The UFO Singularity (21 page)

It is certainly interesting that, with the furtherance of human technology, we also seem to draw ever closer to the potential for extermination of our species on a large scale. During his lifetime, Carl Sagan utilized his influence in the media as a leading voice within the scientific establishment to warn about the grave potentials afforded us by the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Goertzel, among others, similarly looks with caution at the potentials that might exist beyond that great “event horizon” that science fiction author Vernor Vinge called
technological Singularity
so many years ago. And with little doubt, Vinge himself is probably a bit tired of having to mull over the potentials for eminent disaster by now; although he acknowledged my requests for an interview on the subject, he gracefully declined discussing the topic with me, at least presently, for inclusion in this book.

But within the jurisdictions afforded us with the advent of Transhumanism, there are yet other potentials that may be of concern. Though Goertzel speculates about the dangers of A.I. that may eventually come to view humans as inferior, those same potentials might exist with regard to nonhuman intelligence from elsewhere, and regardless of whether it could be likened to what we would view as artificial. Perhaps any highly advanced alien race we may come into contact with would appear organic in nature, and yet, if the technology underlying their own existence were superior enough, it may effectively mask the fact that this apparent “race” had manufactured origins of their very own. At what point does “artificial” intelligence become indistinguishable from “natural” intelligence?

Perhaps an even more terrifying and paradigm-shifting potential would involve human origins, and the potential that life here on Earth could have resulted from some variety of cosmic seeding or tampering in ancient prehistory. For all we know, humankind and the “natural” intelligence that we seem to possess could actually be the
remnant of some ancient experiment, where the intended result had been to create a new form of physical, though no less manufactured intelligence. In essence,
humans could be a form of artificial intelligence just as well,
having become divorced over the eons from the operative intelligence that created us. Our own inherent biology, and the evolutionary processes that govern what we are becoming as we grow and change as a species, may deeply color the trends that emerge within our sciences through time. For all we know, the progression of different forms of sentient consciousness throughout the cosmos may be the result of different intelligences—some of them physical, and others manifesting in far less conventional forms and states of being—as they unknowingly fulfill an innate process of self-replication, in which we go about a programmed set of tasks that will ultimately result in the next stage in cosmic evolution. Humanity may not represent the lonely island of thinkers set adrift amid the cosmos that we often perceive ourselves as being; we may instead be a mere step along the ascent toward a cosmic evolutionary lineage, in which the varieties of intelligent life that we eventually create will move forward, bearing the torch of sentient universal knowledge that was handed to them, perhaps inadvertently, by us.

Whatever the case may really be, it can hardly be argued that our innate fascination with nonhuman intelligence seems to stem from our own confusion about the mysteries of our ancient past, and what elements seemed to influence early humans the greatest in terms
of our evolution. It’s no surprise how often this concept of chasing human origins, or even that of A.I., and finally, extraterrestrial “controllers” working from behind the scenes, filter into our pop culture. No finer example of this exists at present, perhaps, than director Ridley Scott’s film
Prometheus,
in which all these elements are fitted together intricately within a highly dystopian theme, to borrow again from Goertzel’s earlier words of caution.
Prometheus
supposes that life on Earth began as a result of seeding by a race of alien beings called the “Engineers,” which later prove to be a sort of menace to humankind once we eventually go looking for them. Writer Damon Lindelof, concerning the scope of the film, spoke about the way that exploration, as well as humanity’s pursuit of itself and its origins, became a key theme in the writing process:

Space exploration in the future is going to evolve into this idea that it’s not just about going out there and finding planets to build colonies. It also has this inherent idea that the further we go out, the more we learn about ourselves. The characters in [Prometheus] are preoccupied by the idea: what are our origins?
²

Greatly inspired by the work of Erich von Däniken,
Prometheus
borrows obvious influence from existent UFO and ancient astronaut literature. But despite those influences that do draw from real life, at times we must still remind ourselves that a film such as this is only fantasy, and represents merely a sci-fi space romp in which the
greatest time-tested mechanism for human destruction—that of innate curiosity—leads to the potential extermination of our species at the hands of hostile aliens. The reason for drawing these sorts of proverbial lines in the sand is because, in truth, we do always manage to catch ourselves asking how likely this scenario could really be, or if it is even feasible at all, with the underlying fear that in some way, shape, or form, the events portrayed in films like
Prometheus
might actually bear some relevance to what our real future actually holds for us. Will our own interest in the various studies of A.I., space exploration, and alien cosmology of this sort ever really lead us into a trap where chasing our origins could initiate our undoing?

More likely, perhaps, is the distinct possibility that, although nonhuman intelligence may not be intent on
destroying
other forms of life such as ourselves, there nonetheless could be some aspect of our existence—or even several—that fall under the jurisdictions of
control
from outside sources. I return to a single, sparing idea—inconsequential in its delivery, but eloquent and profound in effect—that I came across early in the research phase for this book, where the
New York Times
had been actively crowd-sourcing ideas about the future from its readers. One of these ideas, which I included earlier, stood out enigmatically amid the rest: the otherwise-fanciful proposition that, by around the year 2100, scientists would learn that the universe is actually a digital simulation and that efforts were underway to contact the operators.

A wise and dear friend of mine, Dr. Maxim Kammerer of New York, once related a curious story to me. In it, he had been working in a university library, when he suddenly was taken with the notion that somewhere, amid the piles and stacks of books and classic volumes the library held, he might discover a written signature of J.R.R. Tolkien. Asking his associate nearby about this, he was advised that, although it may be a remote possibility, the likelihood of finding such a signature would be overwhelming, given the tremendous amount of material one would need to sift through. And despite this, Maxim confidently moved over toward one of the stacks of volumes nearby, and withdrew a certain book, which of course, upon opening to a random page, led to his discovery of a hand-penned signature, belonging to none other than the famous author of
The Lord of the Rings.

I asked whether Kammerer thought this instance might have exemplified some variety of latent psychic abilities on his part. To this, he replied that, quite the contrary, when one begins to accept the pliable nature of space and time, the logic-oriented operations underlying our universe, which obviously may mirror that of computer programming and simulations, will begin to become far more apparent. Kammerer offered that, in essence, reality may have aspects that could be likened to our use of a search engine, and this sort of process might explain a wide variety of different observable phenomena.

In addition to unique and fascinating perspectives of his own, Dr. Kammerer frequently urged me to think
beyond the conventional limits of the known sciences, often recommending the written works of his colleague, ufologist Jacques Vallee. In his classic book
Dimensions: A Casebook for Alien Contact,
Vallee spoke about whether there could exist what he likened to being “a spiritual control system” that might underlie much of our perception of the known universe and, of course, strange phenomena:

I propose that there is a spiritual control system for human consciousness and that paranormal phenomena like UFOs are one of its manifestations. I cannot tell whether this control is natural and spontaneous; whether it is explainable in terms of genetics, of social psychology, or of ordinary phenomena—or if it is artificial in nature, under the power of some superhuman will. It may be entirely determined by laws that we have not yet discovered.
³

Computational logic and computer science, I would argue, may bear a far greater similarity to any potential “artificial control system,” the likes of which Vallee posits here, especially one that is seemingly “determined by laws that we have not yet discovered.”
⁴
And yet, as intriguing as this notion that there could be, to borrow an earlier term,
operators
capable of manipulating our human perceptions of space and time through advanced simulation or other mechanisms, Vallee warns that this concept should not be misinterpreted as being an excuse for the negation of free will at the hands of, to borrow his words, some superhuman will. He goes on to say that

[w]hen I speak of a spiritual control system I do not mean that some higher supercivilization has locked us inside the constraints of a space-bound jail, closely monitored by entities we might call angels or demons. What I do mean is that mythology rules at a level of our society over which normal political and intellectual trends have no real power. At that level, time frames are long and evolution is slow.… Human life is ruled by imagination and myth; these obey strict laws and they, too, are governed by control systems, although admittedly not of the hardware type. If UFOs are acting at the mythic and spiritual level it will be almost impossible to detect it by conventional methods.
⁵

Therefore, at least by Vallee’s determinations expressed here, it might be the case that the influences of a sort of super-intelligence on our lives could best be evidenced through our own mythologies and cultural motifs. And thus, as Vallee correctly argues, an unconventional approach may indeed become a necessity, in terms of better understanding the source of that influence. And yet, the mystery underlying all this may not be so simple and blunt as the literal notion that our mythologies stem from physical interactions ancient humans may have had with extraterrestrial beings, as proposed in films like
Prometheus
and various literature dealing with ancient astronaut theories. Just the same, it may be that UFOs, in a general sense, are as misleading by their nature as any hazy mythology; at least when viewed in terms of trying to apply what we recognize as normal human logic toward understanding
them. And even in the event that there are control systems in place, let alone aspects of the phenomenon that are geared toward some variety of
conditioning
with regard to humanity, these possibilities become very difficult to discern or decipher, though Vallee expressed thoughts in these areas just as well, in addition to ideas on how they could be applied to the future of UFO research:

How can we verify whether such conditioning is in fact operating? We should firmly establish the primary effects. We should go on analyzing landing traces, interviewing witnesses and “abductees,” feeding computers with sighting details, and scrutinizing the heavens with cameras and radio telescopes. But this activity will be completely useless if it is not related to an investigation of the secondary impact, the shift in our worldview that the phenomenon produces. A phenomenon that denies itself, that annihilates evidence of itself, cannot be mastered by engineering brute force.
⁶

Although as a researcher I try to leave emotion out of the equation as much as possible, the last line that Vallee offers here strikes a particular chord: “A phenomenon that denies itself, that annihilates evidence of itself, cannot be mastered by engineering brute force.”
⁷
In other words, it becomes painfully obvious that sometimes even the full-on, hard scientific approach to studying the UFO phenomenon is, by design, capable of nothing less than falling short when operating on its own. We can carry on collecting and analyzing data all day, every day, for
another several decades, the way UFO researchers have already been doing since the end of the Second World War, but if we don’t carefully take into consideration such things as the way culture, spirituality, mythology, and, of course, the limitations of human logic may influence our study of the phenomenon, we will almost inevitably remain at an intellectual stalemate with ourselves, and thus incapable of making any real progress.

Throughout the years, I have been made privy to a number of odd stories regarding such things as alien abduction, physical sightings of unusual aircraft, mystical experiences that seemed to involve contact with sapient alien intelligences, and a host of other unusual circumstances. A majority of books that deal with this subject matter, especially those having to do with how each relates to the UFO question, rely heavily on the gathering of eyewitness data, and the careful, at times even rigid categorization of elements of the encounter, based on that data. For decades now, investigative organizations and committees have compiled and painstakingly worked to preserve this information, so that a body of evidence might begin to develop, from which a new perspective might eventually emerge.

Though knowledge is certainly key to any eventual understanding one may hope to obtain from any observed phenomenon, there are times where I have felt nonetheless that the approaches to studying UFOs, in terms of investigational procedure, accepted classifications of various UFO phenomena, and other widely accepted elements
of their study, have overshadowed the enigma itself. It begins to appear, at times, that many UFO researchers are so taken with the act of gathering data about sightings and compiling this information in databases that we forget to look carefully enough at the clues this data may provide. The research is thus void of any real hope of trying to reach a further understanding of its cause, because the “mission” of having categorized and ordered dates, times, places, and descriptions prior to posting them to an online database has been achieved. Sadly, the research often goes no further than this. I am reminded of the words of the careful mother who advises her daughter on the romantic advances of a potential suitor by saying: “Don’t allow the letters, or the flowers, to win your heart. Give yourself to the man who loves you, and not the one who is merely in love with the thought of being in love.” Perhaps there are more than a few researchers out there who are so caught up in the romantic thrill of chasing UFOs that the actual research begins to fall to the wayside.