UFOs & the Anti-ETH: Summation Arguments: Part Three

That the scientific communities and scientists in general (there are exceptions) dismiss the UFO ETH (extraterrestrial hypothesis) as pseudoscience and total bunk is understandable, but illogical. The scientists’ anti UFO ETH arguments don’t stand up to logical scrutiny. Here’s some more of their specific objections, and why they are in turn, objectionable. To adequately come to terms with the UFO ETH one needs to have a ‘deep time’ perspective; not just one of here and now or last week, month, year, decade or even centuries ago.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Eyewitness cases are often backed up by a radar tracking or ground traces or physiological effects or (electromagnetic) EM effects or motion pictures or still photographs. Radar, ground traces, EM effects also exist by their lonesome. UFOs are a global phenomenon that cuts across all age, sex, racial, cultural etc. boundaries. If UFOs were just the province of one country or region, or only witnessed by those with an IQ less than 90, well that would be suspect. UFOs have been taken seriously enough to be an official part of government programs from around the world, unlike say poltergeist events which aren’t, and expert military and scientific analysis can not explain, depending on where and time, between five and ten percent of all UFO reports.

Now I am well aware that scientists like to focus on physical evidence as opposed to eyewitness testimony. They want the evidence that lies on the slab in the lab; the kind you can put under an electron microscope. That’s quite understandable and I have no problems with that whatever. What I do have a problem with is when scientists say there is no physical evidence without them having actually examined the physical evidence that is available. I refer to the physical evidence that actually exists that’s associated with the UFO phenomena.

Firstly, ground traces, depressions, discoloured areas, broken branches, electromagnetic imprints etc. associated with a UFO event. No, I’m not talking about crop circles here (that’s another issue separate and apart), but data that exists in the USAF Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book UFO archives. There are quite a few hardcore unknowns associated with UFO physical traces left behind on the environment and you’ll find several in the Condon Report on UFOs.

Secondly, there are unexplained UFO photographs and motion pictures, many from the late 40’s and 50’s (pre CGI). You’ll find five UFO photographic hardcore unknowns in the so-called ‘scientific study of UFOs’ conducted under government contract by the University of Colorado – the Condon Report.

Thirdly, there’s a vast number of unexplainable UFO radar related cases. That infamous Condon Study (University of Colorado) alone contains three unexplained UFO radar cases. I can’t help note the parallel between SETI and UFOs on radar. In both cases you have EM radiation impacting a receiver and a human that ultimately has to determine the cause – intelligent or natural; terrestrial or extraterrestrial.

So, ground traces; photographs; radar – that’s physical evidence.

So, perhaps until such time as scientists take the time and trouble to examine UFO cases that have associated physical evidence, they might want to soften the mantra that there is no physical evidence for hardcore UFOs.  

I make one defense however for the UFO ETH since scientists counter that each of the threads of ETI having been then or now on Earth are weak-in-the-knees when it comes to solid evidence. Roswell is weak; UFO abduction cases are weak; the UFO conspiracy or cover-up case is weak; UFO photographs and videos are weak; UFO radar cases are weak; the case for Erich von Daniken’s ancient astronauts is weak; the ghost rocket sightings (1946) are weak; contactee claims are especially weak; UFO eyewitness reports are unreliable (except when they solve a UFO sighting turning it into an IFO), etc. But, put them (and much more besides) all together and like all good detective stories combine/integrate all the clues into one composite whole (after separating out the wheat from the chaff and eliminating the red herrings) then the whole is more than the sum of the parts. You get a fairly consistent pattern that emerges; not the radio signal patter-of-little-dots-and-dashes the SETI scientist wants but a nuts-and-bolts and a here-and-now pattern.

Now admittedly any one of a hundred different and independent facets to the UFO phenomena might in itself be not all that convincing, but then all 100 or so threads are woven together – that’s a different duck of another color. It’s like if it looks like a duck – it may not be a duck. If it flies like a duck – it may not be a duck. If it walks like a duck – it may not be a duck. If it swims like a duck – it may not be a duck. If it quacks like a duck – it may not be a duck. But if it looks, flies, walks, swims and quacks like a duck – then it’s a duck!

Another point is what the UFO ETH debunkers are confusing here is the concept of ‘evidence’ vs. the concept of ‘proof’. There are massive amounts of evidence for the UFO ETH as noted immediately above. For example, I’d consider as part of legit evidence documents released under the Freedom of Information Act that show that in 1947, the then Army Air Force (AAF) requested the FBI to assist in investigating ‘flying disc’ reports all as part of the developing Cold War hysteria at the time. The FBI (Hoover) responded that they would cooperate only if they were granted access to the “crashed discs”, something the AAF refused. That’s evidence; it’s not proof.

In fact there’s more than enough eyewitness testimony and physical evidence that would satisfy any court of law; any judge; any jury in just about any other set of circumstances to render a verdict of guilty. But the UFO ETH can not yet be rendered guilty, because though there’s not yet to date a smoking gun. There’s no absolute under-the-microscope, on the lab’s slab, proof positive of the UFO ETH. If any UFO ETH buff says they have proof, tell them to ‘put up or shut up’. If however they say they have evidence in favor of the UFO ETH, ask them politely what it is.  

So, IMHO, this objection fails because there is quite some considerable amount of evidence, both eyewitness and physical suggestive of an UFO ETH, and also because scientists, being human, often employ the double standard.

Now if the UFO ETH is correct then obviously the ‘land on the White House lawn and a take-me-to-your-leader’ scenario would be the obvious course of action for ET. That hasn’t happened; therefore the UFO ETH is ridiculous.

However, an alien by definition would have to have an alien mind, and alien psychology, and alien motives. We can’t hold them to our standards, our motives, our behavior patterns. Half the time I can’t figure out why my cats do what they do!

According to hundreds (probably thousands) of sci-fi writers and of course Hollywood (and equivalents around the world), alien invasion is even more a viable scenario – as entertainment anyway. But that hasn’t happened either, but again that’s no argument to suggest that because there’s been no alien invasion that UFOs can’t be alien technology. The U.S.A. hasn’t invaded Canada anytime lately and America has appropriate technology to do so if it wanted.

That leaves other motives – scientific, economic, etc. Let’s examine human equivalents. Humans have explored ever since we had the ability to explore. We’ve boldly gone, in person or via machine surrogates, to the depths of the ocean, to Antarctica, to the Moon, and to all of the planets (actual, or in the case of Pluto, on route). All this exploration for all practical purposes has been for the sake of just science, pure science, and nothing but the science. Of course there’s usually an ulterior motive in the back of the mind – exploration leads to exploitation. We explore, we like what we see, we colonize, we exploit, we build resorts for R&R, we migrate to escape various forms of environmental/political pressures, we mine for resources, and we farm for food and do more besides. Today the Moon is for science; tomorrow we may exploit its resources. Why should the ET-Earth relationship be any different? 

How about the fact that every cubic inch of the sky is monitored from above and below 24/7/52 by highly sophisticated electronic surveillance equipment, always on the lookout for sneak attacks and to track satellites and space junk. The orbits of thousands of bits of space junk are known with high precision, even if that bit is no larger than a ham sandwich! Any alien spaceships that large or (obviously) larger that’s up there, well, we’d know about it.

However, advanced stealth technology rules; okay anyone? It’s a major and ever ongoing R&D into stealth technologies are of interest to the military, the intelligence community and law enforcement agencies on Earth. What might an advanced alien civilization 1000, 10,000 years in advance of our have in the way of such camouflage? They’d obvious use that technology to prevent being shot at by trigger-happy generals! In ‘Star Trek’ terminology, we’d call this sort of technology something akin to a ‘cloaking device’.

What about if ET is, or was here, there would be artifacts left behind, even if it’s just ET’s garbage and litter.

Unless we humans start launching our garbage into space, say the ultimate incineration in the solar furnace; well let’s just say that option is going to increase waste disposal rates several thousand fold and therefore isn’t a realistic option. Therefore, we have little option but to use Planet Earth as a garbage dump – much to the delight of archaeologists who base much of ancient human history on just such detritus. But of course time, natural forces and biological agents ultimately deal with most forms of human waste – solid, liquid and gaseous.

Those same natural forces and biological agents would also strut their natural recycling and breakdown stuff on ET’s waste. But, in addition, ET can and does have the option of removing their detritus off planet. Secondly, would we of necessity recognize and distinguish ET’s rubbish from all other forms of human rubbish especially without any obvious differences that would suggest such rubbish is somehow different and should be subject to complex analysis that would be required to confirm that this rubbish isn’t ordinary rubbish but extraordinary rubbish?  Lack of ET’s garbage is not evidence of a lack of ET.

There’s yet another solution. A technologically advanced ET is probably equally advanced in recycling technology. If you undertake interstellar voyages you’d better be damned efficient at recycling. Anyway, I don’t recall anyone in ‘Star Trek’ for example leaving behind their litter – an artifact, maybe like a book on Chicago’s gangsters yes, but not rubbish! But speaking of artifacts related to ET, there have been lots of authors, quite apart from Erich von Daniken, who have made careers out of pointing out archaeological evidence suggestive of ET. Now clearly much of that is embellishment and wishful thinking and often plain nonsense, but, as most of life’s little mysteries are, this isn’t an either/or situation. There are many shades of gray here and I’ve sen quite a few artifacts that are quite suggestive of an ET in our past, and of course if past tense, why not present tense? Now throw in some mythology…

An all to human final fallback objection is that the UFO ETH can’t be therefore it isn’t; alright it might be but it still isn’t; don’t bother me with facts, my mind is made up; and in any event it’s all pseudoscience and I just deal with real science. Trust me on this – I’m a scientist!

Once upon a time Galileo Galilei and Nicolaus Copernicus would have been considered pseudo-astronomers; Heinrich Schliemann (of Troy fame) someone who dabbled in pseudo-archaeology; Charles Darwin was a pseudo-naturalist; and Alfred Wegener, obviously put forth a theory (continental drift) that could only be described as pseudo-geology at the time. Even originally Albert Einstein was so far out in left field that his scientific seniors and superiors could easily have described his physics as pseudo-physics. Only time and history will be the judge whether or not the UFO ETH is or was pseudoscience or real science. The jury IMHO is still out on that issue. 

Conclusion: Scientists rally against the UFO ETH and perhaps they are right – or maybe not. Scientists aren’t all-knowing. They too are human with all the accompanying baggage that implies and they can, and do, make mistakes.

UFO Censorship and Cover-Ups: Part Two

From nearly day one of the modern UFO era, the subject has been associated and clouded with all sorts of conspiracy theories – official censorship and deliberate cover-ups of information and releases of disinformation (red herrings). Roswell (1947) is often citied as an example, but since I’ve dealt with Roswell before, I’ll focus elsewhere. Still, Roswell was part of the beginning, and in the beginning there were definitely national security and defence issues associated that required security classifications. But once started, censorship and cover-ups, well it’s a slippery slope that’s hard to climb out of.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

4) Case History: Area 51, etc: If a government, any government of any country, had possession of alien technology, say the remains of a crashed flying saucer, there is little doubt that the powers-that-be would try to 1) figure it all out and b) keep it secret from other foreign powers-that-be. That would be the case as well if say the Americans were to obtain terrestrial technology with military applications from captured Russian or Chinese or for that matter even Australian hardware. Thus, it would come as no real surprise that such a government would have one or more top secret sites where such back engineering would be done, and secrets kept. However, even if no government had any alien technology, they still would have top secret sites for producing, testing, and etc. terrestrial technology vital to national security. Thus, the existence of Area 51 (also known as Dreamland for some reason) does not of necessity prove that the United States (in this example) has alien technology in its possession. But, if you accept Roswell (and/or other tales of captured alien technology), then Area 51 (or akin) follows of necessity.

Take Area 51 (Groom Lake, Nevada). Even assuming that the location has bugger-all to do with UFOs doesn’t negate secrecy going on. There’s no denying the place exists. That’s on the public record. Satellite and ground photographs exist. There’s no getting around the fact that signs are posted around the site that there will be ‘no trespassing’ and that if you do, ‘use of deadly force is authorised’ to keep you out. [That includes SETI scientists!] That too is on the public record, filmed and documented. Translated, there are things going on at Area 51 the American government doesn’t want anyone to know about. Pine Gap in Central Australia is another such location. Many more exist throughout the world. You want cover-ups, censorship and related – call it what you will. Well, something that immediately comes to mind was the Manhattan Project. Then there’s that U-2 spy plane (and a whole range of stealth military aircraft that remained top secret while in development). Likewise, the Project Mogul package designed to detect foreign nuclear weapons testing, launched to high altitudes by balloon, as beloved as an explanation for Roswell. (I’m sure Project Mogul existed, whether it really explains Roswell is quite another matter.)

Nobody can deny that the military has levels of classified security ratings ranging from confidential through to secret and top secret. Anyone suggesting that the Americans (or British, Australians, Chinese, Russians, etc.) don’t have skeletons in their respective closets are in serious denial or in delusion mode. A UFO case might even be classified not so much because it’s a UFO, but because the surveillance equipment, type of radar or spy satellite, etc. might be classified.

The number of classified confidential / secret / top secret projects worldwide must number in the tens of thousands. The total number of classified confidential / secret / top secret documents (plus photos and films and related) must be in the millions, probably multi-millions if not more. The number of multi-decades old classified projects and documents are unknown, but some surely exist. Something old by itself doesn’t equal declassified. And it’s not just the military – all sorts of government civilian and diplomatic projects and decisions remain under wraps for a whole variety of reasons.

There’s no doubt in my mind that UFOs could be one of hundreds to thousands or more topics somewhat too-hot-to-handle and pretty much under classified wraps. That’s a conclusion that’s fairly obvious to me when it came to light, after much denial by the CIA, but pressured via Freedom-of-Information requests, that the CIA had some quite considerable interest in UFOs. Alas, FOI not withstanding, a vast percentage of the text from those released documents are blacked out. And that too is on the public record.

When it comes down to all things classified (a fancy word for cover-up because classified things are covered-up and tucked away out of sight) there is a phrase called ‘need to know’. If you don’t need to know, and you want to, that’s a cover-up as far as you’re concerned. Now Australia had a very long serving Prime Minister (John Howard) who was finally defeated in a 2007 general election, and left politics. I’m sure he knows many secrets – military and diplomatic – from his years in the top job. But, like all good citizens, he’s not telling tales out of class. Ditto all American ex-presidents and Commonwealth PM’s and all other manner of retired statesmen.

There’s also the aspect or concept of ‘the superiority complex’. The ‘I know something that you don’t know’ – ha, ha, ha – that helps feed our egos. Maybe someone does have THE knowledge and THE proof positive of what UFOs are, but why should they share it with you hence share the Nobel Prize? Or, maybe they are just internally satisfied that they alone are blessed with THE answer and that’s the be-all-and-end-all of the matter.

5) Case History: Washington, D.C. 1952:  In July 1952, on two separate occasions, separated by one week, UFOs buzzed America’s National Capitol, making long term incursions over restricted air space. They were tracked, independently, by various civilian and military radars. Military jet fighters were scrambled to intercept and identify the UFOs, but were outmatched and didn’t succeed, although they were witnessed by the pilots. The objects were also witnessed from the ground. USAF Major-General John A. Samford, at the largest Pentagon press conference ever held since WWII, in late July 1952, made the statement with respect to the recent Washington D.C. UFO flap that these sightings were made by “credible observers of relatively incredible things”. It’s on the public record.

Now of course these sightings had to be explained by any means necessary since you just cannot admit to having unknown aerial objects fly over restricted air space. So the idea of ‘temperature inversions’ explained all - hogwash. It’s amazing that the common occurrence of ‘temperature inversions’ had never before, and never since, caused such commotion.  

One other point, SETI scientists poo-poo the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) saying there’s no PHYSICAL evidence. Eye witness testimony counts for absolutely nothing. Well of course there is PHYSICAL evidence for the UFO ETH of the exact same nature as that would satisfy a SETI scientist of E.T. – after all SETI scientists look for a PHYSICAL signal which they can study at their leisure, not an actual E.T. in the flesh. Well, UFOs have produced PHYSICAL evidence because they too can, and have, produced a PHYSICAL signal – radar returns, and there exist a fair few bona-fide radar returns of UFO events that have, after due investigation, remained unidentified. Now the PHYSICAL evidence left behind by bona-fide UFO radar cases, those unexplained radar cases, deserve intense respect, and the operators that interpret those radar returns. If radar operators can be trusted to distinguish a flock of birds from an incoming ICBM or foreign miliary bombers intent on doing us a mischief, the reason the radar DEW line was established and manned during the Cold War; if radar operators can have entrusted to them the lives of military and commercial pilots, crew and passengers, then they must have the ability to distinguish a radar echo from a temperature inversion from a solid object – in this case the aircraft. If you fly, you entrust your very life to the ability of those radar operators to tell who’s who; distinguish what’s what. Sorry, but UFO radar returns are solid PHYSICAL evidence for the reality of unidentified flying objects.  

6) Stargate: SG-1 / USAF / UFO Connection: Considering the number of movies and TV shows (not to mention documentaries) that accent UFO censorship or cover-ups or disinformation, etc. well the idea has obviously struck a responsive chord. That so much has been made of this via motion pictures and TV shows is suggestive that either the public don’t trust the government to tell the truth, and/or that the governments (way more than one government since the beginning of the modern UFO era) have failed pretty miserably in convincing the public it has disclosed all and has nothing to hide. Anyway, we’ve had blockbuster movies like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Independence Day” which highlighted the issues, and wasn’t “E.T.” treated pretty badly by those government types? On the TV front we’ve had “Dark Skies”, “Taken”, “Roswell” and “The Invaders”. Then we had “Stargate: SG-1”.

“Stargate: SG-1” was a TV spin-off of the feature film “Stargate” that ran for ten seasons and featured several alien races that in the main had links to ancient terrestrial mythology. One such race was the Asgards, and as the name suggests had connection with our Old Norse mythology. The interesting bit was that in appearance, the Asgards just happen to look exactly like the standard ‘greys’ of modern UFO (Roswell and abduction, etc.) lore. This was I’m sure quite by design and no coincidence. This fictional show also confirmed several times over that Area 51 both housed and studied alien/extraterrestrial technology. And so, the fact that both ‘greys’ and Area 51 feature on the show makes one other observation and interesting observation. That other interesting bit is that the stargate in “Stargate: SG-1” was a (fictional) USAF top secret enterprise. The TV show featuring the stargate had the endorsement and cooperation of the actual USAF, probably because the TV show portrayed the USAF in a positive light. In fact, two actual then currently serving USAF Chiefs of Staff (4-star generals) appeared in the actual TV show as themselves! How’s that for endorsement? So, we have the actual USAF assisting (by providing an advisory role, aircraft and personnel to the show) and endorsing a TV show that prominently featured UFO ‘greys’. Okay, I’m probably reading way to much into that. In all probability the USAF connection probably had no actual relevance to any indirect approval of the UFO ‘greys’ in the show by the USAF. That ‘endorsement’ is just pure speculation on my part. So I do have to admit that there’s probably no deep meaning underlying this connection, but I still find it interesting.

Further readings:

Darlington, David; Area 51: The Dreamland Chronicles: The Legend of America’s Most Secret Military Base; Henry Holt & Company, New York; 1997: 

Dolan, Richard M.; UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Cover-up 1941-1973; Hampton Roads, Charlottesville, Virginia; [Revised Edition] 2002:

Dolan, Richard M.; UFOs and the National Security State: The Cover-up Exposed 1973-1991; Keyhole Publishing, Rochester, New York; 2009:

Friedman, Stanton T.; Top Secret / MAJIC; Marlow & Company, New York; 1996: 

Good, Timothy; Need to Know: UFOs, the Military and Intelligence; Sidgwick & Jackson, London; 2006: 

Jacobsen, Annie; Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base; Little, Brown & Company, New York; 2011.

Kean, Leslie; UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record; Harmony Books, New York; 2010:

Maccabee, Bruce; UFO FBI Connection: The Secret History of the Government’s Cover-Up; Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul, Minnesota; 2000: 

Patton, Phil; Travels in Dreamland: The Secret History of Area 51; Orion Media, London; 1997:

Randle, Kevin D.; Project Bluebook Exposed; Marlowe & Company, New York; 1997: 

Redfern, Nicholas; A Covert Agenda: UFO Secrecy Exposed; Simon & Schuster, London; 1997: 

Steiger, Brad (Editor); Project Blue Book: The Top Secret UFO Findings Revealed; Ballantine Books, New York; 1976:

UFOs: What a Load of Rubbish

If E.T. is (UFOs), and/or was (ancient astronauts) here, then there would be alien fossils or artifacts left behind, even if it’s just E.T.’s garbage and little else. Unfortunately, there’s no such undisputed fossil or artifact evidence. Not one bit of E.T.’s litter to be had and put under the microscope. Now is this a legitimate argument that rules out any visitations and somewhat lengthy stays by extraterrestrials to our humble abode, Planet Earth? If there is no UFO rubbish, is the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) rubbish?

Pro-UFO (as in supporting the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis) and ancient astronaut buffs are happy to claim evidence for extraterrestrials having been, or even now are, as just plain folk, tourists, scientists, colonizers, whatever, sharing with us this Third Rock out from the Sun.  Now a logical objection to this scenario is that there’s no obvious extraterrestrial detritus or garbage sites (kitchen middens) or ruins, etc. they left behind. There’s no fossil evidence for any non-terrestrial critter or of the mythological and possible extraterrestrial hybrids (like centaurs, the sphinx or mermaids). There are no skeletons of E.T. itself thus far uncovered. We’ve yet to find the burial remains (if any) of the alien Cyclops.

That’s not to say there aren’t some pretty weird fossils in the geological record - within the strata of the rocks – but nothing that ultimately can’t be interpreted in terrestrial and Darwinian evolutionary terms. Trilobites were terrestrial.

Of course as any palaeontologist is happy to point out, what fossils we do have amount to a tiny fraction of those still existing within the geological rock record; all fossils (discovered or not) are but an incredibly tiny fraction of all those critters (including plants) that once upon a time got fossilized. Of those that got fossilized, many remain buried, but many have since been destroyed by natural forces; that subset, all those potentially undiscovered fossils, or fossils that no longer exist, are in turn but a super ultra tiny fraction of all critters who have ever lived and died. Most (nearly all) critters when they die serve as food for something else, even if just bacteria. They get biodegraded in one way or another – dust-to-dust and ashes-to-ashes. Translated, the odds that one lone (out of trillions) Joe Trilobite will ever have been fossilized discovered and ultimately grace a museum display is astronomically against. So, that would have to apply to E.T. as well. There might well exist buried in the ground some bona fide E.T. artefact, even an E.T. itself, but that does nobody any good if that artefact remains buried or more likely as not, has been destroyed over geological eons by various and destructive natural geological processes.

In summary, if any such extraterrestrial artefacts and fossils exist, they are so few in number, so eroded and weathered and buried and biodegraded that the proverbial-needle-in-the-proverbial-haystack is easy pickings by comparison. If anyone is familiar with the History Channel’s documentary series “Life After People”, infrastructure when left unattended to the mercy and forces of nature and ravages of time don’t last or survive all that long before crumbling to dust. It’s said that ‘man fears time, but time fears only the pyramids’. However, even so, it’s obvious that time has in fact taken its toll on those ancient wonders at Giza in Egypt. In another 50,000 years, even if ten times that, even the pyramids will have been recycled back to sand as the wind and rain and pollution and earthquakes do their destructive things.

Still, maybe an amateur archaeologist or palaeontologist or just plain lucky prospector or individual who happens to look at the right spot at the right time might stumble onto the find of the century – E.T. Actually it would be the find, not just of the century, but of all time.

Those same natural geological forces and biological agents would also strut their natural recycling and breakdown stuff on E.T.’s waste. But, in addition, E.T. can and does have the option of removing their detritus off the planet. One also needs to ask; would we of necessity recognize and distinguish E.T.’s rubbish from all other forms of human rubbish? Would there be any obvious differences that would suggest extraterrestrial rubbish is somehow different from human rubbish? If we wouldn’t immediately jump to a conclusion that a metal bolt we found was extraterrestrial, would we then go to the trouble and submit it to complex analysis, analysis that would be required to confirm that this rubbish wasn’t ordinary rubbish but extraordinary rubbish?  Lack of E.T.’s garbage is not evidence of a lack of E.T.

The lack of extraterrestrial rubbish dumps and artefacts could well be that E.T. cleaned up after themselves (unlike prone-to-litter humans on which a lot of human prehistory is based – excavations of our ancient garbage dumps, technically called kitchen middens, etc.). The E.T. ‘gods’ (ancient astronauts) took all of their stuff with them when they left, including the end products of their genetic experiments (apart from their ultimate final product – we humans and our hominoid ancestors which had died out on their own), the hybrid half & halves (like the Minotaur) of our mythology.

Unless we humans start launching our garbage into space, say the ultimate incineration in the solar furnace; well let’s just say that option is going to increase waste disposal rates several thousand fold and therefore isn’t a realistic option – for us. Therefore, we have little option but to use Planet Earth as a garbage dump – much to the delight of archaeologists who base much of ancient human history on just such detritus. But of course, as noted earlier, time, natural forces and biological agents ultimately deal with most forms of human waste – solid, liquid and gaseous.

There’s yet another solution to a lack of E.T.’s rubbish. A technologically advanced E.T. is probably equally advanced in recycling technology. If you undertake interstellar voyages you’d better be damned efficient at recycling. Anyway, I don’t recall anyone in ‘Star Trek’ for example leaving behind their litter – an artifact, maybe like a book on Chicago’s gangsters yes, but not rubbish! Even that book was a violation of the Prime Directive! E.T. would pay closer attention to rules and regulations.

Whether extraterrestrial artefacts have been eroded away by time or whether the aliens nearly removed or recycled their detritus, any and all remaining physical evidence as interpreted as evidence for E.T. is therefore evidence from our more modern eras, not the geological past. That evidence might be contained within human mythology or human archaeological relics that depict in one way or another the ‘gods’, entities that could be alien beings – figurines, artworks, monuments, etc. or the half & halves hybrids (like the stone monument of the Sphinx that rests near the trio of those great but crumbling pyramids on the Giza Plateau in Egypt). However, any archaeologist worth his or her salt will tell you that these are all the works of humans – works by man. Some out-of-place artefacts have been discovered but while anomalies or curiosities, they aren’t so totally extraordinary as to make a solid case for the existence of aliens. But, in conclusion to that observation that all roads that point to extraterrestrial ‘gods’ were paved by humans, well, absence of direct evidence linking extraterrestrials on Earth isn’t the same as evidence of extraterrestrials absence on Earth.  

But speaking of artifacts related to E.T. or ancient astronauts, there have been lots of authors, quite apart from Erich von Daniken, who have made careers out of pointing out archaeological evidence suggestive of E.T. Now clearly much of that is embellishment and wishful thinking and often plain nonsense, but, as most of life’s little mysteries are, this isn’t an either/or situation. There are many shades of gray here and I’ve seen quite a few artifacts, especially images that are quite suggestive of an E.T. in our past, and of course if past tense, why not present tense? Now throw in that mythology to complement the archaeology…

Finally, consider your own environment – home, work, community. Within that sphere that you exist in for the most part, what proof do you have that meteors exist? Has any meteorite landed in your back yard; crashed into your place of employment or for that matter anywhere within your day-to-day environment? What about an aircraft? You see these strange flying objects all the time yet you find no artifact of them, an artifact falling to earth in your back yard, your place of employment, or within your community. You probably have no actual physical piece of evidence to prove meteors or aircraft exist. It’s all just an eyewitness reality on your part. Of course if you claim to see a ‘shooting star’ or a Boeing 747 fly overhead; no one is likely to rubbish your sighting. So, can we rubbish UFOs just because there are no artifacts to be conveniently had, rather just eyewitness testimony in the main?

And so, based on your own patch of turf, you have as much in the way of artifacts for E.T. as you have for meteors or airplanes (unless you have been unfortunate enough to really anger the gods and have a plane or meteorite land on your roof).

But wait, what about that July 1947 UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico and other alleged incidents involving UFO crashes? Unfortunately, even if true, the alleged extraterrestrial artifacts are not in the hands of the scientific community. There are no peer-reviewed papers in scholarly journals on the studied remains. There’s no literature full stop in existence that isn’t controversial. The alleged artifacts aren’t on display in museums. Only the need-to-know elite have access, and they’re not talking. So, Roswell is a yes, but as proof positive, it’s a no – at least so far.

However, there are modern UFO artifacts of sorts. In geology, not all fossils are bones or shells. In fact not all fossils are even remains of living things, but rather events. For example, there are fossilized rain drop impressions in now solid rock; ditto ripple marks. But with respect to former living creatures, there are fossils of just their burrows, and more frequently, just their footprints. A UFO ‘footprint’ is akin to a ground trace left behind after a UFO landing, like say the Socorro, New Mexico landing on 24 April 1964 as witnessed by local police officer Lonnie Zamora. Magnetic traces left behind on metal objects like automobiles or physiological effects incurred on human (or plant and animal) tissue is something else that can be dealt with and analyzed in a laboratory. So, in one manner of speaking, there are UFO ‘artifacts’.

So hunting for UFO or ancient astronaut artifacts, is akin to the old needle-in-a-haystack quest. But that’s something scientists employed in the scientifically legitimate Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) quest can identify with. That needle/haystack argument is their fallback position when SETI scientists are pressed or pressured into explaining why they haven’t themselves detected E.T. (albeit out there and not here) in over five decades of searching the heavens for that artificial radio beam or optical beacon. They would state, and rightly so, that absence of evidence is not the same thing as evidence of absence. And so that pithy saying too assists in coming to terms why UFOs (and ancient astronauts) are not rubbish. Absence of E.T.’s garbage is not the same thing of necessity as evidence of E.T.’s absence.