Posted on 11/09/2023 7:14:58 AM PST by RoosterRedux
Diana Walsh Pasulka never imagined that her scholarly work in the field of religion would lead her to skulking around in the desert near Roswell, New Mexico, with one of the world’s top scientists and a former high NASA official. She tells the story in her riveting 2019 book American Cosmic, in which Pasulka, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, surveyed the then-current state of knowledge of UFOs and related phenomena.
Then came the shocking 2021 revelations by the U.S. government that it had been investigating UFOs—then renamed ‘unidentified aerial phenomena,’ or UAPs. In a series of strokes, the research that Pasulka and many others had been working on for years, even decades, received powerful vindication. Something really is out there—and top national security and intelligence officials have been for a very long time taking it more seriously than they wanted the public to know.
Whatever the ‘aliens’ really are, it is startling to discover that many of the most informed people in the UFO world doubt that they are creatures from other planets. What are they, then? On November 7th, Pasulka’s latest volume hits bookstores, offering answers, but also raising new and important questions about that very issue. Encounters: Experiences With Nonhuman Intelligences (Macmillan), profiles a wide range of people who for various reasons have been drawn into the shadowy and mysterious world of UFOs, and whose testimonies move the phenomenon out of narrowly-drawn scientific categories, and well into the world of the religious and the paranormal.
Pasulka recently agreed to an interview about her work, her new book, and the emergence of a new form of religion tied to aliens, artificial intelligence, and high technology.
Pasulka (from the interview):
I had not paid the slightest attention to the UFO—or, I guess now, UAP—phenomenon since the first season of “X-Files.” Frankly, I thought it was for weirdos. But then a journalist friend told me I was missing out on a serious religious phenomenon, and advised that I read your book American Cosmic. I did, and then went into a mild version of what you call “epistemological shock.” Now you’re out with a follow-up that’s equally shocking. So let me start by asking you to bring ‘normies’ up to date on what we know about the phenomenon—and what we think we know, but really don’t.
Rod, like you, I had never paid attention to UFOs either. I didn’t watch the “X-Files.” I never saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I actually just saw that film last year and enjoyed it!
I began to study the topic of UFOs/UAPs somewhat by accident. My field is religious studies and my focus within that is Catholic history and miraculous events. In my field, we study religion academically, which means that we are looking at things like the social effects of religion, etc. As professors of religious studies, our beliefs, whether atheists or members of religious traditions, do not influence what we study. We are historians, archeologists, social scientists. We are not priests or ministers (generally). We don’t advocate for any religious tradition.
This is how I came to the study of UFOs. I had finished a long study of the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory. I used a lot of archival records to do this study, which means that I went to libraries of old manuscripts (archives) and looked at records from 1300 on up to about 1880. That is a long-time span, but I was just looking for what Europeans from those time periods believed about Purgatory.
I found a lot of information, and a lot of what I would call extra information. I saw a lot of records of reported aerial sightings. People saw orbs, discs, and basically things that surprised them, flying around in the skies. I took note of these. I found that when they saw them, they recorded a process of trying to identify these objects. Often, they would think that these were souls from Purgatory that needed to be prayed back into Purgatory. I thought that the sightings were interesting, so I kept notes.
When my book about Purgatory was finished, I showed a friend some of these records. He looked at them and immediately thought of UFOs! I thought he was crazy. This was in 2012. Then, there was a UFO conference near me, and based on my friend’s suggestion, I attended it. There, I heard people talking about aerial phenomena and describing the same experiences described by European Catholics of the past. I then began to study modern reports of UFOs.
At first, I wasn’t shocked at all by this research because I thought that people were utilizing different cultural frameworks for looking at unidentified aerial phenomena. That is, it is rational to approach the topic like this: in the 1400s people were using religious frameworks to describe what they saw in the sky. Today, people do the same thing, but now we live in an ostensibly ‘secular’ society and have achieved flight, so when people see unidentified aerial phenomena, they think of drones or something like stealth aircraft, and maybe UFOs. This is how I approached the study.
I became shocked when I was approached by government agents and scientists who said that they worked, in their ‘spare time,’ on UFOs, and collected UFO materials. They were and are credible people.
(Excerpt) Read more at europeanconservative.com ...
Here, we see the convergence of two powerful modern developments: the belief in UFOS, now ratified by our own government, and the reality of a potentially self-aware human creation, AI. This is a unique moment in human history, to put it lightly. We are witnessing a myth meet or become reality.
By these measures the author mistakenly believes she is bolstering her argument.
Wrong.
Anything “ratified by our own government” - is immediately suspect. Further, the nonsensical belief in self-aware artificial intelligence - still amounts to pure science fiction.
“Whatever they want, the answer is no.”
________________________________________
Agreed, and not just simply no, but hell no along with a big middle finger.
While I have my own belief as to whom and what they are, and where they are from, whatever they want is not beneficial for us. They are here and do what they do for their own purposes and none of it is altruistic or good.
The simplest and best description I have for them is “deceptive and evil”.
I agree, but just like the quote from Hamlet in the article, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. BTW, in Elizabethan times what science they had was called “philosophy”. While I suspect that there is a spiritual side to the visiting entities, I also suspect that some are from other distant civilizations, if only because they evidently use technology, including manufactured craft to come here. I think that once we learn more about the nature of consciousness, much of what we see as extraterrestrial visitations will fall into place. Aldous Huxley once wrote that consciousness was like a giant reducing valve which took in the overwhelming cacophony from our senses and filtered out what was absolutely necessary for our survival and increase. This implies that there is much that we sense but can neither see nor process in our normal worldview.
Far too much extra non-essential verbage, making it all 100% more a story about the author’s investigation than anything substatially material about the UFOs/UAVs.
There were many crop circles made by human hoaxers.
But—if you dig a bit deeper there are some real ones that will blow your mind.
If by chance you are interested in Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO’s) and what is real and what is not, home grown; you may want to watch this video with Steven Greer. It is a multifaceted subject and by necessity can’t be explained in just a few words so it is a little bit long, but it is worth watching.
https://youtu.be/p2hk8Qp8dd0?t=14
A book review is defined as "a thorough description, critical analysis, and/or evaluation of the quality, meaning, and significance of a book, often written in relation to prior research on the topic."
Dreher's interview was not a book review.
BTW, it's worth spending a little time trying to alert readers as to what Dreher's interview is and is not.
Anyone ever tell you that you're an in-the-box thinker? I'll bet you ask your mommie to starch your underwear.
From you: BTW, it's worth spending a little time trying to alert readers as to what Dreher's interview is and is not.
Ya think?
You think "readers" need to be alerted as to what an interview is or is not?
Heheh. Wow.
“Aldous Huxley once wrote that consciousness was like a giant reducing valve which took in the overwhelming cacophony from our senses and filtered out what was absolutely necessary for our survival and increase. This implies that there is much that we sense but can neither see nor process in our normal worldview.”
Absolutely, well stated and I agree. Everything is energy. Consciousness is like the alcohol in water phenomenon. You can add 50ml of alcohol (10%) to 500ml of water and the total volume will not increase. The added volume cannot be detected because the alcohol molecules can fit in between the water molecules. This is how it is with consciousness. It is there but undetectable because it does not physically displace or affect anything so that we would notice. It is real and interlaced in everything and all energies we just can’t detect it.
You now show that, having nothing substantative to state, you are having to resort to tossing ad hominems pulled out of your keister.
bkmk
Allow me to cut to the chase, so to speak.
Faster than light travel is possible. The ‘secret’ is that the object traveling must have ZERO mass.
Human minds SEE what they know or expect to see. An example: You need your car keys. You don’t see them where you thought they should be. You think someone moved them or you put them somewhere else and you can’t remember where that would be. You search your house thoroughly and can’t find them anywhere. Eventually you return to the spot where you thought they should have been and .... there they are.
They were there , all the time. It is YOU who, for some reason, IMAGINED they were not there. Your mind conformed REALITY to your IMAGINATION, temporarily.
In the Bible it is said that God created mankind in his IMAGE. Was that the proper translation or was the original intent the word IMAGINATION ?
The IMAGINATION is one of the most powerful forces God gave mankind. I believe that is what Jesus meant when he said that we had the same ‘powers’ as him, possibly even greater.
Other than nature itself (trees, plants, etc) everything we have and use (including the internet and the keyboard you type on) we CREATED with our IMAGINATION.
Teasing someone about their starched underwear isn't exactly an ad hominem.
That's more of a friendly poke in the ribs.
Did you ever see the movie "FORBIDDEN PLANET" ?
That is another whole fascinating concept in it’s self. Manifestation of the physical realm, and even the future.
“if you dig a bit deeper there are some real ones”
I’d counter that instead of “real ones” we can just say “ones that hoaxers have not yet claimed”.
It turns out there are ways to tell the real ones from the fakes—you need to do the research if you really care about this stuff.
Really?! You try that spindoctoring excuse after all of these explanations and discussions on what an ad hominem is?!?
Do they mean to say that these supposedly highly intelligent, extraordinarily technologically advanced beings are coming here across the vastness of space just to go rump ranging and ''probing'' humans? Bunch of intergalactic perverts if you ask me. "Hey! Stay in your own part of the universe ya weirdos!''.
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