Posthuman Blues

The future of the space-alien meme

Throughout history, the UFO phenomenon has been one step ahead of human capability. Our definition of the "other" has been quietly revised and reinvented in a parade of forms ranging from faerie folk to phantom airships to ghost rockets to NASA-esque flying saucers complete with alien "crew."

If we are in fact observing an unknown intelligence, it has proven remarkably adept at insinuating itself into the belief-structure of any given era, comfortably skating the razor's edge of plausibility. It implants itself in our collective unconscious, an abiding trickster that entices us with the possibility of catching up at the same time that it morphs into more fashionable disguises. The phenomenon is a constantly moving goal-post -- and we're largely amnesiac of any duplicity.

Whether we think we see an indigenous nonhuman species in our midst, as in the case of the Celtic faerie faith, or the comings and goings of eccentric aeronauts (the "impossible" airship sightings of the 1800s), we always think what we're viewing is genuine. Then, in a now-recognizable pattern, the performance changes. Since we invariably change alongside it, we fail to note that our visitors have merely upgraded their image to match prevailing notions. Thus, the most widely accepted exotic explanation for apparent alien craft in our skies -- the extraterrestrial hypothesis, with its Westernized nuts-and-bolts trappings -- is likely a facade.





If the UFO intelligence has been with the human species since prehistory, perhaps it's naive to assume the "aliens" will stick around in their present form once we've achieved their evident level of sophistication. If we can refrain from destroying ourselves, it's probable we will develop into a star-faring civilization. What then? The enigma and mythological luster of visiting space-aliens will have lost its appeal. If the UFO intelligence wants to continue interacting with us (for whatever reasons), it will be forced to adopt a new appearance; it will have to find a new mythical substrate in which to sow its memes.

That's assuming, of course, that humans a thousand years from now will still be blinkered by the capacity for belief. If we evolve into a "posthuman" state, as argued by a growing faction of thinkers in fields such as artificial intelligence and genetic engineering, there's no telling for certain how our perceptions will mutate to accommodate our new abilities. We may shed the dubious luxury of belief altogether . . . leaving the "ufonauts" stranded in the realm from which they originate, unable to continue their theatrical dialogue.

Or we may, finally, be able to discern the face behind the veil. As our technological prowess exponentiates, accompanied by a corresponding "physics of consciousness," today's perceived saucer-pilots may be rendered suddenly vulnerable. Equally disconcerting, we might find ourselves surrounded by newfound peers . . . if, of course, the phenomenon allows matters to progress that far.

Pioneering anomalist Charles Fort claimed that "we are property," a notion that seems disquietingly "Matrix"-like. But if Fort was right, we're not necessarily celestial chattel, doomed to an eternity of solipsistic antics. Our "visitors" may be our not-so-distant relatives, or even ancestors from some unimaginable future intent on nurturing their own historical time-line. (A time-travel hypothesis could help account for a variety of bizarre behavior associated with UFOs and paranormal visitation. Ultimately, it may make more sense to view the enigma as a concerted effort from the depths of time rather than an anthropological mission from deep-space; this may, in fact, be the ufonauts' most portentous secret, concealed by millennia of distraction and misinformation.)

Transhumanists speak in awed, increasingly confident tones of an imminent Singularity, beyond which forecasting the future becomes an exercise in futility. Elliptically enough, perhaps we're just now beginning to fashion the conceptual and technological tools that enable our visitors to operate in such consummate stealth.