Got a question to pose to you. I realize this might seem to be an offbeat question, and that I might be posing this in the wrong section of the forum. (I know, I know, I still need to reply to some of the other threads I've started... Apologies!)

Brief personal history with the subject matter: I've been doing light off-and-on research on paranormal phenomena - specifically ghosts and UFOs - since junior high. (It's really my mother's fault for raising me on episodes of Unsolved Mysteries as a child.) When I dedicated my life to Messiah in 1999, this only made me increase my research, though from an entirely different angle that I hadn't considered before. Recently, I have been spurred into taking up that research again (for reasons not entirely clear to me), moreso than I have before.

To explain the title of this post (for the uninitiated):

• UFO - If you don't know what one of these is, how big is the rock you've been living under since 1947?
• EBE - Extraterrestrial Biological Entity, the technical term for a living, breathing, organic, corporeal being that did not originate on this planet (Google "grays", "Nordics", "reptilians", etc.). Differentiated from the catch-all term "Extraterrestrial" (or "E.T."), which may include any entities - including synthetic or non-corporeal entities - that did not originate on the planet Earth.
• PAS - Post-Abduction Syndrome, a term used by UFO researchers (called "ufologists" and those who claim to have been abducted by the EBEs who allegedly pilot UFOs to describe the traumatic effects of alien abduction. Most horrific are the PAS symptoms described by children.
• Close Encounters of the 4th Kind (CE4K) - simply stated, abduction by extraterrestrial entities. In 1972, astronomer and former Project Blue Book ufologist J. Allen Hynek devised the so-called "Close Encounter" scale in his book The UFO Experience: A Scientific Inquiry. This scale has been popularized in films such as Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Fourth Kind. (It should be noted that "Close Encounters of the 4th Kind" was not part of Hynek's original Close Encounters scale, but was added on and expounded upon by other ufologists, such as Hynek's confederate Jacques Vallée.)

I've been looking into what Vallée referred to as the "interdimensional hypothesis" (or "IDH") lately. (J. Allen Hynek referred to this as the "extradimensional intelligence" [or "EDI"] hypothesis. For some strange reason unknown to me, potential extradimensional life forms are usually referred to nowadays as "ultraterrestrials". I have no idea who came up with that silly-sounding term or when it began to be used, but I prefer the more simplified, more specific term "extradimensional", so I will continue to use that.)[/i] I'm not in any way new to this theory - I've been delving into it from the perspective of Christian researchers such as fundamentalist minister Chuck Missler, Mutual UFO Network field investigator Joe Jordan and the rather far out-there author L.A. Marzulli and secular authors such as John Keel, journalist and author of The Mothman Prophecies (the book, not the movie), for about ten years now - but I thought I'd look into it from a more objective approach than I had before.

I have, over the years, become convinced that EBEs do not originate from other planets, but rather from other dimensions. What do you think? Do you believe they are from other planets, from other dimensions or from the dark recesses of human imaginations? Which seems more plausible to you?

For me, going by the research I've done over the years, I cannot say with certainty that UFOs and EBEs are purely non-existent. They do exist. I believe there is much evidence of this. However, given the fantastic distances that an extraterrestrial would have to traverse just to make it from wherever they claim to be from (say, Urantia or Perelandra, whichever you prefer) to arrive at Earth, I doubt beings of such technological sophistication would arrive here just to carve up harmless cattle, experiment on the local sentient life forms, give us nightmares, steal our sperm/ova or tell us to disarm our nukes and join hands with the rest of the "galactic brotherhood". That simply doesn't seem scientifically plausible to me. However, there are several stories throughout human history of mischievous (at times malevolent) entities who do perform such off-the-wall activities, seemingly for their own amusement. Call them imps, sprites, leprechauns, devils, elves, what have you; the latest term would be "EBE". (I know it sounds like I am parroting von Däniken, but I think it's quite the reverse; I'm parroting John Keel.)

Personally In order of plausibility I'd put them like this :

1. Human Imagination
2. Extradimensional beings
3. Extraterestrial beings

I think Occam's Razor would put them in the same order.
I'm not, by the way, saying I don't believe in the existance of Extraterestrial life (intelligent or otherwise) by placing it at the bottom, because I do.

I believe it human delusion and imagination as well. It's amazing what our brains can concoct if we open up our minds to it.

That's not to say I don't believe that ETs might exist on other planets. I do believe there have to be some. But I don't believe they have landed here at all.

I have a hard time believing that scientifically speaking the earth is the only planet in the entire universe that hosts rational creatures, but I never went beyond this consideration and the possibility of other biological entities living on some other planet somewhere in the universe. I honestly wouldn't see the point in such beings wishing to contact us or worse attack us... maybe humans are good only to invent fights and wish for an interplanetary war...

ETs according to our best guess (the Drake equation) should exist. ETs are not here according to our current knowledge - the speed of light precludes any from even knowing about us, except if they are in the vicinity. Unless they are using some super-science Ansible device the radio spectrum is full of a big load of nothing intelligent (maybe like Jersey Shore).

Occam's razor: If they aren't here, its because they aren't there.

Just exactly what Cassie has said.

Yes, but I used different words.

Assuming they're like the aliens in Galaxy Quest...

I don't think ET would recognise us as an intelligent species.

If aliens are aware of our existance it's probably through Benny Hill, we are all going to die

I believe they're here on Earth too and there is no need to look out into space, since most of us lie ignorant to what's already here. However, I would like to say so kindly that you can't assume that just, because aliens are technologically advance they'll have no reason to coming to Earth. In a sense aliens are anonymous and we can't begin to think what makes sense to us will ever really sense to them and vice-versa. However, I agree too the desires of these aliens you described are weird, but you have to take into account that even the ones giving out this sort of information to the public may have shady characters. The only way to prove something is by believing you can search for it to find it.

In my own opinion I think we live in a very small world confined to our schools, jobs and neighborhood that even one from another country or state is, but an alien to us. We have to be ready to leave out of our comfort zone to discover perhaps these greater truths.

If other intelligent life forms exist out there (which let's be scientific here, they probably do) then they do, it's that simple. I don't spend much time thinking about it though or even caring if I'm to be honest. If they are on Earth, they are, if they are not then they're not. If they exist they exist and if they don't they don't. Not a huge concern of mine unless we turn in to some fucked up version of War of the Worlds- and we'd lose, I'm sure. However I don't see that happening. I'd assume if there are other intelligent life forms out there that are smart enough to be able to reach earth to begin with, I can only hope they are less primitive than we are and actually use their minds rather than their urges.

Then again, if they used their minds, they'd kill us all instantly. Hell, if I were another life being seeing what our race did to this planet, I think I might.

Just exactly what Midi has said

Sounds like we share a lot about this matter

That might not be so! If an alien species proved to be more intelligent than we are, it would be because they're had so many millennia ahead of us in all aspects of their society. They haven't just advanced technologically; they've advanced as an interplanetary society. They have fought in more wars, committed more diplomatic errors, made more mistakes than we have and have learned from all of it.

For example: the Federation of Star Trek: The Next Generation is light-years ahead of us in all areas of societal development. Technologically, if you compared them to modern humans, Starfleet officers might as well be gods. Not only do they have FTL travel, they have matter-to-energy/energy-to-matter converters (transporters, replicators), they have nearly infinite supplies of energy (via a matter/antimatter drive and some form of plasma-fueled fusion batteries installed throughout their starships that they use as back-up power generators; apologies, I've got an honorary PhD in "bullshit Treknology"), they have cloaking technology (yes, the Fed has had it since Kirk's era, they just choose not to develop it due to a treaty with the Romulans)
they have artificial gravity (which is something we're still only theorizing about)... Hell, they have a method of compensating for the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, for God's sake! (Though, when Time Magazine asked the creators of TNG how such a device would work, Michael Okuda's response was, "They work just fine, thank you.")

Take a closer look at the human beings of TNG and you'll see that their development goes beyond merely the technological aspects. In between today and the hypothetical future of the series, humanity has gone through the Eugenics Wars, a massive epidemic of poverty and homelessness in America and the riots that quickly followed, World War III (which was fought with nukes), a war with some species only fans of The Animated Series have ever heard about (unless you're a big fan of Larry Niven's "Known Space" series), a horrible war with the Romulans that led to the creation of the Federation, and several conflicts after the "peaceful" Federation's beginning (Klingons, Cardassians, etc). That's a lot of "trial by fire" learning to go through!

The humans of Kirk's era, while still so similar to us that we can identify with them, are radically different socially (as Star Trek IV proved). They have an equitable, just global government (something we still can't figure out without totally fucking it up); they've abandoned actual hard currency for a credit system; they can't even understand our wars (and while Kirk could be considered "speciesist" against Klingons in Star Trek VI, he still tried to make peace with them)... and that's still 80-something years before Picard takes command of the Enterprise-D. By Picard's time, humanity had become so peaceful that most crude common phrases and swear words no longer exist in the "standard" English language, money has completely disappeared (and venture capitalists are considered "worse" than dictatorial tyrants, if Riker's comments in "The Neutral Zone" are any indication), killing an opponent in battle - something our soldiers see as "part of the job description" - is considered a deplorable "last ditch" effort when all else has failed utterly and an "average student" in elementary school is studying calculus in the third grade. (Seriously! Watch some of those episodes of TNG featuring little kids! Those kids are all genius level, and they're the average! No wonder you have to be a genius just to enlist in Starfleet! All those red shirts that died over the years? All of them would be PhD-level scholars, compared to today's humans. Let that sink in a moment. In the future presented by Star Trek, all humans are so damn smart that geniuses have become expendable.) Humans in TNG have advanced so far beyond us that they might as well be aliens!

Now, imagine that the Enterprise-D drops out of warp just behind Earth's moon today. (God, fanfic writers would have a heyday with that...) Pretend, for a moment, that the Federation wasn't started by humans, but by the human-looking "Nordic" or "Asian" aliens. (According to UFO literature - which I realize is dubious, but let's give it the benefit of the doubt - the E.B.E.s that visit us on a regular basis are part of an "intergalactic brotherhood" that also includes the "Grays" and "reptilians", depending on which ufologist's books you're reading.) Sure, they're far ahead of us developmentally... but does this mean they'll want to wipe us out for all the horrible things we've done?

No.

Why not? We've had genocide, religious violence, environmental pollution, child abuse, rape, ass-clown politicians, McDonalds... But, if you think about it, the E.B.E.s who are piloting the Enterprise-D have all gone through the same thing - seemingly endless wars and great technological progress - that we have. They, too, have had horribly dark chapters of their history. They, too, have progressed into the stars despite those dark chapters. They would look on us in the same way they view their ancestors, and little alien tears would roll down their cheeks (if they possess tear ducts, that is). Sure, we're biologically different from them, but if these aliens are part of the "intergalactic brotherhood", they've already learned to look past that particular prejudice to join in an intergalactic interspecies government. They would see us as a whole... and they would weep, and maybe even try to help us abandon our silly, warlike practices.

According to some UFO contactees/cultists (like the Aetherius Society, the Universe People[/i] of the Czech Republic and [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urantia#Adherents]followers of The Urantia Book's teachings), the UFO pilots already have been doing this since ancient times.


Just to add a personal disclaimer to this post, I do not adhere to the teachings of any UFO cult, and I believe many of the claims of UFO contactees/abductees to be highly suspect. (I add this to avoid any confusion.) However, their claims do represent one viewpoint I find somewhat enlightened: that the E.B.E.s aren't here to eat us, but would view us as a less-advanced, less-enlightened version of themselves. (Granted, many who hold that viewpoint are mentally disturbed, but if your mental illness makes you believe in intergalactic peace [like UFO-nut author Whitley Streiber], maybe we could use more individuals with that sort of mental illness.) While I don't believe these aliens would necessarily want to come preach their hippie New Age "intergalactic peace" gospel to us, I do believe they might have their own version of Roddenberry's Prime Directive (or "Starfleet General Order 1", if you really want to drown in the geekiness), which prevents the Federation from contacting any species that hasn't at least developed FTL travel. It's a very logical doctrine that, when applied correctly, makes so much sense: allow the species to develop on their own, make their own mistakes and struggle through their darker periods in a sort of "galactic quarantine" while the more developed species of the galaxy go about the business of running the Milky Way, checking in on those lesser-developed species now and then to see how they're progressing. Even celebrated Christian author C.S. Lewis envisioned a sort of "galactic quarantine" (in his Space Trilogy) where Earth (or "Terra", the eponymous "silent planet" from the book Out of the Silent Planet) was exiled from the rest of galactic civilization because our sins had tainted our world (a quarantine that would end after Armageddon/World War III, called "The Siege of Deep Heaven" in Lewis' trilogy).

I think if there are sufficiently advanced E.B.E.s who developed along similar societal/technological lines as we had, they might look upon us with a curious mixture of dread and compassion, and in their compassion would quarantine us from the rest of the galaxy (lest our warlike, aggressive natures infected some other world) until a point when they could no longer ignore us, such as the development of FTL drive. In other words: no, I don't believe aliens have been here (though, if they had, I don't think they'd have littered our religions and ancient mythologies with evidence of their arrival, as von Däniken claims in Chariots of the Gods?).


Kudos to whomever checked "They're ScArY dEmOnS!" above! Technically, I could've combined both that response and the "interdimensional hypothesis" answer (if you're like me and you believe the celestial beings commonly referred to as malakim - "messengers" in Hebrew; we call them "angels" - and their "fallen" counterparts are interdimensional non-corporeal beings), but I thought I'd keep them separate, for those who - like Hynek and Vallée - are striving to maintain a purely scientific viewpoint.



-- Mon Feb 28, 2011 12:45 pm --


(EDIT: I recently discovered, after downloading more of John Keel's works, that it was Keel himself - ever the showman - who first coined the abysmal term "ultraterrestrials". *sigh* Thus, another hero of mine topples from his lofty pedestal.)

The Lovecraft-fan in me cackles with mad, unrepentant glee at the thought. I mean, what if all those disc and cigar shaped objects sighted over the years were not interstellar craft? Or even craft at all. Perhaps they are merely shadows cast into the third dimension by fourth-dimensional creatures, so vast and incomprehensible our limited senses can only perceive a fraction of their magnificence. Much like how Mr Square perceives the Sphere in Edwin A Abbot's Flatland.

I was an avid amateur UFO scholar in my younger days, having read "Alien Liaison" and played the hell out of the UFO/XCOM series. However years of crushing disappointment due to a lack of irrefutable evidence (despite advances in the sophistication and ubiquity of recording equipment), and the growing sense of cynicism that comes with age, have dampened my enthusiasm somewhat.