Theory vs. Observation: Part One

There’s many a conflict that rages between observation and theory. What is observed cannot be; what cannot be alas is observed. Sceptics, those supporting theory, dump down on those who contradict theory because they witnessed something to the contrary. “It can’t be therefore it isn’t.” The witness dumps down on the sceptic with the statement, “I know what I saw”. Impasse! Perhaps there is a third option, one where both theory and observation can coexist.

In any sort of legal dispute, if you’re the prosecutor, it’s good to have documents – a paper trail – fingerprints, video camera footage, someone caught red-handed in the act or with the goods, as well as a documented trilogy of available time, substantive motive and ample opportunity against the alleged perpetrator.  But sometimes all you have to base your case on is the observation of a witness or witnesses. That’s often been enough, even more than enough, to either convict someone or provide and substantiate that someone with a legal alibi.  Eyewitness testimony alone, well it’s not perfect but it’s not something inadmissible in court either. 

While documents, including pictographs, rock carvings/paintings, hieroglyphs and related archaeological relics, including human remains; films and photographs too, are all excellent means to document history, an awful lot of what we accept as historical gospel comes from what someone or a group of people have witnessed, especially in the days before sound recordings and film. Then too many a document is nothing more than the recorded word of an eyewitness; an observer(s). 

Lastly, you couldn’t last or survive a day without your powers of observation being accurate and reliable. If your vision was unreliable or faulty, could you drive to work? You’d better know a red light when you see one, and exercise superb judgment based of your observations if thinking about overtaking and passing another vehicle. Ditto if you cross a busy street. You’d better be spot-on in your observation if approaching a down staircase. You’d better be able to observe and tell the difference when meeting up with a bear or a deer in the woods if you intend to pet it. Your ability to observe and report accurately (if only to yourself) those observations are absolutely critical to your survival.

You probably tell lots of people every week events that you observed and many people no doubt relate to you things they have witnessed. Nobody bats an eyebrow – nobody questions anyone’s bona fides. Expect of course when its something that expert authorities, professional sceptics included, say cannot be. Then eyebrows get raised. 

Issue number one: If 99.99% of what you observe is accurate, believable, a no-brainer in terms of  credibility, then why are you all of a sudden an unreliable witness if you observe something others, so-called expert others, dismiss as an impossible anomaly?

Issue number two: So-called, and really-real experts can indeed dismiss an impossible anomaly, witnesses be damned, if it is indeed an impossibility by the science of the day.

Issue number three: We have a contradiction between theory (what the experts say) and observation (what the witness sees)

On the one hand, throughout history, there’s been many an observation of something anomalous and considered downright impossible, according to the sceptics, that’s now part and parcel of the standard norm, like meteorites – stone that fall from the sky. Score points for the observer.

On the other hand, how many observations have been credited as legit though later found to be less than credible. Score points for the sceptic.

Now if someone has a track record of telling tall tales or taking substances that are known to hinder accurate observations and judgments, that’s one thing, but if not, are you prepared to call someone into doubt just because their observation are anomalous according to the state of the world?

For the purposes of this essay, I’ll ignore the philosophical concept inherent in quantum physics that the observer actually creates what is being observed; or in other words, nothing exists or has reality unless it is being observed. Let’s go with the more down to earth philosophy that something has, or has not, a reality regardless of whether it is being scrutinized or not.

Let’s examine a quintuplet listing of those it-can’t-be-therefore-it-isn’t anomalies contradicted by observations of just that, which could easily be expanded by two orders of magnitude, but then this is an essay and not a book-length encyclopaedia.

The realm of the once animate: Ghosts – Even if you haven’t seen a ghost, you probably know of someone who has or lacking that, you can go to your nearest library or the Internet and find ultimately hundreds of thousands of reported observations of ghostly manifestations. Are you prepared to call all these witnesses deluded or liars or under the influence? Now, try to come up with a viable explanation that’s compatible with physics, chemistry and biology that explains the relationship between a dead body and its post-death yet animated counterpart. Good luck!

Apart from the gap between observation and there being no theoretical way for ghosts or phantoms or spirits or wraiths, call them what you will, those remnants of the dead of people recently, or even not so recently, deceased, to exist, there is also the question, why aren’t sighted ghosts, or phantom hitchhikers, etc. naked? I mean it’s the person who died, not what they were wearing, so if a ghost is the essence of a former living person, and clothing doesn’t contribute to the nature of that essence, then ghosts should be seen naked! They’re not, so that’s anomaly number two between theory (should be undressed) and observation (ghosts are decently attired).

The realm of the animate: Botany: Crop Circles – This time there is absolutely no doubting the observational bona fides of the anomaly.  Thousands of witness and thousands of photographs and more measurements than you can shake a stick at have been made of (mainly British) crop circles. Sceptics counter that since natural complex geometric crop circles cannot be; and aliens obviously didn’t make them since there are no aliens on or near Planet Earth, then, since not even sceptics can explain away the reality of the circles, it has to be all a human hoax. Sceptics of the sceptics point out that the sheer logistics of human involvement, in total darkness, without mistakes, without leaving traces, without ever being caught, are also as close to theoretically impossible as makes no odds. Observations can’t be disputed; no theory can adequately explain them.

The realm of the animate: Zoology: Loch Ness – Let’s take at face value that numerous witnesses have sighted, some have photographed even filmed some sort of relatively biologically large ‘sea monster’ in Scotland’s Loch Ness. No matter how good the testimony or reliable the witness, no matter the quality of the photograph or the film, can it be so? Unfortunately for us romantic naturalists, the odds that ‘can it be so’ are so low that no sane person would bet a sawbuck on the positive. And so it’s Biology 101 to the fore for a theoretical reality check. You cannot have just a one-off ‘monster’. At the very least you need a male ‘monster’ and a female ’monster’. In fact you need a viable breeding herd of ‘monsters’ in order to keep the lake population of ‘monsters’ an ongoing proposition, since if you had just the one male or the one female and either one was infertile or somehow both failed to get their act together, well it’s by-by birdie or rather Nessie. Unfortunately, if Loch Ness contained a breeding herd of ‘monsters’ then snags would have to rear their ugly head that would argue the contrary. One would be that sightings would be vastly more frequent. Two, sooner or later one of the herd has gotta die, then another, then another. Sooner or later a corpse, fresh or decayed, has got to get washed ashore. If that happens, mystery solved. Thirdly, well there’s the issue of an adequate food supply. Loch Ness could probably feed one ‘monster’, but not a herd of them. Loch Ness is large, but still quite finite in volume. Fish in the open ocean can roam the wide open spaces for a meal; not so in a relatively small fish tank like Loch Ness. So we have another unresolved conflict between observation and theory. 

The realm of the inanimate: The Vacuum Energy - This is probably the Mother of All Anomalies! A temperature of absolute zero, that is a state in which there is no available energy, is impossible. That’s because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which is one of those rock solid foundations of quantum physics. So there is always a minimum amount of energy available that pervades the Universe. It’s called the ‘vacuum energy’. Theoretically the vacuum energy should exist with such-and-such a value. The vacuum energy indeed exists (is has been observed and it has been experimentally confirmed) with such-and-such a value. However, you have a 120 order-of-magnitude (that’s one followed by 120 zeros) discrepancy between the observed vacuum energy and the theoretical value of the vacuum energy. This discrepancy is the most embarrassing ‘oops’ in all of modern physics and nobody can figure out how to resolve the discrepancy. Oops indeed!  

The realm of the cosmos: Quasars - Quasars are ‘quasi-stellar objects’. They are ‘stellar’ because they aren’t all that large (unlike a galaxy). They are ‘quasi’ because they give off energy way, way, way more times greater than any star known in any astronomical catalogue. They seem to be primordial objects – they formed long ago and are now far away.  Quasars, like stars or galaxies, are their own entities and if two or more show very close and special causality relationships then they should show identical recessional velocities (since the Universe is expanding and they are part of the Universe and that expansion). Recessional velocities are measured by an object’s red-shift. Theory identifies red-shift with velocity. However, you apparently have observations of causality connected quasar pairs with vastly differing red-shifts (measurements of their recessional velocities). The anomaly, in an analogy, is that you can not have a runner running at 15 miles per hour holding hands with another runner running at 3 miles per hour!

To be continued…

Reality: Really Real, Pseudo-Real, or Unreal? Part Nine

Reality - Your reality isn’t really real. That’s because you’re the product of someone else’s imagination. That could be imagination via wetware – their brain, say in a dreaming state; or that could be imagination via creativity in producing computer software, where you’re coded within that software. In other words, you’re a simulated being – and so am I.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Let’s assume that there are one or more extraterrestrial civilizations that are thousands, probably tens of thousands of years more advanced (in technology) vis-à-vis ourselves. Tens of thousands of years is a tiny, tiny fraction of the age of our Universe such that extraterrestrial civilizations should vary widely in their technological abilities. Project in your mind what sort of computing prowess human civilization is likely to have in a thousand, or ten thousand years. You’d guess it would be pretty impressive. Well, somewhere out there, there’s an ET civilization that already processes that level of computing power!

Put another way, what’s the smallest ‘device’ (level of technology) that could contain the entire information content of the Universe? Could it be fitted onto some super-CD or super-DVD or a box set of same, or stored in a quantum computer? I don’t know. We can’t do it – yet. Maybe it can’t be done. Maybe the smallest device that can contain the information content of ‘The Universe’ IS ‘The Universe’. But if not, then having ‘The Universe’s’ information as or in a piece of software/hardware combination would enable someone operating such software and hardware to simulate any or all of what’s in ‘The Universe’! 

Our simulated Universe theory is potentially testable. While I can think of no way to prove I’m not a simulated being, one can find evidence that we do live in a simulated universe, and by implication that we too are simulated beings.  No computer software is perfect. Computer software – from our experience – is always being upgraded and updated. If the same applies elsewhere, we could perhaps notice it if we’re a product of that software. So, if there are any software upgrades, they might be detectable as anomalous phenomena in some context or another. Like say one of the physical constants were tweaked and altered ever so slightly (and there is some evidence for that – the fine structure constant for example has apparently changed over astronomical time periods), or say the expansion of the Universe began to accelerate for no real apparent reason (that sounds familiar). 

So, do you exist? I mean really, really exist and have a physical reality? That would be a pretty dumb question had I not outlined the reality vs. simulation concept above. The answer is no longer an obvious ’yes’ because what if I were to suggest (again) that the odds are very high that you have no actual physical reality, and that I have no actual physical reality, and that in fact all terrestrial life, Planet Earth, perhaps the entire observable universe has no actual physical reality! Yet again, in other words, what if we are a computer simulation? Put another way, you can visualize X, dream Y, program Z. So, in turn, perhaps you are someone (something) else’s X, Y and/or Z!

Let us however continue to remain with the computer analogy relative to dreams or hallucinations, etc. Of course as Microsoft, etc. demonstrates, there’s not just one copy of a software package around. Of course if there are multiple copies of that computer program containing you (not to mention file sharing), then that equates to a lot of you! You could exist hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of times over, all leading perhaps identical, but more likely as not, similar ‘lives’. Now you quite obviously could not meet yourself as each piece of software is akin to a one universe – the collection of all the units of that software is akin to a Multiverse! Or, perhaps each version of ourselves could be viewed loosely is being akin to the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics – which is just another variation on the Multiverse concept.

So, and I keep drumming this point home, is our Universe real or simulated? The odds overwhelmingly favour our reality as being a simulated one as outlined above. If that could be proved, it would also be proof of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. If all terrestrial life is simulated, who else is left to simulate us but extraterrestrials? I just bet we’re some alien’s Ph D thesis. Of course this is a fairly unpalatable theory, so I’ll just conclude here that the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of my being wrong – maybe – well maybe not.

If we, Planet Earth, and our observable universe are nothing but a simulation, that can explain (or at least rationally account for) any and all anomalies (miracles?) that you care to bring up. Software (be it of the wetware [brains] or of the computer variety) can create any sort of simulated reality – it doesn’t even have to be logical or explainable by science. Here are just a few examples off the top of my head.

When considering things cosmological, it’s become apparent that astronomers only observe about 4% of the matter that should be present. That is, about 96% of the matter that should be present and detectable to account for the observed behaviour of our observable universe is missing! Now 1% might be understandable givens measurement uncertainty (error bars), but hardly 96%! So, cosmologists have postulated concepts termed ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ to make up the deficit. However, nobody has the foggiest idea what exactly ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ actually is. Neither has actually been detected – obviously. Of course in an artificial simulated universe, one needs no correlation between cause (amount of matter) and effect (behaviour of the observable universe). In fact, it makes the programming that much simpler. By human analogy, I’m sure a detailed study of our video/computer games would show gross violations of the laws of physics. 

No astronomer can explain how galaxies form and stay formed, at least without incorporating ‘dark matter’. Yet we see them in lots of shapes and sizes. Maybe it’s as if our hypothetical simulator thought that these were sort of pretty and thus threw several billions of them into the background as decorative wallpaper.

Since the Big Bang was first documented by the redshift (Doppler effect) data, there’s been reoccurring problems with the discovery of parts of the Universe that appeared to be older than the Universe itself (as implied by the Big Bang) – which is a nonsense. Recalibrations have always rectified this situation, but there are still current unresolved issues here. 

Then we have the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Physics – both are right to a high degree of experimental precision, but they aren’t compatible with each other. Apparently, one (or both) of these theories must be wrong, or at best incomplete. That’s why the unification of the two (a theory of quantum gravity) is physic’s Holy Grail. However, that Holy Grail is proving as difficult to find as the Grail itself! But for the moment, it’s like the universe has two independent sets of laws – one governing the very large; one the very small. This makes no natural or scientific sense. It’s beyond me how that can be if our reality is really reality, but easily explained if our reality is just someone’s simulation.

Within quantum physics there’s something called the wave-particle duality. That is, something can exhibit the properties of both a wave and a particle at the same time. There really is no entirely rational explanation for this, it just is.

Within General Relativity Theory, if there is anything unintuitive it is the fact that in the entire Universe, it is the speed of light that is absolute or fixed, not something like space or time. It’s unintuitive in that all other bits and pieces in motion can be added or subtracted. So, if you are in a train that is moving at say 100 km/hour and you throw a ball at 10 km/hour in the direction at which the train is moving, so an observer outside the train, your ball is travelling at 110 km/hour. If you throw the ball towards the rear of the train, an outside observer will measure the ball as moving at 90 km/hour. If on the other hand, you shine a flashlight in the train, an outside observer will see the velocity of the resulting light beam moving at the speed of light – not the speed of plight PLUS the velocity of the train, or the speed of light MINUS the velocity of the train, but at the speed of light! That’s nuts, but it’s scientifically nuts and been proven again and again in any experiment you care to devise. I suggest here that a really natural universe wouldn’t have that property, and that this weird absolute in physics has been imposed on us by someone (something) else. 

In our Universe, there should be equal amounts of matter and antimatter, but there’s not. Our antimatter has gone walkabout. While there is one viable physics explanation for this, when considering a simulated universe, it would be easy to program out the antimatter quota which makes for a less complex universe one needs to simulate. Or, perhaps our simulator hadn’t realized the simulation of physical laws would have predicted antimatter hence never bothered to program it in from the get-go. 

Explain the parting of the Red Sea in the Bible! It’s easy to do in the movies, on a computer, or in your head.

Then there’s this Biblical bit about Joshua commanding the sun to stand still (at least that’s the way I recall it). That’s either a tall tale or myth or the result of a simulation. Whatever, it can’t be a physical reality. 

In the Bible we have this tale of the multiplying of loaves and fishes out of virtually nothing. Again, you can imagine it, but that’s about it. Likewise with any sort of miracle it’s easy to visualize the event, but infinitely harder to explain it. But, as in the case of loaves and fishes, it’s easy to write a software package that can do this multiplication feat as a simulation exercise.

Heaven and Hell can be created as easily as any other sort of place, complete with either harps and haloes, or devils and pitchforks!

If someone (or something) is calling the simulation shots, you could obviously and easily be resurrected or reincarnated or just allowed to cease to be (that is, deleted from the program).

How can reports of a Bigfoot or a Loch Ness Monster continue for decades without physical verification as if these creatures were but phantoms? Again, it’s easy to visualize such creatures, but far harder to explain how a rather largish sea (lake) monster can elude detection in a confined lake seemingly indefinitely. All these observers can’t be totally mistaken. But what if the ‘monsters’ AND their observers are both simulations, where the ‘monsters’ are simulated to be phantom-ish – a sort of game to play with your simulated observers?

What about ghosts and fairies and all of their various relations? You can create them on film, in your mind, or on a computer screen, so, if you can, so could another – and create you as well in the process.

How can aliens abduct humans or mutilate cattle, decade after decade, without ever being seen? It’s easy to do in a computer simulation; difficult in reality.

The crop circle phenomena is totally unexplainable, but it doesn’t have to be explainable in a physical sense if it’s all created by an ET intelligence including the observers who see the circles and wonder how on earth it was done.

From the examples above, I conclude that it almost seems as if someone (something) is ultimately responsible for our Universe, but he / she / it / they didn’t quite think things through sufficiently. Methinks an all knowing, all powerful supernatural God type being wouldn’t have stuffed things up. So either the Universe is naturally stuffed up, or it was created stuffed up!

To be continued…

Parallel Universes: Part Two

Parallel universes, or alternative universes or mirror universes have had a long run of popularity in science fiction and science fantasy, in both print and visual formats. One need only look at an “Alice in Wonderland” or look no further than the “Star Trek” universe (our Universe in less than obvious disguise) to view the near endless plot variations that such parallel / alternative / mirror universes provide our heroes and heroines. Do they actually exist and do they explain anything?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

As the collection of all universes is the Multiverse, and since the wave-particle duality is at the heart and soul of quantum mechanics, then it follows that perhaps quantum physics is just the physics of the Multiverse!

The double slit experiment can be (and has been) repeated with electrons, and neutrons and protons, etc. Same results! So, therefore, there must be virtual or shadow or ghost electrons and neutrons (or quark trios) and protons (or again quark trios). Now things get interesting! But before I get to that, David Deutsch never speculated above the level of shadow or ghost protons (or other elementary particles) as proof of parallel universes. The following extrapolations are my doing!

If there are virtual / shadow / ghost protons and neutrons, then there are (let’s just call them) ghost nuclei. Add your ghost electrons and you have ghost atoms, hence ghost molecules and on up the chain to… well, ghosts!

Now these parallel universe ghosts aren’t dead people, but people quite alive in said parallel universe. They could appear to us as dead acquaintances or even dead loved ones, but parallel universes aren’t of necessity identical copies of ours (recall the heads, tails and coin-on-edge example). Just because Mum is deceased in our Universe doesn’t mean she’s yet snuffed it in a parallel one.

These virtual or shadow or ghostly images don’t even have to be living things of course. There’s a long history of apparently sane and sober people seeing, quite unexpectedly, spectral images of non-living ‘things’, like a building appearing in a otherwise verified field-of-grass only.

There’s equally a long list of documented transient phenomena, unfortunately unpredictable and unverifiable - UFOs anyone?

Speaking of UFOs (as intelligently piloted vehicles from elsewhere and/or elsewhen), sceptics often will claim ‘it can’t be, therefore it isn’t’, where the ‘can’t be’ usually refers to the impossibility of interstellar spaceflight which would require faster-than-light velocities to make things practical and viable, blah, blah, blah…. Quite apart from the fact that that assessment is total nonsense as I’ve already elaborated on elsewhere, subluminal interstellar travel doesn’t, of necessity, violate any laws of physics, period. End of discussion. However, nobody, including me, says it will be easy, but that’s a different horse of another colour.

Anyway, if there can be some sort of now and again natural interaction between parallel universes, then it follows that an advanced technological race of beings (call them aliens if you will), might be able to artificially manipulate such ‘gateways’ and go exploring – not so much in time and space but as in crossing over from X-universe to a parallel Y-universe, which in distance terms might be as close to zero kilometres as makes no odds.

Cryptozoology is another ripe area potentially explainable in part at least by parallel dimensions. Take Loch Ness and its alleged monster, one of the most baffling of cases in all of cryptozoology. On the one hand, you’ve lots of seemingly credible witnesses with no axe to grind going back over many decades. Are they all lying, exaggerating, and being fooled or just hallucinating?  The odds of that are poor for the collective of all sightings. On the other hand, you have a relatively small and confined area offering little hiding room to a relatively large animal. It’s an area that has been combed many times with all the sophisticated technology we can muster – no animal. However, it doesn’t stretch the imagination to breaking point and beyond to suggest that in some parallel universe(s), plesiosaurs (or equivalent) still exist and that for some reason there is, albeit just a rarely now and again, some sort of harmonic resonance between that world and our world, and presto, a sighting of the elusive Loch Ness Monster.

Perhaps a most likely interaction between parallel universes is evident in our dreams. We often seemingly invent out of thin air quite unfamiliar people, places, and situations when dreaming, as well as finding ourselves in more familiar surroundings, albeit rarely something exactly parallel down to the Nth detail – at least that’s my experience. It’s maybe 90% familiar territory; never 100%.

If there is some sort of parallel universe interactions, your dreams could be, in a nebulous sort of way, a link with the lifestyle of your counterpart(s), and presumably said counterpart(s) now and again dream slightly unfamiliar scenarios that reflect your actual situations; your world and your lifestyle and relations.

It’s a sort of telepathy perhaps only achievable at the subconscious level when you’re asleep and all those day-to-day routines and constant mental activities can’t overwhelm that incredibly faint signal from a parallel universe(s).  

Now that’s not to say all dreams are parallel universe related, but some might be.

Since the double slit experiment with one photon at a time, produces interference patters 100% of the time, yet things like ghosts, UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster, even dreams, aren’t reproducible on demand, I can only conclude that it’s much easier for micro bits like photons and atoms to crossover from X-universe to Y-universe (our Universe) than it is for macro objects. But, that’s not an uncommon experience within our own world. Bacteria are vastly more common than humans – bacteria are everywhere; humans aren’t. Small things or objects can wriggle through small spaces where larger objects can not fit. It takes exceptional circumstances, an exceptional large gateway or hole between universes for a UFO or a Loch Ness Monster to make its ever so brief and unexpected appearance. So, lots of small holes or ‘gateways’ allowing lots of ghost photons (and presumably other particle types – very, very, few large holes or ‘gateways’, so actual sightings of living ghosts, etc. are very, vary rare.

Now more likely as not, it’s only a relatively few parallel universes that have a real resonance with ours. There could be other universes with physics so different that they are totally out of sight, even if not out of mind.     

Summary: The concept of parallel universes is a sound, yet novel way of explaining one of the (many) deep mysteries contained in the double slit experiment that illustrates the wave-particle duality of matter.  From that, the concept can be extrapolated or expanded to explain possible other, but more macro, anomalous phenomena.

Mission Impossible (Or Highly Improbable): Part Three

In Alice in Wonderland (or was that Through the Looking-Glass – I can never remember which one of the two it was*) it’s stated that it’s possible to believe many (as in six) impossible things before breakfast. Science and associated philosophies have had to deal with impossibilities and wildly improbable things, some of which are straight forward, and some of which aren’t – perhaps to the point where something possible is in fact impossible and fundamentally wrong. Conversely, something considered impossible might in fact be possible and fundamentally right. 

A cautionary note: when it comes to what’s possible or impossible; plausible or implausible; probable or improbable, majority doesn’t rule. This isn’t a democracy. If a billion people believe nonsense, it’s still nonsense. This however is in contrast to what has been proven beyond a reasonable scientific doubt. If a billion people continue to disbelieve something that has been proved, then it’s those billion people who are nonsense, not the idea.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

FOURTHLY, let’s look at the reverse, some commonly accepted notions by scientists that they consider impossible or wildly improbable, but which, in IMHO are ultimately flawed concepts they have – flawed to the point where I suggest these scientist’s ‘impossibilities or implausibility’s’ range from an actual near certainty to only somewhat implausible.

One category that immediately comes to mind is ‘sea serpents’. We know from the fossil record that large marine reptiles like plesiosaurus and the mosasaur once existed. There’s no obvious reason why these creatures went extinct as their marine environment is fairly resilient against environmental change such as salinity, temperature, etc.

There’s the eye witness evidence of sightings of creatures very similar to these apparently extinct beasties both from ship, and from shore. 

There are  examples of other thought-to-have-been-extinct animals, and I mean extinct for many, many, many millions of years, that have turned up alive and well (such as the coelacanth), thank you very much!

Another item that comes to mind is one of the great mysteries of ancient history – what happened to the Minoan civilization 3,500 years ago on the island of Crete? They just vanished as a unique culture. Was it invaders or natural disaster? Modern archaeological and geological evidence all point to a massive order of magnitude greater volcanic eruption than happened at Krakatoa on the island Thera immediately to the north of Crete, yet still too far away to totally account for the mystery. By now, you’ve probably guessed the answer. The eruption generated a massive series of tsunamis some 30 meters high which destroyed the villages and towns, all of which were on the coast. The one-two punch, a mega-volcano plus mega-tsunamis and you had the total destruction of the Minoan civilization. That, in turn gave rise to the origin of the Atlantis tale. The legend and mythology surrounding Atlantis has long been consigned to the pseudoscience dust bin. Yet while there’s no proof positive and probably never will be, it is quite plausible that legends and mythology derived from the above Thera (or Santorini) eruption plus associated tsunami wiping out the Minoan civilization on Crete, did indeed, form the foundation for the legend of Atlantis.

The UFO ETH (extraterrestrial hypothesis) also immediately comes to mind, as well as her closely related sister, ‘ancient astronauts’ (the UFO ETH and associated closely related topic of ‘ancient astronauts’ are really two peas in a pod). Why? The answer is twofold. Firstly, there is the theoretical underpinning the two. Secondly, there is the observational evidence supporting the two. Considering those two in turn…

Theoretical Underpinnings: I’d like to think that Planet Earth would be among the cosmic real estate of some interest to any advanced technological species of extraterrestrial being, especially since the Cambrian Explosion over 500 million years ago when complex (multi-cellular) life forms became noticeable. Like the Star Trek mantra says, ‘to seek out new life…’.

Now in terms of cosmic real estate, comets and asteroids are pretty common, ditto airless rocky worlds; gas giants seem to be worth a dime-a-dozen, but real estate that has an atmosphere, and a hydrosphere, and a lithosphere, and a biosphere aren’t dime-a-dozen bodies. So, when one appears on an extraterrestrial’s ‘radar’, either through personally or robotically ‘boldly going’, or via remote sensing (our oxygen rich atmosphere is an obvious giveaway that just screams out as something that should be singled out for extra attention. That’s us! We have a biosphere. We have life. Well, that’s interesting.

Of course for most of our biosphere’s existence, we’ve been interesting in the same way as an ant hill is interesting to an entomologist or a bacterium is interesting to a microbiologist. Just like it doesn’t take all that much effort for an entomologist to seek out an ant hill or a microbiologist to find a bacterium, so, in the cosmic scheme of things, it doesn’t take all that much effort for an alien technological civilization to reach us. Many might dispute that statement, but the fact is, going from point A in our galaxy, to point B in our galaxy, violates no known laws or principles of physics. Once they have the desire and the ways and means of ‘boldly going’, the rest are details. And Planet Earth can no more hide from exploring alien eyes than an ant hill can hide from an inquisitive entomologist! Now you take local A, somewhere in our galaxy, home to an alien civilization. Now take place B – Planet Earth. What’s the distance between the two? It doesn’t matter. If the civilization can achieve 1% to 10% light speed interstellar travel – no violation of physics in that – calculate how long it would take them to get from A to B. Now, compare that with the overall age of our galaxy! You’ll find the ratio is somewhere in the same ballpark as how long it took humans to migrate and explore and colonize Planet Earth!

Observational Evidence: Well, for starters, regarding UFOs (as extraterrestrial vehicles), how about over six decades on, hundreds of thousands of sightings in all countries of the globe, by all walks of life - male & female; rich & poor; professional & illiterate; the young and the elderly, all religions; all races; all nationalities; no category has been left out. Then how about witnesses, passing lie detector exams all the while insisting “I know what I saw”? Then how about the fact that there are those experts in aerial phenomena who should be able to, but can’t explain all the sightings – the usual unexplained residue being between 5% and 10% - the hard core, bona-fide UFOs. Now throw in multiple and independent witness accounts! You don’t care for eyewitness testimony? Too unreliable you say? Well, chuck in a pot full of unexplained photographic and motion pictures, lots of unexplainable radar returns, ground traces, and all manner of other bits and pieces that instrumentation has detected or can do analysis on – no human brain entered into, just iron and silicon.  Also, you have the undisputed fact that many countries have undertaken official investigations into the UFO issue – that in itself suggests that the issue has been taken seriously at the highest levels, unlike say, ghosts or stigmata!

Ancient astronauts are a slightly murkier kettle of fish because of the time separation between then and now. It’s easier to come to terms with what happened 20 years ago vis-à-vis 2000 years ago. Still, I’d maintain that there exists a reasonable amount of artistic and literary remnants from those long ago and far away places that are suggestive of otherworldly influences. As but one example, nearly every culture has legends, a mythology if you wish, of ‘sky beings’ who obviously, in most cases at least, were considered some sort of gods. Since of course nobody actually believes they were supernatural gods, that still leaves the pigeonhole of ‘sky beings’. 

Now, is all of that proof? No! Is all of that evidence? Yes! It’s the sort of evidence that’s lacking in most of the other paranormal/supernatural bits and pieces that the sceptics love to collectively debunk and rubbish. But, that evidence makes my assertion that some paranormal claims are more equal than other paranormal claims more credible.

To be continued…

* Having since looked it up, I’ve confirmed it as the White Queen’s statement from Through the Looking-Glass.