Reverse-Fermi Paradox (Aliens Here: Why Not Revealed (Them) or Disclosed (Us)?)

[Aether Blue]

This would suggest that the aliens are not truly part of an advanced civilisation, but they are instead pretty dumb. They have a small but limited range of advanced technologies, good enough to get them here, but not adaptable enough to be useful to human society. They can't give us unlimited energy, clean water, cure our pandemics, or give us long life.

I've suggested this idea before on this forum; the aliens are stupid - they are post-intelligent, they rely on the (presumably limited) AI in their spaceships to keep them alive, but they can't make any useful decisions (like initiating contact), they don't know how to turn the lights off on the outside of their ships ( which means they are visible at night), and they can't help crashing their ships in places like Siberia and New Mexico.

It's not really worth trying to make contact with post-intelligent aliens - they evolved into the Idiocracy stage long ago.

A possible scenario.

However, their whole civilization need not be so dysfunctional. It may be that only the ones in our vicinity are so far gone.

By analogy, I'm sure most of us have at least heard of low-functioning humans who can barely operate the technology that we take for granted; and who have nothing better to do than to annoy and torture wildlife in the local park or nature preserve all day.

Yes, the little green/grey aliens may be artificial. Most of the contactee reports/sightings seem to indicate this.

I would argue that, even if most reports of unearthly encounters describe real events in physical reality, no human has actually met a nonhuman intelligence in person. What we encounter would more likely be analogous to drones, ROVs, or lures designed to operate in human environments and to interact with humans and human artifacts.

 

[eburacum]

Or remote-controlled robots. Avatars.

I would suggest another possibility; using sufficiently advanced medical technology, these aliens could alter themselves biologically to look like humans, even if they are not anthropoid in any way. In a few thousand years or so this sort of technology will probably be commonplace among humans, and I would expect any alien civilisation capable to travelling to the stars would have similar capabilities. Of course they might not get the fine details right in every case.

 

[feinman]

So how do people think they are crossing the huge gap between their point of origin and our solar system?

The only way I see it if Aliens exist is they are a lot closer or they are crossing over the multiverse.

I don't know where they are from or how they get here.. The Contiguous Universe from Podesta's email hack is interesting --perhaps some universe or area in spacetime was stuck to our universe at certain places in spacetime during the inflationary period, and this intelligence can find those loci and interact with us at certain times and places.. I have no idea; that will be one of my first questions for them!

 

[dr wu]

1871

An 'object' dressed in white....did they mean thing or humanoid...?
At any rate I don't see anything in this that would make me believe it was an alien from a spaceship. To me it sounds far more like a ghost story of some kind. Many ufo and alien tales over time seem to have paranormal aspects to them but why do we assume it's alien then?
It could be metaphysical.

 

[dr wu]

So how do people think they are crossing the huge gap between their point of origin and our solar system?

The only way I see it if Aliens exist is they are a lot closer or they are crossing over the multiverse.

Yes..travel through space in a conventional craft would take forever as well as being dangerous.
But if they have a form of wormhole or other instantaneous travel like The Atavachron in Star Trek they could travel long distances in a second or two. I would think multiverse or interdimensional travel would also require very sophisticated tech as well.
At this level of science it becomes high speculation.

 

[feinman]

An 'object' dressed in white....did they mean thing or humanoid...?
At any rate I don't see anything in this that would make me believe it was an alien from a spaceship. To me it sounds far more like a ghost story of some kind. Many ufo and alien tales over time seem to have paranormal aspects to them but why do we assume it's alien then?
It could be metaphysical.

Unfortunately there is no drawing of the apparition, but it is interesting because it is described as an "object" and not a ghost-like apparition as in many of the ghost stories of the period which were also published that I ran across. It also is later seen by others dressed in different colors which is also strange.. It just is weird, and there is the animal reaction too. There was also another sighting of a white object that crossed the road near a bridge and the horses approaching the bridge had the same reaction as did those horses. I can't find the article any more --but it was scanned from a newspaper in very bad shape and was barely readable. Of course there is no way to verify these old stories, so they are what they are.

 

[dr wu]

These types of ufo discussions, like the OZ factor thread, make me think of Dr Vallee and his speculations. One can easily ascribe an alien outerspace origin to the 'craft' seen flying around that get labled as uap or ufo , but many sightings and close encounters over the centuries do not easily fit this category. Anyone who has read Dimensions by Dr Vallee or similar material will see the bizarre nature of many experiences that simply are difficult to place in a regular aliens from space category. If these are intelligent beings then how do we account for the actions and events in many of these high strangeness cases where many types of beings, styles of craft ,and other odd variants exist? One can say ..'well they are aliens so they are weird'. For me this is lacking in many areas.

 

[feinman]

These types of ufo discussions, like the OZ factor thread, make me think of Dr Vallee and his speculations. One can easily ascribe an alien outerspace origin to the 'craft' seen flying around that get labled as uap or ufo , but many sightings and close encounters over the centuries do not easily fit this category. Anyone who has read Dimensions by Dr Vallee or similar material will see the bizarre nature of many experiences that simply are difficult to place in a regular aliens from space category. If these are intelligent beings then how do we account for the actions and events in many of these high strangeness cases where many types of beings, styles of craft ,and other odd variants exist? One can say ..'well they are aliens so they are weird'. For me this is lacking in many areas.

I agree. But whatever they are, they know how to get here and are far beyond us, and very different I think. I think they represent non-human technologies --which is happily the wording I now see being used these days. I think they are stranger than just aliens coming from another place, although that is probably what is happening --a different place in spacetime, or from somewhere we don't understand yet; it's a non-human intelligence observing, interacting with us.

 

[dr wu]

I agree. But whatever they are, they know how to get here and are far beyond us, and very different I think. I think they represent non-human technologies --which is happily the wording I now see being used these days. I think they are stranger than just aliens coming from another place, although that is probably what is happening --a different place in spacetime, or from somewhere we don't understand yet; it's a non-human intelligence observing, interacting with us.

It certainly seems to be nonhuman intelligence ,yet what is the purpose of the 'interaction' ? It borders on pantomime at times.
It also seems to imitate our level of tech through out the years..a surreal pastiche ...always being ahead of us yet not so far that we can't relate to much of it. I'm of course talking about the high strangeness, abduction, and encounter cases people experience. Are the other sightings....the 'craft' seen flying around (that many think are space aliens) even a part of this ongoing 'play'?

 

[Sid]

Well Sid,

I did three times have a run-in with the unexplainable.

My first time was with my mom when when I was in the 4th grade.

We lived in a rural area and she told me never talk about what we saw out of fear people would label us as “ crazy “ and insane.

Very much understand 'charliebrown,' nothing new there, if someone witnesses something they have to decide for themselves what is the right course of action to take - or to write. "Cheers."

 

[feinman]

It certainly seems to be nonhuman intelligence ,yet what is the purpose of the 'interaction' ? It borders on pantomime at times.
It also seems to imitate our level of tech through out the years..a surreal pastiche ...always being ahead of us yet not so far that we can't relate to much of it. I'm of course talking about the high strangeness, abduction, and encounter cases people experience. Are the other sightings....the 'craft' seen flying around (that many think are space aliens) even a part of this ongoing 'play'?

I don't know about the humanoid stuff! From what I see in the historical accounts at least from the 19th century onward are devices flying around in the atmosphere or and / or coming out of the water. The high strangeness aspects of some encounters, including occupants I have assumed to be robotic creations, tools, or implanted memories. I don't have a good explanation for those, other than a contiguous universe idea where these things know how to get back and forth, while we don't. That makes the most sense to explain all of the phenomena, and their blurry edges. Perhaps they are only able to get here at certain times and places = I dunno...
That would be a good reason to not disclose things, as it would indeed scare the heck out of people, and create chaos. Extreme religious folks would blow up.

 

[feinman]

I think often of the strange circumstances around my experience and the synchronicities involved, and it seems hard to believe that alien starships would show up from another planet just to make a deep point like that, as everything seems so contrived and intentional. It seems more likely that they are always watching and operate in a very amazing manner, able to reveal themselves when they want. This could all be done with advanced technology though. As far as the phenomenon changing technological appearance over time --I don't think it has really, that much. Think of the Sternenschiff of 1851, or the Ghosts of Everest in '33 --they all look like later objects, as do the lights flying in formation from the airship days. As the RAND report suggests; these things would have been seen as angels or gods back in the day; if an ancient saw what I did, we'd have a religion out of it.

 

[catseye]

I would be inclined to believe that anything intelligent enough and with the means to come here, wouldn't come here. Or, if they did, they would be SO different that we wouldn't even recognise them as alien. Super-intelligent shades of the colour blue, as dear old Douglas put it.

 

[feinman]

I would be inclined to believe that anything intelligent enough and with the means to come here, wouldn't come here. Or, if they did, they would be SO different that we wouldn't even recognise them as alien. Super-intelligent shades of the colour blue, as dear old Douglas put it.

There is no reason for a non-human crazy-advanced hyperdimensional technology from some other place to take an interest in us other than pure curiosity or perhaps eventual altruistic intervention. If we in our explorations had only run into one planet with an explosion of variety of relatively advanced life in a big dusty desert of space and had only encountered amoebas elsewhere, we'd stay and monitor things long term. attempt some interaction without causing problems.

 

[dr wu]

I don't know about the humanoid stuff! From what I see in the historical accounts at least from the 19th century onward are devices flying around in the atmosphere or and / or coming out of the water. The high strangeness aspects of some encounters, including occupants I have assumed to be robotic creations, tools, or implanted memories. I don't have a good explanation for those, other than a contiguous universe idea where these things know how to get back and forth, while we don't. That makes the most sense to explain all of the phenomena, and their blurry edges. Perhaps they are only able to get here at certain times and places = I dunno...
That would be a good reason to not disclose things, as it would indeed scare the heck out of people, and create chaos. Extreme religious folks would blow up.

Have you read Dr Vallee...'Dimensions'...? Or any of his other ones like 'Confrontations' and 'Messengers of Deception'? He tends to imply (though never actually says this) that what we are dealing with might not be typical sentient evolved beings(or their robots) from another world ,but something different regarding their make up. He seems reluctant to come right out and say what he truly thinks without any censorship of his own ideas. From my understanding he was once very interested in Rosicrucianism and related mystical ideas. I get the feeling he's thinking they might be something other than corporeal biological entities. Perhaps energy beings or even metaphysical. He never really says this right out but I bet in private he would have some very interesting things to say. He of course postulated the Control System Hypothesis in several of his books saying that 'they' might be manipulating our religious and social ideas...but to what ultimate purpose? A lot of food for thought here and of course it's all speculation and even a great deal of philosophy and even paradigms about our existence.

 

[eburacum]

Curiously enough, I'm very open to the idea of multiverses and alternate realities. I also think the various timelines in our manifold reality are very well isolated from each other.

Travelling between stars is difficult, but not impossible; travelling between realities is infinitely more challenging.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I would be inclined to believe that anything intelligent enough and with the means to come here, wouldn't come here. Or, if they did, they would be SO different that we wouldn't even recognise them as alien. Super-intelligent shades of the colour blue, as dear old Douglas put it.

They'd monitor our broadcasts and watch some of what we call entertainment, long enough for them to come to the conclusion that this planet has no intelligent life.

 

[feinman]

Curiously enough, I'm very open to the idea of multiverses and alternate realities. I also think the various timelines in our manifold reality are very well isolated from each other.

Travelling between stars is difficult, but not impossible; travelling between realities is infinitely more challenging.

I think that's what might be happening..

 

[feinman]

Have you read Dr Vallee...'Dimensions'...? Or any of his other ones like 'Confrontations' and 'Messengers of Deception'? He tends to imply (though never actually says this) that what we are dealing with might not be typical sentient evolved beings(or their robots) from another world ,but something different regarding their make up. He seems reluctant to come right out and say what he truly thinks without any censorship of his own ideas. From my understanding he was once very interested in Rosicrucianism and related mystical ideas. I get the feeling he's thinking they might be something other than corporeal biological entities. Perhaps energy beings or even metaphysical. He never really says this right out but I bet in private he would have some very interesting things to say. He of course postulated the Control System Hypothesis in several of his books saying that 'they' might be manipulating our religious and social ideas...but to what ultimate purpose? A lot of food for thought here and of course it's all speculation and even a great deal of philosophy and even paradigms about our existence.

I've read bits and pieces and seen interviews, and he does seem to be reluctant.. I think those are all good reasonable possibilities. I'd be surprised if these things were created by biological entities like ourselves. But many of the objects that show up are physical objects and seem to represent a technology with common characteristics --as if those are needed to get here..

 

[uair01]

By my posting frequency you may conclude that: 1) I have a day off work, 2) I'm actively relaxing on the internet, 3) in corona times I have few occasions to discuss this in real-life

A lot of intelligent thinkers are suddenly talking about UFO's. This for example is Robin Hanson, one of the rationalists:

Overcoming Bias : UFO Stylized Social Facts

If the main block to believing in UFOs as aliens is a lack of a plausible enough social theory of aliens, then it seems a shame that almost no one who studies UFOs is a social science theorist. As I’m such a person, why don’t I step in and try to help?

Stylized fact #1: UFO aliens are very old, and could have remade universe, but some self-limit stops them.
Stylized fact #2: UFO aliens are rare and self-limited, and yet are here now.
Stylized fact #3: Alien-driven UFO encounters accomplish little, yet must somehow be justified to them.

Overcoming Bias : Explaining Stylized UFO Facts

My tentative explanation for all this has four main supporting elements: panspermia siblings, world government, moral ideology, and complexity rot.

But if aliens behind UFOs are incompetent at understanding us and communicating with us, that sounds like bad news for our ability to learn and abide by their rules. It would be nice if they had some effective plan for integrating us into their world, beyond than pushing the button on us when we cross some line. But I wouldn’t count on that.

 

[uair01]

There's more where the above came from. It will take me some time to digest:

Overcoming Bias : Power Laws Approximate Appearance

[2102.01522] If Loud Aliens Explain Human Earliness, Quiet Aliens Are Also Rare (arxiv.org)

Overcoming Bias : Are Expansive Aliens Obvious?

[2102.01522v1] A Simple Model of Grabby Aliens (arxiv.org)

This is really difficult to grasp:

According to a hard-steps model of advanced life timing, humans seem puzzlingly early. We offer an explanation: an early deadline is set by 'grabby' civilizations (GC), who expand rapidly, never die alone, change the appearance of the volumes they control, and who are not born within other GC volumes. If we might soon become grabby, then today is near a sample origin date of such a GC. A selection effect explains why we don't see them even though they probably control over a third of the universe now. Each parameter in our three parameter model can be estimated to within roughly a factor of four, allowing principled predictions of GC origins, spacing, appearance, and durations till we see or meet them.

Overcoming Bias : Meta-Comments On UFO Talk

But this is easier to get and very insightful. It applies directly to other Forteana:

Since I started talking about UFOs, I’ve more clearly seen some of the rules we apply to talk near the edge of acceptable topics. The edge isn’t that sharp, so these are rules that apply more strongly but in a graded way as you approach closer to the edge, and then perhaps go past it.

As you approach the edge of the pale, your tone is supposed to become more jocular, your language less precise and more evocative, and your writings short and infrequent. High prestige people are allowed to go a bit further toward or past the edge without modifying their writings quite as much in these directions. You are expected to eagerly lampoon any who violate these rules.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

Since I started talking about UFOs, I’ve more clearly seen some of the rules we apply to talk near the edge of acceptable topics. The edge isn’t that sharp...

Enjoyed your Fortean post.

Reminded of a quote I once came across from...dunno...probably some random guy...

"If there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere".

Just saying, like...

 

[ChasFink]

Just started reading this thread. While I retain an open mind on the general topic, I'd like to offer some thoughts I've had about potential aliens we might meet.

As I think I've expressed elsewhere, I deeply doubt people from other planets are even remotely humanoid in either body or mind. They have, so to speak, begun measuring the circle from a very different place. Their ideas of altruism, morality, curiosity, intelligence, etc. would likely be almost unintelligible to us, as ours would be to them. And when we entertain the idea of other "dimensions", other universes, and other types of other places we can't even imagine today, these differences are amplified. We should consider this as we try to answer the questions in this thread.

I think this is part of the way Vallee thinks. I haven't heard him speak much, but I did read some of his books a while back. One thing I found interesting is his phenomenological viewpoint: he said at one point that he had all but given up trying to explain UFOs, but found it rewarding to try to explain UFO experiences. Through this viewpoint he was able to place UFOs in the same realm as fairies, religious visions, mystical animals, etc. with many similarities among all of these things. He started at a different place on the circle himself.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I think this is part of the way Vallee thinks. I haven't heard him speak much, but I did read some of his books a while back. One thing I found interesting is his phenomenological viewpoint: he said at one point that he had all but given up trying to explain UFOs, but found it rewarding to try to explain UFO experiences. Through this viewpoint he was able to place UFOs in the same realm as fairies, religious visions, mystical animals, etc. with many similarities among all of these things. He started at a different place on the circle himself.

I like the way how he is willing to consider almost every possibility in a scientific manner. I also like the fact that he's come back to the UFO investigation arena after so many years away. He must feel that something's worth discussing again, or maybe something important is about to come out.

 

[dr wu]

Dr Vallee is 81 years old......at this point in his life I am surprised he is releasing a new book. I have read almost everything he has written in book form and many other online sources and have enjoyed reading and pondering his ideas over the last 50 years. I do not believe there will be any new or big reveal in his new book that will change what people already think.
I hope I'm wrong because I am 70 years old myself and it would be nice to know what the hell this whole ufo enigma was all about before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

 

[Alchymist]

I've been fascinated by the UFO phenomenon ever since the 1950s - I would have been about 10 or11 at the time - and sometimes I feel that the whole UFO thing is suffused throughout with a definite feeling of weirdness; it seems as if whoever - or whatever - is controlling the phenomenon, is deliberately making it as weird and illogical as possible, with the sole purpose of keeping "serious" scientists away. I must say it seems they have been remarkably successful . . .

Note that I said it is as if. . . . .

 

[Comfortably Numb]

It would be nice to know what the hell this whole ufo enigma was all about before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

Pelicans, hot air balloons and tractors.



And don't give me

Well, either that, or something else, isn't it.





Speaking of which, I have just this very evening found a treasure trove of historical articles, scanned some years ago.

That's when I used to be a ufologist.

Although, when I say used to be...

There's some tremendous UFO genesis captured there and I hope at least some of the articles might be relatively unknown?

Briefly, one example,

www.forteanmedia.com/Mantell_1.jpg

A case which I have, surprisingly, never seen mentioned in recent years and which I also have a related photograph (perhaps never published in the press?)

www.forteanmedia.com/Mantell_2.jpg

A tragic ending...

 

[Comfortably Numb]

Hello? (Hello? Hello? Hello?)
Is there anybody in there
Just nod if you can hear me...

(....)

For I am...

:badge:

AUTHOR DIGRESSES ON TV, SOUND IS CUT

www.forteanmedia.com/Keyhoe.jpg

 

[pandacracker]

This is a fascinating thread. I've read it twice!

I don't have much to add other than to say I lean towards the idea of 'contiguous universe' (if I have understood the term correctly)

I think it's possible they exist alongside us and just as our ability to study animals has evolved from shooting them for dissection; to capturing them for zoos; to placing spy cameras in their habitats, our visitors have developed their ways to study us.

I also wonder if they are a homogenous group. Maybe they have factions amongst themselves seeking different outcomes.

 

[eburacum]

HANSON: Since I started talking about UFOs, I’ve more clearly seen some of the rules we apply to talk near the edge of acceptable topics. The edge isn’t that sharp, so these are rules that apply more strongly but in a graded way as you approach closer to the edge, and then perhaps go past it.

I've had a small number of discussions online with Hanson in the past, and he has inspired quite a lot of my fiction; but (even though he is approximately 10 times as clever as I am) I'm not sure his reductionist approach will work when there are so many unknown factors in the equation.