When UFOs Arrive

www.popularmechanics.com ^ | February 2004 | BY JIM WILSON

[Momaw Nadon]

The U.S. and other world governments already have detailed secret plans for first contact.

When UFOs land, a series of plans created to deal with nuclear emergencies and biological attacks will be activated.

Within the scientific community, the question is no longer whether extraterrestrial life exists, but if ET is smart enough to do long division. Scientists are of two minds regarding the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. Skeptics acknowledge simple life-forms might be found on other planets, but insist that intelligent life is unique to Earth. Their belief is based on the assumption that Earth possesses unique physical attributes, including a magnetic field that deflects cosmic rays and a moon that absorbs asteroids. Together, these protective features make Earth a rare safe harbor--one that nurtured the evolution of primitive life-forms into intelligent beings. The opposing camp sees the prospect for discovering alien life in more mathematical terms. Its touchstone is the Drake Equation, which links the probability of discovering extraterrestrial intelligence to factors such as the size of the universe and the number of stars with earthlike planets. With the discovery of each new planet beyond Earth's solar system--there are now more than 100--the odds of encountering intelligent alien life increase. Governments and international organizations around the world have taken notice of the changing odds. No governmental official has gone on record claiming that UFOs are real, let alone a threat. Yet with little public fanfare, they have begun preparing for the single most important event in human history: first contact. That is, the moment earthlings discover incontrovertible proof that they are not alone.

Early Warning
Unless ET materializes from another dimension in the middle of the Super Bowl, humans most likely will have some advance warning of its arrival. How much time we get to straighten up for extraterrestrial company depends upon who spots ET first.

The privately funded SETI Institute uses radio telescopes owned by observatories around the world to sweep the sky for signals broadcast by advanced civilizations. If ET has read Emily Post, or her intergalactic equivalent, and calls ahead, we could have years, even decades, to prepare for first contact. Unfortunately, the current SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project can afford to look at only small swatches of the sky, so any extraterrestrial courtesy calls probably will be missed.

A more likely scenario is that the U.S. Air Force would spot ET's spacecraft as it traverses the void between the Earth and the moon. Using powerful radar and optical telescopes in Hawaii, Greenland, Florida and the Indian Ocean, the Air Force Space Command tracks satellites, monitors missile launches, and spots baseball- and larger-size bits of orbiting debris with the hope of preventing it from perforating a space shuttle or the International Space Station. If ET turns up on Space Command's radar, it would mean the alien visitors are only hours or minutes away.

A Proposed Welcoming Committee

The International Academy of Astronautics in Paris maintains a list of volunteers willing to help world governments if ET arrives. Most are astronomers. Here is the team that PM would prefer to see on the job. Shown counterclockwise from the center are: Sen. John Glenn, American Representative. As the first American to orbit the Earth and an elected political leader, the senator is the obvious choice to lead the American delegation. Frank Drake, Science Officer. Creator of the Drake Equation and a driving force behind the SETI project, Drake would represent the world's scientific community. Hal Puthoff, Powerplant Engineering. An expert on zero-point energy, a means of extracting limitless power from the quantum vacuum without violating the known laws of physics, Puthoff would understand how ET powers its craft.

Sheila E. Widnall, Weapons Systems. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who served as Secretary of the Air Force in the 1990s, Widnall would be able to assess ET's weapons. Ning Li, Propulsion Systems. A former NASA scientist, Li devised the theory that explains how the electromagnetic force that we use every day might also be harnessed to manipulate gravity. Perhaps ET uses similar technology. K. Eric Drexler, Structural Systems. A trailblazer in the now fast-growing field of nanotechnology--building materials atom by atom--Drexler pioneered the idea of smart materials, which ET would doubtlessly also use in its craft. Jane Goodall, Communications Officer. Having devoted her life to the study of chimpanzees, primatologist Goodall has proved her ability to communicate with intelligent nonhumans.

Countdown To Contact
The broad-brush outline for Earth's response to the first alien encounter is set out in an international agreement called the "Declaration of Principles Concerning Activities Following the Detection of Extraterrestrial Intelligence." Written by a committee of scientists organized by the SETI Institute, the declaration spells out what astronomers should do, and what they should avoid doing, immediately after first contact.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the agreement is that astronomers who sign on to the declaration agree to keep the news of an imminent contact under their hat until the astronomy community and authorities have been notified.

The declaration also establishes fairly specific guidelines regarding the protection of the radio frequencies that alien civilizations might use to communicate with Earth. As soon as a radio signal is confirmed as originating from an extraterrestrial source, the International Telecommunications Union would ask governments around the world to forbid use of that portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is hoped that ET will have sufficiently studied human habits to understand that calling earthlings on the frequencies used for microwave ovens and garage door openers will be interpreted as a belligerent act.

Close Encounter
Around 1999 the first contact protocols were put to the test. For 12 hours, SETI astronomers marveled at the prospect that their golden moment had arrived. A signal that repeated in an organized pattern was detected beaming straight at the Earth from 1 million miles in space.

The first priority was to alert radio astronomers around the world to redirect their telescopes. The signal from the distant stationary object quickly faded as the relentless rotation of the Earth swept it out of the telescope's listening range. Douglas Vakoch, the SETI Institute's social scientist responsible for preparing Earth's reply to an extraterrestrial message, tells POPULAR MECHANICS what happened next: "At this point, all of our discussions were internal to our team. We didn't want to cry wolf. Then, in the midst of the process, we get a call from The New York Times." So much for the secrecy provision of the SETI protocol. Within hours, the story evaporated. The SETI team identified the mystery signal as a data transmission from SOHO, a sun-watching observatory on an almost-stationary orbit about 1 million miles from Earth.

Vakoch says he was not surprised that the story of the possible alien contact leaked so quickly. "These guidelines have no legal force. They have been drafted in the hope of getting broader discussion."

As far as the U.S. government is concerned, that discussion started and ended more than 40 years ago. Regardless of how the world's astronomy community might want to handle first contact, Uncle Sam has ideas of his own. And they rest on the assumption that ET is first and foremost an illegal alien.

Presumed Dangerous
The question of how humanity might react to its first contact with intelligent aliens was officially raised in the late 1950s by the then newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Curious as to how discoveries about the origin of the universe might affect society as a whole, NASA contracted with the Brookings Institution, a leading think tank, to research the question. Only a small part of its 100-page answer, which came to be known as "The Brookings Report," dealt with alien encounter. But it contained a stern warning. "Anthropological files contain many examples of societies, sure of their place in the universe, which have disintegrated when they had to associate with previously unfamiliar societies espousing different ideas and different life ways; others that survived such an experience usually did so by paying the price of changes in values and attitudes and behavior."

In 1972, as engineers prepared the first space mission that would travel outside of Earth's solar system, NASA decided to ignore warnings in the 1960 "Brookings Report" about the dangers inherent in contact with an advanced alien race. Instead, the space agency sent an invitation for extraterrestrials to visit Earth. A gold-anodized aluminum plaque engraved with a map showing the location of Earth was attached to the Pioneer 10 spacecraft. When it sent its last message, in January 2003, it was more than 7 billion miles along on a trip that will take it to the star Aldebaran.

State Of Emergency
If ET turns up at NASA's doorstep bearing that invitation, it is in for a surprise. Instead of getting a handshake from the head of NASA, it will be handcuffed by an FBI agent dressed in a Biosafety Level 4 suit. Instead of sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House, the alien will be whisked away to the Department of Agriculture's Animal Disease Center on Plum Island, off the coast of New York's Long Island. Here it will be poked and probed by doctors from the National Institutes of Health. A Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST) will tow away its spacecraft.

Unfriendly as this welcome may seem, it is the chain of events that most likely will follow the visitor's arrival. Unique as the appearance of an alien-piloted spacecraft may be, the event incorporates elements of three situations familiar to federal emergency response workers: a plane crash, the release of radioactive material, and the capture of an animal suspected of harboring a contagious disease. Responsibilities in these situations are spelled out in Presidential Executive Orders.

Unless it is spewing exhaust, the craft would be assumed to be nuclear powered. This determination would put NEST technicians in charge of securing the craft and moving it to a DOE facility, most likely in New Mexico, where it would be in close proximity to the Sandia and Los Alamos nuclear laboratories and the White Sands Missile Range. International agreements also put NEST on call if the craft lands out of the United States, as happened in 1978 when a Soviet satellite leaking nuclear fuel landed in the Canadian wilderness.

NEST, however, would operate in the background. In a nuclear emergency, the FBI is put in charge of public safety, public health and public information. Those, at least, are the plans. How things might actually turn out is anyone's guess.

Skeptics often ask why UFO sightings seem to take place only in remote locations instead of on busy city streets. Perhaps ET knows what earthlings have in mind when it lands.

[Quix]

Shrillery has half the country

BUFFALO PIEFACED!

[Chris Talk]

You do not quite mean Glory, but LIGHT! Brilliance and light, too bright for human eyes even, surround any place where YHWH was present in antiquity, and if He should return to His Temple, or anywhere else, this would again be the case.

The term Shekhina [shuh-KHEE-nuh] is usually restricted to mean the light that lingered in the Temple always during the Miracles periods, even when the Kabod [vehicle, bodily presence; translated "Glory" in the KJV] was NOT there.

[Chris Talk]

Yeah, MN, I appreciate your interest, but it is very much indeed like someone asking what would happen if the USA declared independence from Britain.

We are trying to tellsya to the World, that it is HISTORY, has already been going on for a long time.

[Quix]

Yes, and some of the tunnels under Salt Lake evidently involved some interesting conflicts between the Mormon church, government and subterranean ET's. I think some were closed off and the Mormon church told in very clear terms to stay out.

I do believe there is a deep high speed tube tunnel that goes across the whole USA. I think some claim it's dual--one for travel each direction. Supposedly a lot of highly classified freight goes that way.

This subject then gets into the whole contention that illegal drug money is part of the funding source for such constructions.

[Quix]

I realize that.

[Chris Talk]

Psalm 74:20 says

"Have respect unto the Covenant, for the dark Places of the Earth are full of the Habitations of Cruelty."

Under the Covenant, YHWH promised that the ETs could not abduct a Jew. I have never seen an allegation that an observant Jew has been abducted, though millions of people have, and Jews purely as a race, are slightly more than their population percentage on the abductees [a little over 3% of the abductees; about 2% of the population].

As I said way high up on this thread, really religious and observant Christians are also rarely taken, but that is not so hard-and-fast a definition that I can say just where to draw the line.

Fewer than 10% of all abductees in USA, however, are members or regular attendees in any form of Jewish or Christian religious assembly.

[Quix]

A reasonable question. And a fitting point, imho.

However, some people have little chance of being awakened--seemingly. And, their SEEMINGLY ONLY chance of being awakened is to be hit upside the emotional/intellectual head with some of their own inconsistencies.

I think it is quite reasonable to point out the glaring contradiction involved when someone purporting to be a very strict, straight-laced, narrow, rigid--perhaps even prissy--type in their theology and Biblical interpretations--chooses such a glaringly contrary screen name.

It just may be, that there are also blind spots in their construction on reality as there are about their own screen name. And if there are no blind spots about that screen name--then there are some BIGGER PROBLEMS of cognative dissonance involved that SOMEONE would do them a service to wake them up over.

I don't detect any negative emotion in Chris anything near the hostility we have had dumped on us by those of that ilk.

He's making a fairly calm observation. I consider it even charitable because it shares the truth with someone evidently seriously needing it about their own screen name.

imho, of course.

[Chris Talk]

I liked the one where the spiritualist medium who was one of some 400 guests invited to Edwards, writes a letter to another medium saying how he was gratified and gloated when he saw the scientists and physicists among the 400, the secular humanists and skeptics,

CARTED OFF DROOLING INTO THEIR STRAIT JACKETS

when they saw the ET's land with Eisenhower aboard. The military managed to keep a stiff lip, I guess, they said marines with expressionless faces straitjacketed the scientists that went bonkers, and some never did get over it and return to sanity.

[Chris Talk]

Actually writing to this thread has been a hoot, I have been laughing half the time as I type.

[Chris Talk]

I have heard it called both the Underground Railroad and Underground Airlines, but I still wonder if it is complete already coast to coast.

[Quix]

This touches on one of my abiding pet peeves about FR.

A lot of us TRY VERY HARD AND MOSTLY SUCCEED MOST OF THE TIME to

AVOID slamming someone's PERSONHOOD.

However, there are a lot of people who hold their questionable to idiotic notions soooooooooooooooooooo closely to their hearts and identities that unless one agrees with them in kowtowed contrition on the floor, they are offended and consider their personhoods to have been viciously assaulted.

Personally, I can receive someone's assertions about an idea or statement of mine being idiotic without having to throw a hissy fit kicking and screaming on the floor trying to sound as though I'm throwing God's lightening bolts in the process. Sometimes I make idiotic statements.

Sometimes I'm careless, flipant, casual. Sometimes I'm to hasty. Certainly I'm still a flawed human.

When I share things in a public forum, I expect them to be challenged at least, if not shredded or at least that there will be attemts at shredding it. I expect a few to many to have little clue what I meant and less to have a clue about the heart it was shared out of. So what. That's life.

I do respond forcefully, sometimes fiercely, sometimes very energetically and with intellectual, to emotional slaps upside the virtual screen name face because I think that's the most loving thing I can do in however feeble an attempt to wake some folks up who need desperately to see the world outside their grave pit born ruts of thinking.

Other times, I verbally slap someone upside the head just so they don't get they idea that they can go around doing that to others without any fitting response.

I used to be a timid mouse afraid of my own shadow. I'd cry (as privately as possible) if someone looked at me even at my BA university and somewhat even later in the Navy. God eventually succeeded in getting across to me that such timidity didn't help me or anyone else. That, in fact, cowardice was ranked with homosexuality as a reason for some being hellbound.

Still, I prefer to be patient, long suffering, doing unto others as I'd prefer done unto me--and to be loving to even my enemies. And, I'd actually prefer people to slap me upside the head if I was being terminally idiotic. I need all the help I can get.

FR is a wonderously vigorous free-for-all in many ways. But certainly as long as people are talking about someone's post, ideas, logic or what have you--THAT IS DIFFERENT FROM THEIR PERSONHOOD, THEIR ESSENCE, THEIR BEING MADE IN GOD'S IMAGE. Blurring that boundary, being fogged about those distinctions is not wise, nor accurate, in my opinion.

It's also immature, even infantile, imho.

If one hasn't the self-esteem, self-confidence--or if one prefers--the confidence in God within one--to face such vigorous give and take--then perhaps one had best be careful about how much time and in what manner one stays in the kitchen.

And from a psychologist's perspective, if one is determined to keep a death grip on brittle, narrow, rigid constructions on reality--one might be seriously in need of a good long spiritual retreat until one can hear God's exhortations and edifications about abandonment unto Him and GOD ALONE.

GOD ALONE, regardless of all else. God has said clearly in His Word about our times and repeatedly in recent years that ALL THAT CAN BE SHAKEN WILL BE SHAKEN.

All our pet theologies will undergo adjustment as God brings increasingly His Perfection upon this sin-ravaged world. The cleansing process will be horrendous. Yet He has promised to never leave us nor forsake us.

BUT HE MAY WELL REQUIRE US TO FORSAKE OUR PET THEOLOGIES JUST AS HE CHALLENGED THE PHARISEES OF HIS DUSTY PATHED DAYS TO DO. The wisest one, Gamaliel did.

A lot of narrow, rigid, arrogant, selfish pharisee idiots did not.

Perhaps someone did not slap them upside the head enough. Christ was most stark, stern, and intense with them. He even assaulted their personhoods as being from their father the devil. I hope none on FR are that bad off.

Christ had lots of compassion and patience with folks who were merely stumbling around trying to grow up in Christ or even just blindly ignorant but teachable. It was the rigidly unteachable He had the strongest words for.

I do try to be Christ-like. I hope that on occasion, it shows.

[Quix]

Yup.

And I need to remind myself of that so that it seeds more of my inputs with compassion, patience and overt kindness and love.

Thanks.

[Quix]

They've been here for ages.

Some folks have terminated a few aliens. It's rarely been a simple thing. The aftermath is supposedly not a pretty thing. But Chris probably knows more about that than I do.

[atomic conspiracy]

Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, you would be well advised to avoid treating ufology as a serious subject in certain West Texas public schools.

Some years ago, one of my grad students was picking up some extra money substitute teaching in the local schools. It also happened that he was interested in critical thinking and rational analysis as a philosophical study.

He had worked up what I thought was an excellent and quite brief presentation on the subject. It happened that this included some UFO cases as examples of lying by omission. The public schools give quite a bit of lip service to critical thinking, so he had given the presentation several times during his substitute assignments. The reaction had always been positive. He had also cleared the presentation with several educators who could reasonably regarded as experts on teaching critical thinking skills, including one who had authored a standard textbook on the subject.

Unfortunately, he was soon notified that he had been banned from working at a particular junior high school here. Because subs don't have contracts and are therefore not human beings in the local school district, he had some trouble finding out the reason for this ban. It emerged that a teacher for whom he had substituted had complained about his ufo references. According to her report (of which I have a scanned copy if anyone is interested) he had "talked about ufo's", wasted class time, and claimed to have authored a "book about ufo visitation."

The teacher dropped her claim of wasting time after the victim's initial protest, since it was objectively provable that most of the students had in fact finished their assigned work. She and her principal continued to insist, however, that the sub had discussed "inappropriate and controversial material", frightened the children with weird tales of visiting aliens, and asked the children not to tell on him for this(a major red flag in education).

The overall impression was that he was some sort of nut who believed in ufos and had used his position to proselytize among captive 8th graders. In fact, he was a skeptic, one whose views on the subject had been widely published under his own name. The teacher might as well have accused Madalyn Murray O'Hair of coming into the classroom to preach Christianity (also an offense, oddly enough).

He had given the presentation many times and nobody had ever shown any sign of complaint or miscomprehension. The "book about alien visitation" was actually a short story about a ufo hoax that leads to murder. In fact, parts of the presentation followed the pattern of a fifth grade textbook story in which ufo hoaxes are also used as an illustrative example of critical thinking.

I happened to listen in as my student attempted to discuss his complaints in a phone conversation with an administrator. The administrator ignored my student's complaints, interrupting constantly, monopolizing the conversation, ignoring relevant facts, and continually asserting the presumed truth of the allegations. His attitude was a textbook example of the naked authoritarianism that prevails in many public schools; the relative status of disputants is the sole determinant of truth. The teacher was not only certified and contracted, she was a cheerleading sponsor as well, so her status was very high indeed, insane rants notwithstanding.

As for myself, I am not nearly as skeptical in this area as my former student, but that is quite beside the point here. Just treating it seriously is enough to drive power seekers into a frothing rage.

My student eventually wrote a scathing rebuttal of the teacher's report, pointing out that his views on the subject were a matter of public record, that virtually all children are familiar with ufo claims and alleged aliens, and that it was not illegal or unethical to believe in or assert the reality of alien visitation even if the teacher's (mis)characterization had been accurate. He also analyzed the deceptive wording of her report, demonstrating to a reasonable certainty that this was a willful distortion rather than a simple misunderstanding. Finally, he noted that the allegations would be open-and-shut libel under the Texas statutes if they ever resulted in harm to his career and community standing.

This guy has gone on to a career in publishing, so it doesn't matter that this case resulted in his being permanently blacklisted at our yokel school district. The district administration has never disputed the accuracy of his rebuttal, they simply have the power to punish those who dispute the authoritarian hierarchy, even if the latter is composed of pathological liars.

Of course, what goes around comes around and there are many kinds of power. Ethics matter, to me and to some of my colleagues, at least. For example, positive evidence of ethical problems can become a valid consideration in graduate school admissions. By sheer coincidence, some of those involved in persecuting my former student have had difficulty in furthering their own academic careers, at least when it involved my university.

[Quix]

I love that insight about the light.

Thanks.

[Quix]

I appreciate the education. Thanks.

[Quix]

I wonder . . . have folks in our era already been marked of The Lord in the foreheads?

Thanks.

[Quix]

I've read of that.

Though, again, thankfully, you've added detail I hadn't read before.

I believe it.

[Chris Talk]

I will try to answer what I can briefly and publicly, but in many cases I don't know. I too am just a layman, and I did not choose this subject, it chose me.

1. Already answered as to what I think in N America on other posts. I have no info on tunneldom in other lands. I suppose something must exist in the Middle East and maybe the Far East.

2. I have what is probably the only study ever done on that, but it is not published and I cannot publish it, but I have already said a few words about it with reference to the Jews and religious Christians. Since the mid 80's over 90% of the abductees have been Females, while in the earliest years it was either more nearly equal, or males being in those years more assertive and less frightened and confused, were much more likely to report, I don't know which, I think both phenomena operated.

3. I don't know for sure, perhaps others on here may. I think they feel it may be necessary, or they may be forced to, and thus are keeping their options open and their powder dry.

4. No, that is just a hobby horse or constant interest and study of my own, it has nothing to do with UFO's --and I just don't think anything I have said has much of any source on the Internet or in books other than the Bible itself, though I have read fairly widely in the field I cannot point to anything particular I would recommend. You might order a book or two from fish-house dot com though. Maybe ole Ellis has a new book out, if not try his latest.

5. I know very little about CHina, but obviously some stupendous things must have happened there, as they have here. At one time there were terrible penalties there for SAYING one had seen or interacted with a UFO, much less actually DOING so. Separately, as above, of course I am familiar with Bible passages about the prophecies and end times, as well as many published and non-published guesses and opinions. My opinions on those are too complicated to go into right now, but several on here may know something about what I think. Watch over time, it will sneak out, here a little, there a little.

6. Yes, the base in Central Australia that was rushed into service in the Fifties, were for UFO purposes... and many installations and telescopes etc that are in Australia are done with US money and/or personnel are also what they are because of UFOs, because they are south of equator and needed to watch the southern skies, lest something slip up on us, which IS happening.

7. Back in the 60s I used to say the 80s. They have sat on this for decades longer already than I would have thought possible when I was a young man. I only can say that more and more is happening, it is becoming more and more difficult to hold the lid on the pressure cooker, and it all has to come out by the End of the Days.

8. On bad days I think ALL the ETs and craft observed are Evil and Satanic. Certainly the original Greys turned out to be, didn't they? The so-called Pleiadeans that RR liked and wanted to ally with, obviously seem a much higher and more honest type, but isn't this maybe just Good Cop Bad Cop, or are they just slicker and smarter and better at deception? So-called Nordics that either are --or could pass for-- fully human, seem nicer still, but they too seem oddly cold and clinical, especially about the reproductive process; none of them can quite seem to Get It how emotional humans get about such things, all this breaking down and crying about fetuses taken and things like that, and the men what few there are becoming impotent no matter how young they were, they just cannot see it, they say, what is the big deal, your species is reproducing TOO much, and we've in effect just taken a duty off of you. I had BETTER stop.

7.

[Quix]

I think I've read that assertion from more than a source or two.

I'm curious . . . what are the diameters of the long distance tube train tunnels? And the distances between the cars and the tunnel walls?