You probably are thinking this blog is related to the title song by Linda Ronstadt: Somewhere Out, but no. This blog is about what we used to call UFOs which have now been renamed UAPs according to a Washington Post article by Michael Shermer (the publisher of Skeptic magazine and author of the newly published book “Truth: What It Is, How to Find It, and Why It Still Matters.”)
On Jan. 13, Vermont legislator Troy Headrick (I) proposed creating a state task force that would get to the bottom of “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” or UAPs, that appeared to be buzzing about U.S. military air bases. Days later, Helen McCaw, a former senior analyst in financial security at the Bank of England, urged the bank’s governor to prepare for possible financial collapse should the White House disclose the existence of alien intelligence.
The author reported UFO and UAP sightings naturally fall into three categories: 1. ordinary terrestrial (balloons, camera/lens effects, visual illusions, etc.), 2. extraordinary terrestrial (Russian or Chinese spy planes or drones capable of feats unheard of in the U.S.) and 3. extraordinary extraterrestrial (alien presence).
Michael strongly suspects that all UAP sightings fall into the first category, but other commentators suggest the second, noting that they could represent Russian or Chinese assets using technology as yet unknown to American scientists, capable of speeds and turns that seemingly defy all their physics and aerodynamics.
That hypothesis is highly unlikely. It is simply not possible that some nation, corporation or lone individual — no matter how smart and creative — could have created an aircraft of any sort that would be centuries ahead of the West’s present technologies. It would be as if the United States were flying biplanes while the Russians or Chinese were flying Stealth fighter jets, or we were still experimenting with captured German V-2 rockets while they were testing SpaceX-level rocketry. Impossible. We would likely know about all the steps leading to such technological wizardry.
Finally, could UAPs really be space aliens? Michael emphasizes it’s not impossible, but it is highly improbable. While intelligent life is probably out there somewhere, the distances between the stars are so vast that it is extremely unlikely that any have come here, and what little evidence is offered by UAP believers comes in the form of highly questionable grainy photographs, blurry videos and stories about strange lights in the night sky.
Faithful readers of my blogs will attest to the illogic simply due to the distances.
What the author thinks is actually going on is a deep, religious-like impulse to believe that there is a godlike, omnipotent intelligence out there who 1. knows we’re here, 2. is monitoring us and is concerned for our well-being and 3. will save us if we’re good. Researchers have found, for example, an inverse relationship between religiosity, meaning and belief in aliens; that is, those who report low levels of religious belief but high desire for meaning show greater belief in extraterrestrials. They also found that people who self-identified as either atheist or agnostic were more likely to report believing in ETIs than those who reported being religious (primarily Christian).
From this research, and his own on the existential function served by belief in aliens, the author came to the conclusion that aliens are sky gods for skeptics, deities for atheists and a secular alternative to replace the rapidly declining religiosity in the West — particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, where, not coincidentally, most UAP sightings are made.
Good article Captain – interesting thoughts!