Extraterrestrial hypothesis vs Jacques Vallee

I like the cut of your jib SF!

Originally posted by JayinAR
reply to post by The GUT

 

In any event, I too am pretty open to many possibilities in regards to the phenomenon. Lately I have even started contemplating the theories stating this is all in our heads. I just can't figure out why the phenomenon is SO DAMN elusive

I'm really enjoying the thought-provoking discussion here and I have to say I've heard some really good arguments from a few of y'all.

My three top theories are 1.) It's a subconscious mechanism of some sort that foments "change" in our behaviors, 2.) The ETH, & 3.) The EDH lol!! Not necessarily in that order and always subject to change haha. Elusive indeed, Jay!

I do have one thought on the elusive nature of the mystery as relates to the plasma lifeform theory. That being that if there were such intelligent lifeforms living here with us then they KNOW how destructive, wishy-washy, and inclined to fear we are. As such, it would behoove them that we NEVER identify them because we might make some form of "cloud buster" that really worked.

It would also explain why they might be so concerned with environmental and nuclear issues---we could really screw up the electromagnetic spectrum in disastrous ways for them.

Knowing they can't forever hide from us, they concoct an ET identity. The problems of mass and high-speed maneuvering are also easily absorbed in the theory. As is the "pulsating" nature reported in many accounts.

Vallee does have a point: Would an ET race really visit so often and continually throughout the ages? If we have been visited by ET, I think the number of such visits is relatively small in relation to the mass of sightings.

"Is your reality real or is it just an invention? Created by entities that feed off your attention."

-Mr Mask, Extraterrestrial hypothesis vs Jacques Vallée

You know? Vallee's whole control system thing is not all that easy to grasp. I was running around for a few years misunderstanding it. More specifically, I probably understood it in whatever way I had to at the time to support whatever story I was telling myself.

The idea of Humanity being trapped under the thumb of some sort of control system has been around for a long time. It's a favorite theme of mine, for instance, Krull, Dark City and everyone's fave, The Matrix.

And let's not forget Gnosticism (so called) and the Victorian occultists had The Eighth Sphere.

I'm interested in why folks are so perennially interested in these types of tales. If it wasn't important than we would have tossed it out in favor of other narratives, yet it persists.

I have been left with the feeling that it is because it has something to do with something that humanity can't face. Some biological process that is so horrifying that we soften it's blow by creating spiritual metaphors for the process.

Someone's soylent green is made of people. We just don't know, and apparently don't want to know whose.

reply to post by Bybyots
Yeah, I think Vallee's "control system" theory is at least over-stated. He also uses that term in more than one way which causes some confusion. If we are dealing with a "foreign" intelligence, then at the most, they exert some influence, but not control...but that's not to say it doesn't act like a control system in the scientific sense.

One of the big questions that does make me stop and wonder if we are dealing with two separate issues is this: Is it valid to lump nuts and bolt sightings with issues like abduction...or any close encounter of the third kind?

Should we separate them" Can we separate them?

Harvard psychiatrist, Dr John Mack also suggested the interdimensional explaination for his findings on abductions.

Another well credentialed person in academia who came to a similar conclusion was Dr Rick Strassman. His patients entities were seen while they were under the influence of Dimethyltryptamine. en.wikipedia.org...
The parallels between the two phenomenon are striking.

Intriguingly, many volunteers refused to believe that these experiences were hallucinations or dreams, as they seemed too real. Strassman reported being initially quite baffled by and unprepared for the frequency of these entity experiences among his volunteers. In his book he even entertains the idea that these entities are genuine inhabitants of some sort of normally invisible alternative reality, perhaps of a parallel universe.

www.psychologytoday.com...
www.realitysandwich.com...
What do you make of this?

On the one hand it gives more support to this type of theory.
On the other hand, you see this other dimension simply by taking a drug. A drug which we all produce naturally.

If you say that they are just on drugs, thats a little hypocritical because it's the same sort of thing being reported.
If you agree that this supports this, you have agree that it's possible people are experiencing their own chemistry.
If you think they are just all a type of hallucination, it fits all around.

reply to post by ZetaRediculian

Definitely has to be factored in, but I don't think it's feasible that all cases are so easily "solved." Compelling stuff though. More from your link:

Strassman (2001) reported that “about half” of the 60 volunteers entered what he described as “freestanding, independent levels of existence” of a highly unusual nature. These places were inhabited by what volunteers described as intelligent “beings”, “entities”, “aliens”, “guides”, and “helpers”. These appeared in a variety of forms, such as “clowns, reptiles, mantises, bees, spiders, cacti, and stick figures.” These beings have been reported by other investigators, including Terrence McKenna, who described them as “self-transforming machine elves,” as well as in more sober case reports from research on people with schizophrenia conducted in the 1950s. Strangely enough, reports of these kinds of beings seem to be unique to '___', as Strassman was unable to find anything similar in the research literature on other psychedelic drugs.

There were some consistent themes in experiences of entity contact. Participants frequently reported that the beings seemed to be waiting for them. Volunteers were subjected to an examination by these beings in what appeared to be a technologically advanced setting. Volunteers felt like their mind and body was probed and tested, or even modified in some unexplained way. The beings communicated with the user through gestures, telepathy, or visual imagery. Sometimes the entities seemed loving and caring, other times emotionally detached. Strassman noted the striking parallels between these entity contact experiences and accounts of alien abduction. He considered that “alien abduction” experiences might occur due to the spontaneous release of naturally occurring '___' in the human brain, although this theory has never been tested.

www.psychologytoday.com...

reply to post by The GUT


You know it really is interesting but also overlooked. No, definitely not easily solved by any stretch. The best I can do is say that there seems to be a relationship. Not "solved" but I do have my personal opinion.

Originally posted by ImpactoR
But currently let's firstly see if there are ANY beings at all..

A lot of that work might have to do with how we define things as alive and intelligent. I'm not talking about whether or not we can call a virus "alive" or a "machine." But rather how we expect and assume living things or beings to have certain qualities like mass, location, and even persistence -- that they stick around when you're not looking at them.

One of questions I've always asked myself about the aliens is, "where do they go?" They all just seem to vanish. Maybe that's a clue of some kind that it's not so much about them as it is about us and how we perceive things.

If we can see these beings, we kind of have to assume that they have at least some small connection with the EM spectrum. There may be other spectra of other kinds of energy (psi, for instance, or morphic fields), but we're lousy at detecting them. Can we get flexible enough with our thinking to allow that there may be living things in a larger framework of reality that only interact with our EM fields and perceptions at certain times and under certain favorable conditions? And that the rest of the time they exist as a kind of "form without a form" in some other aspect of reality?

That's a tough one. Because then we have to start wondering if even the shadow people we populate our dreams with actually have some kind of quality of life about them that we have to acknowledge. Just because they don't have physical bodies, and certainly lack persistence since they vanish when we wake up, does that automatically preclude them from being alive? After all, they can affect our lives. They can make us change our behavior, and therefore change things that happen in the "real" world. They can even give us ideas. There's a long list of physicists and other intellectual types who credit their dreams for their breakthrough theories.

Still, I never liked Vallee's suggestion that these beings are in some way teaching us or guiding us toward a planned future. I tend to think of them more like pre-echoes of the future making their way back into our realities as visions of possibilities. More like a smear across spacetime and reality that we perceive a small portion of. That's more of a Rupert Sheldrake type morphic resonance field notion.

reply to post by The GUT

Should we separate them" Can we separate them?

I don't think so, since John Mack's research subjects were so persistent in their descriptions. The folks that experience it sure describe stuff that sounds like real hardware, even Betty and Barney, and it may be that the idea is irretrievably ensconced within the narrative. We would have to relegate all of their stories to dreams or hallucinations, which I am not prepared to do, myself.

MM's point about the belligerent nature of abductions really got me to thinking; the part about how we would just go to hospitals for biological material, too. I just plain have no idea most of the time what the hell is going on. What I have been separating out lately, for all the good it does me, is Maury Island forward. I took the time to read as much as i could to get it really nailed down. I started an illustrated timeline for ATS, but the project became way too large.

Sometimes I place as much of the hardware related stuff that I can in to a pile that is related to my tentative belief that there are technological 'systems' in place on earth that are at times activated, even though the relevancy of whatever mission they might have been set to do was only relevant in the far distant past.

Like those 'cauldrons' in Siberia. Or that farmer from Saskatchewan, Edwin Fuhr, and his story...

28:10

www.youtube.com...

There's another one on that video about some device that struck a ladies car and left algae laminated on her vehicle. Was it lying in a pond somewhere in the vicinity?

Anyhow, that's also really part of how I was misunderstanding Vallee, I think, a couple years back. But I hold on to it because sometimes stuff fits the pet theory in a pleasing way. Also, I am too lazy to look for the link right now, but I was stunned to find a basis for the Krull movie in some of the stranger legends that I found involving those Siberian 'cauldrons'. Some gigantic flaming 'rock' thing coming down from the sky and creating all kinds of meteorological chaos and the legends include tales that say that when it arrived, those cauldrons fired up and started shooting at it. I think I have that straight. I'll search out the link.

I know, crazy thinkin'.

reply to post by The GUT

I'm really enjoying the thought-provoking discussion here

Indeed!

Like you, my theories are always shifting with whatever I may have read that day. it is a little frustrating, actually.

One that I have been pondering today is the matrix theory. I'm sure everyone here remembers the threads dealing with how researchers have found computer code in our DNA? From there I got to thinking about the alleged Russian experiment done with a strand of DNA where they shone a light on a strand of DNA and then removed ghe DNA and the light held the shape of the DNA for several minutes... It makes me wonder if we are unwitting creators of our own reality... Maybe we manifest these things with our minds somehow... As if our thoughts write the code of the matrix.

Weird stuff.

"Professor, is this real? Or is it all just happening in my head?"

"...of course it is happening in your head, but does that mean it is any less real?"

Originally posted by ZetaRediculian
Harvard psychiatrist, Dr John Mack also suggested the interdimensional explaination for his findings on abductions.

Several of the most prominent alien abduction researchers, including Budd Hopkins, eventually drifted away from the idea that aliens were just flesh and blood creatures from other planets interested in creating hybrids. They encountered too much high strangeness to be ignored. It led them down a philosophical path that had to do with our interactions with and perceptions of time, space, and other non-Newtonian "dimensions" such as awareness and being.

Unfortunately, it's really hard to come up with good scientific tests for manipulating philosophical concepts. How does one measure someone or something's degree or strength of existence, for instance? "You're 94 percent real, whereas the clown in your dreams last night is only 16 percent real. Can we find a way to amplify or increase the quantity of the clown's existence so we can take its picture? Or get it to turn on a lamp?"

What if what is being "reverse-engineered' is not alien flying machines, but the Control System. The whole Control System.

Wouldn't that explain quite a bit? A system has manifold parts.



P.S. I am also grateful that this think -tank is up and running again. I think we are missing some folks though. Thanks again to Mr Mask.

If there is an advanced civilization - it may be able to play around with matter, change its state, thus appear as light to us - change dimension - why not? I do not exclude such possibility of state or dimension changing entities, that still makes them aliens.

But I find all these stories about - Aliens coming to your bed, taking you on ship, or just doing whatever - to be indeed some state of mind - too much alcohol? Very bad tobacco or side effects from the pills you take? I have no other explanation why so many people talk about their 'alien came to my bed' stories - either made them up or really, something common may be affecting your mind and people have all sorts of dreams, but it is... still dreams.

All the stories of beings visiting you while you sleep are all in your mind, dreams, hallucinations

reply to post by ImpactoR


Not the things that were visiting me. I have witnesses to the high strangeness that occured at my own house for a solid week. Every night.

There really is something behind the abduction phenomena. I have no idea what it is, but it is real. It terrified me so much I stopped reading these threads for months.

You know though, thinking back on it, I am reminded of something AB said earlier... About how experiences are brought forth through meditative states, spiritual states, etc.

This was true in my case.

For Weeks before the events I speak of, I had been doing a "contact meditation" experiment.

The saying "be careful what you wish for" has never been more apt. I literally thought my mind was coming unhinged by the time it was all over.

reply to post by Blue Shift

It led them down a philosophical path that had to do with our interactions with and perceptions of time, space, and other non-Newtonian "dimensions" such as awareness and being.

This is also something I am very interested in.
The number of reports I have read where witnesses describe a sensation of time standing still is staggering and the implications are also staggering.
It suggests that awareness exists outside the physical realm. Never mind how these things are able to stop time in the first place.

If there were ever a solid argument for extra dimensional elements to this, this is it.

reply to post by JayinAR


Hey JayinAR,

Did you ever post your experience here? If so, would you send me / share the link? I'm so sorry you had a terrifying week! Sort of like putting out a nice invitation to your neighbors and having Hell's Angels show up?

Anyway - I obviously 100% understand if you haven't and if you don't want to discuss it, so zero pressure!

Wow - this is a great discussion - I'm way behind in post-reading (it's that darn real-life thingy...)

peace,
AB

reply to post by thishereguy



l ook above the first post on this page left upper corner there is the word FLAG with a number of flags this thread has next to it, next to that is the "flag it" click on that to flag the thread!

There's always this option to add to the mix as well. Some, quite possibly long dead intelligence, at the peak of their technology created, biobots that were sent out to travel the galaxy and set up bases anywhere they found sentient life. They would become wanderers and were never likely to return home, their only contact possibly being some sort of "info dump" performed on a regular basis when they encounter other sentient creatures. The biobots themselves are created with a "hive" mentality in order to consolidate and perpetuate their mission. They are both supremely intelligent and yet, by their very nature somewhat naive when it comes to any, face to face, dealings with other lifeforms.

They understand and have rudimentary emotions of their own and yet they, by dint of their origins in neural programming to perform a specific task or tasks, find it hard and maybe even mentally painful, when coming into contact with creatures with complete free will. They might have had a base in our solar system, on our world for thousands of years from which they observe and compile and never ending series of reports they still send to their long dead creators. Hence, with the exponential explosion in human technology and scientific understanding they are far more busy than they have been for millenia, cataloguing and trying to understand what, we,as humans, are about and maybe, more importantly, where and when we are heading.

It's a perfectly feasible scenario to imagine that, the moment we entered "space" and therefore threaten to expand throughout the cosmos they are programmed to keep an even closer watch on our comings and goings. One could even hypothesise that, the abduction experiences are both monitoring and a clumsy attempt to draw us out of ourselves and somehow understand the concepts we need to grasp in order to truly travel the cosmos in a meaningful manner.

I'm not saying that is the answer or even, an answer however, it has to be down on the list of possibilities.

reply to post by AboveBoard


Howdy back!

Nope, I haven't ever done the story justice here.

I have mentioned it here and there, but honestly mostly in hopes that people will consider me a credible enough fellow and not ask me to go into detail.
It is pretty crazy. And calling the entire experience into question would be recalling a long ago thread, who's author was banned from this site maybe 6 or 7 years ago to begin with.

It is all rather silly and I have not done a proper write up on it. I have sat down to do so a few times, but then "wadded up the paper" each time.

Not because I fear telling the story so much as fearing that I will go out on a limb for no damn good reason.

I don't mind looking like a fool here. I do that often enough as it is.

It is more like, what is the point of pouring out your heart and soul honestly if nobody gives an ish?

Take this thread for instance. I told username ImpactoR that I have direct and personal, first hand testimony suggesting his remarks were way off base...

No response.