UFOs: WHAT ARE they? Where do they come from? Strictly speaking, the term unidentified flying object (UFO) refers to any aerial object which cannot be positively identified as a man-made construction or as any known phenomenon of nature. The term implies a mystery. In common parla
nce, UFO is often used to denote any object which might be a spacecraft from an extraterrestrial civilization. The phrase unidentified flying object was coined by U.S. Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt. Captain Ruppelt led an Air Force investigation into the phenomenon in 1951. Prior to Ruppelt's investigation, UFOs were usually called "flying saucers" because many eyewitnesses described the objects as disc-shaped. "Flying saucer" quickly became a term of derision, however, due to the skepticism expressed by many newspaper and magazine writers. "Unidentified flying object" was used by Captain Ruppelt to lend his Air Force study an air of respectability. UFO is also a more accurate term because not all unidentified flying objects are saucer-shaped. Hundreds of UFOs are reported every year, usually to police, to the news media, or to UFO research groups. These reports represent only a minority of the total number of UFOs actually seen because most UFO witnesses do not publicly reveal their encounters. Roughly 90% to 95% of all reported UFOs prove to be man-made aircraft or unrecognized natural phenomena. Approximately 1.5% to 2% are outright hoaxes, often accompanied by spurious photographs. Although hoaxes constitute such a small percentage of all UFO reports, they have created a disproportionate amount of trouble. Hoaxes are, in fact, responsible for almost entirely disgracing the serious study of UFOs. The more convincing the fraud, the more damage it will usually do. The remaining 3% to 8.5% of all UFO sightings are those which appear to be aircraft of nonhuman origin. Most researchers are concerned with this last group. Twentieth-century UFOs were rarely reported in the mass media before 1947, and so some people assume that UFOs must be a relatively modern phenomenon. UFOs are, in fact, quite the opposite. UFOs have been reported for thousands of years in all parts of the world. For example, writer Julius Obsequens reproduced the following account from 216 B.C. in
his book, Prodigorium liber: Things like ships were seen in the sky over Italy.... At Arpi [in Italy] a round shield was seen in the sky.... At Capua, the sky was all on fire, and one saw figures like ships... .
l In the first century A.D., famed Roman statesman Cicero recorded a night during which the sun, accompanied by loud noises, was reportedly seen in the night sky. The sky appeared to split open and reveal strange "spheres." UFOs became so troublesome in the eighth and ninth centuries that emperor Charlemagne of France was compelled to issue edicts forbidding them from perturbing the air and provoking storms. In one episode, some of Charlemagne's subjects were taken up in aerial "ships," shown marvels, and then returned to Earth, only to be put to death by an angry mob. Those troublesome ships were even accused of destroying crops.* UFOs have not only been seen, they have also been worshipped throughout history. The religions of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Americas were dominated by the adoration of humanlike "gods" from the heavens. Many of those "gods" were said to travel about in flying "boats" and "globes." Ancient claims of that kind are today the basis of the modern "ancient astronauts" theory which postulates that a space age race had once visited Earth and had involved itself in human affairs. Some UFO researchers have gone a step further by suggesting that such a space age race had either created or conquered human society many thousands of years ago and that it has been maintaining a watchful eye on its possession ever since. To many, such theories seem to be the stuff of science fiction. The ideas are, however, one outgrowth of an academic debate which has preoccupied historians for over a century: how did the ancient Old and New World civilizations, located on opposites of the Earth, come to so closely resemble one another? Why did the peoples of those far-flung civilizations develop such remarkably similar religious beliefs? One widely-held view is that a land or ice bridge once spanned the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska over which people from the Old World had migrated into the New. Others point to archaeological evidence that the ancient Phoenicians had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean
* A long and interesting collection of ancient UFO sightings and unusual natural phenomena from the late B.C. and early A.D. years can be found in Harold T. Wilkins' book, Flying Saucers on the Attack. Despite its sensationalistic title, Mr. Wilkins' book is often well-argued and is worth reading as one of the earliest books of the modem UFO era. An excellent collection of ancient UFO reports can also be found in Jacques Vallee's Passport to Magonia.
centuries before the Scandinavian vikings or Christopher Columbus. Some scholars conclude that the Phoenicians had borrowed many features of the Egyptian civilization and had transplanted them to the New World. Another hypothesis is that the ancient Egyptians themselves had sailed across the ocean. Despite evidence to support all of the above possibilities, none of the theories fully encompass all of the known facts. This has led to a fourth theory, well expressed in 1910 by Oxford professor and Nobel Laureate Frederick Soddy: Some of the beliefs and legends bequeathed to us by Antiquity are so universally and firmly established that we have become accustomed to consider them as being almost as ancient as humanity itself. Nevertheless we are tempted to inquire how far the fact that some of these beliefs and legends have so many features in common is due to chance, and whether the similarity between them may not point to the existence of an ancient, totally unknown and unsuspected civilization of which all other traces have disappeared.
2 When such conjecture is raised, many people think of vanished land masses or islands, such as the legendary lost continents of Atlantis and Lemuria. One of Professor Soddy's contemporaries, however, took a different approach and speculated that extraterrestrial societies were involved in Earth's prehistory. Dr. Soddy's controversial contemporary was Charles Hoy Fort (1867-1923). Charles Fort is perhaps the earliest writer of the twentieth century to seriously suggest that extraterrestrials have been involved in human affairs. Fort supported himself on a small inheritance and spent many years of his adult life amassing reports of unusual phenomena from scientific journals, newspapers, and magazines. The stories he collected were of such events as unusual moving lights in the sky, "rainfalls" of animals, and other occurrences which seem to defy conventional scientific explanation. His first two books, The Book of the Damned (1919) and New Lands (1923), contain a large assortment of UFO sightings and related phenomena from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Fort concluded that Earth skies were hosting an array of extraterrestrial aircraft, which he called "superconstructions." Fort developed other theories from his research, several of which have endured and still remain provocative today. In The Book of the Damned, he wrote: I think we're property. I should say we belong to something: That once upon a time, this earth was No-man's Land, that other worlds explored and colonized here, and fought among themselves for possession, but that now it's owned by something: That something owns this earth—all others warned off.
3 Fort concluded that the human race does not have a very high status in relation to Earth's extraterrestrial owners. In addressing the puzzle of "why don't they [Earth's owners] ever come here, or send here, openly," he philosophized: Would we, if we could, educate and sophisticate pigs, geese, cattle? Would it be wise to establish diplomatic relation with the hen that now functions, satisfied with mere sense of achievement by way of compensation?
4 In addition to likening the human race to self-satisfied livestock, Fort believed that a direct influence over human affairs was being exerted by Earth's apparent owners: I suspect that, after all, we're useful—that among contesting claimants, adjustment has occurred, or that something now has a legal right to us, by force, or by having paid out analogues of beads for us to former, more primitive, owners of us—that all of this has been known, perhaps for ages, to certain ones upon this earth, a cult or order, members of which function like bellwethers to the rest of us, or as superior slaves or overseers, directing us in accordance with instructions received—from Somewhere else—in our mysterious usefulness.
5 Fort did not speculate as to what mankind's "mysterious usefulness" might be, except to briefly suggest that humans might be slaves. In a lighter vein, Fort thought that Earth had had a very lively and colorful prehistory: But I accept that, in the past, before proprietorship was established, inhabitants of a host of other worlds have—dropped here, hopped here, wafted, sailed, flown, motored—walked here, for all I know—been pulled here, been pushed, have come singly, have come in enormous numbers; have visited occasionally, have visited periodically for hunting, trading, replenishing harems, mining; have been unable to stay here, have established colonies here, have been lost here; far- advanced peoples, or things, and primitive peoples or whatever they were: white ones, black ones, yellow ones—
6 To understand how all of this applies to the human condition today, Fort offered no answers, only a formula: Pigs, geese, and cattle. First find out that they are owned. Then find out the whyness of it.
7 Fort had certainly expressed some daring ideas. They were published at a time when crude biplanes and dirigible balloons ruled the sky. Charles Lindberg's historic flight across the Atlantic Ocean was still eight years away. Fort acquired a small and loyal following during his day. It was not until a third of a century later, however, that the foundation laid by Fort supported a sudden explosion of nonfiction works speculating that an extraterrestrial society had been involved in human affairs. This sudden surge of interest was caused by a media-publicized rash of UFO sightings in the late 1940's and 1950's. One of the first books of that period to discuss ancient UFO sightings was Flying Saucers on the Attack by Harold T. Wilkins. It was published in 1954 by Citadel Press of New York. Citadel followed with a host of books, including The UFO and the Bible (1956) by Morris K. Jessup. Jessup's book suggested that many Biblical events were the doings of a space age race, not of a God. Numerous passages from the Bible were quoted to support the theory. Similar books with similar titles followed, such as Flying Saucers in the Bible (1963) by Virginia F. Brasington and The Bible and Flying Saucers (1967) by Barry H. Downing. On the other side of the Atlantic, a number of European writers were also making important contributions to the genre. The French writing team of Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier wrote their intriguing bestseller, Morning of the Magicians, which was published in America in the early 1960's. Erich von Daniken of Switzerland was also writing about ancient astronauts during the 1950's and '60's, and he achieved great fame by the early '70's after the publication of his first international bestseller on the subject: Chariots of the Gods? The powerful success of von Daniken's book prompted a flood of similar books and motion pictures in the '70's and early '80's, bringing the idea of "ancient astronauts" to the attention of millions. The notion of alien intervention in human affairs is generally tolerated when it is expressed as a work of science fiction, but it is often poorly received when suggested as fact. This is understandable. The very idea of it seems, at first blush, to fly in the face of everything we have ever been taught. For centuries, there has been a strong tendency to think of our planet and the human race in very isolationist terms. Centuries ago, people even believed that humans were at the center of the universe and that the sun and stars all revolved around us. It was a flattering notion, but sadly not a true one. In the bygone days of the Inquisition, however, a person could be put to death for challenging the idea. The only "extraterrestrials" people were permitted to believe in were winged angels in white robes sent from Heaven by the great god Jehovah. Although the sciences have thankfully moved away from that kind of perspective to a large extent, human-centered concepts of existence are still surprisingly strong. Some persuasive-sounding arguments have been advanced to refute the evidence that one or more extraterrestrial societies have been visiting the Earth. Some of those arguments are worth addressing:
1. No intelligent life other than mankind has been proven to exist elsewhere in the universe. At first glance, this seems to be true. However, one need only look right here on Earth to find other intelligent life forms. Studies of dolphins and other large marine mammals have revealed a high intelligence in many of those creatures. Analyses of other mammals have uncovered in some of them a level of intelligence much higher than previously believed. This reveals that there are a great many intelligent and semi-intelligent creatures in the universe known to us; we share a planet with them. The fact that they all flourish together on this one small planet is an excellent indication that other intelligent creatures can exist elsewhere under the right conditions.
2. There has not been a single UFO sighting which could not be explained as a natural or human phenomenon. Therefore, all UFOs must be such phenomena. This argument uses faulty logic. It is possible to "explain" almost anything as anything. I suppose one could "explain" the sun as billions of fireflies held in a gigantic glass bowl. This "explanation," however, does not fit the evidence as well as the better theory that the sun is a huge mass of compressed hydrogen which is undergoing a process of atomic fusion. Many UFO sightings are given prosaic explanations only by ignoring evidence which clearly reveals that they are not earthly phenomena. If one is selective enough in choosing which evidence and testimony to believe, one can invent almost any explanation to fit almost any UFO sighting. The trick is to find the best explanation to fit the true and complete facts. In many instances, the true and complete facts indicate that a UFO is indeed best explained as a natural phenomenon. In other cases, the best explanation is that a UFO is probably an intelligently-guided craft of nonhuman origin. Many remarkable sightings do fit this latter category.*
3. There has been no "hard evidence" of UFOs or "ancient astronauts." Physical objects constitute "hard" evidence. In UFOlogy, a piece of hard evidence might be a "crashed saucer" or the body of an extraterrestrial pilot. It is argued that if alien spacecraft have been flying in Earth's skies for thousands of years, we should have a piece of concrete physical evidence by now. Setting aside allegations and evidence that some governments may have a crashed saucer or two secreted away, we cannot logically expect to find too many alien artifacts. To explain why, I will make an analogy between UFOs and modern commercial jetliners. Millions of commercial airline flights take off from U.S. airports every year. Despite this enormous volume, very few people will ever stumble upon a crashed jetliner or dead crew member because only a tiny percentage of all flights end in disaster. Equally few individuals will ever find any instruments or debris tossed from jetliners because jetliners are self-contained and the navigators rarely gouge instruments from the flight panels and heave them out the cockpit window. If it were not for the fact that most of us can see commercial jet aircraft and fly in them, the "hard" evidence of their existence would be surprisingly scant, especially if they were to be manufactured in, and flown only to and from, remote areas. Let us translate this into a mathematical formula. Based upon U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) statistics, roughly one in every million flights by major U.S. carriers departing from American airports suffers a serious accident, such as a crash, a crash landing away from an airport, or the loss of a significant piece of the plane. This
*For a good overview of UFO cases, I recommend The U.F.O. Encyclopedia by Margaret Sachs.
admirable safety record makes air travel one of the safest modes of transportation today. Let us assume that the reported alien spacecraft in our skies have precisely the same safety record as American commercial jet aircraft—no better and no worse. Let us guess that 2000 "flying saucer" flights are made over Earth every year. That amounts to 5 1/2 flights every day. We will assume that each hypothetical saucer flight is made at a low enough altitude that, if a mishap should occur, the debris would fall to Earth before disintegrating in the atmosphere. Putting all of the above figures together, we discover that a "flying saucer" would crash, or drop a substantial chunk of debris, only once every five centuries! That would amount to only twelve crashes since the dawn of mankind's first recorded civilization! If we cut the safety factor in half and double the number of hypothetical UFO flights to 4000 per year (11 per day), or leave the safety factor the same and quadruple the number of low-level saucer flights to 8000 per year (22 per day), that would still amount to only one crash or major piece of debris once every one hundred twenty-five years! We can safely conclude that even if extraterrestrial craft have been flying in our skies for millennia, we cannot expect to find too much wreckage or debris. The best evidence of extraterrestrial visitation that we may reasonably expect to obtain is eyewitness testimony, which is precisely the evidence we have. Despite these pessimistic statistics, a few rare UFO crashes have been reported. Fragments alleged to have come from exploding UFOs have been found and made public. One such piece was reported by a Brazilian columnist who said that the item had been recovered by a fisherman off the coast of Brazil in 1957. The fragment was sent by Omni magazine to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for analysis. It proved to be a piece of pure magnesium. An MIT analyst guessed that the fragment might have been a piece of weld metal from either an exploding aircraft or from a reentering satellite. Because the piece could have been manufactured on Earth, the test was considered inconclusive.
4. If UFOs are extraterrestrial aircraft, there should be an undisputed photograph of one by now. Anything can be disputed. To begin a dispute, all one needs to do is open one's mouth and utter a few words. The mere existence of a dispute, therefore, does not in itself deny the reality of a thing. The dispute simply means that someone has chosen to quarrel, whether for good reasons or bad. It is true, however, that researchers do face a paucity of decent UFO photographs. Available UFO snapshots tend to be of two varieties: either fuzzy and inconclusive (the picture could be of just about anything), or fraudulent. When a sharp, clear picture of a flying saucer does surface, it often proves to be a hoax. This happens so often that a researcher can almost count on a "good" flying saucer photograph eventually proving "bad." This is especially true today when technical advances have made some forms of trick photography nearly undetectable. This still leaves the question: why are there so few conclusive photographs available? As noted earlier, apparently genuine extraterrestrial air-craft account for only a small percentage of the total number of UFOs reported. Most of those aircraft are seen at night. The majority of "close encounters" (human encounters with the spacecraft occupants) take place in rural non-recreational areas where there are very few people carrying cameras. The already poor chances of getting a good snapshot under those conditions are worsened by the fact that the vast majority of camera owners, including dedicated photo buffs, do not always carry their cameras with them. At any given moment, surely fewer than one person in every ten thousand is carrying a camera. UFOs do not compensate for this by making regular scheduled appearances over crowded vacation spots where most clicking cameras would be. Given these factors, we can expect that good genuine photos of extraterrestrial aircraft would be exceedingly rare commodities. Remember also that camera ownership has been widespread for only a short period of time: several decades. This is not to say that clear photos of apparently genuine alien aircraft do not exist. A few do, and they can be found in various books written by responsible UFO researchers.*
5. Eyewitness testimony in UFO cases is inherently unreliable. Such testimony is therefore insufficient evidence of extraterrestrial visitation. Perhaps the most influential UFO critic as of this writing is Philip Klass, who has been aptly dubbed the "Sherlock Holmes of UFOlogy" for his exhaustive investigations. His book, UFOs Explained, won the Aviation/Space Writers award for the best book on space in 1974. In that awardwinning book, Mr. Klass developed several principles. The first was: UFOlogical Principle #1: Basically honest and intelligent persons who are suddenly exposed to a brief, unexpected event, especially one that involves an unfamiliar object, may be grossly inaccurate in trying to describe precisely what they have seen.
8 This principle is sometimes true. It was demonstrated by a U.S. government-sponsored UFO study conducted between 1966 and 1968 under the direction of Edward U. Condon. Its published findings, which are usually called the "Condon Report," are a milestone in UFO literature. In one chapter of the Condon Report, the committee discusses what occurred after a Russian spacecraft, Zond IV, went awry and began its re-entry into Earth's atmosphere on March 3, 1968. As the craft fell through the atmosphere and burned, it created a spectacular display for people on the ground. Eyewitnesses perceived the flaming debris as a majestic procession of fiery objects leaving behind a golden orange tail. Because of the objects' great height, it was impossible to make out from the ground what the broken pieces actually were. It was only possible to see
* For advice concerning the authenticity of specific UFO photographs, I recommend contacting the Mutual UFO Network, Inc. (MUFON), 103 Oldtowne Road, Seguin, Texas, 78155-4099, USA.
them as brilliant and separate points of light. The Zond IV debris created an effect identical to that of a brilliant meteor display. Upon compiling eyewitness testimony of the Zond IV reentry, it was discovered that some people "saw" more than there really was. If some of the erroneous observations had been taken at face value, some people would have concluded that the Zond IV debris was actually an intelligently controlled alien spacecraft. For example, five eyewitnesses reported that the lights were part of a "cigarshaped" or rocket-shaped craft: a common UFO description. Three eyewitnesses said that the "object" had windows. One observer claimed that the "object" had made a vertical descent. Because of these blatant errors, Mr. Klass and others have understandably labeled all "cigar-shaped UFOs with bright windows" as meteors. The Condon Committee cited the Zond IV testimony as an example of why eyewitness reports are often inadequate to establish that a UFO is an extraterrestrial spacecraft. Case closed? Not quite. In his UFOlogical Principle # 1 quoted above, Mr. Klass states that eyewitnesses may be grossly inaccurate in trying to describe precisely what they have seen. Significantly, he did not say that eyewitnesses are usually inaccurate. This distinction takes on importance as we read further into the Condon Report. The Condon Committee discovered that at least half of the Zond IV eyewitnesses gave accurate, unembellished reports of the event. The observations of a "cigar-shaped craft with windows" came only from a minority. From the accurate reports, a careful UFO researcher would have been able to eliminate the erroneous descriptions and correctly identify the Zond IV re-entry as debris or a meteoric phenomenon. The Committee also analyzed a wave of UFO reports triggered by several college students who had released four hot air balloons into the evening sky. The balloons were made of plastic dry cleaning bags; the hot air was generated by birthday candles suspended underneath. The Committee analyzed the testimony of fourteen eyewitnesses who did not know what the flying objects were. With only minor deviations among them, all fourteen observers gave accurate descriptions of what it was possible for them to actually see. The Committee concluded: In summary, we have a number of reports that are highly consistent with one another, and those differences that do occur are no greater than would be expected from situational and perceptual differences. Many small discrepancies could be pointed out, especially with regard to estimates of distance and direction, but these are not great enough to affect the overall impression of the event.
9 This demonstrates something very important that we can express in our own "UFOlogical Principle": Basically honest and intelligent persons who are suddenly exposed to a brief, unexpected event, including one that involves an unfamiliar object, will, in the majority of cases, be accurate in trying to describe precisely what they have seen. That is why eyewitness testimony may be admissible in courts of law to convict or free a defendant even when solid physical evidence is lacking. Eyewitness testimony is a perfectly valid and useful form of evidence.
6. Sophisticated listening devices have been pointed toward the heavens to pick up extraterrestrial communications. So far, no such communications have been detected. This is further evidence that there is no intelligent life nearby. Despite skepticism in many academic circles regarding extraterrestrial visitation, several well-funded attempts have been made to detect signals from outer space civilizations through the use of sophisticated radio antennas pointed toward the heavens. The fact that these efforts have reportedly not detected any intelligent signals is viewed as additional proof that there are no alien civilizations nearby. The problem with drawing such a conclusion is that radio antennas have many limitations. They are only able to detect radio waves. There are many other bands along the electromagnetic spectrum4 that can carry communication signals, such as microwave. What is to say that an extraterrestrial society, if it exists, would necessarily use radio waves for communication? We do not even know what lies beyond the two known ends of the electromagnetic spectrum. How can we be sure that there are not wavelengths in one of the two uncharted regions which are far superior for communication to anything we have detected so far? The reputed failure of radio antennas to pick up intelligent signals would only tell us that no one within range is using the electromagnetic wavelengths detectable by those antennas.
7. If so many "flying saucers" are visiting Earth, why are they not detected more often on radar? Many outstanding UFO sightings have been confirmed on radar. This excellent radar evidence is usually dismissed by critics as operator error, as radar malfunction, or as false readings caused by natural phenomena. We would have even more radar evidence if it were not for the fact that radar operators are trained to disregard most radar anomalies because any number of things can create a false read. Spurious radar signals can be generated by such widely disparate phenomena as flocks of birds and severe weather conditions. Operators are taught to focus on those read-ings that pinpoint the type of objects they are tracking—usually human aircraft. If something unusual pops up on the screen and disappears, it will, more often than not, be ignored. A great many radar UFOs therefore go unreported.
*The "electromagnetic spectrum" is the range of wavelengths at which different forms of light may travel. At one end of the known spectrum are radio waves, which have long wavelengths. (Yes, radio waves are actually light waves. They become "sound" when translated by a receiver.)
At the other end of the spectrum are gamma rays, which have short wavelengths. The range of light we can see with our eyes is limited to a very small band of the spectrum. Instruments have been invented to pick up and transmit along other wavelengths, such as infrared, x-ray, and microwave.
Radar detection of UFOs is being further eliminated by advances in technology. Many modern radar computers now automatically eliminate anomalous readings so that they are not even displayed on the radar screen. This makes an operator's job easier, but at the cost of eliminating UFO detection. Mr. Klass comments: Ironically, one of the several criteria used [by radar computers] to discriminate between real and spurious targets would filter out potential radar-UFOs even if they were legitimate extraterrestrial craft flying at hypersonic speeds...10
8. Many people have testified under hypnosis to being abducted by UFOs. Such testimony is inherently suspect because people who have never been abducted can be coached into creating seemingly realistic abduction "memories" while under hypnosis. If the UFO phenomenon consisted solely of occasional odd sights in the sky, it might be easy to dismiss. However, many people have reported being kidnapped by UFO occupants. The abduction experiences tend to be remarkably similar: the victim sees a UFO (usually at night and often in a rural area); he is immobilized and taken aboard an alien spacecraft; he is given a physical examination lasting an hour or two by alien creatures; he is then released. Many abductees do not consciously remember their experiences afterwards. A typical victim may only see a UFO and then suddenly discover that two hours have passed with no recollection of what had occurred during the missing time. Researchers usually break through this amnesia with hypnosis. It appears that the curious amnesia experienced by so many UFO abductees is deliberately induced by the UFO occupants as a method of preserving the aliens' anonymity. Such mental tampering can indeed be done. During its infamous and highly publicized "mind control" experiments of the 1960's and '70's, the American CIA had developed effective techniques to bury memory and induce amnesia. With careful work, however, the buried memories could be recovered. As we shall see later, mental tampering with human victims has been a common activity associated with UFOs throughout all of history. To date, an enormous body of fascinating abduction testimony has been gathered. Aspersions have been cast upon it because of various experiments, such as those performed in 1977 at the Anaheim Memorial Hospital in California. It was discovered in Anaheim that individuals who allegedly had little prior knowledge of UFOs could be coached into creating seemingly realistic abduction "memories" while under hypnosis. This discovery has been used to cast doubt on the validity of all abduction testimony obtained under hypnosis. The Anaheim experiments, however, miss the point and reveal nothing about the UFO phenomenon. They only reaffirm what we already know about hypnosis. It is true that a person's memory can be distorted while he is under hypnosis, just as it can when a person is completely conscious. On the other hand, it has been amply demonstrated that hypnosis can be effective in recovering completely valid memory: it depends upon the skill of the hypnotist and the mental state of the subject. A hypnotist can coach a person who has never been aboard a train into creating a realistic "memory" of riding a train, but does that mean that every hypnotic subject who remembers being on a train is guilty of fabrication? Of course not. Admittedly, there are genuine problems with hypnosis. Because the hypnotic subject is in a semiconscious state, he or she may be more impressionable than normal. For this reason, American courts of law generally do not admit into evidence testimony obtained under hypnosis. Another danger with hypnosis is that a subject may recover a completely valid memory, but if the subject is continuously pushed during hynosis to remember more, he may find his mental "time track" getting scrambled. When that happens, he will often start to "remember" additional "episodes" which did not actually occur when or how remembered. Even so, the original memory remains valid. Sadly, some UFO abductees have been hypnotized and rehypnotized beyond all measure of reason. They consequently wind up with scrambled memories on the already highly-charged subject of their abductions. For this and other reasons, I strongly recommend against the use of hypnosis. Heavily occluded memory can and should be recovered while a subject is in a fully conscious state. Some UFO abduction experiences have been recovered in just that fashion.
9. The mathematical odds of an extraterrestrial race discovering Earth are too remote for it to be likely. Several mathematical formulae have been devised to show how unlikely it is that Earth has been visited by an extraterrestrial society. Such formulae are usually based upon theories of evolution, the number of planets which might support life, and the distances between planets and galaxies. Such formulae are certainly interesting, but they should never be considered conclusive. If something exists, it exists. Trying to make it go away with a math formula will not make it any less real. Keep in mind that we are unable to see any solid planets beyond our own solar system, let alone determine if there is any life on them. The human situation in this respect may be likened to a colony of tiny ants whose range of observation may only encompass a few acres. If that colony is situated on a barren desert, the ants might conclude that the entire Earth is a desolate wasteland, never dreaming of the vast metropolis only a hundred miles away. Simply because we find our own solar system or section of the galaxy barren, it does not automatically follow that this is the case everywhere. Another sector of the galaxy may be absolutely teeming with intelligent life and there would be no way for us out here on the distant edge of the Milky Way to know except by guessing with theories that are ever-changing. For this reason, it is not particularly wise to disregard evidence of extraterrestrial visitation if it appears.
10. Only people with mental problems believe in UFOs. One unfortunate method some UFO critics use to attack evidence of extraterrestrial visitation is with psychological theory. Because such a critic is absolutely certain that there have been no extraterrestrial aircraft in our skies, he may resort to using defamatory psychological labels in an effort to "explain" why many people will consider a possibility that the critic rejects. Such labels have run the gamut from a simple need for religious fulfillment to ambulatory schizophrenia. This dubious psychiatry has become regrettably fashionable in recent years. It hides the reality that most serious research into UFOs is as clinical and scientific as one could hope for. The majority of UFO researchers are as sane and rational as the critics who are so quick to bandy about the unflattering psychological labels. The true UFO debate centers around genuine scientific, intellectual, and historical issues, not emotional ones. Another problem with using psychological "analysis" to "explain" popular and scientific interest in UFOs is that the tables can be turned. A scholar advocating the possibility of extraterrestrial visitation can as easily, and as incorrectly, argue that those people who adamantly adhere only to prosaic explanations for UFO sightings in the face of contrary evidence are deeply afraid of something they cannot understand. Between the distinguished sideburns of a Ph.D., one could argue, may be a frightened child or willful adolescent desperately trying to handle the often confusing world around him by forcing everything to conform to what he can intellectually and emotionally comprehend. As we can see, psychological mudslinging is very poor form in a scientific debate of this kind. It does no one any good, the labels are usually untrue, and it clouds the real issues. Intelligent and rational people are easily found on all sides of the UFO controversy.
11. UFO theories are money-making rackets designed to prey on the gullible. It is a truism that there are two great crimes in our society: having money and not having money. Both are punished with equal ferocity. One of the easiest ways to discredit an idea is to suggest that someone has gotten money for expressing it. Some UFO critics have made allusions to charlatans in the past who had duped people with strange ideas and who had become rich by preying on other people's gullibility. Such allusions have been made in an effort to suggest that people who earn money from UFO books or motion pictures are engaged in similar chicanery. Please keep in mind that money itself has nothing to do with the validity of an idea. Money is an unpredictable commodity which goes to the deserving and undeserving alike. A handful of people have indeed earned good incomes from books and films dealing with the UFO phenomenon. The number of people who have done so, however, is very small compared to the many thousands of teachers, lecturers, and writers who are paid, sometimes handsomely, to promulgate more conventional views of the world. Even when it is clear that a few individuals have falsely reported or insincerely discussed UFOs to make money, the UFO phenomenon is not automatically discredited. Profit-making has been a motive in nearly all arenas of human endeavor since the earliest days of mankind. If we were to throw out everything to which someone has ever attached a profit motive, little would remain of our culture. Fortunately, the vast majority of UFO witnesses and researchers, rich and poor, are sincere in what they say and do.
12. UFO behavior does not conform to what we think intelligent extraterrestrial behavior ought to be. UFOs are difficult to study due to their often bizarre and unpredictable natures. UFO behavior seems, on the one hand, to raise some of the most profound questions about life and existence, while on the other hand it seems to be the stuff of a Buck Rogers movie. This duality is difficult to reconcile, yet it is an inescapable part of the phenomenon. The UFO is both profound and kooky, as we shall see. This factor is often used to discredit UFO reports. Some critics imply that if UFOs are extraterrestrial aircraft, they would manifest themselves in a more acceptable manner. Why, for example, have UFOs apparently kidnapped housewives and implanted them with religious messages, but have never landed on the White House lawn and spoken to the U.S. President? In one of his books, Philip Klass offered a $10,000 reward for conclusive proof of extraterrestrial visitation. To qualify for the reward, only a crashed spacecraft or other evidence which the U.S. National Academy of Sciences announces to be an affirmation of extraterrestrial intelligence would suffice; or, an extraterrestrial visitor must appear before the United Nations General Assembly or on a national television program. The fact that no one has received the reward is viewed by some people as added proof that Earth is not being visited by an extraterrestrial society. The problems with the $10,000 reward are quickly obvious. We have already discussed the poor odds of finding a crashed "saucer" or major piece of debris. What if the National Academy of Sciences is prone to argue a terrestrial origin to a smaller piece of hard evidence before admitting a nonterrestrial source? What if extraterrestrial pilots are no more inclined to appear on television or at the United Nations than a human pilot is disposed to address a council of chimpanzees?* We can all certainly wish that UFOs would be more cooperative, but until they are, the UFO phenomenon must be studied on its own terms, not according to the behavior we think it ought to exhibit.
13. In the past, a few UFO sightings touted as proof of extraterrestrial visitation by top UFO researchers have proven to be earthly phenomena or hoaxes. Such errors should cast doubt on all proclamations by UFO researchers. Because the UFO phenomenon is so difficult to study, even the finest researchers will inevitably make errors, sometimes many of them. It is easy for someone to seize those mistakes and use them to discredit the entire subject. This tactic is often used by lawyers in courts of law, by statesmen during political debates, and even by scientists engaged in academic controversies.
* Another problem with the $10,000 offer was that a person had to pay Mr. Klass $100.00 per year to qualify. This reduced the UFO debate to the level of a crap shoot, where it does not belong. Few serious UFO researchers accepted the offer, much to their credit
The problem with this tactic is that it does not always lead to truth, and can even lead away from it. A good example was the "Round Earth Theory" espoused by Christopher Columbus in the 15th century. In an age when many people still believed the world to be flat, Columbus was part of a movement proclaiming that the Earth was round or pear-shaped. As correct as Columbus was on this issue, he was wrong about many others. Columbus thought that he would encounter Asia when he crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and falsely reported that he had done so when he returned to Spain. We know today, of course, that Columbus had not found Asia at all—he had stumbled upon the North American continent which is nowhere near Asia! Because of this, we could easily scoff at Columbus' phony evidence and proclaim his "Round Earth Theory" a sham. After all, some of Columbus' other ideas about the Earth were clearly wrong, some absurdly so. This type of situation occurs frequently, especially when a science is young, as UFOlogy is today. False claims and erroneous evidence are often used to support fundamentally sound ideas. This is not to say that every new theory that pops along is a valid one, or that bad evidence is the sign of a good theory. Many new theories prove bad. The trick is to weigh all of the evidence and to base a decision on that. In doing so, however, do not be surprised to encounter disagreement from others. It is a funny thing that two people can look at identical information and arrive at opposite conclusions.
14. Expressing theories of extraterrestrial visitation and of "ancient astronauts" is dangerous to society. This argument is not worth dignifying in societies with traditions of open discussion and debate. Freedom of expression is one of the bedrocks of a healthy culture. It allows that society and its people to grow. A wide diversity of ideas gives people more perspectives to choose from. Possessing such a choice is preferable to having intellectual options restricted. In an open society, many unconventional ideas come and go, but that is a small price to pay for the enormous benefits of leaving communication lines open and free.
15. If there are so many UFOs, why have I never seen one? I have never seen a UFO either. I have also never seen India, but the circumstantial evidence of its existence tends to make me think that India probably exists. In addition to the above arguments, other means have been used to discredit UFO sightings. One method utilizes semantics. Some UFO critics say that they seek to find "rational" explanations for UFO sightings. By "rational" they mean explanations that portray a sighting as a natural or man-made object. This is an unfortunate use of the word "rational." The word "rational" means "sane," "well thought out," or "logical." Because sanity and logic must ultimately be based upon truth, a "rational" explanation of a phenomenon would be that explanation which most closely approximates the truth, whatever the truth may be. If a reported UFO is a misperceived natural phenomenon, then to explain it as such would indeed be rational. On the other hand, if a UFO is not a natural or man-made phenomenon, then to say that it is in the face of contrary evidence would not be rational at all. Having said all of this, I still understand the reluctance of many people to take the UFO phenomenon seriously. It is a difficult booby-trapped subject. Some individuals who were once open-minded about UFOs have had the unfortunate experience of getting egg in their faces when they over-speculated about UFOs and were proven wrong. A good example was the public debacle surrounding the Martian moon, Phobos. About a decade ago, a number of scientific opinion leaders had speculated that Phobos was an artificial satellite placed in orbit around Mars by extraterrestrials. When a space probe later flew close enough to photograph Phobos, the Martian moon was shown to be little more than a large irregular piece of rock (although some of its orbital characteristics remain puzzling). Scientists and astronomers, because they survive on their good reputations, cannot endure too many speculative blunders of that kind. Many people who suffer such a tumble do not get back on the horse; instead they curse and attack the beast which threw them. Competent researchers today are aware of these perils and they try to avoid speculating too far from the known facts. Why do I take the possibility of extraterrestrial visitation seriously, even though I agree with the "natural" explanation for some UFO sightings still debated today? I do so for many reasons. Firstly, the UFO phenomenon has been observed and reported for centuries. I therefore reject the critics' contention that UFOs are merely a bit of modern folklore. Secondly, the UFO phenomenon has been surprisingly consistent from location to location and from era to era. For example, some modern sightings of rocket or cigar-shaped UFOs mirror a UFO report from fifteenth-century Arabia. Thirdly, although it is true that some dubious "ancient astronaut" evidence has been published, so has some truly outstanding evidence. The critics' challenge that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" has, to my mind, been met by some of that evidence. Fourthly, the "ancient astronauts" theory is hardly the "pseudoscientific nonsense" that it is sometimes accused of being. The "ancient astronauts" theory is a surprisingly logical hypothesis for shedding light on previously inexplicable historical data. I expect that it will one day be recognized as a true breakthrough even if it meets considerable opposition today. The fact that the theory arose from grass-roots research, and not from the ivied halls of a major university, means little. Anyone with an active and curious mind can make significant discoveries. At this stage of my discussion, I may disappoint some readers by stating that it is not my purpose to write yet another tome which analyzes modern UFO sightings or which parades forth an array of ancient astronauts evidence simply to prove visitation. That has been adequately done elsewhere. If you remain a UFO skeptic, I recommend that you study other UFO literature before continuing with this book. The Gods of Eden is written for those people who already take seriously the possibility that Earth has been visited by an extraterrestrial society. This book actually begins where Charles Fort left off. Mr. Fort speculated that Earth may be the property of an extraterrestrial society. He further believed that humans might be little more than slaves or livestock. As a result of my own historical research launched from an entirely different starting point,* I, too, arrived at a similar outrageous theory: Human beings appear to be a slave race languishing on an isolated planet in a small galaxy. As such, the human race was once a source of labor for an extraterrestrial civilization and still remains a possession today. To keep control over its possession and to maintain Earth as something of a prison, that other civilization has bred never-ending conflict between human beings, has promoted human spiritual decay, and has erected on Earth conditions of unremitting physical hardship. This situation has existed for thousands of years and it continues today. Having now laid myself wide open to ridicule for expressing such a hypothesis, I will proceed to share with you a very different view of history than you have probably encountered before. Because I am risking a great deal by making this book available, I ask my readers for two favors before they pass judgment on what I have written:
1. Please read the entire book carefully,
2. Please read the chapters in the order in which they
appear. No idea, fact or historical episode I present stands entirely on its own. Each becomes significant only when it is seen within the entire context of history. The importance of what you read early in the book will not become apparent until you have continued to read much further. Conversely, the significance of the later material will not be clear unless you have read the early material first. The first 150 pages or so of this book contain ideas, conclusions, and statements that
*I had not read any of Charles Fort's works until I had already completed the third draft of this book.
may seem unscholarly and outrageous. Only by continuing to read onward will the remarkable historical documentation in support of those ideas truly take shape. Hang on to your hat. We will now begin a startling rollercoaster ride along the underbelly of history.
