Posthuman Blues

Earth's "milky seas" are visible from space

Scientists have taken satellite images of a mysterious phenomenon called a "milky sea."

(Via The Anomalist.)

Fortunately, Ivan Sanderson's overlooked minor classic "Invisible Residents," containing various reports of weird glows beneath the surface of the ocean, has been reprinted. No doubt some debunkers will seize on microbial "milky seas" to dismiss Sanderson's catalogue of unexplained aquatic lights just as the already-notorious Condign report seeks to explain UFO sightings in terms of atmospheric plasma.

But how do amorphic phosphorescent seas (see photo in article) account for rotating spoked formations? Aside from hinting at intelligent structure, the latter phenomenon shares parallels with some UFO reports. Once again I'm drawn to the uncharted depths of our own planet and the possibility that our seas are home -- or at least a temporary base -- to some form of nonhuman intelligence.

If my "cryptoterrestrials" are members of a hive society with access to genetic engineering, I can't help but wonder how they'd go about colonizing the oceans and what, precisely, they might be doing there. If the Sumerian Oannes myth is a true account of interspecies contact -- and it bears mentioning that no less a scientific personage than Carl Sagan defended the possibility -- then perhaps they really are our benefactors intent on steering us closer to our full potential. (Although some would argue, not entirely without justification, that hunter-gatherer societies are fundamentally healthier and less environmentally abusive than the urban communities that debuted in Mesopotamia.)

The burning question, to my mind, is why an advanced nonhuman intelligence would expend considerable resources to hasten our development. Maybe they're effectively vampires using human for our genes -- a notion in keeping with the "reptilian agenda" promoted by conspiracy extremists. (The alleged aliens described by Bob Lazar supposedly viewed humans as "containers," but whether this term denoted DNA or something transcendent was never satisfactorily explained. Whitley Strieber would argue, compellingly, that the "visitors" cherish us as repositories of what we can only call "souls"; alternatively, Budd Hopkins would insist, perhaps just as compellingly, that we're being harvested to serve a long-term hybridization program.)