Recently, the nuclear physicist and writer Stanton Friedman passed away. He was a prolific author of books on the unidentified flying object phenomenon and gave hundreds of lectures. His belief, was that alien visitations were true and he was a proponent of the ‘nuts and bolts’ perspective, in that alien technology is here today and governments were aware of this. This is known as the Extraterrestrial hypothesis, and it makes the claim that observation of craft in the sky or claims of visitations and abductions, are best explained by the acceptance that a non-human intelligence has travelled here on an alien starship purely to visit the planet.
Many follow his view point and he leaves behind a trail of dedicated researchers who also subscribe to this perspective. The idea that aliens are visiting our planet from another planet around another star, is attractive to many, and some want it to be true. This could be because they see it as a possible solution to the problems of our civilization and our inability to solve them ourselves, or it could just be because the idea is cool. That said, not all subscribe to this opinion.
A clip from ‘Earth versus the Flying Saucers’ movie, 1956 (Columbia Pictures)
The French/American researcher Jacques Vallee takes a radically different perspective, despite the fact that early on in his career he had supported the extraterrestrial hypothesis. But his views began to change, and a factor in this was the absurdly large number of visitation cases being reported, which made the Earth and its people appear to be like the equivalent of the local interstellar zoo for travelling alien tourists.
Instead, Vallee advocated for a different idea, known as the interdimensional hypothesis. This holds the view that visitations originate from other realities and dimensions that coexist alongside our own reality, perhaps in a multiverse of universes. In particular, the fact that our history is littered with ideas of mythological or supernatural creatures (goblins, elves, giants, dwarfs) might suggest that we are in fact witnessing a psychological phenomenon that has been with us for as long as human beings have existed.
Vallee makes some chief objections to the Extraterrestrial hypothesis, which were first laid out in his paper titled “Five Arguments Against the Extraterrestrial Origin of Unidentified Flying Objects” (Journal of Scientific Exploration, 1990). It is worth listing these arguments in full and to make some counter-point comments as a devil’s advocate argument:
That unexplained close encounters are far more numerous than required for any physical survey of the Earth; Although this does not take into account the vast number of planets around other stars that could be inhabited. If the galaxy is teaming with life, then the numbers of reports would correlated with a crowded galaxy. That said, it seems unlikely that many different species would be visiting Earth independent of each other, without interaction, communication and potential conflict among themselves over say visitation rights, for which we would then become aware of.
That humanoid body structure of the claimed aliens is not likely to have originated on another planet and is not biologically adapted to space travel; It could be that a species downloads its consciousness into a biological form that is grown at the destination, in an attempt to increase the interaction and encounter potential, by making efforts to appear like humans.
That the reported behaviours in many of the abduction reports contradicts the hypothesis of genetic or scientific experimentation on humans by an advanced intelligence. This would be true, except for the situation where visiting aliens had a form or anatomy completely different to our (as different as say a jelly fish to us) and they had no idea how we operated because we were so alien to them. However, if the aliens are ‘advanced intelligence’ and have figured out star travel, then this implies they should easily figure out our anatomy without the need for crude experimentation techniques.
That the extension of the phenomenon over all recorded human history suggests that it is not a contemporary phenomenon. Unless one considered that all past observations and reports, pre-dating the development of modern industrialised society, were just stories due to the lack of education, informed opinion and the ability to rationally comprehend observations and also record them reliably. But then how do we explain that not only did the reports continue, but they increased?
That the apparent ability of unidentified flying objects to manipulate space and time might suggest radically different and richer alternatives. The reported flight capabilities of such craft certainly go beyond what the existing or projected aerospace capabilities of our modern technological societies can achieve. And there is sufficient data, observations from pilots and radar measurements from radar stations, to clearly demonstrate that objects are being observed. The question is, are people seeing what they really think they are seeing and is what they see external to themselves or an image generated internally to the brain?
Whatever ones views are on the Extraterrestrial or Interdimensional hypothesis, it is clear that from the vast number of reports annually across the globe that some strange phenomena is occurring. Perhaps none of these hypothesis are true, but instead we are witnessing a psychological phenomenon which results in an as yet unknown symptom of our brain tissues exposure to certain technologies. We certainly live in a technological world, and electromagnetic fields are moving through the airspace almost as a constant background sea upon which our consciousness now swims. Who is to say that this isn’t having an effect on our brain, causing delusions, hallucinations or merely manifesting our best fantasies or worst nightmares but as a waking dream state?
It is clear however that something is going on, and it is wrong for governments to take the attitude they do, which tends to be dismissive of peoples claims. If this is not visitations by aliens from other stars or from other dimensions, then we could be looking at a global phenomenon of a form of mania, in which case this should also be of interest to governments, who are charged with looking out for the well-being of their populations. One thing is for sure, the conversation is not likely to end any time soon and the reported sightings will surely continue into the future.