time and causality by literally increasing or slowing the flow of time.

During experiments, Chernobrov has shown that very precise chronometers, synchronized before the field is energized, experience a significant divergence in time after one has been placed inside the time machine while the other is kept far from the energized field as a control.

These chronometers, which are essentially devices that are designed to keep time precisely enough to be used as portable standards for judging time, allegedly revealed a “definite” warping of time within the magnetic field emitted by the machine. If translations from the Russian language reports about this discovery are to be correctly understood, what is being asserted is that early tests with the device were performed at Moscow Aircraft University, and were in at least some instances harmful or deadly to a variety of animal test subjects. However, following a series of tests involving human participants, the subjects described no ill effects other than seeing “colored circles” in the air while within the device’s magnetic field, in addition to “moderate arrhythmia.”

Chernobrov, who was among the participants, states of his observations that, “we came to conclusion that time is 3–dimensional,” and that humans could, at least in theory, “move in time backwards and forwards.”

But what practical applications, if the claims of Chernobrov are indeed true and accurate, will this device be capable of? If nothing else, perhaps the story outlined here will lead to a greater understanding of the nature of space and time, rather than any literal ability to travel back and forth through time to any significant degree. While the verdict remains open, there is a curious lack of interest and coverage that this story is receiving among the various news sites thus far… are we just a bit ahead of the game, or does this suggest that Chernobrov’s claims just aren’t warranting serious consideration?

It should be noted, perhaps, that the majority of the information featured in the Before It’s News article was excerpted from an earlier article appearing at the Russian Pravda website. In terms of being a legitimate news source, generally Pravda cannot be relied upon in terms of the veracity of the facts it presents. Over the years, a few rather questionable reports have been issued by the Russian tabloid, ranging from overblown claims of the discovery of a “Yeti paw,” to the supposed recovery of meteorite fragments and even extraterrestrial artifacts from the famous Tunguska blast site, where a large explosion of unexplained origin occurred in 1908. Chernobrov is credited with the investigation of a similar site in 2003, following the crash of what was believed to be a meteorite in the taiga 700 miles north of the city of Irkutsk the previous September. Chernobrov was quoted by the Associated Press that year, saying the blast site was on par with that of a “medium atomic bomb.”

So whether or not the claims that Chernobrov has created a literal time machine can be taken seriously remains an item of dispute… for now, at least. Who knows what the future will hold regarding this curious item; but safe it to say for now, only time will tell (pun intended)!