Paul Kimball posted an article at his blog recently, which, for the most part, I agree with. He states:

"Of all the non - terrestrial theories that have been offered to explain the UFO phenomenon, the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) has always seemed the most plausible one to me. I don't think it's been proved, but I think it's a better bet than the others on offer when one looks at the evidence, and the science. The evidence seems to indicate that at least some UFO cases represent a non - human intelligence at work."

Kimball goes on to say that science tends to promote the idea that there is intelligent life, elsewhere in our galaxy or the universe. He also mentions that he has been hard on some ETH supporters amongst "Ufologists" because the "H" in ETH represents a hypothesis.

And he is right. The ETH is a theory, like Black Holes, the Big Bang Theory [a very flawed theory it seems] and Worm Holes and M - branes and multiple universes. Relativity is a theory - known as the Theory of Relativity - but this one is the holy grail of physics and not to be considered anything but fact … apparently. All of the above theories might in fact have some bearing on the
ETH incidentally.

Kimball supposes that much of today's ETH debate among "Ufologists" stems back to Keyhoe and the thinking back then; probably so, but it’s not my thinking.

I have stated many times that, to my mind, this need to narrow down the ETH as some kind of point - to - point contact is wrong. By point - to - point I mean their planet and our planet; that somehow "they" learned of our existence and came here, not to make contact, but to study us. This thinking seems to me to want to maintain two "miracles" in one universe. It's a little easier to handle that than perhaps a galaxy teeming with life particularly if you are of the religious bent that favors the egocentric notion of man being the center of God's universe. Y'all know I am not of a religious bent. If you don't then you haven't been paying attention.

Kimball refers to nuts and bolts Ufologists and the," ... reductionist approach that has been adopted by the nuts - and - bolts crowd, on the other hand, which seeks to make potential alien life over unto our own image, lacks vision"

I consider myself nuts - and - bolts though these days this might more properly described as more of a "technologically advanced intelligently [HI or AI] controlled craft", probably because of my association with aviation.

I don't subscribe to the premise that ETI is in our image however. That too smacks of religious overtones; but to some degree there might be evidence to support certain traits among sentient beings, which have evolved under similar conditions such as our own. Naturally there is the bias we have in favor of similar stature and two of everything like arms and legs and eyes but that has been burned into us by Hollywood who has difficulty finding actors with other traits that could be employed when an alien is needed on the set; at least up to now. CGI will and does let the artist's imagination run wild.

Maybe 40 years ago I might have believed that the point - to - point contact from some planet around a nearby star with Earth was the way things "really" were but not now.

My take on it is this: The universe has been around for 14.7 billion years; at least that's the current figure, or galaxy some 8 or 9 billion years; that is plenty of time for thousands or millions or space faring civilizations to have evolved and ranged out into space, like we did. It allows more than enough time for them to do more than range locally, however.

Technological evolution being what it is would have accelerated the same as our own, building on itself and feeding on itself, changing outmoded technology for the new and changing "their" societies as it has done here. But more than that it would have changed space travel in ways that we can't even imagine right now.

How often has "science and technology" come up with something new because someone thought outside the box. Kirk's communicator was an idea dreamed up by either Gene Roddenberry or one of his writers but it impressed a teenager who later developed the first crude version of that which has developed into the cell phones of today; and not just to communicate verbally but textually as well with pictures and data streaming. And that's just this year's models.

IBM engineers came up with the modular computer design but it took a couple of guys like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to set the world on its ass and provide us with these machines and the CIA to help out with the Internet; low grade stuff really when you consider the leaps that must have been made to travel through whole galaxies.

I wonder, did they surge forward and perhaps travel to their satellite moons then slip back into mediocrity only to re - invent the same primitive space technology as we did of the 1960s for the 2020s? If we are to believe that the ETH has value then obviously they did not.

My thinking is that various intelligences have been ranging through this galaxy for hundreds of millions of years. If I'm right then perhaps one of them happened across out pretty, little, blue planet, took a look and reported back. "Found another one!"

Greech on planet Frob - one of 6,000 in the Gert Clique -learned of this new planet (after poring over some million year old documents in the dead files) which had a peculiar life form, some of which peed standing while the others did it sitting down. Amazing, Greech wondered...they peed?

Greech just happened to be doing its dissertation at Xzzryq U on new evolving life forms so it [Greech was genderless after all] applied for and got a low level grant that would allow a few thousand craft to bug the crap out of the life forms on that planet for 20 or 30,000 of that planets revolutions around its star. It was then discovered that virtually all of one species defecated sitting down. The stock on anal probes went through the roof on Frob when this came to light.

The above is nonsense of course - at least I think it is - but the idea that Earth was discovered by some deep ranging mission through the Cosmos, perhaps thousands of years ago might just be the case in my estimation.

I would like to think that we eventually reach a plane of existence where war is a thing of the past or restricted to planets where it can be practiced - like a hobby - without pissing everyone else off; where the whole raison - d'etre is to get out there and explore, discover, learn and try to figure out why? I suspect that if life has been ranging through this universe for billions of years, those spacefarers have likely found or punched into other universes as well.

Paul Kimball relates that Michio Kaku evoked the analogy of us being as ants to some super intelligence. Somehow I don't think this would be the case. But Kaku might be right about us being below the radar of some super intelligence, like ants to ourselves; but it should not be forgotten that there are still many entomologists around the world studying ants, their structures and their societies. The anal probes must be really tiny, though. [Note, I am not making light of the abduction phenomenon - I have too many friends, acquaintances and relatives who have claimed the experience.]

Labels: Don Ledger, ETH, Michio Kaku, Paul Kimball, UFO, Ufologists