Many of us tend to scoff at the extraterrestrial hypothesis these days but there was time when a nuts-n-bolts solution to the UFO enigma seemed probable. Take a look at this in-depth report from Bruce Maccabee about the Rogue River sighting back in 1949:

http://brumac.8k.com/Rogue/RogueRiver2.htm

Here's another from Dick Hall's archives:

"A particularly detailed account of a lens-shaped disc was obtained from an experienced engineer by the NICAP Assistant Director in personal correspondence during 1955. [4.]
Date: October 1954, about mid-month
Location: Cherry Valley, New York
Time: About 4:00 p.m.
Witness: Major A. B. Cox, graduate of Yale University, member of the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers, and Society of American Engineers.
Excerpts from letter dated December 28, 1955 from Major A. B. Cox to Richard Hall:

"The sky was more or less covered with streaks or layers of clouds, with blue sky between, so that the rays of the sun came through almost horizontally, the time being not far from sunset in the valley. I was walking in a NE direction, having been an airplane spotter for a long time, I have formed the habit of looking at the sky, quite naturally.

"I happened to be looking at the West in the direction of my farm buildings, perhaps a half mile distant, and saw something which at first glance was about over my farm buildings. It was quite low, and did not seem to be more than a few hundred feet above the earth. I thought at first it was a large airplane not moving very swiftly. . . . It was moving horizontally in a direction parallel to my own direction. Then I noticed that it seemed to make no noise, and then I could not see any wings or tail or fuselage generally.

"It seemed to be a large disc or lens-shaped object, and in comparison with the objects below I estimated it to be perhaps 30 or 35 feet in diameter. . , , It was moving like a wheel sliding sidewise and not rotating, and in perspective presented an elliptical appearance such as any circular object would when viewed from an angle; the degree of ellipticity varying as it came up and then passed me. I must have seen it for 20 seconds or a little more. Then it got ahead of me and it presented the appearance of a circular disc, perhaps five or six feet thick. The color was gray, and I think perhaps a little darker on the rim or edge; not much but enough to make the edge sharply defined.

"Suddenly it stopped and seemed to be going in a direction more or less at right angles to its first motion, but still in an upright direction. . . This sudden stop interested me as an engineer, because any sudden retardation or acceleration requires in so large an object the application of a very considerable force, and seemed a much shorter turn and a more rapid turn than any airplane I had ever seen could be capable of.

"It then began to ascend in a direction of perhaps at right angles to its first direction and at an upward angle of perhaps 30 or 35 degrees from the horizontal. . . . There were some fleecy clouds above it, and it entered them and was lost to sight for perhaps a second or so, to emerge into vision again above this first layer of clouds. Its direction had not changed, and shortly after it entered some more layers of cloud, which were thicker, and was lost to view." "

I miss those days when people were naive enough to report their sightings and actually sign their names to affidavits swearing that what they said was true. A far cry from today's shadowy purveyors of Internet video clips.

It's stories like these that really make me think that Carl Pflock was on to something when he suggested that ET was here and then left. I don't necessarily buy the idea that they were warned off by our "owners". I think it is more likely that, at our current stage of advancement, we just weren't interesting enough to warrant on-going observation. After all, the evidence would indicate they did hang around to watch for 25 years - perhaps it would be egotistical for us to expect more.

S

well thats odd,the ufo sightings are increasing in ever larger numbers.These 'others' that could be a smokescreen to keep the masses ever confused. So were not interesting enough eh,I beg to differ,six billion people all of them different from one another,yellow ones,white ones browns ones black ones each with his own culture,Planet earth has got to be the most fasinating place in the universe.

Think if we ran across a planet of bears, Carol. We wouldn't be able to communicate with them to any great degree and, if we try to interact with them too much, we run the risk of getting hurt. Even if the planet were overrun with bears of various types, we might rapidly come to the conclusion that meaningful contact just isn't possible.

The same thing might be true for an extraterrestrial survey team. They did a cursory exploration of the planet but decided to leave us bears alone and let another team check our progress sometime in the future.

As to the increasing number of UFO sightings, I for one am sorely disappointed with the quality of cases. With the number of radars, cameras and video recorders in the world today, we ought to be awash in very high quality evidence. That is not the case. Even the vaunted O'Hare case, which occurred at one of the busiest airports on Earth, didn't have a single piece of verifiable corroborative evidence.

S

The problem with the ETH is not related to the quality of UFO sightings then vs. now, but the dependence of the ETH on sentient tool using, craft building extraterrestrials. One of the best overviews of the intelligent life in our neck of the galactic woods is from Scientific American in 2000:

http://www.mit.edu/people/etekle/Articles/aliens.html


There are many scientists who insist we are alone in the galaxy. They largely support the rare earth hypothesis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis

My personal view is that the rare earth hypothesis does not rule out other earths, even in relatively nearby space who's stars have been under SETI observation and are candidates for future planet finding telescopes. What we know from the exoplanets discovered so far is that stable planetary systems might be rare, that large jupiters often migrate into the inner systems, and that our solar system does not appear to be mediocre at this time. As new planet hunting techniques, especially visual and spectroscopic come online, then that may change. The seemingly catastrophic star systems might be the true rarity.

My gut feeling about extra terrestrial civilizations is that they are not much further along than we are and that they can't get here from there, that we will meet them in space and they will have experienced a haunted planet much like ours. That's because I believe that UFO entities, like ghosts, like preternatural cryptids and like the beings of folklore are not permanently physical, not from this universe and not benign. Keel might have been right, if we think of them as demonic in the fallen angel sense, we might be following a belief system that they then reinforce, but even he saw that their actions were malevolent at worse and cryptic at best; even when they were seen by the public as benign space brothers on a survey mission.

They could be extradimensional physical beings from alternate worlds, but is it harder to get here from there as a physical being than it is to get from Zeta Reticuli to here? Perhaps, perhaps not. We have folklore ranging from the two headed inner earth dweller who two rabbis encountered in the Middle Ages to the Green Children of British lore; but those might just be stories. What we'd call alternate worlds today were often seen as inner earths or realms under hill and sea. There might be gates that allow passage under unusual conditions, but are nuts and bolts UFO's a means of passage? They seem to fade in and out of existence, seem to be simply energy one minute and physical objects the next.

Perhaps Keel's Ultraterrestrial theory is correct? The entities are not permanently physical beings with intelligence and lives of their own but are temporary transmogrifications from an unknown superspectrum that defies reality as we know it. That would not rule out Christian demonology, but it would place it in a new context. The same goes for demonology in other religions or folklore entities in general.

I'm not sure that UFO sightings are any more widespread now than they were in the days of classic saucers and human like UFO occupants offering anything from sex to a South American farmer, crispy pancakes to a Midwestern farmer, or cryptic utterances like "we are in prison" to a policeman. UFO sightings rise and fall in flaps and UFO occupant encounters have been largely replaced with abduction reports right out of medieval incubi and succubi accounts.

Skeptical wrote:It's stories like these that really make me think that Carl Pflock was on to something when he suggested that ET was here and then left. I don't necessarily buy the idea that they were warned off by our "owners". I think it is more likely that, at our current stage of advancement, we just weren't interesting enough to warrant on-going observation. After all, the evidence would indicate they did hang around to watch for 25 years - perhaps it would be egotistical for us to expect more.

S

I run with that because it's Fort's own words. I take his humor as seriously as I take some people's seriousness to be unintended comedy. I'll be careful to not mix the two up in a quote. I do think that folklore and demonology gives us reason to think that there's something to the idea that we are claimed as property, whereas religion sees us as children of God.

Skeptical wrote:Think if we ran across a planet of bears, Carol. We wouldn't be able to communicate with them to any great degree and, if we try to interact with them too much, we run the risk of getting hurt. Even if the planet were overrun with bears of various types, we might rapidly come to the conclusion that meaningful contact just isn't possible.

The same thing might be true for an extraterrestrial survey team. They did a cursory exploration of the planet but decided to leave us bears alone and let another team check our progress sometime in the future.

As to the increasing number of UFO sightings, I for one am sorely disappointed with the quality of cases. With the number of radars, cameras and video recorders in the world today, we ought to be awash in very high quality evidence. That is not the case. Even the vaunted O'Hare case, which occurred at one of the busiest airports on Earth, didn't have a single piece of verifiable corroborative evidence.

S

Skeptical Im glad you posted what you did,it gives me a chance to say this once and for all. IF we Skeptical,meaning mankind went to a planet such as Mars and IF we found only a bedraggled tree with fives leaves on it the world would go bat spit.Im not kidding we would. Logos would pop up all over the place the coverage would be like nothing else seen ever on this planet. One lonely tree with five leaves and the world would never be the same.Why? Because of what it meant thats why.The possibilities it would open,the exploration of such a find would begin.The plans to colonize such a place would begin immediately. Find a planet with just bears?? It isnt the bears or the fact that we couldnt communicate with them,who cares if we cant communicate with the bears,what would happen is plans would begin immediately for colonizing the place.The fact that its impossible to communicate with the inhabitants would be in the explorers favor.That may be exactly what the aliens have determined about earth,its inhabited by six billion humans,but we cant communicate on there level,nor they on ours,but the planet,oh my the planet,its a plum for the taking..

I agree with you, Carol, that that is what would happen the first time you found a planet with a tree on it. But what if it's the 10th or the 100th time? Yes, I'm sure that, if an ET found us and we were the first thing he'd ever encountered, there would be much excitement back on planet Zebulon. But familiarity breeds contempt (as we saw when people quickly tired of the awesome miracle of our Moon landings). Chances are, you'd get selective and hold your excitement in reserve not merely for intelligent life, but for "peers".

Maybe I'm trying to use a human template for gauging alien motives - not a wise thing to do. Still, we shouldn't get so caught up in our own wonderfulness to think that aliens are lining up for the chance to interact with us.

S

oh I personally think they have no intentions of interacting with us Skep,far from it.Methinks theve seen our planet and want what they see.The only thing that comes back in all this time and time again is abductions,them abducting us and using women as surrogates. I know,I know it sounds incredible but is there anything about this subject that doesnt sound incredible. Ufos faster than fast,ufos that can morph,can drop like a stone that would kill a human being? Ufos that seem to be able to disappear at will..the list goes on. Then there are stories of alien abduction,I stopped scoffing years ago.People from all walks of life make this claim, some say theve been taken since childhood.

They have no where to turn,no one will believe them so of course theres no one to help them. The public rolls its collective eyes at the very thought.Put it alltogether and youve got an almost complete story. UFOs with entities from elsewhere,I say elsewhere to acknowledge those that have convinced themselves there from another dimension,me,I dont give a flying fig where there from or how they got here,they got here.To use your scenerio how long would it be before we as explorers wanted to snatch one of those bears and examine him from head to toe.As a matter of fact we wouldnt leave the planet without doing just that.But what if you also had compatable genes that could be adapted? What if these entities had compatible genes that could actually be mixed with our own and therefore be blended into a brand new species? Thats what abdcutees report,that there being forced to bear 'children' that are part us and part them.Why? What For? I come up with a species that can blend easily with the rest of us and therefore go unoticed into the world. Now why? Ive been stuck on that one for years.

The ETH does make sense for some ufo sightings and encounters....... but not all.

if thats true dr.wu,that some sightings are et while others are not,than that could mean were dealing with more than one phenomenon.

Skeptical wrote:
As to the increasing number of UFO sightings, I for one am sorely disappointed with the quality of cases. With the number of radars, cameras and video recorders in the world today, we ought to be awash in very high quality evidence. That is not the case. Even the vaunted O'Hare case, which occurred at one of the busiest airports on Earth, didn't have a single piece of verifiable corroborative evidence.

S

That's the problem with the phenomenon today. Either it's not physically real and is only in our minds (the Null assumes that rather dismissively and the PSH assumes it's in our minds filtered through our culture), or one version of High Strangenss or another is true. The ETH should have so much evidence considering our latest evidence gather capabilities. It does not. It has less evidence.

Plus ETH believers who accept science on the fringe (as in warp drives etc.) should also accept the findings of science when they look at Fermi's Paradox. They should accept that technological civilizations appear to be rare, to be spaced rather far apart (perhaps that's why we have galaxies, one per highly evolved biosphere) or are far apart in time, and not just in space (i.e. they existed millions of years ago in our vicinity but not today -- which leaves open the question of what happens to civilizations that reach star faring capabilities).

Carol Nistri wrote:Skeptical Im glad you posted what you did,it gives me a chance to say this once and for all. IF we Skeptical,meaning mankind went to a planet such as Mars and IF we found only a bedraggled tree with fives leaves on it the world would go bat spit.Im not kidding we would. Logos would pop up all over the place the coverage would be like nothing else seen ever on this planet. One lonely tree with five leaves and the world would never be the same.Why? Because of what it meant thats why.

It shouldn't mean all that much Carol. The fact that it does shows a deficiency in human spirituality and thinking. Both anthropic convergent views, intelligent design views and standard evolutionary views believe that life is common in the universe for different reasons. The debate is over how it got started and whether conditions for more highly evolved species exist outside the earth.

We aren't alone now. If it takes a microbe on Mars, or a tree as seen by A.C. Clarke, then that just shows me that people are rather dense. The question is, what is here with us and why?

Somer said in part,

"It shouldn't mean all that much Carol. The fact that it does shows a deficiency in human spirituality and thinking. Both anthropic convergent views, intelligent design views and standard evolutionary views believe that life is common in the universe for different reasons. The debate is over how it got started and whether conditions for more highly evolved species exist outside the earth."


Well belief that theres life in space and actually finding it is two different things Somer. " It shouldn't mean all that much Carol" Your kidding right? We havent found a microbe or bacteria on either the moon or mars its been decades of exploring these two places and theres nothing there,no life whatsoever.I know your coming strickly from a religious standpoint Somer but I dont think your right about its not meaning all that much. Yes it would,it would change our thinking about space instantly.All of a sudden the possibility of colonizing these worlds would actually become a possibility.Theres something very special about earth,we live here,we no longer see it as anything but a place to park our fannies,beings from another world however may see it very differently,after exploring the moon and now mars it should be apparent that earth is like paradise compared to other worlds.I know we havent even begun to explore other worlds but since I too believe in God Im betting that those worlds wont contain even the smallest microbe.

Actually, life on these worlds might hinder colonization. Have you read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy? I can't see that happening if Martian life is radically different from our own. There would be calls against destroying a unique biosphere. If it were a variant of methogens, then it still might get as much protection on Mars as blind salamanders do locally, such that we do not terraform Mars but are stuck roofing over canyons for a relatively temporary existence.

I'm not coming from a strictly religious standpoint. When I say we are not alone, I don't just mean God and angels, or even the beings of the fairy faith (must get Mac Tonnie's book on Mars and also the upcoming crypto-terrestrial book), I mean life that's at least as complex as lower forms of multicellular life, if not equivalents to higher animals and plants

Our true colonization of space in the far future will not depend on planets, but on something like the Ships in Ian M. Bank's Culture novels. Too bad he's an atheist, he throws in much negative portrayals of religion which kind of distract from the story as well as showing he really doesn't understand why people are religious in the first place. IMHO, we will never outgrow religion, even if we think we've outgrown revelation.

We will create our habitats that are not dependent on planets. Planets are a stepping stone, but as ecologically minded as we are today, I can't see us destroying biospheres the way we do environments on earth. From a Christian stand point, we are called to be stewards of nature and not destroyers. Our mastery is to use it for human good and to preserver the world(s) that are given us.

Aloneness is a psychological disorder. People are seldom truly alone, but they can see themselves as alone. Many scientists buy into the evolutionary model that says we are from nothing, for nothing and are going to nothing. For them, meaning is explained by sociobiology and cultural consent. All morality is skeptical and not eternal, and not even intelligence is a goal in evolution, which has no goals, only reactions to the environment.

I'm not opposed to evolution, even to new species arising from old, but I don't see randomness as the deciding mechanism. For many who write about finding aliens to avoid being alone (or just finding life to prove we aren't alone), chaos, that primal force vanquished by gods in our mythologies, is the true reality. Order, life and sentience is seen as just a temporary clump of meaning due to die a heat death as entropy increases. Naturalism has no solution outside of finding a younger universe in the way that earlier SF imagined finding younger star systems and galaxies.

I believe in God too, and I think that Mars does have microbes. That's because the probability that we live in an anthropic universe is high. If other universes are barren of life, then that's no different in the multiverse scheme of things than the cold wastes of Antarctica are in the Earth scheme of things. God creates light and darkness, good and evil, God alone does these things.

I'm not even opposed to intelligent life in space, I just don't think the saucer occupants of "old" UFO folklore or "todays" grays are intelligent life. I believe they are intelligent beings that are not truly (or permanently) physical. What they are in their own dimensions, I do not know. They just seem too much like us to be from another solar system; though time travel stories of failed men seem to have morphed into one explanation for their similarity. J-Rod is a good example of the PSH in action.

Somerville Changeling wrote:
I'm not even opposed to intelligent life in space, I just don't think the saucer occupants of "old" UFO folklore or "todays" grays are intelligent life. I believe they are intelligent beings that are not truly (or permanently) physical. What they are in their own dimensions, I do not know. They just seem too much like us to be from another solar system; though time travel stories of failed men seem to have morphed into one explanation for their similarity. J-Rod is a good example of the PSH in action.

I don’t buy the Fortean/demonic explanation of UFOs nor do I buy the inter-dimensional explanation. Supernatural evil is always subtle, never overt – almost nobody recognises it, most deny it altogether in modernity as a matter of fashion – and other dimensions, if they exist, are such, according to the best of quantum theory, that not even information can pass between them; other dimensions are, if they are anything, a discrete aspect – not a separate reality – of our own. This idea of self-sustaining alternative universes where the American Civil War didn’t happen, is an analogical device that belongs to science fiction, not physical, literal reality. I also don’t see the distinction between ‘intelligent life’ and ‘intelligent beings’. A being with intelligence is alive in the only sense that matters and if they really do flit in and out of our dimension, they are bound by the (ostensibly) immutable laws of physics when they get here. A superior ability to harness and manipulate the immutable laws of physics ought not be mistaken for magic (which also goes to the inanity of atheistic arguments against the possibility of ‘miracles’).

While I find your speculations intriguing Somerville, I’m not seeing a solid argument that demonstrates any of your assertions. You’re obviously highly intelligent and well read but I have not so far (and this might be due to my own deficiencies) seen anything to compel serious consideration of quasi-physical entities – actual inter-dimensional or supernatural existents – as being responsible for the UFO phenomenon.

I think Carol’s and Skeptical’s speculations are very interesting and realistic. The ET hypothesis has legs that have not yet been kicked out from under it; not by a long shot.

Gilbert wrote:
I don’t buy the Fortean/demonic explanation of UFOs nor do I buy the inter-dimensional explanation.

The demonic explanation is largely a result of non-Christian Ufologists like the astronomer Vallee (a Rosicrucian) and the reporter/writer Keel (an agnostic) connecting the dots. They found that UFO occupant behavior matched that found in both medieval Catholic accounts of succubi and incubi, and in fairy folklore. Similar folklore is found around the world. Keel noted it was largely a demonic phenomena in all it's forms and identified almost identical messages delivered in UFO occupant and contactee accounts and from channeled occult sources.

Vallee took those observations and believed that physical beings were traveling from other parallel worlds to ours. Keel did not think that they were traveling from another parallel world, but that there was a sort of superspectrum entity that temporarily transformed energy or non-living matter into apparently living, but not truly free willed aliens, cryptids and MIB's. Keel's been accused of being an occultist by secular Ufologists, but he didn't dabble in the occult. He discovered how the Indian rope trick was actually done and was a bit of a skeptic when warranted. He did say that the UFO field needed demonologists.

Gilbert wrote:Supernatural evil is always subtle, never overt – almost nobody recognises it, most deny it altogether in modernity as a matter of fashion – and other dimensions, if they exist, are such, according to the best of quantum theory, that not even information can pass between them; other dimensions are, if they are anything, a discrete aspect – not a separate reality – of our own.

Unless we define what we mean by supernatural, we cannot say that. We should inquire what supernatural means before we make that claim. The worst of human evil cannot take place without the involvement of supernatural evil. The Shoah was not subtle, and there were clear occult links between inner circle Nazis and secret societies that fostered pan Germanic occultism.

Modern Christians have gotten away from an understanding of the demonic, and that's partly because it has been abused by fundamentalists and sects at times, but it's a very real phenomenon. Possession is truly rare (might not have truly occurred since the time of Christ -- demons seemed to be more active then), but demonic involvement in occult and political movements, channeling, apparitions and UFO religions is pretty clear. It doesn't have to be a traditional demon summoned like in a magical fantasy game for the demonic to be overtly involved. In fact, overt involvement doesn't seem to be recognized by the majority of Christians, because there are too many secular explanations that sound better.

Gilbert wrote:This idea of self-sustaining alternative universes where the American Civil War didn’t happen, is an analogical device that belongs to science fiction, not physical, literal reality.

There's a difference between parallel universes ( I like Harry Turtledove's alternate history novels), and an alternate universe. Parallel universes might exist only in possibilities arising from the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics, and not be physical realities where choices create branching universes.

An alternate universe is one where the initial conditions lead to slightly different physical laws. Whether that leads to life as we know it, I'm not sure. I believe in micro evolution and am open minded about macro evolution (but not the random kind -- God's in charge and He decides, not some principle arising out of natural chaos).

See Max Tegmark's work on many universes for his discussion of type I, type II, type III and type IV universes.

http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/multiverse.html

Atheists on earlier boards where we the long timers here met occasionally accused me of using all this for religious reasons (but I was Jewish then and Judaism isn't a missionary religion at it's heart, it's belief in the noachide laws being at the core of all religion makes it almost universalist). Skeptics accused me of taking quantum physics and parallel worlds theories and using them in a pseudo-scientific way, but I make no hypotheses that are testable by the scientific method.

What I really could be accused of being a is a "Fortean Mystery Monger". To the skeptic, I'm an occultist like Keel, because they can't tell the difference between the occult, the preternatural and the supernatural. I do not think that all anomolies will be understood by science or by human consciousness in this universe. There are mysteries that won't be understood until we're safely home with Christ and not in this fallen world (human sin is one piece of evidence for a fallen universe, death is another and entropy is the final piece of evidence).

Gilbert wrote:I also don’t see the distinction between ‘intelligent life’ and ‘intelligent beings’.

Malachim are intelligent beings, but since they are spiritual, they aren't alive in the sense that biological organisms are. That's the distinction. I will admit that some preternatural beings seem to be intermediate between biological life and angels, but I don't think they are demons in the Christian sense, though they match the mazzikim of Jewish folklore. The Rabbis said that the mazzikim shared 3 things with men and three things with angels. See the following:

http://jhom.com/topics/fantasy/demons.html

IMHO, the Celtic fairies, the Arabic djinn, the Persian peris and the Japanese yokai are in the same category. Paul Kimball's friend, Mac Tonnie's will have a posthumous publication of his crypto-terrestrial speculations. He seems to believe they are biological life forms that evolved alongside us, but I go with folklore on this and see an otherworld that's not truly an alternate dimension, but is still linked to ours, perhaps through hollow earth beliefs (see Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews, and also Tibetan and Indian speculation on the so called king of the world and race of nagas).

Gilbert wrote:A being with intelligence is alive in the only sense that matters and if they really do flit in and out of our dimension, they are bound by the (ostensibly) immutable laws of physics when they get here.

I know that my Redeemer lives and God did flit in and out of our dimension, So do the malachim. There are occasions in the Bible where many Christians believe that Jesus manifested himself prior to the Incarnation (possibly as one of the three men who appeared to Abraham). Unless one wants to take the supernatural out of the Bible, and see it only as man in search of God, then you have to accept that those supernatural occurrences occasionally had a strong physical aspect. Yet, I would not say that God was ever bound by the laws He created, though He used those laws to manifest His power, majesty and truth.

We do not know how bound the lesser supernatural beings are by our physics. As with the concept of Flatland, a being from a higher dimension has abilities that simply are not present in lower dimensions. My personal speculation is that dimensions are not just limited by the number of physical dimensions or the arrow of time, but also by spiritual realities of which we only have an inkling.

Gilbert wrote:A superior ability to harness and manipulate the immutable laws of physics ought not be mistaken for magic (which also goes to the inanity of atheistic arguments against the possibility of ‘miracles’).

Ufologists who follow one or another version of the EDH agree that they are not doing magic. That abduction experiences are solely an illusion created in the mind of the percipient (camera observation of sleeping abductees support that theory), that when an apparently physical UFO changes colors and then disappears, it wasn't physical in the sense of a nuts and bolts craft, but was an energy construct (i.e controlled plasma). Just because I believe in demons and even in alternate dimensions, does not mean I believe in magic (other than the stage variety).

Gilbert wrote:While I find your speculations intriguing Somerville, I’m not seeing a solid argument that demonstrates any of your assertions. You’re obviously highly intelligent and well read

I'm arguing that they make sense in the light of the evidence. We should accept as a working argument that Keel is right that the demonic manifests in the UFO phenomena. Then we should examine the evidence and see where it leads. However, I think that the demonic is just too weird for most people to accept, but weirder views are found in the New Age where channeled messages are even accepted by some who were formerly skeptical of the occult and firmly in the ETH. IMHO, that shows that Satan is active now, as he was in the time of Noah before the flood.

I see a supernatural phenomena like UFO's, ghosts, channeling and belief in humans evolving to godlike status through either human consciousness or cybernetics as having spiritual implications for humanity, and that's not much different than New Agers and ETH cargo cult believers. The difference is the implications I see are Biblical and fit in with End Times speculations (why do so many of the world's religions expect and end of an age so soon in our future, along with secular believers in the Singularity or alien contact?).

Most still won't be led to Christ, and many evangelicals I know believe those who choose the outer darkness over God will be in the billions. That might be true when Satan is physically active through the Antichrist during the Tribulation, but I don't see it as being true up until then. There's a Christian view that, even then, millions will be saved, though they lose their lives. Anyone reading this at a time when the mark is offered, should save their eternal lives by not taking it.

Don't worship a deity that hates Jews and Christians and makes promises that are way too good to be true about what he will accomplish in this world. It's better to be one of the persecuted than a persecuter. It' was much better to be a victim of the Shoah than a Nazi perpetrator. When the tribulation arrives, there will be no bystanders. A worse holocaust is in store for the whole human race. It's quite probable that Satan will want to destroy 2/3 of humanity and remake the rest in his image, but it's bound to fail, whether it's a spiritual or cybernetic makeover. God has been patient with His children and sent His son to redeem us freely, but one who is kind to the cruel will end up being cruel to the kind. God won't allow sin and hatred, crimes in the dark or subversion of His ways to continue forever.

I hope that Jews are right and that those who adhere to the universal laws of noah have a share in the olam haba (the world to come). I'm not a true universalist, I don't see all religions leading to God, because, as the Rabbis noted, not every practice of non-Jewish religions are in accordance with Bibilical belief and morality. Yet, they believed that those who were following in the ways of their idolatrous ancestors, but who cleaved to the noachide laws would be redeemed as Israel is redeemed, because God does not leave people in the dark, and God will not allow Satan victory. Sin will cease, hopefully not through the deaths of sinners, but through their repentance, as Bruriah showed her husband Rabbi Meier in the Talmudic story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruriah

I do hope that God reaches almost everyone before they die. I hope to see non-Christians who's lives and work have influenced me in the world to come, because I think they would have fully accepted Christ if they had encountered him and not historical Christians preaching about Him.

Gilbert wrote:but I have not so far (and this might be due to my own deficiencies) seen anything to compel serious consideration of quasi-physical entities – actual inter-dimensional or supernatural existents – as being responsible for the UFO phenomenon.

It leads to religion and folklore. There are only two possibilities here. One is mere Christianity and the other is Gnosticism. Fort said, when encountering all the high strangeness in his magazine and newspaper archive research, that a level of insanity is operating in the world and that if there is a god, then that god is not sane. Keel saw it as demonic in tone but saw it as one being creating many manifestations and mucking with both human religion and history.

Gnostics believe that the demiurge is behind it. They may, or may not, accept a version of Christ that's not Biblical. They do not accept God and see God as malevolent. Christians accept the Bible and relate to Christ, just as traditional Jews accept the Tanach and cleave to God. Christians recognize there is a being who claims to be the god of this world, who is a power of the air, and who interferes in human religion and history. Jews believe that ha-satan (the adversary in Hebrew) is the angel of death and sort of loyal to God, but who will be destroyed when redemption comes.

There is very little difference between non-Jewish views of the demonic and Jewish views. As the folklore is the same, I sense it's more than just cultural borrowing, it's a shared experience of a being (or beings) that do not have humanity's best interests at heart and who hate God and are working against His plan of salvation (whether seen in a Christian or Jewish sense).

We could all go with the psychosocial hypothesis and just blame the Zoroastrians for the structure of the demonic in Judaism and Christianity, but even they got their folklore from somewhere else, and it eventually comes down to human experience.

Gilbert wrote:I think Carol’s and Skeptical’s speculations are very interesting and realistic. The ET hypothesis has legs that have not yet been kicked out from under it; not by a long shot.

Two words: crashed saucers. If the stories are true, the aliens have some pretty lousy hardware that isn't all that ahead of our own. If they have lousy hardware, then why no crashes in plain sight where first responders other than secret military groups show up?

The aliens are also way to human like to be from another solar system if the secular non-religious view of evolution is right. If God creates through evolution on other planets, then He might choose humans, but the messages we get from the entities are not Biblical. Not even in accord with secular fallen man. The messages are directly counter to a Biblical world view.

Now, why would aliens deliver that kind of message?

Somer said in part,"Two words: crashed saucers. If the stories are true, the aliens have some pretty lousy hardware that isn't all that ahead of our own. If they have lousy hardware, then why no crashes in plain sight where first responders other than secret military groups show up? "

Grendel used to say that too Somer,the idea that aliens are superior to us and eons ahead of us in technology was supposed to make us all think that therefore there vehicles couldnt crash.I beg to differ with that idea. We have commercial jets even military ones that are in service for decades,these entities appear to have a craft that can do the impossible,that also means much much more stress is placed on the craft.Wear and tear,just like here,I wonder if theres little tiny aliens carrying lunchboxes who go to work and punch a time clock,The Acme Saucer Co. naw,that doesnt fly,doesnt fly lol,oh I crack myself up.