Is There A Case For Extra-Terrestrials Visiting Earth?
01/03/2001. Source: Nest Contributor. Geoff Willmetts 

Uncle Geoff investigates the gray menace.

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If UFO sightings were just a modern day occurrence, it could be put down to anything from a reaction to society or misinterpretation. The fact that there have been odd sightings going back to pre-flight days where Man would have thought it impossible to be aloft does produce an interesting dilemma. Something must be going on and whatever, they can’t be blamed on any terrestrial air force. Either we’re seeing some natural Earth phenomenon in action or we’re a tourist attraction for aliens.

I don’t know about the rest of you folk reading this piece, but I’ve kept an eye on UFO research since I was young. It seems part and parcel with having an interest in Science Fiction. We have an interest in anything out of the ordinary, whether it’s sea serpents, Yeti or UFOs. It fascinates more than a lot of domestic Earth problems because there are no ready answers.

The possibility that we’re being observed by aliens can’t help but pique any SF fan's interest. As noted elsewhere, an interest in Science Fiction is often geared by a desire to problem-solve. Something unusual with no ready answers makes us look. Not only on the possible alien existence but also how society as a whole reacts to seeing...well, things in the sky.

These days, I tend to be a lot more cautious where UFO research is concerned. Books on the subject without photos to back it up are just writers blowing in the wind. The same applies when I see the same old photos coming up time and time again.

Without physical evidence to back it up, such books are no better than works of fiction. Those with new photographs in the digital age are placed in an awkward situation because it’s becoming a lot harder to accept whether they are true or fake. I’m sorry if this paragraph offends any of these writers but that is how I see things.

It isn’t helped very much by a lot of spurious info about conspiracies and other misinformation being spread around to work out what is correct or wrong. It’s even more curious these days that the United States Air Force announce that a lot of UFO reports may actually have been reports of their stealth or other advanced aircraft. Considering that we’ve seen so many of these supersonic planes and so few of them resemble UFO film footage that this also raises question marks. Outside of the rather slower Stealth Bomber, the majority are designed and travel at mach speed only at high altitude.

They certainly wouldn’t have been photographed doing such veolcities from the ground. Likewise, reports of supersonic bangs had the UFOs been accelerating away seem to be missing from the reports I’ve read.

This subject requires more real evidence and less speculation. Likewise, it also needs less dismissal where there may be solid evidence. To be fair, UFO investigators do make some attempt to remove fakes and natural phenomenon from the reports they receive. If military aircraft can also be removed, the numbers left can be compared for other patterns.

This article isn’t out to debunk all UFO sightings. I’m not even going to go over much of the history of them here. There’s enough books on the subject for those who might have missed anything. Rather, I want to examine the subject from the opposite direction. What should we expect to find in the evidence there is that might support alien visitation. Life won’t be easy considering this is also likely to be fogged by misinformation and fakery.

Let’s start off with removing natural causes that are actually known.

For those in the UK who’ve watched the Channel 5 programs on UFOs last year and the repeats recently, the most interesting aspect was satellite photography of what appears to be an ‘electrical worm’ moving around in the outer atmosphere. While I was researching for a different project, I was reading ‘The Craft of Science Fiction’ edited by Reginald Bretnor with various authors explaining different aspects of SF writing.

One of its chapters, written by Kathleen McLean about aliens and communication, actually describes these electrical worms stating they were known by NASA and was thought to be the source of the ‘foo fighters’ or UFO sightings of World War Two. This book was published in 1972. The film footage might be new but hardly secret. Whether these electrical worms look different or move faster from the perspective of inside the Earth’s atmosphere to terrestrial observers is debatable.

I’d have thought they would have been too high in the atmosphere to be seen at ground level. However, it might give rise to some of cylindrical sightings seen by aircraft pilots but not so much like the more traditional ‘flying saucer’ appearance or the speed that they’ve been noted as they fly away. If the electrical worm is akin to lightning, apart from static discharge, it would also discharge to earth and certainly not speed away into the distance as a single object.

Misinterpretation of other natural phenomenon shouldn’t be ignored either. Ball lightning would explain some of the circular shapes but not them speeding away. I still find it odd how people would not recognise thunderstorm conditions especially as so many occur.

A few years ago, it was noted that under certain conditions related to the Earth’s tectonic plates rubbing together that some release of gases produced strange lights as a side-effect, were capable of making prople hallucinate and believing themselves abducted by aliens.

This doesn’t preclude the possibility that actual alien encounters may have occurred but explains something about the human brain and common patterns under similar conditions repeatable under laboratory conditions.

I’m sure if I’ve missed any, someone will tell me. Let’s create a hypothesis and start asking questions. Forgetting the problems of space travel, why would aliens want to come to Earth in the first place?

Our own SETI - Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence - programme has yet to find any sentient radio signals from other star systems. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything in itself. We’ve only been generating radio signals ourselves for less than 70 years. Any signal that we might have received would come from a species older and certainly more technologically superior to ourselves. They might also regard radio transmitters out of date to whatever they currently use.

Considering our developments with fibre optics, a change to laser light signalling isn’t that far from happening. Such methods aren’t likely to leave much in the way of wastage for outsiders to listen in, certainly not at stellar distances, assuming they use such means for primitive races such ourselves to listen in or communicate to colony planets.

If we believe that the number of inhabited planets without this part of the galaxy to be rather low, then any alien species interested in other cultures may want to investigate then observe our media. They might believe that a developing species has the potential to be a threat one day or purely from an anthropological examination.

Either way, they might not want to reveal their presence to the general public. It’s accepted that when we first meet aliens diplomatically, that everything from religion to technology is going to be shaken up. An awareness of this is rather akin to Star Trek’s ‘First Directive’ of non-interference, except that we are at the receiving end of such a law. If such a law was not being used, then we’d have either met them by now or at worse, a potential slave colony.

Considering that through his media and attitudes towards even his fellow tribes, Man is essentially a xenophobic warring creature. This might be of some concern to any observing aliens. There might be great platitudes to the contrary but all the evidence suggests otherwise. More so, as a lot of it hails from our own genre. Whether this is regarded as a lack of maturity on our part or expected as normal for a developing predatory species is hard to say.

Certainly, any contact would be kept to a minimum with research secretly carried out until a clearer picture of the situation was revealed. Objectively, should we view alien life-forms as a potential threat, then there is nothing to say that Mankind as a whole wouldn’t throw away their differences and act as one against the outside threat.

At this point, I have to move towards assumptions. Alien anthropologists are hardly likely to come visiting in small spacecraft. No matter the changes or developments in space technology, any such unit is likely to stay and observe for years rather than make a Sunday afternoon visit. From such logic, all UFOs seen in Earth’s atmosphere have to be of a scout nature and at most dock somewhere not far from our own planet and either on a land base of a larger mothercraft.

To do otherwise would appear to be foolhardy. They might well have the means to travel inter-stellar distances quickly but extended stays would need to rely on more than we’ve seen. Those abductees who claim to have been to any of the nearby planets may not necessarily be telling falsehoods, just not really asking whether that is their real place of origin.

The second assumption is that we are dealing with only one set of alien observers. If there was more than one then we’d see a greater variety of space vessels zooming around our skies, let alone a different variety of alien beings. Throughout all the photographs, I expect to see a consistent sort of vessel continually turning up. Descriptions invariably describe the traditional saucer shape to a cigar or tube-like shape - the later has frequently been described as a docking station for saucers. An alien mothership is unlikely to have too many scoutcraft available or of too many different shapes.

If they are remotely anything like ourselves, then there will be a consistent design purely for the matter of docking and space conservation. Oddly enough, there has been one such shape resembling a boater hat that has been photographed in different parts of the world. I was also interested to note that there was film footage of such a shape over a Brazilian city in the past couple years. If it was a fake, it seems a lot of trouble with no one comparing to previous photographic stills.

Now, this in no way puts my seal of approval that there are aliens visiting Earth but it does fit some criteria that I expect to see some consistency of the same object amongst the photographs and sightings reports.

It doesn’t make allowances for the possibility of more than one set of alien observers and therefore another set of scout craft or the possibility that fakes - even based on real photographs - are clouding the issue. Even a consistent number of sightings with the same UFO could still be wrong. If the design is that basic, anyone could duplicate and do a bit of fakery.

Of course, one would be foolish not to ask why doesn’t it seem that likely that we are being visited by more than one set of alien anthropologists. Without any knowledge of how many space-faring species there are in this part of the galaxy, such a question is entirely hypothetical. In the same breath, one should also be asking why come at all?

Biologists have shown that under primeval volcanic conditions, amino acids will form and the initial stages for primitive life will eventually occur. There may be many upsets along the route but will eventually lead to more complex life-forms. At some point, the genetic wheel might even lead to some form of intelligent life.

All this can take an extended period of time. One can only look at how long it took to get to our species to appreciate this. There is also no guarantee that all this will happen in the same time frame or said sentient species will not destroy itself with the discovery of nuclear power or by destructive over-pollution.

Recognise where the human race is in all of this? An alien species, knowing that sentient species are few and far between is going to be interested in watching their development when they come across them. Not much difference with how human anthropologists examine primitive tribes in the deepest jungles. I doubt if curiosity is just a human trait.

The principles of scientific investigation is unlikely to change much whether it’s human or alien. There would be a need to take discrete samples and minimise direct contact. OK, so what evidence do we have for that? The most noted observation is that of dead animal mutilations. Frankly, I find it odd that they should all be cattle. Logic would indicate it would make more sense to select from a wide range of species and certainly not leave corpses over the landscape where they’ve been killed.

Granted these mutilations are somewhat odd occurrences but there isn’t that much evidence connecting them to aliens. The only real puzzle here is the lack of evidence of anyone being near the corpses. No one appears to have bothered to check the corpses as to whether bacterial or viral infection might have eaten away parts of the body. Considering how the ebola virus eats human flesh, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a bovine equivalent.

Alien anthropologists would certainly be interested in the dominant sentient species. As far as I can note, no abductee has been dissected, killed or not returned. Saying that, it’s rather interesting to note how known alien abductees haven’t been exactly shy telling the press about their experiences. If the aliens were any good at causing amnesia in their sample subjects - especially after so many have been allegedly taken - then this failure rate can hardly be any good for their amnesia technique.

Then again, considering the lack of belief in such statements, it can hardly be a great concern. Statistically, there is no information on how many have been abducted and with no memory either which is hardly surprising.

A statistical sample would have to be in the region of thousands than the few reports noted although that depends entirely on what they are looking for. The sample is hardly representative of the range of the human population but there’s no way of knowing what would constitute a ‘representative sample’.

Statistical sampling of the human population isn’t always done to examine physique. Releasing information from returned abductees to the general population can also be used to gauge the response as a whole. If, at some future date we are formerly greeted, there would be less surprise at their appearance than if they suddenly appeared out of the blue. If anything, this is somewhat reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke’s Overlord aliens in ‘Childhood’s End’ preparing the human race for acceptance of their appearance.

The only reason why I’m not dismissing alien abduction out of hand is largely because of the number of them that have got pieces of metal secreted in their bodies. It isn’t so much the origin of these objects that is of interest but where and how they turn up in the body. For a hoax with people not even aware they are carrying such things, this seems to be going to extreme lengths to give evidence. The comparison to how we tag our own domestic animals isn’t beyond expectations.

Before we move on, there is the cross-referencing of information regarding the aliens appearance. Not so much ‘little green men’ but ‘little grey men’ with an almost foetal description with enlarged heads and feeble-like bodies. Hardly an appearance that would make us think of them as a ‘superior’ species nor that of the most guarded secret either. If there were more than one set of aliens, one would expect more than the Grey aliens popping up all the time.

Assuming the ‘Greys’ are what they really look like, we have some very odd information about them to contend with. Assuming their skeletons and reproduction are anything like our own, whatever gives birth to such beings will have a somewhat different anatomy to get such a head through the birth canal. The apparent lack of genitalia doesn’t support the Grey as being the final form of this species. If other reproductive methods are used, one had to wonder why such a poor body choice is maintained. If they are the immature form of the aliens, one can only wonder what the final version would look like.

This author also finds it odd that such a large head can be so easily supported on such a small poor muscular type body. This suggests that the Greys themselves could be androids guided from afar. It would certainly get around the problem of having the real aliens having to endure long inter-stellar flight when they can use such representation in their investigations instead.

If these Greys are synthetic and travel in rapidly accelerated scout vehicles, they are probably not subject to the same sort of stresses we might experience from such velocities. Whether their appearance resembles the true alien species is something we won’t know until we formerly meet them. The only real conclusion we might be able to draw is that they might be humanoid but probably not mammalian. If the dark eyes are a form of sunglass protetion, then their normal planetary life could hail from a star system with a dimmer sun.

How much do the major governments of the world know about UFOs? This has always been a tricky question. No matter how big a cover-up some actual information or evidence is always likely to get out no matter how tight-lipped the personal. These days, thoughts tend to lie with how much misinformation is circulated to cloud what is really going on. This isn’t just from military or governmental sources but from civilian hoaxers as well. Whether there are select individuals with any real knowledge will always be open to debate. If there is a desire to confuse matters then it’s certainly has had some measure of success.

In realistic terms, no government is going to admit that their own country’s air space can be easily breached as it reduces public confidence in protecting its own territory. It might also lead other countries security forces to believe that there are gaps in their radar curtain that can be easily breached and exploited. The fact that the United States Air Force have regularly used stealth technology to infiltrate Soviet air space in the past indicates that although their aircraft are unusually designed they also don’t resemble saucers or cigar shapes either. If anything, the release of Russian UFO information pretty much reflects similar patterns to what we have had in the West with equally baffling responses.

If ‘flying saucers’ are amongst the USAF’s aircraft then it does raise questions over the cost of all that stealth technology. Reading the late Lockheed supervisor Ben Rich’s book ‘Skunk Works’ of the stealth development is quite enlightening even if it has to be accepted that some ‘security reader’ would have read the book before it was released. Lockheed were the principle users of the Nevada base also known as ‘Area 51’. Until it was established for aircraft trails, the base was unremarkable.

It is mainly the security of the area that centres so much attention. One odd comment that Ben Rich did make was that if ‘flying saucers’ were being manufactured then Lockheed, as the foremost developer of experimental aircraft, would have been involved and they weren’t.

Seems an odd line to have in such a book but considering the testing personal were eager to have stealth technology used to disguise holding rods in the wind tunnel tests also suggests that if they had access to anything superior that they would have used it. Outside of the stealth aircraft design to avoid being detected by radar, probably the biggest secret was that so much of the instrumentation were stock items.

Ben Rich did concede that a stainless steel saucer shape was an ideal shape to avoid radar detection. The only attempt at such a shape was made by the Soviets but unlike the ‘real’ thing, it’s speed and altitude weren’t comparable to actual UFO film footage. It also had to be extremely light-weight - stainless steel would have been too heavy - and used air-jets to lift a few feet off the ground.

Dismissing either American or Russian involvement, there aren’t any major countries that would have had the research base to develop such air or spacecraft. This has to take into account that such craft have been sighted over the past century. Had there been such developments then the technology would have passed into conventional design. One only has to note how much the space technology has bled down into conventional use such as computers and foil insulation. A small country hasn’t the resources for such endeavours.

This also leads in the direction of what would happen if one of the major countries had access to a crashed extra-terrestrial vehicle and whether it could be kept secret. The entire basis of the ‘Roswell Incident’ is drawn from this possibility. Granted that there is a lot of contradictory information as to just what went on. Likewise, had the US Air Force actually got one of these vehicles it would take some time to work out the technology.

They would certainly be tapping into the top scientific minds in the country to work exclusively on such a project. People wouldn’t be readily acknowledged upon leaving university as being this type of expert so there would be a need to look at an older age group.

Anyone wanting to research this should see if such experts have had any lengthy absences working on top sercurity projects in Nevada. Personally, I don’t expect to see much results from such an examination.

So why spend so much time keeping a downed extra-terrestrial spaceship secret? I doubt if keeping technological advances secret would be the main issue. There are strong possibilities to keeping relationships quiet from a political point of view. He who has the alien ear first would be deemed the more worthy for the most benefits. Except, and I have to use the Roswell Incident here, this is a downed potentially extra-terrestrial vehicle.

It would hardly be good diplomatic relations should they want it back to discover that its crew had been dissected or if alive, imprisoned against their will. Keeping such an incident secret would not only be from humans but also from the aliens as well. Considering how much the Roswell Incident is mentioned in our media, it can hardly be considered the best kept secret in the world.

There is also the sociological impact of knowing that we’re not alone in the universe. Despite the fact that alien visitation frequents our film and TV shows, it is one thing to have a work of fiction and quite another for it to happen in real life. The principle of our two most major religions, Christianity and Muslim, is that there is only one God and Man was made in his image.

An alien presence would certainly sweep that dogma under the table or worse, create a religious war that would make the Israel/Arab situation look like small potatoes. Aside from that, one only has to compare our own interest and knowledge of computers when talking to the non-computer literate and seeing their eyes dim when it appears we’re talking in a foreign language. Meeting a space-faring race would have such an impact.

It would be worse if they denied us their technology. Man would either strive to develop something similar once it is shown it is possible or suffer a belittling depression over lack of significance in the universe. Neither way would do much for Man’s natural development.

An incredible dilemma to keep secret. It also seems unlikely that any military involvement would use this as a reason not to disclose information. At Governmental level, someone would surely have spilt the beans by now.

So, what are we dealing with here? Is there a case for alien visitation? As with all such things, there are so many unanswered questions and this is a small article on the subject. I’m only making an assumption that the aliens are anthropologists and guessing at a motive akin to our own in a similar situation. They might well turn out to be just using Earth as a way station in transit and we’re stuck in the middle watching them whiz by and I’m giving the human race to much importance.

I do find it rather interesting that the USAF admit after all these years that some of their aircraft might have been mistaken for UFOs. Even more so when I doubt they would be flying at Mach velocities at low altitude. Some of the people, including pilots, who have observed UFOs are trained observers and I can’t recall any of these announcing that what they saw was a stealth aircraft when they were later revealed to the public, although correct me if I’m wrong.

It’s also interesting to note how all air forces are alerted to investigate any radar anomalies that crop up. With all the sophisticated radar equipment today, it’s either a demonstration of them waiting for some invading aircraft to show up, boredom or a mild panic. Certainly not, as in the case of the USAF, with the knowledge that such ‘boogies’ might be of their own making as they go through the same procedure themselves.

Am I convinced that we’re being visited by aliens? Frankly, I’m still rather on the fence these days than I used to be when I was young. Like my mother would say, she’d only believe there were visiting aliens if one came up and introduced itself to her. Evidence might be a little more concrete if we had some alien artefact or someone abducted with scientific training returned with no memory loss. Realistic evidence beyond photograph or film is needed to back up any claim these days. I’d certainly be paying more attention to common shapes in the photographs for common denominators and where they are coming from.

It would make a lot more sense to have a working hypothesis as to what, assuming they are there, these aliens are up to and stand virgil at places where we can observe them in return than to randomly pursue sightings around the world after the fact. A more positive stance might well fill in the gaps as to whether or not something is really going on.

(c) 2001 GF Willmetts

For those interested:-

Skunk Works by Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos.
Warner Bros. ISBN: 07515 15035

Apart from the points referenced above, it gives some insight into the military mind as well as stealth technology.

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