Posthuman Blues

Paul Kimball writes:

One question that doesn't get asked enough by ufology is this: if the UFOs are extraterrestrial in origin, with all of the advanced technology that this would involve (memo to the ETHers: it isn't as easy as you think it is to travel between the stars), why do they allow themselves to be seen, as surely they must, given their technological prowess?

The fact that the UFO phenomenon is so rampant argues against extraterrestrial origin and favors an intelligence with a penchant for theater. While it's possible to argue that a visiting ET civilization could be staging sightings as part of some sort of long-term social experiment (or even as an acclimatization program), it's at least as tempting to discard the ETH entirely. But the remaining options infringe deeply on our collective sense of self, making the ETH a comforting -- if unwieldy -- recourse.

Genuine ET visitors would probably have little need for the conspicuous maneuvers and trace evidence that form the backbone of the ETH. In the event of alien visitation, it's likely we'd never see objects resembling recognizable craft -- let alone vehicles encumbered with attention-grabbing lights and adorned with portholes.

Our own technological trajectory suggests that a full-scale planetary reconnaissance could be achieved using incredibly small devices. A nanotech "smart dust," for instance, could infiltrate and reap a vast real-time harvest of information -- all without our knowing. As we prepare to use such technologies to study our own planet (and its inhabitants) in ever-increasing detail, we're forced to question prevailing ufological assumptions. While scintillating "spaceships" and irradiated landing sites are certainly cause for wonder and scientific concern, they appear suspiciously mired in the science fantasies of the previous century.





Where are the real alien technologies? Hidden, perhaps, behind the subterfuge of "motherships" that have haunted our skies since at least the 1950s? If a civilization wanted to keep us preoccupied with bogus sightings, the modern UFO spectacle would certainly seem elaborate enough to do the job. But it's difficult to imagine why ETs would bother, in turn suggesting an intelligence much closer to home.

To Jacques Vallee, the answer was a "multiverse" of interpermeable realities: the "ufonauts" engaged our sense of mythology because they hailed from an aspect of space-time ever-so-slightly removed from our own. To John Keel, both UFO displays and "monster" sightings were psychic distractions enforced by an unseen intelligence.

Both ideas, while attractive, ask that we shed the ETH in favor of something with more immediate existential consequences. More damningly (from a research perspective), both the multiverse and Keel's "superspectrum" beg for nothing less than a redefinition of the physical universe.

It's hardly surprising that "mainstream" ufologists greeted such ideas with mixed reactions; after all, the phenomenon had repeatedly demonstrated physical characteristics amenable to empirical science. Ufologists, already burdened by the omnipresent giggle factor, had long since ceased to speculate about the origin and purpose of UFOs in favor of obtaining physical "proof."

In hindsight, perhaps this was the phenomenon's intention all along.