VERIFIABILITY AND THE ANCIENT ASTRONAUT HYPOTHESIS
This paper was presented at the LEGENDARY
TIMES seminar held in San Francisco, May 14, 2004 at the Villa Florence Hotel. 
Throughout the history of our species, from
Australopethicus-Lucy to today's human being, curiosity has been the driving
force of our struggle for knowledge and an understanding of our world and our
origins. Man has established multitudinous methods and approaches for acquiring
the information and knowledge he has accumulated since the era of Lucy, three
million years ago, in Hadar, Ethiopia.
We've departmentalized
them with titles like physics, chemistry, psychology, education, anthropology,
archaeology, writing, mathematics, and many more. Curiosity underlies them all.
Human beings need to know and to understand.
However, most of us are
inclined, because of personal interests, to be selective in what we need to
know. This inclination sets us on different paths in our pursuit of knowledge.
Unfortunately, our diversity of interests too often pits us against one another.
That is why ideas that do not fit society's current web of beliefs are so often
scoffed at as was the case when Einstein posited the theory of relativity. History shows that the inability to accept new ideas is as strong a
characteristic as is curiosity.
Our schooling, as opposed
to educational, system conditions us to become comfortable with the current and
popular body of facts and instills a tendency to look upon new ideas with a
jaundiced eye. As Einstein so aptly put it, "Do not pride yourself on the
few great men who, over the centuries, have been born on the earth through no
great merit of yours. Reflect rather, on how you treated them at the time, and
how you now have followed their teachings."
But as in the case of the
old adage, "Curiosity killed the cat," curiosity has also gotten man
into a great deal of trouble beginning when, as a caveman, his mode of
communication advanced beyond a series of grunts in an attempt to explain the
events and phenomena of his environment which he did not understand. Man has
been and still is a victim of unverifiable language. He makes claims about
events, beyond his ken that cannot be tested, such as theistic claims,
concepts, and beliefs appealing to unknowable and immaterial gods as the source
of those events.
In the seventies, many
antagonists, including Carl Sagan, not then well known but the most outspoken
among them, ridiculed Erich von Daniken and the Ancient Astronaut theorists
attempting to relegate us to that category of believers. One would think that
scientists would know the difference between what is and is not verifiable.
I
have no doubt that Sagan was one of those people, and, I must say, I have great
admiration for his contributions to the advancement of exploration in space.
Yet, I am deeply disappointed in him for the damage he did; he should have known
better. But by using Erich von Daniken as his foil, he did attract a lot of
attention. In unjustly ridiculing Erich and the Ancient Astronaut Hypothesis,
Sagan greatly, but only temporarily, caused widespread negative responses to the
hypothesis. Despite his efforts, however, he unwittingly helped to lay the
groundwork for its acceptance.
In the heyday of
scientific skepticism, a question often asked by skeptics was, and still is,
"Why would ancient astronauts bother to travel billions of light years to
reach other worlds?" One might retort, "Why bother to climb Mount
Everest?" "Why bother to do anything that appears to have no
'practical' value?" Of course, one may offer such answers, among many, as
"to see if it can be done," or "to see if the grass is greener on
the other side of the mountain."
But were that question
applied to us, curiosity is not the only answer. For instance, we might reply:
"to replenish resources," "to mine minerals on other stellar
bodies," "to counter overpopulation," "to seek new
information," "to communicate with other civilizations," to solve
the mystery of what seeded life and/or intelligence on Earth," "to
survive as a species," "to seek adventure," "to fulfill a
thirst for knowledge for its own sake," "to experience the beauty,
spirituality, and even the sense of mystery that permeates our pursuit of
knowledge," or, in STAR TREK terms, "to boldly go where no one has
gone before." It takes little imagination to conceive countless other
reasons for bothering to see what's out there in the universe.
But more than that, man as
a species, cannot tolerate "not knowing." Mysteries cannot be allowed
to remain unsolved. They are the motivating force of his curiosity. If he
resisted delving into them, he could never have lifted himself out of the swamps
of ignorance. And if one studies the history of our pursuit of knowledge, one
will find that it has also been a process of discovering how little we know.
Above, I alluded to one of
the reasons for traveling into space might be "to solve the mystery of what
seeded life and/or intelligence on Earth." That's an idea that has been
mentioned in derisive terms some months ago in the media as "the wacky
provenance of Clonaid, a private company [which] has ties to the Raelians, a
religious sect that believes humans were created through genetic engineering by
space aliens."
Clonaid claims to have
cloned a baby but has presented no evidence of having done so. The Raelians
believe, but offer no evidence, that intelligence on earth was seeded through
genetic engineering on our caveman ancestors. They confuse belief with fact.
Such believers must have acquired this habit on the laps of theistic authorities
that, throughout the history of man made claims to their doctrines that cannot be
verified -- or falsified. Yet, the theists of the world's great religions are not
held up to ridicule. If I may ask a rhetorical question, why is that?
Please,
don't misunderstand me. I am not defending Raelians. I have no sympathy for
anyone who makes claims and refuses to offer evidence for them.
Let's consider the issue
of the source of our intelligence. Evolution theorists, of whom I am one,
ascribe to the theory that it evolved in us here on Earth. Most of the evidence
that has been accumulated points to that conclusion. There is, however, some
evidence that human intelligence appeared rather suddenly. There is, too, a
caveat to which we must give serious consideration. History has shown us that
evidence acquired in the past is very frequently proved, by information
accumulated years later, to be false or at least inadequate. Evidence is never
all in. Hence, it is only probable. According to available evidence, absolute
evidence is a false concept. We should avoid saying, with absolute certainty,
that our intelligence is a result of evolutionary processes.
Our scientists have made
great strides in genetic engineering. Isn't it likely, at least possible, that
someday in the far future when they've made even greater strides that our
astronauts will travel to distant planets on generational spacecraft? May we not
assume that they will impose their engineering skills on primitive
intelligences, unless of course there is a "prime directive"
forbidding our interfering with their evolutionary development? After all, our
scientists are already using such meager skills here on Earth. The point of my
argument is there is no doubt genetic engineering is not only possible but is
being practiced.
Much of the evidence you
have accumulated, however, circumstantial, suggests that ancient astronauts
might have visited us.. If that is the case, at some stage in Earth's
history, when cavemen may not have reached a high level of intelligence, it is
possible that somewhere between the range of Australopithecus Afarensis, 3
million years ago and Cro-Magnon man, 40,000 years ago, ancient astronauts may
have worked their "miracles" of genetic engineering and, then, left
homo sapiens to their own devices.
The visitors knew from
their own history of evolutionary development that it would take countless
millennia before we would stop destroying Earth and killing each other. Even
now, they may be checking up on us periodically to see if we've survived our
savage instincts. With their superior surveillance means, they'd assume there
would be little danger of being detected -- or not care if they are. Improbable?
Could be. Impossible? No way.
Some skeptics may counter,
"Well it is barely possible." That rejoinder just won't
fly. As a
woman cannot be almost pregnant, so too, events cannot be barely possible.
They
are possible or not. It is imperative that we keep an open mind about what is
possible, however much we may consider it improbable, because of our present
limited accumulation of knowledge.
Considering that there are
non-human intelligences here on Earth in environments hostile to man, such as
our deserts, jungles, and ocean depths, surely that is clear evidence that
hostile environments on distant planets could harbor, if not intelligent life,
at least the basic components necessary for the evolution of biological
entities. After all, we have good reason to believe that extraterrestrial
objects, impacting our planet, were major factors in carrying the seeds of life
to Earth.
Until scientists began to
discover evidence of the existence of other planets, few dared to suggest the
possibility of extraterrestrial life not alone intelligent life. Within the
scientific community, and in many other professions, one risked damaging his
career to do so. It was strictly taboo. However, when man finally overcame his
greatest conceit, that he alone populated the universe, scientists began to
admit that there probably is extraterrestrial life, and later, intelligent life,
possibly even superior to us. It appears that a Thomas Kuhn "paradigm
shift" (The Structure of Scientific Revolution) is in the making. Still it
is hardly seismic in scope.
It is reported that in the
early sixties, the National Academy of Scientists asked Dr. Frank Drake, an
Emeritus Professor of astronomy and astrophysics, later connected with NASA and
SETI, to arrange a meeting of world scientists to discuss the possibility of the
existence of extraterrestrial life. According to Drake, a mere twelve showed up.
Astronomers, at that time, even doubted that other planets existed. Consequently, in the seventies, almost no one considered sending messages into
outer space.
To our great pleasure,
both NASA and SETI are now gung-ho about doing so, expending many millions of
dollars despite the extremely meager chance of success. Even the Voyager
Explorer, now traveling beyond the boundary of our Solar System, carries our
greetings. Should we not wonder, do they know something they are not sharing
with the public?
Yet, too many scientists,
even today, show no interest in and still resist admitting any possibility of
there having been visitations from outer space. They reject the vast amount of
historical artwork depicting flying saucers, documentary descriptions of direct
personal contact in the great religious tomes, and present-day observations by
intelligent and credible people, many who claim to have been abducted by
extraterrestrials. Some were hypnotized or successfully passed polygraph tests
by highly trained professionals. There seems to be no contradiction between the
claims and results of hypnosis and polygraph readings. To my knowledge, there is
no certainty that we have been visited, but I, personally, am not qualified to
pass judgment on the veracity of those who claim we have.
However, there are those
who seek to cast suspicion upon the credibility of the telling account, THE DAY
AFTER ROSWELL, written by Colonel Philip J. Corso, highly decorated and honored
ranking officer (now deceased) in the echelons of the military hierarchy. His
recording of the Roswell event and its aftermath was based not only on personal
experience and knowledge but also on copious Freedom-of-Information-Act
documents. He spelled out in precise detail the official cover-up of the
mysterious crash just outside of Roswell, New Mexico in the summer of 1947.
I quote from the book's
dust jacket, He ". . . was given command of one of the Pentagon's highly
classified weapons-development budgets and was made privy to the U. S.
Government's greatest secret: the dismantling and appropriation of the Roswell
extraterrestrial spacecraft by the Army." "Colonel Corso revealed how
a deep-cover council officially discounted all UFO reports to the American
public, and cleared the path for his R&D [i.e., Research and Development]
team at the Pentagon to analyze and integrate the Roswell artifacts into the
military arsenal and private business sector."
Corso described how he
parceled out the spacecraft's technology to such companies as IBM, Bell Labs,
Hughes Aircraft, and Dow Corning for study and development. Not one of them
suspected the source of it. The alien devices, again quoting the dust jacket,
". . . were the precursors for today's integrated circuit chips, fiber
optics, lasers, super-tenacity fibers," night-vision capacity, and too many
others to cite here, which enabled President Bush to threaten and later invade
Iraq with the most powerful military force on Earth.
Along with relevant data,
beginning on page 29 of his book continuing into his chapter entitled, "The
Roswell Artifacts," Corso's editors gave vivid and shocking descriptions of
an extraterrestrial being, floating in a coffin, often referred to by its code
name, "the package," filled with a special liquid.
In May of 2004, Legendary
Times held a two-day seminar in San Francisco. One of the attendees, to our good
fortune, was Colonel Corso's personal physician and friend. Doctor Thomas Rowe,
informed us that his patient denied, in no uncertain terms, that he is
responsible for such misinformation and that the editors had spiced up his
account of the Roswell affair without his permission or knowledge that they had
done so.
Corso did, however,
describe in great detail the extreme precautions taken to keep the Roswell event
a secret under threat of severe consequences. Referring to "Army
Counterintelligence bogeymen" taking great pains to terrorize loyal
American citizens of the surrounding communities into remaining silent, he
described graphically how careers were destroyed; children frightened, and in
general, lives distorted.
He identified many
involved military personnel and courageously listed them by name from enlisted
men, to sergeants, generals, and Presidents.
To this day, so far as I
know, before his death no one had sued him. According to Internet reports,
however, his enemies, soon after his death, made numerous surreptitious attempts
at character assassination. Of all the armchair criticisms I've read, however,
there is a notable absence of reference to Freedom-of-Information-Act documents.
Recently, fifty years
after the event, the TV History channel presented a segment entitled
"Roswell: final Declassification," in its UFOs: THEN AND NOW series.
In it and hoping to dispel the mystery and to convince the public that there was
no government cover-up relating to the existence of UFOs or extraterrestrial
beings, the government reveals documents on its secret experimental projects it
claims it was developing a half century ago. The only documents released by the
government, about the Roswell incident, were those relating to the government's
position that the Roswell-incident reports were misinterpretations of its
experimental programs. Glaring in its absence, however, unless I missed a
segment, was the complete lack of reference to the highly respected Colonel
Philip J. Corso, his book, THE DAY AFTER ROSWELL, his account of the Roswell
incident and the government's cover-up of it.
However, the truth of
Corso's expose is superbly supported by a significant number of private
investigators into the cover-up to which he alludes. Moreover, now available on
the Internet are many documents, some of which were labeled "top
secret" and either declassified and/or leaked by persons unknown. Though
there are skeptics who declare that the documents are not originals and
therefore may not be authentic, the investigators claim that not only do they
possess some originals but are performing extensive tests showing that the
copies are authentic replicas of the originals.
You may want to do a
search on the Internet for "Majestic Documentation" and download
copies of some of the documents, and/or communicate with the TV station, Sci Fi,
(channel 244, Direct TV). Enquire about its presentation of the Majestic Twelve.
There you will find reference to famous people from Einstein, to our astronauts,
to President Truman all of who are reported to have admitted to visitations of
extraterrestrials.
In the past, considering
the depictions of horror from Hollywood's La La Land and Sci Fi writers, the
idea of aliens arriving on Earth caused much apprehension, justifying
secrecy. But today, few are disturbed any longer by the possibility of aliens visiting
us, thanks, probably to the efforts of Ancient Astronaut theorists.
Now, it is time for the
truth to be admitted and officially revealed by the government.
The conclusion to be drawn
from all this is that if extraterrestrials are visiting us today, and the
evidence certainly suggests that they are, it is highly probable that they have
visited us in the distant past.
But to the question,
"Why would ancient astronauts bother to travel billions of light years to
reach us?" Let us heed Shakespeare's admonition to Horatio, "There are
more things in Heaven and Earth . . . than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Recent hypotheses suggest that there is more about our space-time continuum than
we know. After all, we do predicate our scientific knowledge upon little more
than a couple of centuries of scientific research. Compare our minimal
scientific knowledge to that of a possible extraterrestrial civilization with
thousands of years of research.
Based upon the mathematics
of his time, Einstein postulated the existence of black holes sucking in all
nearby matter, permitting not even light to escape. There is credible evidence
that he was right. But some scientists are as guilty of making claims that, at
least to non-scientists, appear to be as farfetched as they insist is the
Ancient Astronaut Hypothesis.
Consider, for instance,
the idea of time travel, traveling to a place and time, in the past, where Earth
was a trillion miles from where it and you now exist and watching yourselves
being born--not alone traveling back to other times, repeatedly, in intervals of
one minute, and watching yourselves watching yourselves being born, ad
infinitum. With shades of the plenum of Parmenides, a fifth-century BC
postulate, what was, what is, and what will be must exist from the moment of the
Big Bang (or even before?) and will continue to exist eternally. How else could
one travel into the past and future if they did not already exist? Moreover, if
"what was, what is, and what will be" have always existed, then there
is no causal affect connecting them.
But, according to
Einstein, there is no simultaneity of time. Some of us live in the past, some in
the present, and some in the future. For instance, String theorists argue the
thesis of eleven dimensions or parallel universes, both derived mathematically
and absent the possibility of evidential verification. They confuse mathematics
with reality.
All available empirical
evidence indicates only 3 dimensions, length, width, and depth. But in deference
to Einstein and those who believe that time, a function of change, is empirical,
I shall concede to their judgment.
The examples I could offer
that show how ludicrous the concept of time travel is are too numerous to cite
here. But consider, some mad scientist far superior to ours might even travel
back in time and prevent the Big Bang from big banging. But wouldn't the
astrophysical consequences of the Big Bang still exist since every phase of them
permanently exists in the future independent of past events? I would respond
that nothing could exist in the future without an antecedent cause.
Ah--the abuse of language.
As you can see science still has a lot to unravel.
Seriously, there are other
hypotheses being floated also. Scientists say that the space-time continuum can
be distorted by blackholes revolving at enormous speeds becoming the source of
wormholes. Such a wormhole might cause "space to loop back upon
itself" condensing a billion light-year's trip into a day's trip without
exceeding the speed of light. Such an idea, I suspect has little practical
meaning for most of us. Even scientists need several years to become comfortable
with it--not that that verifies anything. If it is true, however,
extra-terrestrials could pop into our space and time at will. Farfetched?
Perhaps. I must admit, I'd say "99.9% improbable."
Nevertheless, that is no
reason verifiable hypotheses should not be investigated considering how much
mathematical language, as a tool, has advanced our civilization. Let's not
forget that much of our present-day knowledge was once scoffed at as
outrageously ridiculous.
Einstein also
hypothesized, though it has not been unequivocally verified, that nothing can
move faster than the speed of light. Yet, some scientists are toying with the
idea that it is possible to exceed its limit. They posit tachyon particles that
in order to continue to exist must exceed the speed of light. They have even
intimated that they may have found such a particle. Why should we not, then,
research that possibility, however farfetched it may sound? If such a hypothesis
is in fact valid, it would seem that civilizations a hundred thousand years more
advance than we would almost certainly have made these discoveries. They may
even have developed the technology for creating wormholes wherever and whenever
they choose to. But let us not conflate validity with fact.
Personally, I am skeptical
about many hypotheses that are merely valid offering no observational and
factual evidence. I am particularly skeptical about present-day
wormhole/time-travel hypotheses because the language relating to them is not
testable, i.e., factually verifiable. Such ideas were derived through conceptual
and mathematical computation, not to be confused with material observation.
For
one thing, the pressure of the forces in the wormhole would compress us to a
pinpoint or separate us into a cloud of subatomic particles.
According to such great
thinkers as Albert Einstein, Godfrey H. Hardy, and Bertrand Russell, for all the
power of mathematical concepts, they do not, in fact, describe the universe or
anything in it. One of the weaknesses of science is that scientists tend to
ignore the limits of mathematics. They conflate its language with
"knowledge" deduced about the nature of what exists beyond the
perceptions of our sense faculties. They forget that their laws are about our
perceptions of a material world, rightly assumed, I hasten to add, to exist.
For instance, try defining
the number 1 without circular reasoning or add one quart of water to one quart
of alcohol and discover that you don't have two quarts of liquid. Also, try
imagining a straight line defined as a point, without dimensions, extended in
space. Numbers (and mathematics) are only the language of science--concepts that
we use as tools in everyday life. They are not material facts floating around in
the universe. They "exist" only in the minds of intelligent beings.
This is not the case with the Ancient Astronaut Hypothesis. It is testable.
As you know, some
scientists now readily admit the high probability not only that there are
extraterrestrial civilizations but also that some of them may be superior to ours.
It
follows logically, then, that being a space-faring civilization ourselves for a
short period of time, extraterrestrial civilizations with superior scientific
knowledge must be considerably more advanced, especially in matters of space
travel. And, Sagan to the contrary, it also follows that ancient astronauts do
exist, even if they have not visited Earth. Why, even we have a few of them,
here on Earth, as former members of our space program.
Let us not forget,
however, that present awareness of the possible existence of extraterrestrial
intelligence was not stimulated by the works of Plato, scientists, science
fiction, religious tomes, or other mythological tales. Even though many ancient
and twentieth century references to extraterrestrial beings exist, until a few
decades ago, reference to such an idea was available mostly only to scholars of
mythology and science-fiction aficionados. Also, it was only around 1980 that
the media began publicizing, derisively, reports of UFO sightings, real or
suspect.
In conclusion, then,
credit belongs to you who look upon the concept seriously enough to organize
yourselves and to spend a major part of your lives studying, researching, and
seeking evidence for the hypothesis. It is the writings of Ancient Astronaut
theorists in the past several decades, especially those of Erich von Daniken and
the popularity of his CHARIOTS OF THE GODS, copyrighted in 1969, that stimulated
wide cognizance in the world to the strong probability that we are not alone in
the universe. You have withstood and continue to withstand those who claim to
know absolutely, as did the uninformed of the past who believed the Earth to be
the center of the universe, that we are alone in the vastness of space.
However, the skeptics will continue to claim that
the Ancient Astronaut Hypothesis is without merit. It is important that
you continue to accumulate and present to them, what certainly appears to be evidence that
there are extraterrestrial civilizations and that we probably have been visited
-- a task that apparently only you are willing to support and perform.
ADDENDUM
Since the publication of the above, I had the good fortune to come into contact with a scientist, lacking degrees, who has claimed to have conceived a new theory of gravity that would enable us to travel far in excess of the commonly held "speed of light" including the experiments that can verify or falsify it.
A reference to that theory is spelled out in my article posted on my website under the title: "Faster than the Speed of Light" with more detailed explanation by the author, Arthur Larson, a resident of Minnesota, entitled "Below are additional implications of the new theory are explicated.."