by Mac Tonnies
Given that consciousness is likely a quantum function, deeply entangled with the rest of the cosmos, is it unreasonable to seek out traces of the “alien” among us? Maybe the signal SETI astronomers await will emanate from the depths of Self, cunningly disguised as human.
Also intriguing are accounts of “tulpas,” which are either objects or human-like entities crafted by pure thought, according to certain esoteric Buddhist beliefs. Capable of carrying out tasks on behalf of their creators, tulpas aren’t unlike the maddeningly transient “occupants” seen in or around “spacecraft” (sometimes digging for soil specimens in an almost parodic reenactment of the Apollo Moon landings).
While a more conventional flesh-and-blood explanation remains my central proposal, we would be timid to avoid addressing the UFO phenomenon’s parapsychological aspects. I find it likely that an indigenous population of “aliens” would have experimented along “occult” lines out of sheer need for secrecy; a “nuts and bolts” technology can go a long way toward ensuring anonymity in the face of an intrusive human civilization, but the ability to directly influence the fabric of Mind itself would be even more effective and perhaps less resource-intensive.
Thus, demonstrating the existence of indigenous humanoids remains problematic. We might hope to catch up with them, forcing them to reveal themselves in a most surreal form of the “disclosure” sought by proponents of “exopolitics.” Given startling advancements in quantum physics and computer science, we may be closer to this pivotal moment than we know.
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Given the vast resources of space itself, one eventually wonders why aliens are here at all (assuming they are). After all, a robust civilization could remain comfortably hidden drifting among the asteroids, ensconced in cometary ice or buried beneath the lunar surface. So despite the obvious anthropocentric objections, I suspect the aliens (for lack of a better term) are insatiably curious about us, possibly driven to distraction by our presence. Perhaps we shouldn’t be overly surprised to find that their world, as foreign as it promises to be, virtually revolves around our own.
Maybe one of the reasons we have yet to make irrefutable contact with extraterrestrials is because ET civilizations tend to reach a point of terminal decadence, an erotic cul-de-sac that precludes exploration. (Compare and contrast such an implosion to the “Singularity” too many of us are waiting for with bated breath.) Sufficiently advanced ETs might while away the millennia in a hedonistic stupor, brains (or their equivalent) melded to pleasure-generating devices.
It’s even possible the pleasure-generating devices themselves may be the intelligences with whom we eventually establish contact.
SETI, by definition, is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI). So what happens to the SETI Institute if and when the search comes to an end?
Seth Shostak, Jill Tarter, and their colleagues are not comparative anthropologists. They’re not versed in linguistics or biology or art. They merely search. If a signal is detected, will they deign to release their grip on the ETI inquiry and allow more capable minds to spearhead the investigation?
In paranoid moments—and there can never be enough of them—I have to wonder if SETI has any real plans to disseminate the discovery of an ET message. After all, acknowledgment of the signal, while certainly hard-won vindication for many scientists, could conceivably trigger the end of the search—and with it the end of the SETI Institute as we know it.
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Many UFO encounters seem less like chance sightings of extraterrestrial hardware than staged events conceived by an overarching intelligence that may have little to do with the will of perceived “occupants.” The robust capabilities and resources at the disposal of a galaxy-spanning post-”Singularity” intelligence should be more than up to the task of communicating with us.
Are we confident that such communication would be limited to electromagnetic exchanges? In light of Ray Kurzweil’s amply demonstrated law of accelerating returns, perhaps it’s just as likely that our first conversation with extraterrestrials will take the form of a complex psychosocial experiment (in which unconventional flying objects may play only a partial role). Although undoubtedly physical, it’s an open question whether “real” UFOs are metallic spacecraft in the familiar sense (although in the early days of the phenomenon researchers quickly fastened to the idea, sensing appealing parallels with our own aerospace ventures). Dispensing with the conventional notion of “mere” ET craft allows us to view the UFO problem as a manifestation of technologies ranging from von Neumann machines to nanobotic “utility fog.”
If the ET intent is to test our reactions to its presence (or something more profound, as the phenomenon’s impact on our mythology might indicate), quickly assembling “ships” and even “aliens” from raw materials would enable the disparity of forms seen in the sky. The flexibility of nanotech construction would allow the UFO intelligence to respond to our preconceptions in “real time,” thereby ensuring a permanent foothold in the collective unconscious while maintaining plausible deniability—at least among those tasked with policing potentially subversive memes.
Anthropologists have remarked on the inability of less-advanced cultures to profitably adapt to the arrival of more sophisticated cultures. UFOs, with all their attendant pageantry (including violation of military airspace and other airborne theater) are consistent with a form of deliberate invitation, perhaps imposed by an intelligence that—like the monolith-builders from 2001—promises to elude human comprehension.
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That the UFO phenomenon is so rampant argues against extraterrestrial origin and favors an intelligence with a penchant for theater. While it’s possible to argue that a visiting ET civilization could be staging sightings as part of some sort of long-term social experiment (or even as an acclimatization program), it’s at least as tempting to discard the ETH entirely. But the remaining options infringe deeply on our collective sense of self, making the ETH a comforting—if unwieldy—recourse.
Genuine ET visitors would probably have little need for the conspicuous maneuvers and trace evidence that form the backbone of the ETH. In the event of alien visitation, it’s likely we’d never see objects resembling recognizable craft—let alone vehicles encumbered with attention-grabbing lights and adorned with portholes.
Our own technological trajectory suggests that a full-scale planetary reconnaissance could be achieved using incredibly small devices. A nanotech “smart dust,” for instance, could infiltrate and reap a vast real-time harvest of information—all without our knowing. As we prepare to use such technologies to study our own planet (and its inhabitants) in ever-increasing detail, we’re forced to question prevailing ufological assumptions. While scintillating “spaceships” and irradiated landing sites are certainly cause for wonder and scientific concern, they appear suspiciously mired in the science fantasies of the previous century.
Where are the real alien technologies? Hidden, perhaps, behind the subterfuge of “motherships” that have haunted our skies since at least the 1950s? If a civilization wanted to keep us preoccupied with bogus sightings, the modern UFO spectacle would certainly seem elaborate enough to do the job. But it’s difficult to imagine why ETs would bother, in turn suggesting an intelligence much closer to home.
To Vallee, the answer was a “multiverse” of interpermeable realities: the “ufonauts” engaged our sense of mythology because they hailed from an aspect of space-time ever-so-slightly removed from our own. To John Keel, both UFO displays and “monster” sightings were psychic distractions enforced by an unseen intelligence.
Both ideas, while attractive, ask that we shed the ETH in favor of something with more immediate existential consequences. More damningly (from a research perspective), both Vallee’s multiverse and Keel’s “superspectrum” beg for nothing less than a redefinition of the physical universe.
It’s hardly surprising that “mainstream” ufologists greet such ideas with mixed reactions; after all, the phenomenon has rep
eatedly demonstrated physical characteristics amenable to empirical science. Ufologists, already burdened by the omnipresent “giggle factor,” had long since ceased to speculate about the origin and purpose of UFOs in favor of obtaining physical “proof.”
In hindsight, perhaps this was the phenomenon’s intention all along.
CHAPTER 4
The Abduction Epidemic
A journeyman ufologist’s introduction to the abduction phenomenon usually begins with a recounting of the capture of Betty and Barney Hill in New Hampshire in 1961. Believed at the time to be the first kidnapping of humans by UFO occupants, the Hills’ account contains virtually all of the elements contained in later narratives (which reached a near-fever pitch in the mid-1990s, stoked by an obliging media and the success of several influential books).
There’s little doubt that something unusual happened to the Hills. At the very least, both Betty and Barney recalled seeing an unidentified object apparently trailing their car. The account becomes more explicit upon Barney’s attempt to view the object through binoculars; upon magnification, he witnessed a “pancake”-shaped vehicle sporting triangular fins and red lights. More startling yet, he could discern occupants behind a row of windows, including one raptly staring humanoid he found especially threatening. The ensuing abduction has become the stuff of ufological legend, as has the Hills bout with “missing time,” an element that recurs throughout later accounts.
Under hypnosis by Boston psychiatrist Dr. Benjamin Simon, Betty recalled a conspicuously chatty alien “leader” whose human demeanor was only slightly less outlandish than his bizarre questions. Ironically, the Hill abduction—widely cited as one of the best cases to suggest an extraterrestrial origin for UFOs—is at least as amenable to indigenous beings engaged in deliberate psychodrama. The “leader’s” presentation, complete with 3-D star map showing alien trade routes—seems staged, his queries sampled from “B”-movie science fiction.
Nevertheless, one comes away from the Hill episode forced to confront what was almost certainly a “real” encounter. But the reigning interpretation—that the Hills were the victims of a chance run-in with ET interlopers—owes more of its appeal to the mythological syntax at our disposal than any particular piece of evidence. (Barney’s testimony, while deemed sincere by Simon, is notably less explicit than Betty’s and may well betray unwitting contamination from his wife.)
Inquiry into the nascent abduction phenomenon was forced to adapt to the now-familiar reproductive overtones upon the rediscovery of the Antonio Villas Boas case of 1957. Boas, a farmer, claimed a forcible encounter with a UFO in which he had sex with a fair-skinned female. Like today’s “Grays,” Boas described his seductress as short and large-eyed, with a lipless mouth and pointed chin that suggest the cover painting for Whitley Strieber’s best-selling Communion, not published until 1987. Though exotic, she was far from the specimen expected from mere erotic fantasy; Boas himself described her as paradoxically repellent and desirable. Reading his account (initially withheld by the UFO community for being too outlandish), one wonders in what ways Boas might have been coerced into his sexual encounter, an ordeal that left him oddly emasculated, resigned to having served as mere breeding stock. (Although critics are quick to point out his possibly self-aggrandizing reference to himself as a “prize stud.”)
Before Boas was escorted off the “spaceship,” the woman pointed significantly to her abdomen and in the direction of the sky. Advocates of the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis have interpreted this as a reference to the woman’s ET heritage, but at the same time they’ve effectively ignored the troublesome prospect of genetic compatibility. Granted that Boas had intercourse with an extraterrestrial, what are the chances that two independently evolved humanoid species could “mate” in any viable sense?
In Revelations, Jacques Vallee compares the feasibility of conceiving a human-alien hybrid to that of a human attempting to breed with an insect. Certainly, if Boas encountered a genuine ET, then “they” have achieved a most remarkable degree of impersonation—not an altogether impossible achievement for a civilization capable of traveling between stars, but one that arouses substantial skepticism. The law of parsimony begs the speculation that the beings who abducted Boas were human in at least some essential respects.
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As Vallee has noted, we seem to be dealing with a phenomenon that adapts to the reigning symbolism of any given era. That said, perhaps the idea that we’re dealing with something fundamentally “other” is a ploy enacted by a planetary mind of which we’re inextricably entangled. Contemporary abduction reports are fraught with much of the same ambiguity. While an abductee’s surroundings may seem bizarre enough to an addled witness, evidence of extrasolar origin is at best superficial. Occasionally an abductee reports visionary episodes (apparently instigated by the abductors with the assistance of audio-visual technology that recalls Betty Hill’s famous star map). Abduction researchers like Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs are forever on the lookout for hypnotically derived alien symbols, perhaps glimpsed on walls or uniforms, in hopes of finding validating tools for future research.
But what too often passes unmentioned is the relative dearth of reports involving transport from the abductee’s normal environment to that of the supposed ETs. In many cases, no mention is made of a UFO or “spaceship”; the transition from “here” to “there” proceeds with unnerving haste, often accompanied by partial amnesia and a wordless certainty of having been taken vast distances. (Reports of actually visiting otherworldly locales, common fare in the heyday of the contactees, are seldom encountered in the abduction literature.)
The quintessential alien environment is spartan, unencumbered by decor. The aliens are characterized as colorless, dispassionate creatures whose behavior resembles that of hive-dwelling insects or even machines. As in the Hill case, there’s sometimes a “leader” in attendance, although the tone of the abduction is far from conversational. Any “wisdom” imparted by the aliens is predominantly vague or philosophically obstinate. And while the beings can seem terrifically unearthly in the flesh, they avoid explicit references that might shed light on their origin or purpose.
Debunkers have pounced on the endlessly elusive nature of the abduction experience in order to expediently dismiss it. In The Demon-Haunted World, for example, Carl Sagan laments the fact that abductees have yet to emerge with artifacts that would demonstrate the physical reality of their experiences.
Many UFO occupant incidents have a surreal flavor that initially seems to contradict the phenomenon’s physicality. If some run-ins with ufonauts are staged events engineered to encourage belief in (and subsequent dismissal of) the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, “they” perhaps couldn’t have done a better job than the 1955 Hopkinsville “invasion,” in which the Sutton family of Kentucky was terrorized by a clutch of diminutive “goblins” who reportedly levitated and proved immune to gunfire.
Arthur C. Clarke’s maxim notwithstanding, the Hopkinsville goblins are an intriguing fusion of the “real” and the “magical.” Their abilities seem calculated to tarnish an empirical approach to the ETH by introducing elements of the fantastic; indeed, these same elements would eventually be used as ammunition by would-be skeptics determined to denounce the account.
While not necessarily out of the realm of possibility for genuine ETs, the entities’ goblin-like appearance argues for an origin in keeping with folklore. If they were “real,” then their reality might not be as amenable to the ETH as researchers would like. Conversely, the desire to debunk the Sutton family’s claim appears little more than a protest against the episode’s surreal nature.
UFO researchers like their aliens to abide by 20th century preconceptions of what alien beings should look like; entities like those observed in Hopkinsville comprise a kind of viral assault on conformist ufology by insinuating themselves into reigning conceits and quietly subverting ETH dogma. Ultimately, their existence is marginalized and becomes less ufological than “fo
rtean.” We’re asked, in effect, to consider the Hopkinsville visitors and their like as somehow separate and distinct from “hardcore” case-files that more readily suggest extraterrestrial visitation. We do so at our peril. Even UFO cases central to advocates of the ETH sometimes betray a psychosocial agenda. (“Dogfights” and radar-visual engagements with UFOs, while impressive evidence that the phenomenon is anything but simply visionary, also present the specter of an inexplicably “playful” disposition; this clashes with dogmatic assurances that extrasolar aliens would refrain from such childish behavior.)
Encounters with “Hopkinsville-type” beings demonstrate an undeniable commonality with both folkloric sources and the contemporary UFO phenomenon. Taken together, these inconvenient similarities force us to question the easy certainties that prevailed in the 1950s, when visiting space aliens seemed all-but-inevitable. “Limbo” cases like Hopkinsville allow us to assess the phenomenon in a brighter, less sullied light.
While one can argue endlessly in favor of a literal extraterrestrial interpretation, a holistic approach leads us to consider that the UFO intelligence not only wants to perpetuate itself via dramatic encounters with ostensible “occupants,” but intends to discredit its own machinations: it stages exciting UFO events that infect both the research community and the popular imagination, knowing that the phenomenon’s inherent absurdity will eventually inspire cognitive dissonance and undermine attempts to arrive at an indictment.
We’re thus conditioned to accept the ETH one moment only to succumb to the “giggle factor” the next, never peering past the curtain to see the agenda behind the special effects. We’re kept in a sort of amnesiac stupor, occasionally graced by visits from what can only be structured ET craft . . . and then deflated by the latest bizarre “occupant” report or account of “missing time.”
