The consciousness aspect of the UFO phenomenon. II.

Introduction

This is a second post on the consciousness aspect of the UFO phenomenon. The first post on the consciousness aspect you can find here.  As I wrote in that first post, I think it is a good idea to have some basic knowledge of what science and philosophy (in the West) says about human consciousness, so we at least have some starting point from where to continue our exploration of the connection between consciousness and the UFO phenomenon. 

It is not certain that modern neuroscience (or quantum physics) can help us further understand the UFO phenomenon´s effects on human consciousness (i.e., altered experiences of space-time and profound psychological and emotional changes). Instead, a greater degree of clarity will perhaps be found in religious and spiritual traditions from around the world? Or, more likely, both science and spirituality will be sources of progress and insights on this issue.

Before we go to the main point of this post, I want to repeat that the main purpose of this post, the previous post, and the coming posts on the consciousness aspect of the UFO phenomenon, is to, hopefully, elicit new thoughts and discussions about what the consciousness aspect can teach us about the nature and origin of the UFO phenomenon, and vice versa. 

Or, more specifically: what a person´s altered perception/experience of reality in connection to an encounter with the UFO phenomenon can teach us about the nature and intent of the UFO phenomenon (the nature and intent of at least some part of the UFO phenomenon), and the capabilities of human consciousness. 

The consciousness aspect of the UFO phenomenon. I.

 

Background

Beginning with this blog post, I will focus more on the consciousness aspect of the UFO phenomenon. Why? There are several important reasons, but I think to suffice to mention in this initial post are these two reasons:

1. Many people who report contact with UFOs say it has significantly altered their perspective on life.
2.  Individuals, or experiencers, also talk about telepathic communication and manipulation of the experiencers´ perception of space and time during an encounter with the UFO phenomenon.

So the first (1.) point should indicate that these experiencers genuinely believe that something extraordinary happened to them. Something that had a profound and lifelong effect on them as human beings. It would be dishonest of me to claim that I know for a fact what happened to these experiencers or who or what caused the profound changes. I do not know that. 

But I know that profound changes in one's worldview and values, as seen and documented in some experiencers, are not typical and rarely occur quickly. These kinds of profound changes are generally related to traumatic events (war, violence, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse), or some sort of sudden insight, or expanded awareness, often in connection to mystical and spiritual experiences, meditation, euphoric states, etc. 

Therefore, I believe contact cases exist between humans and the unknown, defying conventional explanation (e.g., profound psychological and emotional changes). More importantly, I think there are some cases of contact where the human genuinely believes his or her experience and candidly tells his or her story. For me, that is reason enough to take their stories seriously and respect the people telling them. 

How will official transparency progress?

 

Introduction

What are the plausible developments of what seems to be a genuine openness about UFOs/UAP from, particularly, the U.S. Government (USG)?

In the following, I am going to give some plausible answers to that question. Or speculate on the question, if you will, because I do not have any facts to argue with certainty for any of the scenarios presented below.

The reader should note that my presupposition is that a disclosure process, or greater official transparency, about the physical and technological aspect of UFOs/UAP, is ongoing since late 2017. I also think the disclosure, or whatever the right term, is benign at this point in time. Not everyone in the UFO community agrees with my assessment. But I have chosen not to go into the different views and arguments on the question "disclosure or not?" or "disclosure or Psyop?" in this text. 

Public transparency doesn't guarantee unrestricted information flow from officials. That is neither surprising nor necessarily suspicious. There are, however, legal limits to the extent of control that government officials can exert. 

I started to write this text before UFO historian and author Mr Richard Dolan made his show "The End of UFO Disclosure?" on his YouTube channel (live-streamed on August 19, 2020). Even though I disagree with Mr Dolan's pessimistic (or realistic) outlook on the future of disclosure, I think he raises some relevant points in his analysis from August 19, 2020. 

I will come back to Mr Dolan's video further down, but now to my thoughts on plausible scenarios to the question mentioned at the beginning of this text. 

Political scientist Alexander Wendt on UFOs

 The link at the end of this text takes you to an interview with a professor of international relations, Alexander Wendt, done by Sean Illing for Vox. The article was updated on July 24, 2020, because of the New York Times (NYT) article about the Pentagon's Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force (there is a link to the NYT-article in Illing's article). 

My main point with this text is to highlight the fact that most people who study credible data on the UFO phenomenon will end up with the conclusion that there is a real phenomenon worthy of a scientific investigation. Most people reaching that conclusion can separate the issue of UFOs being real from what they are. Sadly, unsound sceptics like Seth Shostak and Neil deGrasse Tyson try to make it the case that everyone interested in the UFO phenomenon cannot differentiate between those two issues. 

For sure, some UFO believers have a hard time understanding the difference between saying that UFOs are real and what/who is behind UFOs. But Sean Illing and Alexander Wendt do not fit into that category. I think both Illing and Wendt's approach to the UFO phenomenon, and their conversation in the interview, can serve as a model of how to be and stay, both open-minded and sceptical. 

Beware of the so called "skeptics"

 

"Whatever you do ... don't go West." Uploaded on YouTube channel 1967sander on the 11 August 2020. Duration: 5:15 minutes.

Among UFO skeptics he is considered as a main source of information and many debunkers see in him a real image guru but is he really that professional as they say? We are of a different opinion!

Licens
Creative Commons-licens – attribution (återanvändning tillåten)

 The reason I post this video is that I agree with what the representative of the imagery analysis team, 1967sander, says about the self-proclaimed "sceptics" of the UFO phenomenon. In this case, the "sceptic", or debunker, is Mike West. I do not know Mike West personally so I cannot judge his character, values, etc. Neither am I agreeing with 1967sander on the "Area 51 UFOs" mentioned in the video above. 

More specifically, I agree with 1967sander (the representative of the team) when he in the video says that criticism and scepticism are important and welcome if done professionally. My experience with most of the so-called sceptics, or what I call unsound sceptics, is that they seem to have gone to the same course in "unsound scepticism 101." It seems like that course is teaching people to become cognitively rigid, close-minded, and to repeat the same sceptical-sounding phrases. Also, to have an extremely stubborn attitude, and at no cost change an opinion. 

Of course, you have the same rigid thinking and stubbornness among the halleluja-believers in UFOs (referring to people believing all ETs are about peace, love, and understanding).

Scientists think UFOs deserve scientific investigation

In an opinion piece in Scientific American, two scientists write UFOs are a scientifically interesting problem and deserve objective scientific analysis.

The two scientists and authors of the article in Scientific American, Ravi Kopparapu, a planetary scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and Jacob Haqq-Misra, an astrobiologist at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, suggest that interdisciplinary teams of scientists should study UFOs, or UAP (UAP, referring to “Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon”, is the preferred term by the U.S. Department of Defence).

Why should scientists spend their time and energy, and risk their reputations, on studying UFOs, according to the authors? Their answer in the article published on July 27, 2020, is partly based on the released videos by the Department of Defense (DoD) showing UFOs/UAP, the recent confirmation by the DoD that the videos are in fact genuine, and that the flying objects are still classified as “unidentified”, or “unexplained.”

But the authors' main answer to the question of why study the UFO phenomenon is also the most pertinent one:

US Senator Marco Rubio Speaks Out About UFOs

"NEW INTERVIEW: US Senator Marco Rubio Speaks Out About UFOs." Posted on brian hanley's YouTube channel on July 17, 2020. Duration: 2:12 minutes.

"This interview was conducted by investigative reporter Jim DeFede".

A short, but what may very well turn out to be a historical, interview with Senator Marco Rubio for CBS Miami. Even though the interview is short, and Rubio repeats his main premise ("national security") as to why the US government needs to study UFOs, he also says some interesting things.

These are the most important things Rubio said, in my opinion, and how I understand them within the larger context of the current governmental transparency on the UFO issue.

The Select Committee on Intelligence wants public analysis of UFO reports

A significant development in the wish for more public information on UFOs from the U.S. government may be on the horizon. Senator Marco Rubio, who leads the Intelligence Committee, is pushing for more open information about UFOs by asking the DNI to make a public report about "Advanced Aerial Threats" (i.e. UAP or UFOs).

In that report, on page 11, you can read under the subtitle Advanced Aerial Threats that:

Scepticism, David Hume, and UFOs

"Perceiving Necessity". Legg, C & Franklin, J (2015).

Background

What does a Scottish philosopher from the 1800th century have to do with the UFO phenomenon? As far as I know, David Hume (1711 - 1776) was not a believer in UFOs, nor did he in any of his books or essays discuss the UFO phenomenon.

So, what is my point in bringing up one of the most influential philosophers to write in English? Bear with me for a moment.

David Hume is famous for many contributions to philosophy (also to, for example, history, and politics). Still, among philosophers and scientists, he is likely most known for his thoughts on causation and "the problem of induction". Hume's thesis about knowledge and if we ever can justify something as certain knowledge made his contemporaries call his epistemological standpoint "radical scepticism."

Hume was quite shaken by his own discoveries about the limits of human knowledge.

Some readers may by now have an idea about where I am going with this. Or not. Okay, so I better clarify the purpose of this text before I continue to describe Hume's radical scepticism (which is debated if he was a "radical sceptic") and what it has to do with the UFO phenomenon.

My discussion of Hume's ideas on knowledge and truth isn't directly about UFOs. Instead, I'm using Hume's skepticism to address people who want the UFO topic to be taken more seriously outside of UFO circles.

We want to know the truth about the UFO phenomenon, right? Knowledge. Truth. Reasons and justification. Before we move on, let us do a thought experiment.

Ask yourself: What do I know with certainty is true about the UFO phenomenon? Seriously, think about it for a moment before you continue reading. Be brutally honest in your answer.

Disclosure or Psyop: Richard Dolan on skeptiko

"Richard Dolan, UFO Disclosure, Toothpaste Out of the Tube? |438|." Premiered on skeptiko YouTube channel on January 21, 2020. Duration: 2:10:09.

Richard Dolan on UFO disclosure, good versus bad ET, and the consciousness question. For more visit: https://skeptiko.com/richard-dolan-uf...

Introduction

This is a great conversation between host Alex Tsakiris and Richard Dolan. Since some of the most interesting and thoughtful topics in the interview are not always on the UFO subject, I highly recommend everyone to listen to the conversation in its entirety. You can find a transcript of the conversation on the following link: https://skeptiko.com/richard-dolan-ufo-disclosure-toothpaste-out-of-the-tube-438/.

While they talk about different UFO subjects, the conversation between Tsakiris and Dolan mostly revolves around the events following the To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences (TTSA) press conference in October 2017.Was it the beginning of a benign disclosure of the truth of the UFO phenomena, or was it a rollout of a Psyop? Or is something else going on? And what are the arguments for or against those different points of view?

So in the following,  I will reflect upon the principal topic of disclosure or Psyop. Hopefully, I can add something new to Dolan and Tsakiris' conversation about the major topic.My comments and reflections come in Part 2  and Part 3.

What is the lesson of prof. Diana W Pasulka's Twitter-"controversy"?

In the following, I am presuming that the reader is familiar with the professor in religious studies, Diana Walsh Pasulka, her first and latest book on the UFO phenomena, American Cosmic, and how the content of that book has reverberated through the ufo community. In case you are not familiar with prof. Pasulka or her book, you can go to her American Cosmic website here.

So, what is the "Twitter controversy" the title of this post refers to? Again, I will presume that most of the readers of this post are familiar with the tweets that prof. Pasulka shared on January 11, 2020. My purpose with this post is neither to reproduce those tweets nor analyse their content verbatim.

Amendment, 2020-01-12: Today, on January 12, 2020,  several of prof. Pasulka's trusted friends reported that her Twitter account was hacked. Not any of the tweets which caused "controversy" on January 11, 2020, were neither written nor published by prof. Pasulka. I believe that to be the case, and I hope she is alright. Back to the main text. /Janne