Update: Disclosure, Myths and other "things"

As I am currently working on my first foray into the field (yes, I am writing a book) this post will be brief and to the point.

Disclosure: will only happen once it is forced. The way of forcing disclosure is for citizen science to come to the forefront and "prove" as much as possible that the ETH is not only the most viable hypothesis, but in fact the only hypothesis.

Myths: Joseph Campbell, in an interview once stated that there were no "aliens" nor "ufos". All ufos were a product of man; either from the collective unconscious or technology. Now, I do understand this point of view: the world's lexicon of myths, religions, beliefs are fertile to say the least. We have used imagery which is very much akin to most ufo sightings. In fact, the vast majority of abduction cases echo the great myths of yore almost to the letter. However, because we have used these images to explain natural phenomenon (from floods to shooting stars) does not in itself preclude the existence of extraterrestrials. If anything, it shows the human imagination, and thus the collective unconscious is quite capable of assimilating new, and perhaps exotic life forms. One thing I would take away from the late Joseph Campbell's work though, is that if/when contact is made, the "new" faces should not be looked to for salvation: as more than likely they will be mortal creatures much as we are, and prone to the same failures of flesh.

Things: As noted above, I have been working on my first foray into the field. Subsequently, I have been doing a lot of reading, trying to get my head around some of the more obtuse "weirdness" which is prevalent in this field. Along my journeys I have come across a handful of interesting "things" which don't exactly fit into what I am currently working on. Below you will find a collection of links and other such stuff for your enjoyment.



Links of Interest.

1. Ocean Explorer These are the guys who have found "something" in the north sea.

2. The Anomalist One of the best news collection sties out there.

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Stay tuned for future updates.

Putting the Horse before the Cart.

While working on my own contributions to the exo-field, I have come across several disheartening instances of well intentioned individuals putting the cart-way before the horse. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people associated with exo-politics, UAPs, UFOs, ETIs and the such; take for granted the scant reliable evidence to be had, is in itself undeniable "proof" of Aliens, UFOs and a world-wide cover up. These overstatements are unfortunate due to the fact that for the majority of those outside of the exo-community, UAPs, UFOs and ETIs are not a forgone conclusion. In other words, most people not only "don't" believe in UFOs, but they seriously doubt the existence of life outside of this pale blue dot. We still live in a world, where people seriously put forward dinosaur bones were placed there by (g)od as a means of testing our faith.

Further, with people purporting to have "seen" "heard" and "been abducted by" aliens (not UFOs) it causes the rest of the community much distress, as it paints everyone with an accepting brush, that "he" believes he has been abducted, when in actual fact, "he" just wants to do some real science and research into the phenomenon.

Alas, though I digress from the original intent, I would like to swing back around to the meaning of open-science. Last week I posted a short video clip of The Ocean Explorer Peter Lindberg. This is an example of "open-ish" science. He found something interesting, decided to throw it out there and now there are several hundred interested souls. It may be a bunch of rocks, or something else- It doesn't matter, because in the end, regardless of everything, this small portion of the ocean floor, will have been mapped, studied and cataloged. So, even if it turns out to be just a really cool undersea rock formation, science has been pushed forward by that much. Additionally, I believe in one of my first posts, I wrote about Copenhagen Sub-orbitals and their launch of an open source rocket on June 3rd. Again, this is something the exo-community should take seriously! And there are also the countless open science sites, where the community could participate in cataloging, defining and basically "doing" real science.

The above are all examples of what I mean, when I call for an exo-community lead, "open science" group. We could do research into UAPs, UFOs and ETIs while, also doing related science which benefits all. Further, if after decades of research, we are forced to concede that the ETI hypothesis is not viable, we will have contributed a great deal to the scientific community regardless.

Disclosure?

If and When disclosure comes, I would imagine it will be something like this and not governments actually coming out.

If you want to help out, or just follow this interesting development, check out their Facebook Page

Perspective

Note: The following piece is a collection of meandering thoughts: It is not in the least bit analytical.

I was traveling home from a trip to the north of Germany, trying to sleep away some of the insistently boring landscape. As one is apt to do, when confronted by miles and miles of farm land, my mind started to drift and meander. Ideas, thoughts, images began to flow: not all of them coherent. However, one sequence of thoughts / images did escape the trash bin of my mind, to form a fairly coherent narrative.

Follow me if you will -and I will show you the world in a grain of sand. 

One man, sitting on a train with approximately 300 other people.

One train, out of several dozen moving throught out Germany. 

One country, of about 80 million people in Europe. 

One continent*, of about 855 million people. 

One world, of about 7 billion people. 

One planet, of 8* in our solar system.    

One sun, of about 200 billion stars in our galaxy.

One question, are we alone? 

In perspective, in context,  the absurdity of  saying "we're alone" should be self evident. How utterly arrogant is it to say, "we are the sole arbiters of logic, reason and understanding" To proclaim to the heavens above "I think, therefore I am- And I am the only capable of thought and reason" Yes, the inverse would be true too; to proclaim "we're not alone" and I know it because, I can think, reason and deduce.

Dare I say, the only "reasonable" course to take, is one of agnostic skepticism, armed with our clumsy, but trustworthy, sword of scientific method? It seems to be the only solution is just that- after all, it is all we have.  

Magnetic Hyperthermia. Strange Technology.

While researching something completely unrelated, I came across this "possibly" new method of treating cancerous cells. In essence, the technique proposed, would inject iron-nano particles into the cancerous tumor, and via magnetic fields, heat up the cells, tumor to (at least) 40 degrees Celsius.  With the extreme heat, the cells would ´be killed (actually, out right destroyed) and thus preventing further growth of the tumor. Intrigued, I decided to dig a little further, and came across this technical paper on the whole procedure (from Rice University 2006)

And, of course this got me thinking. What they are proposing, in essence is a phazer of sorts to "zap" the cancerous cells. Granted, in the procedureas described above, they would add "targeted nano-iron particles" to ensure that only those cells with the extra iron would be destroyed. However, as we all know, the human body already contains a significant amount of iron, In fact according to the American Red Cross, one pint of blood contains about 250 milligrams of iron: which may at first not sound like very much; but for this use may be enough.

Imagine for a moment if you will, what would happen if every iron atom in your body suddenly increased in temperature- basically, causing the boiling of blood within a few moments. And if the heat increase were fast enough, one would think there would not be an explosion per se, rather an instantaneous vaporization; very much like the phazers of sci-fi lore.

-Just something to think about, and how our current technology very much represents (and is) something most strange indeed.

Special Announcement::

Today is World Disclosure Day, (July 8th) Go to link below and give your support.

World Disclosure Support

Ministry of Defense UAP statistics. (overview)

In December of 2000, the Defense Intelligence Analysis Staff of the British MOD complied a report on UAP sightings over the United Kingdom. Contained within this report, amongst other insightful tidbits: were the annualized numbers of sightings from 1959 through 1997. Now it occurred to me, that these data provided by the MOD, were bound to be more reliable than data collected by private organizations: primarily based on the fact that the ratio of pranksters, and bored drunken youngsters would be of representative insignificance. That is to say, it is easy for a bored teen to prank a private organizations, as compared to the British Ministry of Defense. Further, the two years which will be discussed presently, are from a time just before "the internet" became widely available to universities, let alone private connections. Lastly, these years also present a time, of a slightly more "conservative" Briton (as compared to contemporary society.) And as such, are probably some of the more reliable numbers to be found in regards to UAP sightings.

The MOD technical report's annualized "event reports" for 1977 and 1978 were chosen for this brief meta-analysis, as they represent one of the more striking contrasts of the whole 36 year period. Ideally, a deeper analysis should be made of the whole period, with the goal of teasing out any predictive qualities which might be contained therein.

1977 - 1978

In the year 1977 there were 425 reported sightings to the MOD. In the year 1978 there were nearly twice as many.(750) The first and most pertinent question to be asked about these data, would be, what was the cause of the seemingly dramatic increase in UAP sightings between those two years? One approach to addressing this question would be to compile all atmospheric data for the corresponding years, and compare any such anomalous events from year on year. By comparing these data from year on year, any corollary between weather phenomenon (as suggested in the MOD report) and Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon could be found. This is something which is being done presently; however, and as always, I am more than open to volunteers and suggestions to this path of investigation.

For this brief analysis however, a social-cultural perspective has been used. Choosing to research any possible correlations between the reported UAP events and that of cultural / social events is in the real of "overview" at best, and at worst could lead down false paths of investigation. Having that said though, there are some interesting cultural events which do seem to have played (at least to some extent) a part in the increase of UAP sightings over the United Kingdom. In the following Headlined sections, some of the more interesting (possible) causes will be highlighted.

Hollywood (as acting agent.)
Star Wars
UK 27 December 1977
Close Encounters.
UK 13 March 1978

Now it would seem, with these two movies alone, the collective consciousness of the UK would be literally buzzing with the idea of UFOs / UAPs. And to some extent I am sure that is correct; however, this would be another area, where looking into later years, and other theatrical releases would be of benefit. Further, to reiterate what was said earlier, these numbers are UAP events reported thttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifo the Ministry of Defense, and not that of the local radio show.

Space Programs.
Soviet satellite Cosmos 954 burns up in Earth's atmosphere.
Soyuz 28 (Aleksei Gubarev, Vladimir Remek) is launched on a rendezvous with Salyut 6
Charon, a satellite of Pluto, is discovered.
The U.S. scientific satellite Seasat is launched.
A massive short circuit in Seasat's electrical system ends the satellite's scientific mission.

The above events too could hold a key to the increase in reported sightings, though again, they alone may not offer a full explanation. Further, as an aside, this year (1978) NASA was pretty much ran over by the Soviet space program: That is to say, during this time, the soviets had several successful launchers, whereas NASA had only one, and if failed after 10 days.


Religion.
August 6 – Pope Paul VI dies in Rome.
August 26 – Pope John Paul I succeeds Pope Paul VI as the 263rd Pope.
September 28 – Pope John Paul I dies after only 33 days of papacy.
October 16 – Pope John Paul II succeeds Pope John Paul I as the 264th pope.

The above almost speaks for itself as for relevance; it is of note however, that Briton, does have a rather mixed history with the Catholic Church.

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As stated before, the above is more of a thumbnail sketch, a "meta-analysis" of cultural / social causes to mass UAP / UFO sightings. Any predictive qualities, (unlike the atmospheric proposal) would be difficult, at best to define. Further, evaluating social causes to these sightings is a rather subjective affair; making it harder to concretely say: When popes die, people see UFOs.(or the reverse, when people see UFOs, popes die.) What would be of note, and worthy of further research would be a combination of the two meta-analysis (cultural and atmospheric) combined with a greater data-set (the whole 36 year period). This would provide a fuller picture of the "current" situation, and perhaps allow elements of predictability to emerge.