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Experts Weigh In on Pentagon UFO Report

“The vast majority of examined incidents were not caused by U.S. advanced technology programs, the forthcoming report concludes. So what’s going on?

For more than a decade, the U.S. Department of Defense has been quietly cataloging and investigating scores of bizarre encounters—most from the U.S. Navy—of ships and fighter jets tangling with, or being tailgated by, unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Beginning in 2017, videos and eyewitness accounts of these weird sightings found their way into public view, ultimately spurring Congress to demand that the Pentagon produce a report summarizing all that the U.S. government knows about so-called unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP (an alternate term with considerably less stigma than the much maligned “UFOs”).

Produced under the auspices of a Pentagon group called the UAP Task Force, an unclassified version of the report is expected to be released later this month. Upon establishing the task force, the DOD released an accompanying statement explaining the justifications for its existence:

“The safety of our personnel and the security of our operations are of paramount concern. The Department of Defense and the military departments take any incursions by unauthorized aircraft into our training ranges or designated airspace very seriously and examine each report. This includes examinations of incursions that are initially reported as UAP when the observer cannot immediately identify what he or she is observing.”

ASSESSING THE “ALIEN” HYPOTHESIS

Meanwhile all this strangeness has garnered considerable media attention, from front-page stories in the New York Times to 13,000-word articles in the New Yorker, as well as prominent coverage on 60 Minutes and other prime-time television programs. Through it all, a sizable contingent of true believers have steadily proclaimed, “We told you so,” insistent in their conviction that, whether called UFOs or UAP, the entities seemingly slipping through our skies are actually alien spacecraft—and have been visiting Earth for a very long time.

Those deeply entrenched public beliefs, paired with the apparent reinvigoration of investigative interest in these incidents at the highest levels of government, can lead to dazzling speculations. Might we be on the verge of a formal disclosure—backed by irrefutable evidence—that humankind is not alone and is indeed being monitored by extraterrestrial civilizations? Or could it be that UAP are entirely homegrown products of revolutionary and clandestine technological advances, whether by other countries now challenging American airspace or by the U.S. itself as part of some super-secret domestic program meant to detect flaws in the nation’s defenses? The mind boggles.

Although the task force’s unclassified assessment is not expected until June 25, the New York Times provided a cursory preview of its contents in an article on June 3. Citing anonymous senior officials familiar with the report’s contents, the story said that the assessment has come up short of explaining what UAP are and that it provides no evidence to link them with any putative alien visitation—despite reviewing more than 120 incidents from the past 20 years. The report’s firmest conclusion, it seems, is that the vast majority of UAP happenings and their surprising maneuvers are not caused by any U.S. advanced technology programs.

Lastly, according to the New York Times article, the final report includes a “classified annex” of information deemed unsuitable for public release—leaving more than enough room for die-hard UFO advocates to remain convinced that the U.S. government is hiding the truth.

NO “BIG REVEAL”

Andrew Fraknoi, an astronomer at the Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning at the University of San Francisco, echoes the widely held sentiment among scientists that, for decades, the media has lavished too much attention on sensational claims that vague lights in the sky are actually extraterrestrial spacecraft. “Recently, there has been a flurry of misleading publicity about UFOs [based on military reports]. A sober examination of these claims reveals that there is a lot less to them than first meets the eye,” Fraknoi says. Given sufficient evidence (which, arguably, many of the recent reports fail to provide), UFO sightings can essentially always be tied to terrestrial or celestial phenomena, such as lights from human-made vehicles and reentering space junk, he adds.

There is not going to be any “big reveal,” says Robert Sheaffer, a leading skeptical investigator of UFOs. “There are no aliens here on Earth, and so the government cannot ‘disclose’ what it does not have. Some people think that the government knows more about UFOs, or UAP, than the public, but it’s clear that they know less on the subject than our best civilian UFO investigators, not more.”

The DOD employs some very competent photographic analysts and other technical experts, “none of whom obviously were consulted in this comedy of errors,” Sheaffer says. “The Pentagon has already suffered enough embarrassment from the [apparent] incompetence of its UAP Task Force.” He says it is time to rein in such “rampant foolishness” and ensure that proper experts will shape the task force’s conclusions rather than “clueless, self-important people who don’t even recognize out-of-focus images when they see them.”

REAL ISSUES

Skeptical science writer Mick West has taken on the chore of analyzing the spate of UAP videos released by the U.S. military, steadfastly investigating how some of the incidents could merely be mirages from flaws in newly deployed radar systems, as well as various sorts of well-understood visual artifacts regularly seen in cameras. Despite his work to debunk the recent claims, West maintains that reports of mysterious aircraft stalking military assets should be taken quite seriously.

“Firstly, there’s a set of very real issues that could be grouped together as ‘UAPs’ or ‘UFOs,’” West says. “Any time something unidentified shows up in restricted airspace, then that’s a real problem that needs solving.” There have been many reports of drones above or near restricted areas, he notes. “We know that drones have been used for terrorist attacks, and drones will very much be a significant factor in future conflicts,” West says. “So we need to figure out how to identify and mitigate such things.”

Another real issue is that pilots sometimes see things that they cannot readily identify, West says, and they may misidentify such objects. Regardless of what such pilots actually observe, this is a problem. “If something there is hard to identify—like a novel drone—then we need to figure out how to identify it,” he says. “If the pilots are making mistakes, then we need to figure out why.”

THE “DISCLOSURE” FEEDBACK LOOP

“The advocates of alien disclosure are encroaching on these real issues of UAPs,” West says. These believers take mundane videos of incidents that are simply unidentified, he says, and then reframe them as evidence of extraordinary technology—which, of course, is intended to mean “aliens,” even if enthusiasts for that hypothesis will not explicitly say so. This cultivates credulous media attention, which in turn creates a feedback loop of public interest, more media and then pressure on politicians to “do something.”

“All the while, the military makes no comments, because that’s their modus operandi. Military things are assumed classified by default, and there is nothing compelling them to clear things up,” West says. In the end, he hopes that the forthcoming report represents the views of serious people finally stepping in to clear up what is—and is not—going on.

“I expect much discussion and information about the real issues of unidentified flying objects. But I do not anticipate it will have much that will please the UFO enthusiasts,” West says.

WAIT AND SEE

One person who is taking a “wait and see” attitude about the upcoming report is Ravi Kumar Kopparapu, a research scientist in planetary studies at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The history of scientific studies of UAP in the U.S. is not limited to the recently released video snippets, which is a good reminder to avoid painting the whole phenomenon with one broad brush, he says. Additionally, this is not a U.S.-specific issue, nor is it limited to observations by U.S. armed forces.

“There may not be a single explanation to all such observations. What I would suggest is that we not leap to any conclusions when the findings of the report are made public,” Kopparapu says. “The report would be immensely helpful if the data that informed it are made publicly available so that more experts and scientists can look at it and hopefully reach a scientific consensus on the nature of some of the unexplained events. Otherwise, there will always be conspiracy theories shrouding, and inhibiting, a proper scientific investigation of UAPs.”

A similar view is held by Mark Rodeghier, scientific director of the Center for UFO Studies, who says openness should be prioritized as much as possible in future investigations. “We don’t know whether the UFO problem is an intelligence one, due to foreign adversaries, but we do know, from its long history, that it is absolutely a scientific problem that deserves serious attention,” he says. “In a subject that has been too long ignored, downplayed and ridiculed, the government and scientific community should study UFOs openly and, importantly, with an open mind.”

WANTED: SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY

Harvard University astrophysicist Avi Loeb says the significance of the UAP Task Force report will depend on the evidence it discloses, which at the moment remains mostly unknown. “But this focus on past reports is misguided,” he says. “It would be prudent to progress forward with our finest instruments rather than examine past reports. Instead of focusing on documents that reflect decades-old technologies used by witnesses with no scientific expertise, it would be far better to deploy state-of-the-art recording devices, such as cameras or audio sensors, at the sites where the reports came from and search for unusual signals.”

Loeb goes a step further, saying he is willing to sign up to help unravel the UAP/UFO saga. “Personally, I will be glad to lead scientific inquiry into the nature of these reports and advise Congress accordingly,” he says. “This could take the form of a federally designated committee or a privately funded expedition. Its most important purpose would be to inject scientific rigor and credibility into the discussion.”

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

For some seasoned investigators, such as William Hartmann, a senior scientist emeritus at the Planetary Science Institute, headquartered in Tucson, Ariz., the current dustup over an influential government report on UFOs is a reminder that, eventually, everything old becomes new again.

Hartmann was a photography consultant and a co-author of the University of Colorado UFO Project’s report Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects. Funded by the U.S. Air Force from 1966 to 1968, that investigative effort was led by physicist Edward Condon, and it had dismal effects on subsequent scientific investigations. The extensive study of UFOs, Condon and his co-authors concluded, is simply not a fruitful field in which to seek major discoveries and “probably cannot be justified in the expectation that science will be advanced thereby.”

Reflecting on his work for the project, also called the Condon committee, Hartmann says that none of the photographic evidence he examined could establish anything extraordinary about the observed phenomena. “We proved that some of [the cases], including classic photos still being trotted out, were fake,” he says. “That fact alone makes it extremely difficult to apply straight scientific techniques because we know some, not necessarily all, of the data we were given were carefully prepared to delude us. [That is] not quite like astronomy, where we can assume that the photons coming through our telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii are not put in there by a hoaxer.”

“To put it another way, if you think there could be a real alien spaceship among a pile of photos you are given, but you know that some of the photos are fakes, then it is very hard to prove that any single one of them is proof of an alien visitation,” Hartmann says. “I’d want to see multiple, clear photos or detections by witnesses who don’t know each other, from multiple cities, viewing from multiple directions, before getting very excited.”

Still, he adds that ever since his experience working on the Condon committee, he cannot escape “the feeling that there may be electromagnetic phenomena in the atmosphere that we still don’t understand.”

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

Sarah Scoles is author of the recently published book They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers. Although the report’s full details remain to be seen, she senses it will not be as revelatory as some hope.

“At various times during the 20th century, the military has undertaken studies of UFOs to determine, largely, whether what people are seeing represents a national security threat,” Scoles says. “This report doesn’t, then, seem seminal, because it’s doing a 21st-century version of that same thing.” That said, Scoles feels an unbiased analysis of available data could shed light on the true frequency of UAP observations—and perhaps on the characteristics and possibly identities of these sightings. “One problem with UFO/UAP research is that it often doesn’t resemble traditional scientific research in terms of rigor,” she says.

The task force report could quantify and analyze a wide swath of data, Scoles hopes, with the requisite background knowledge of sensor capabilities, current domestic and foreign military capabilities, and so on. If so, that would be a welcome change from previous high-profile studies, she concludes.

Where does this leave us? The truth, of course, is somewhere out there, whether or not it appears in the pages of the UAP Task Force report. But for now, the odds seem to be against the U.S. government knowing what it is, let alone revealing it anytime soon.

Experts Weigh In on Pentagon UFO Report

Author: Leonard David

Publication: Scientific American

Publisher: SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, a Division of Springer Nature America, Inc.

Date: Jun 8, 2021

Copyright © 2021, Scientific American, Inc.

 

Announcing that the Mysterious Radio program will be interviewing me about my first book entitled Extraterrestrial Communication Code on November 25 at 1:00 PM EST. The discussion will likely also include discussion on my Extraterrestrial Communication Group website, and my first live podcast interview with Stan Mallow, the Paranormal Yakker which premiered Nov 30, 2021. The Mysterious Radio interview will be made available to the public shortly thereafter. Stay tuned for an update on that.

In addition, my second book that is currently in progress will be entitled “Extraterrestrial Communication Angels” will be discussed. It is an exciting project that is somewhat of a sequel to my first book. This new project however, digs much deeper into the Biblically documented messages and sub-messages delivered by Angels and much more. There is a lot more to Angels and their messages and structure than most people realize. The book guides us directly to a means, method, time and location to make a new and different attempt to establish real-time and two-way communication with our friends not of this earth. As time permits, I will post up excerpts from this book on my website.

The Mysterious Radio podcast has scheduled an interview to discuss my first book – Extraterrestrial Communication Code published in February 2021. It will also include discussion of my up-coming book, Angel Communication Code. The interview is scheduled for this November 25^th at 01:00 PM.

 Mysterious Radio ranks in the top 1% of more than 4 million pod casts. They average over 1.3 million downloads per month with more than 89 million down loads since its inception. Mysterious Radio is a top rated podcast that conducts in-depth interviews with top scientists, journalists and researchers that dare to look way beyond the edges of our reality to analyze extraordinary events and claims. The show is hosted by “K-Town” who is a military veteran and produced by a small team out of Knoxville, TN. Some of their guests have included:

• Emmy Award-Winner, Linda Moulton-Howe

Linda Moulton Howe is an American investigative journalist and Regional Emmy award-winning documentary film maker best known for her work as a ufologist and advocate of a variety of conspiracy theories, including her investigation of cattle mutilations and conclusion that they are performed by extraterrestrials. She is also noted for her speculations that the U.S. government is working with extraterrestrials. Howe was a frequent guest on Coast to Coast AM for 28 years, dating back to 2003.  Howe has been interviewed on Larry King Live specials, CNN; The O’Reilly Factor, Fox; Sightings and Strange Universe, Fox; NBC’s The Other Side; Britain’s Union Pictures, ITN and BBC; The Discovery Channel special Evidence On Earth; the NBC network special, Mysterious Origins of Man, and the History Channel television series Ancient Aliens.

• Pulitzer Prize Winner, Katherine Ellison

Katherine Ellison is an American author. With two colleagues, she won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. She has won other journalism prizes including the National Association of Hispanic Journalists first-place award.

 In 1997, the Inter American Press Association first-place award for feature-writing, won in both 1994 and 1995, the Latin American Studies Association Media Award, in 1994, the Overseas Press Club Award, in 1989, and the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, in 1986.

Ellison has authored and co-authored seven books, including: “Loving Learning: How Progressive Education Can Save America’s Schools,” Square Peg: My Story and What it Means for Raising Innovators, Visionaries, and Out-of-the-Box Thinkers, published by Hyperion Voice in March 2013; Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention, Hyperion Voice, 2010, The Mommy Brain: How motherhood makes us smarter (2005), The New Economy of Nature: The quest to make conservation profitable, Imelda: Steel butterfly of the Philippines.

This will be my second podcast interview. The first was with Stan Mallow, host of the Paranormal Yakker, Season 21 – Episode 31: https://paranormalyakker.com/2021/31.html

Thank you all for your on-going interest and support of the Extraterrestrial Communication Group. Remember to tune into the interview on Mysterious Radio on November 25^th at 01:00 PM.

2024 will be the 50^th anniversary of the “Arecibo Message” we shot out into the stars back in 1974.

To the best of my knowledge, there has been no verifiable response to that message. We have sent several messages out into the stars over the decades, and none have generated a response as far as we know. Some of the smartest people in the world continue on this quest every day using the most advanced technology we have; so one would have to believe that they must know at least something right? If making contact is proving to be very difficult, imagine how hard it is going to be to communicate. As we get closer and closer to contact, the question about meaningful communication becomes increasingly urgent.

As the technologies we have deployed to learn about the universe have advanced in recent years, astrophysicists have been able to discover the past and current presence of water on other planets and / or moons; the prerequisite for life “as we know it”. The probability that at least one of these billions of planets supports intelligent life is good enough to warrant all the time and money being invested.

In March 2022 an international team of researchers headed-up by Jonathan Jiang of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory published a paper on arXiv.org entitled “A Beacon in the Galaxy: Updated Arecibo Message for Potential FAST and SETI Projects,” by Jonathan H. Jiang et al. Preprint posted online March 4, 2022 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). The arXiv site is an on-line library  holding over two million articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering, systems science, and economics.

The Beacon in the Galaxy article is intended to be an introduction to mathematics, chemistry, and biology as they relate to design of the Arecibo message and other past attempts at contacting extraterrestrials. In my Book “Extraterrestrial Communication Code” (ECC); the focus is about finding (not sending) an ET created message and responding to it at the right time, in the right direction and from the correct location. This all means that the scientific community is coming to the realization that we need to change / improve our methods and thinking on this subject.

The Beacon in the Galaxy paper includes a detailed plan for the best time of year to transmit the message and also proposed a dense ring of stars near the center of our galaxy as good target at which to shoot. The proposed transmission includes newly designed instructions intended to help extraterrestrial listeners find us.

“The motivation for the design was to deliver the maximum amount of information about our society and the human species in the minimal amount of message,” Jiang says. “With improvements in digital technology, we can do much better than the Arecibo message in 1974.”

The problem always begins the same simple things. What to say and how to say it? After that, the problem becomes how, when, to where in space and from where on earth do we send the message.

There are some fairly grand assumptions we make about the development and transmission of our current “Message in a Bottle” approach to establishing contact and then communication with intelligent extraterrestrial life:

1. If our message to the extraterrestrials is received by a radio telescope, that life must therefore have similar knowledge of physics and mathematics.

2. If item 1 is true then it is reasonable to expect that these extraterrestrials understand prime numbers, binary code and that the concept of numbers is nearly universal.

The way we have chosen to illustrate numerals is entirely arbitrary. This is why many attempts, including “Beacon in the Galaxy,” have designed their message as a bitmap which is a way to use binary code to create a pixelated image. The concept is reasonable however; the messages we have composed and delivered are much too complex.  It was scientist Frank Drake that originally developed a binary / bitmap message for the Arecibo transmission in 1974. He sent his binary message in the regular mail to some colleagues which included several Nobel Prize winning scientists.  Not a single one of them one of them was able to understand the message. Only one figured out that the binary was meant to be a bitmap. If some of the smartest humans on earth struggled and failed to understand this form of encoded message, how can we expect that an extraterrestrial would do any better. ECC makes this point as it relates to the “Scientific Method”. The Scientific Method demands that we revise the experiment and this is the nuts and bolts of ECC.

Douglas Vakoch is the president of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence International (METI), which is a nonprofit focused on researching how to communicate with other life-forms. In 2017 Vakoch and his colleagues sent the first interstellar message transmitting scientific information since 2003 to a nearby star. Like all the other messages we have sent, it was coded in binary. This message however, avoided bitmaps for a message design that explored the concepts of time and radio waves by referring back to the radio wave carrying the message. This was a different method largely based on 2003 Cosmic Call broadcast from the Yevpatoriaradio telescope in Ukraine. The 2003 message featured a custom bitmap “alphabet” created by physicists Yvan Dutil and Stéphane Dumas as a proto-alien language that was designed to be resistant to transmission errors.

After an initial transmission of a prime number to flag the message as artificial, Jiang’s message uses the same alien alphabet to introduce our base-10 numeral system and basic mathematics as a foundation. Then the message uses the spin-flip transition of a hydrogen atom to explain the idea of time and mark when the transmission was sent from Earth, introduce common elements from the periodic table, and reveal the structure and chemistry of DNA. There is more to the message but the point is this: The message is too damn complicated to decode at the other end. It’s like these super smart people just can’t help themselves.

ECC takes a different and fresh approach:

1. Trying to generate an original and grossly overcomplicated message into a random location millions of light years away are probably a waste of time for several reasons.

2. It is safe to say ETs have visited earth and observed humans. They probably still do. ETs probably left a coded map to where they came from and / or where they went. Humans have always done this here on earth so why would ETs not to the same or similar.

3. If we find the code / map and message, then we repeat it back, the ETs will know we found it, understood, it and are capable of communication.

4. The ET map / Code presented in ECC includes:
   1. The message itself that we need to repeat back (2-way communication principal)
   2. When to send the message with respect to solar events here on earth.
   3. From where to send the message (a probable wormhole location). The distances are too great to send / receive messages without the use of a wormhole.

The Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico was destroyed in 2020. Jiang and his colleagues have proposed sending their message from either the Allen Telescope Array in northern California or the Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) in China.

The problem with that is both of these radio telescopes are only capable of listening for and not sending messages. Jiang acknowledges that outfitting either telescope with the equipment required to transmit the message would be difficult and costly but it is possible. He says he and his co-authors are discussing ways to work with researchers at FAST do achieve this however; they are not in direct contact with China on this matter at this time.

Let’s assume that someday soon contact is made using the universal language of math. What do we do next? Communicating with math is only going to get us so far. We will need to communicate with these extraterrestrials. It is entirely possible that the intellectual / evolutionary gap is just too big. We can communicate with certain animals on earth to some low level of understanding but there are limits. We can teach a dog or a dolphin to perform certain behaviors for us and they get a reward for doing the trick. We can’t ask a dog or a dolphin to read a book or solve an algebraic expression. These are human creations and we assume aliens are similar to us in this way but what if they are not? People can learn to speak different languages but what if extraterrestrials have evolved beyond audio language. Maybe they communicate telepathically with each other and don’t even have vocal chords. Are we prepared for that contingency – probably not? How worried about his should we be at this juncture? We can’t learn the language of a species we have yet to contact right? Do we really need a special language to communicate with extraterrestrials?

In May of 2018, a radar facility in Tromso Norway focused its antennas on GJ237b, which is a potentially habitable exoplanet approximately 12 light-years from Earth. Over the course of three days, the radar transmitted messages toward this planet. Each message was comprised of a variety of short songs and instructions about how to interpret the message songs.

This was the second iteration of “Sonar Calling GJ273b”, an interstellar messaging project by the nonprofit METI International . This second broadcast was notable for using modified extraterrestrial language developed by the physicists Yvan Dutil and Stephane Dumas in the late 1990s.

All of the previous formal messaging attempts have taken basically the same approach.  Teach numerals and basic arithmetic first. Recent insights in neurolinguistics however, argue that this might not be the best way to attempt communication with extraterrestrials.

The world’s first interstellar communication system, the lingua cosmica, or Lincos, set the standard for all subsequent attempts by placing basic math at its core. Designed by the Dutch mathematician Hans Freudenthal in 1960, Lincos inspired several other mathematicians and scientists to try their hand at designing extraterrestrial languages. Each system is ultimately an attempt at solving a remarkably complex problem: How do you communicate with an intelligent entity you know nothing about?

The question leads down the path of understanding the nature of intelligence itself. Humans are the only species on Earth endowed with advanced mathematical ability and a fully-fledged capacity for spoken and written language, but are these requirements of intelligence. Is there a common feature of intelligence that is universal? We know that other animals on earth can communicate with each other but it is not the same as human language as far as we know. 

Scientists, mathematicians, theologians and scholars have all struggled with these sorts of questions for hundreds of years.  Nobel Prize winner Eugene Wigner once observed, mathematics is “unreasonably effective” at describing the natural universe, which has led a significant contingent of mathematicians to conclude that math is baked into the fabric of reality. From this perspective, mathematics isn’t something produced by the human mind so much as something the human mind discovers.

Most interstellar communication systems were designed around this conclusion. The goal isn’t to teach ETs about addition and subtraction because they already know mathematics. The purpose is for us to show them how humans code numbers as symbols. Then they can build up to more complex ideas.

It is a convenient and defensible solution to a very difficult problem. It all relies on the giant assumption an extraterrestrial is “human-like in the way they think.  If in fact extraterrestrials do think in a similar way to humans, do they also have some kind of human-like language?

That was where Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy, two of the progenitors of artificial intelligence, landed after they became interested in interstellar communication. Both Minsky and McCarthy had a deep interest in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, which they realized had a lot in common with their own search for artificial intelligence. They argued that extraterrestrials are likely to have language because language is an ideal solution to the fundamental problems faced by any intelligent species such as constraints on time, energy, and resources in general.

The more complex question is will their language will be similar to our own. Will their language, however communicated, obey the universal grammar, the hierarchical, recursive structure that linguist Noam Chomsky has argued is the deep structure common to all human languages. Although languages tend to be analogized as a form of software running on the hardware of our brain, recent work in neurolinguistics suggests that language—and the universal grammar—is actually an expression of the hardware itself.

Several brain imaging studies have shown that the deep structure of human language manifests in our neural activity. When people are taught fake rules for either a made-up or real language, their brains respond differently than when they use actual languages (whether familiar to them or not). These findings suggest that the shared attributes of natural languages might be encoded in how neurons connect. In other words, our faculty for language may be inextricably linked to the structure of our brain.

If extraterrestrials do have a language similar to ours, that might imply they also have a functionally equivalent neurobiology. To say aliens might think like us and have language is one thing, but to argue they have brains like ours pushes the concept to the limit but it might not be as crazy as it sounds.

Biology is a slave to the laws of physics, which puts constraints on the trajectory of evolution. Astrobiologist Charles Cockell makes this argument in his recent book, The Equations of Life, in which he points to the remarkable similarities across species on Earth, from the fact that life is cellular and holds the same four nucleotides, to the structure of an eye or a wing. This is not to say that evolution is deterministic as random events like asteroid impacts and genetic mutations still happen, but that the number of evolutionary end points is not without limits.  

It is reasonable to expect that an extraterrestrial planet will be quite a bit different from earth, and the species there would have adapted accordingly. The course of evolution however, will still be bound by the same physical laws, and they will face the same fundamental constraints on time, energy, and resources. So it is reasonable to assume that extraterrestrial evolution might arrive at similar solutions to these common problems, such as a brain capable of developing hierarchical, recursive languages.

If that’s the case, then the best way to communicate large amounts of information may not be painstakingly designing artificial languages from scratch, but sending a lot of natural language text, such as an encyclopedia.  If ET has developed its own AI, it could potentially decipher the structure of a natural language message.

Natural language processing algorithms on Earth don’t really understand the meaning of the text they analyze. They are blindly manipulating symbols and aliens may still need some kind of extraterrestrial language to connect some of the symbols of human language to their meaning. But as on Earth, the best way to start an interstellar conversation might simply be saying “hello.”

This article is adapted from Extraterrestrial Languages by WIRED staff writer Daniel Oberhaus. It was released on October 22 by MIT Press.

References

1. Daniel Oberhaus. Researchers Made a New Message for Extraterrestrials. Scientific American. March 30, 2022

Daniel Oberhaus is a science writer based in Brooklyn, N.Y. He was previously a staff writer at Wired covering space exploration and the future of energy. His first book, Extraterrestrial Languages (MIT Press, 2019), is about the art and science of interstellar communication.

The following was published on March,6, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick on: The Universe Today – Space and Astronomy News.

If Russia Backs out of the ISS, SpaceX Could Help Keep the Station Operational

The first full moon of the year is the second full moon after the winter Solstice. It is called the Wolf Moon. It will be at its peak on Monday, Jan. 17, 2022, at exactly 6:48 P.M. EST. This is the time of year/season when many important celestial bodies are visible in the night sky such as Orion’s Belt, the Eta Carina Nebula, and others which has implications to the possibility of establishing communication with extraterrestrial societies. This subject is discussed in some detail in my book “Extraterrestrial Communication Code” so I will not re-cover those topics again. The Wolf Moon is not discussed in my book, so that is the subject discussed here.

The Wolf Moon is tightly woven into many cultures across the globe as might be expected. In India, this full moon signifies the Shakambhari Purnima in the Hindu calendar, the last day of the eight-day Shakambari Navratri festival honoring the goddess Shakambhari. It was celebrated as the “Moon after Yule” by pre-Christian Europeans during a three-day winter solstice feast. It is also coincident with the Ananda Pagoda Festival in Myanmar, which is a celebration of this Buddhist temple established in 1105 A.D. at Bagan. This full moon is Duruthu Poya for Sri Lankan Buddhists, commemorating Siddhartha Gautama, Buddha’s first visit to Sri Lanka. In the Tamil Hindu community, they celebrate the Thaipusam Festival on this full moon.

Why is it called the Wolf Moon? The name Wolf Moon is often believed to be derived from Native American culture. In the 1930’s the Farmer’s Almanac began publishing “Indian” Moon names for each month of the year. Robert B. Thomas published the first issue of the Farmer’s Almanac in 1792 for the year 1793 during George Washington’s first term as President. I get a current issue every year, it is an interesting reference.

The Almanac records and predicts astronomical events such as the rising and setting of the Sun, tides, weather, and other phenomena with respect to time. Since Thomas’s format was written as nonfiction, it was believed that Thomas’s astronomical and weather predictions were more accurate, the advice more useful, and the features more interesting and relevant. Based on his observations, Thomas used a complex series of natural cycles to devise a secret weather forecasting formula, which yielded amazingly accurate results, said to be 80 percent accurate. To this day his formula is kept safely secured in the Almanac office in Dublin, New Hampshire.

The names of the full moons published by the Almanac have become widely accepted over the years. The original source of these names however, is not completely clear. There are some that say the moon names came from the Algonquin language as interpreted by colonial Americans. Prior to the introduction of modern timekeeping, cultural leaders/elders would choose the name of the Moon based on conditions at the time. For the most part, these cultures did not have or need calendars that specified exact dates far in advance. Full moon names were given to describe and remember what happened in the past and to remind people of what was likely to come in the near future. There are many different Native American names for the full moons. According to some sources, the Wolf Moon is a pre-Christian European name for the second full moon of winter.

According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the Wolf Moon is named as such, because of legends from long ago. It is thought that January’s full moon came to be known as the Wolf Moon because wolves were more likely to be heard howling at this time. Wolves were once assumed to be howling only because of hunger and wolves being terrifying, dangerous animals, they were greatly feared by tribal communities. Over time the howling was also understood as communication, to mark territory, hunts, and find other pack members. In the end, regardless of the true reason behind the howling, the Wolf Moon name for the full January moon stuck. It is easy to imagine hungry, dangerous, and scary wolves howling outside snow-covered villages at this time of year.

 Indian Country Today is an independent nonprofit, multimedia news organization that covers the Indigenous world, including American Indians and Alaska Natives. Indian Country Today is also a public media broadcast carried via public television stations, including FNX: First Nations Experience and Arizona PBS World channel. They pointed out in 2013 that the name Wolf Moon does not appear on the lists of any American Indian tribe moon names compiled by Phil Konstantin, who worked for NASA, among other places. Indian Country Today wrote:

“Of the 29 tribes listed [by Phil Konstantin], not one calls January the Wolf Moon, although the Sioux name is Wolves Run Together Moon. The Algonquin actually call the January moon squochee kesos, or Sun Has Not Strength to Thaw”. Not Wolf Moon as claimed by the Farmer’s Almanac.

To the Haida in Alaska its táan kungáay, or Bear-Hunting Moon. The Hopi in southwest Arizona call it paamuya, Moon of Life. In the Pacific Northwest it is atalka, meaning Stay Inside. Moving farther south, the Choctaw word for the January full moon is rv’fo cusee, which means Winter’s Little Brother.

Some believe there is a much more cosmic connection going on by dubbing the first moon of the year the “Wolf Moon”. Each month’s full moon not only has its own name and story, but it also has a spiritual meaning. The belief is that each full moon signals the turnover into the next phase to varying degrees. After all – they happen at least once a month. The Wolf Moon, however, is much more meaningful. It is the first full moon of the year and the perfect place for starting a personal “next chapter” of your life and/or a marker for “turning over a new leaf.” Spiritualists believe it delineates a time for deeper reflection and longer-term transformation. It is a time of figuring out what one requires to have a “successful” life – which means different things to different people. It is a time for an individual to discover what is missing and find truth in what one truly desires to achieve happiness in this life and perhaps the next.  It is about seeking ones purpose and how that purpose relates to the bigger picture of society and even the universe.  There is a lot more to this than making another half-hearted “New Year’s Resolution”.

Nobody really knows for sure why we have come to accept Wolf Moon as the name for the first full moon of the year. Perhaps back in the day some cultural leader understood that this first moon represented the perfect time for personal reflection and in contemplating an appropriate name he recognized that more than anything else, wolves put their family first. The spirit of the wolf is a reminder to all of us that the greatest gifts in life are your relationships with those you love. Do you put them first like the wolf does? If you have children, do you put their protection and well-being ahead of everything else like the wolf does?

In a wolf pack the wiser but older and weakest wolves guide the pack on the move, and it is the strongest wolves and the Alpha male of the pack at the end of the line making sure no member of the pack falls behind. The Alpha wolf can see all the pack at the same time from the end of the line and makes sure that the pack is protected from attack from behind. Most other species (including humans) take more of a follow the Alpha leader approach. The weak fall behind and fall as easy prey to hungry predators. That is how animals hunt – take the weak ones that fall behind. I believe this makes Wolf Moon a good and inspirational identifier of the first moon of the year.

It seems to me that in today’s overly analytical culture, we often tend hold only analytical results as the truth and only analytical logic has become the law by which we live.  We often judge circumstances and others (and ourselves) by numbers like income, age, height, weight, and other numerical metrics and calculations. Moving in this direction has devalued something that is invaluable, and which cannot be measured and graded. That something is our natural instincts. Our instincts have been developed over time since the day one of human existence. Our instincts are in our DNA. They are not something that can or should be removed, ignored, or trampled by cold analytics. Analytics and statistics are often manipulated to reach a desired result. Instincts are not because we do not control them. We see this every day in our government and the information the media chooses to publish to the people. Who the hell knows what the truth is these days. I submit that our instincts know if we would just learn to trust and listen to them again.

Because wolves remain wild, they have not lost their family instincts in the way that we humans have degraded the family structure and the behavior of government (pack) leaders in recent decades. Instincts often defy analytics and logic. Instincts can tell us on a first date, or even in a text message leading up to a first date, whether something is “off” and that we should avoid going on that date. Our instincts can tell us whether we can trust someone or not.

If a wolf appears in your life in some way, it just might be  a strong signal for you to pay more attention to your instincts and not what you are told to believe and/or feel. Sometimes we need to be reminded to pay more attention to our God given instincts and less to the words of those who govern.

Matthew 7:15: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

 Stephen J. Silva –

Great news for the Extraterrestrial Communication Group!!!

Our website was discovered by a broadcaster and television host named Stan Mallow the “Paranormal Yakker.”
Mr. Mallow read the book, went to the website, and read the blog posts and then invited me to be a guest on his show.

I accepted the invitation and the interview happened on November 13th this year. Taken from Mr. Mallow’s website:
“For seven seasons Stan Mallow was host of the hugely popular “Paranormal Show.” It aired weekly on TV Cogeco in Canada. Amongst the hundreds of guests who came on it to promote their books, movies, workshops, tours, organizations, and other endeavors were several heavyweights in the paranormal world. This includes George Noory, host of Coast to Coast AM, who came on the show to promote his Canadian appearances, acclaimed author Patricia Cori, and world-renowned mentalist The Amazing Kreskin, world-renowned mentalist.

Stan is now the host of Paranormal Yakker, a free YouTube series that has gained a loyal international following. Each episode finds him interviewing a different person of note in their respective field. If it’s connected to the paranormal , the weird, the unexplained, the mysterious, the bizarre, the macabre, you’ll find it on Paranormal Yakker.”

Mr. Mallow’s guests have included several well respected authors, PhD level academics, senior scientists, and high ranking government / military officials. It is quite a thrill and an honor to now be included as part of this peer group of respected professionals that understand the relevance and importance of extraterrestrial communication. Here is the link to the interview: https://paranormalyakker.com/2021/31.html
Taken from the interview abstract:

“Stephen Silva – Extraterrestrial Communication Code-
Extraterrestrial Communication Code: The Discovery, Meaning and Our Response to Their Message is a thought provoking book written by Stephen Silva. He talks about the book in his interview with Stan Mallow on Paranormal Yakker. Although Stephen has long had an interest in exploring the possibility that extraterrestrials are seeking to communicate with us, his first and to date, only, UFO experience did not happen until November of 2020. That mind bending experience is described in the interview. Further, Stephen elaborates on the discovery of what could be an extraterrestrial deposited code and how its solution leads to a response to its message. Stephen has formed an Extraterrestrial Communication Group and talks about the purpose and goals of the group. Also covered in the interview is Roswell, radio telescopes, binary codes, intelligent design, UFOs, Orion’s Belt, Eta Islands, and the Bermuda Triangle.”

I encourage you to go to the Paranormal Yakker site and listen to / see some of the interviews. It does not disappoint. https://paranormalyakker.com/index.html

Extraterrestrial Communication Code can be found on our website:

https://www.etcommgroup.com/

or directly at

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XXZWQH1

Thank you for visiting our site and your continued support.
Stephen J. Silva –

In my book “Extraterrestrial Communication Code” I offer some concepts that might explain why we have not established open communication with Extraterrestrials. There are very few people at this point, that credibly deny ETs exist or have been to earth in the past or may very well be among us now. One of my book’s concepts applied to get to some extraterrestrial communication answers is about “Going back to Basics”.

I recently attended a lecture by Mr. Eric Metaxas held in Kingston, Massachusetts. I bought one of his books and he signed it for me. Eric Metaxas is a NY Times Best Selling American author, speaker, and conservative radio host. His lecture was very insightful, and he discussed the foundation of America and where it is today. He also went “Back to Basics” to reinforce his audience as to what the creation of this America was all about. It struck a nerve with me and I will expand upon his concepts here as there are connections to extraterrestrial / Devine intervention in our history that are important to our patriotism and the birth of this great Nation.

Extraterrestrial and / or Devine intervention played a significant role in the success of America starting with George Washington himself. Many believe that there was no way that the Colonists should have won the Revolutionary war which began in 1775 and lasted into 1783. Just try to imagine what it was like to live in this country at that time. The Colonists were simply out-manned, out-gunned and out-funded. The Colonists were very near defeat when George Washington was visited by God / Angels or some other extraterrestrial entities. It is known as “George Washington’s Vision”.  Wesley Bradshaw first published the story in 1859, in the National Tribune (75 years after the war ended). It was copied in this same newspaper in December 1880, Vol. 4, №12. The story was re-published numerous times since then. This little examined event that probably won the war and allowed the American Experiment to begin.  The story is published as follows (italic print):

The last time I ever saw Anthony Sherman was on the fourth of July 1859, in Independence Square. He was then ninety-nine years old and becoming very feeble. But though so old, his dimming eyes rekindled as he gazed upon Independence Hall, which he came to visit once more. “Let us go into the hall,” he said. “I want to tell you of an incident of Washington’s life — on which no one alive knows of except myself; and, if you live, you will before long see it verified”.

“George Washington would hardly have been the type of man that one would expect to be seeking visionary manifestations or to be easily taken in by them. From the opening of the Revolution, we experienced all phases of fortune, now good and now ill, one time victorious and another conquered. The darkest period we had, I think, was when Washington after several reverses, retreated to Valley Forge, where he resolved to pass the winter of 1777.

Ah! I have often seen the tears coursing down our dear commander’s care-worn cheeks, as he would be conversing with a confidential officer about the condition of his poor soldiers. You have doubtless heard the story of Washington’s going into the thicket to pray. Well, it was not only true, but he used often to pray in secret for aid and comfort from God, the interposition of whose Divine Providence brought us safely through the darkest days of tribulation.”

An Uninvited Guest

“One day, I remember it well, the chilly winds whistled through the leafless trees, though the sky was cloudless, and the sun shone brightly, he remained in his quarters nearly all the afternoon alone. When he came out, I noticed that his face was a shade paler than usual, and there seemed to be something on his mind of more than ordinary importance. Returning just after dusk, he dispatched an orderly to the quarters of the officer I mention who was presently in attendance.

“After a preliminary conversation of about half an hour, Washington, gazing upon his companion with that strange look of dignity which he alone could command, said to the latter: I do not know whether it is owing to the anxiety of my mind, or what, but this afternoon as I was sitting at this table engaged in preparing a dispatch, something seemed to disturb me. Looking up, I beheld standing opposite me a singularly beautiful female. So astonished was I, for I had given strict orders not to be disturbed that it was some moments before I found language to inquire into the cause of her presence. A second, a third, and even a fourth time did I repeat my question but received no answer from my mysterious visitor except a slight raising of her eyes. By this time, I felt strange sensations spreading through me. I would have risen but the riveted gaze of the being before me rendered volition impossible. I assayed once more to address her, but my tongue had become useless. Even thought itself had become paralyzed. A new influence, mysterious, potent, irresistible, took possession of me. All I could do was to gaze steadily, vacantly at my unknown visitant. Gradually the surrounding atmosphere seemed as though becoming filled with sensations, and luminous. Everything about me seemed to rarify, the mysterious visitor herself becoming more airy and yet more distinct to my sight than before. I now began to feel as one dying, or rather to experience the sensations which I have sometimes imagined accompany dissolution. I did not think, I did not reason, I did not move; all were alike impossible. I was only conscious of gazing fixedly, vacantly at my companion.”

The First Threat

“Presently I heard a voice saying, “Son of the Republic, look and learn,” while at the same time my visitor extended her arm eastwardly. I now beheld a heavy white vapor at some distance rising fold upon fold. This gradually dissipated, and I looked upon a strange scene. Before me lay spread out in one vast plain all the countries of the world — Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. I saw rolling and tossing between Europe and America the billows of the Atlantic, and between Asia and America lay the Pacific. “Son of the Republic,” said the same mysterious voice as before, “look and learn.” At that moment I beheld a dark, shadowy being, like an angel, standing, or rather floating in mid-air, between Europe and America, dipping water out of the ocean in the hollow of each hand, he sprinkled some upon America with his right hand, while with his left hand he cast some on Europe. Immediately a cloud raised from these countries and joined in mid-ocean. For a while it remained stationary, and then moved slowly westward, until it enveloped America in its murky folds. Sharp flashes of lightning gleamed through it at intervals, and I heard the smothered groans and cries of the American people. A second time the angel dipped water from the ocean and sprinkled it out as before. The dark cloud was then drawn back to the ocean, in whose heaving billows it sank from view.”

The Second Threat

“A third time I heard the mysterious voice saying, “Son of the Republic, look and learn,” I cast my eyes upon America and beheld villages and towns and cities springing up one after another until the whole land from the Atlantic to the Pacific was dotted with them. Again, I heard the mysterious voice say, “Son of the Republic, the end of the century cometh, look and learn.” At this the dark shadowy angel turned his face southward, and from Africa I saw an ill-omened spectre approach our land. It flitted slowly over every town and city of the latter. The inhabitants presently set themselves in battle array against each other. As I continued looking, I saw a bright angel, on whose brow rested a crown of light, on which was traced the word “Union,” bearing the American flag which he placed between the divided nation, and said, “Remember ye are brethren.” Instantly, the inhabitants, casting from them their weapons became friends once more, and united around the National Standard.”

The Third Threat

“And again, I heard the mysterious voice saying, “Son of the Republic, look and learn.” At this the dark, shadowy angel placed a trumpet to his mouth, and blew three distinct blasts; and taking water from the ocean, he sprinkled it upon Europe, Asia and Africa. Then my eyes beheld a fearful scene: from each of these countries arose thick, black clouds that were soon joined into one. And throughout this mass there gleamed a dark red light by which I saw hordes of armed men, who, moving with the cloud, marched by land, and sailed by sea to America, which country was enveloped in the volume of cloud. And I dimly saw these vast armies devastate the whole country and burn the villages, towns, and cities that I beheld springing up. As my ears listened to the thundering of the cannon, clashing of swords, and the shouts and cries of millions in mortal combat, I heard again the mysterious voice saying, “Son of the Republic, look and learn.” When the voice had ceased, the dark shadowy angel placed his trumpet once more to his mouth and blew a long and fearful blast.”

Heaven Intervenes

“Instantly a light as of a thousand suns shone down from above me and pierced and broke into fragments the dark cloud which enveloped America. At the same moment the angel upon whose head still shone the word “Union”, and who bore our national flag in one hand and a sword in the other, descended from the heavens attended by legions of white spirits. These immediately joined the inhabitants of America, who I perceived were well-nigh overcome, but who immediately taking courage again, closed up their broken ranks and renewed the battle. Again, amid the fearful noise of the conflict, I heard the mysterious voice saying, “Son of the Republic, look and learn.” As the voice ceased, the shadowy angel for the last time dipped water from the ocean and sprinkled it upon America. Instantly the dark cloud rolled back, together with the armies it had brought, leaving the inhabitants of the land victorious. Then once more I beheld the villages, towns and cities springing up where I had seen them before, while the bright angel, planting the azure standard he had brought in the midst of them, cried with a loud voice: “While the stars remain, and the heavens send down dew upon the earth, so long shall the Union last.” And taking from his brow the crown on which blazoned the word “Union,” he placed it upon the Standard while the people, kneeling down, said, “Amen.”

Interpretation

“The scene instantly began to fade and dissolve, and I at last saw nothing but the rising, curling vapor I at first beheld. This also disappearing, I found myself once more gazing upon the mysterious visitor, who, in the same voice I had heard before, said, “Son of the Republic, what you have seen is thus interpreted: Three great perils will come upon the Republic. The most fearful is the third (The comment on his word ‘third’ is: “The help against the THIRD peril comes in the shape of Divine Assistance. Apparently the Second Advent) …., passing which the whole world united shall not prevail against her. Let every child of the Republic learn to live for his God, his land and Union.” With these words the vision vanished, and I started from my seat and felt that I had seen a vision wherein had been shown to me the birth, progress, and destiny of the United States.” “Such, my friends,” concluded the venerable narrator, “were the words I heard from Washington’s own lips, and America will do well to profit by them.”

Some people will say this could have been extraterrestrial intervention which by definition, it was. I believe it was a message specifically from God and that faith and virtue are the very foundation of this country.

The war was soon over, and America won her independence from Brittan. America is first and only nation in the history of the world to have a government controlled by the people and not a King, Monarch, or some other Sovereign. That alone makes America special.

Our new nation needed a constitution, and the Constitution of the United States was developed and signed by the founding Fathers on September 17, 1787, four years after the war was over. After it was signed, a woman approached Benjamin Franklin and asked him what they are giving the people. He replied, “a Republic if you can keep it”.

From Wikipedia: “A republic (Latin: res publica meaning “public affair”) is a form of government in which “power is held by the people and their elected representatives”.  In republics, the country is considered a “public matter”, not the private concern of the rulers. The primary positions of power within a republic are attained through democracy or a mix of democracy with oligarchy or autocracy rather than being unalterably occupied by any given family lineage or group. With modern republicanism, it has become the opposing form of government to a monarch and therefore a modern republic has no monarch as head of state.

This country has drifted far away from the people being in power through our elected officials to the opposite which is being controlled by people in power. This is not what America is all about. The question is how do we fix it? I will offer some suggestions and opinions on this matter in my next blog.

Stephen J. Silva –

In my book “Extraterrestrial Communication Code” I offer a theory about our inability to establish communication with extraterrestrials. This despite the overwhelming probability that 1; there is in-fact intelligent life other than humans that exist in the universe and 2; the earth has been visited by many species of extraterrestrials. The book proposes some reasons why we have failed but more importantly, it proposes an experiment, based on the “Scientific Method” in an effort to do something different in our efforts to communicate with extraterrestrials. The book offers a “Back to Basics” approach to the problem.

It is said that those who do not study their own history are doomed to repeat it. Let’s look at how this applies to the history of communication and the future of communication with extraterrestrials throughout the universe.

All of the creatures of earth have a way to communicate with each other in some way shape or form. It is a necessary part of survival. Like species communicate with each other and with other species as well. For example, when a dog bares his teeth at you, folds his ears back and growls at you the message is very clear that the dog is not happy and getting ready to defend and / or attack. This is one obvious and simplistic example of communicating a message in the animal kingdom. With respect to the non-human animal kingdom, the means and methods have been the same for millions of years. There are many examples of human to non-human communication being clear and useful.

Humans, however, have a long history of the desire and ability to develop different means and methods to communicate with each other– especially over long distances. We have failed however, to establish communication with extraterrestrials.

Communication started with guttural noises and body motions / signals back in the beginning of human development. This grew into creating cave drawings to tell a story and leaving certain markings and rock-pile indicators to mark territory from neighboring tribes. The messages were stationary and intended for passer’s by to find and figure out.

Then came the development of language both spoken and written as humans began to advance intellectually. Letters and symbols on stone tablets or carved into structures along with words and sentences that were standardized, taught, and spoken. This is how history began to be recorded.

The purpose of this blog is not to be a lecture on the history of human means and methods of communication so let’s fast forward through smoke signals, flag signals, pen and ink letters / books, Morse code and the telegraph, radio, telephone, television, cellular telephones, and the internet and receiving signals / images back from all of our contraptions in outer space. We can communicate nearly instantly with people on the other side of the world. So, what is next??

My book goes down the road of finding the message left for us to decode, repeating that message, and sending into a “Black Hole” to close the gap of light years to reach extraterrestrials. This new concept makes the most sense to me and is closely linked to the sciences we know (or think we know) today. Its more of a different method of using presumably known information and using  it in a way that has never been tested.

There is another possibility however that is very weird to many of us at this point in our history but to many thousands of people it is very real and has been for centuries. It Involves tapping into another dimension or another “level of consciousness”, the 7 chakras and more specifically the “Third Eye” Chakra (the 6^th chakra). I touched upon this in one of my blog posts (January 31, 2021: Methods of Extraterrestrial Communication).

The Pineal Gland, also known as the “Third Eye”. In many cultures all over the world and throughout centuries of history, it is believed to be the window to the soul, our connection to the spirit world, and the window that connects us through prayer to God. 

The Pineal Gland is about the size of a pea, shaped like a pinecone and located in the exact geometric center of the brain in a tiny cavity behind and above the pituitary gland which is located a little behind the root of the nose. It is located directly behind the eyes and attached to the third ventricle. The pineal gland is not isolated from the body by the blood-brain barrier system. With the exception of the kidneys, it receives the highest blood flow percentage compared to any other area of the body. It produces melatonin and is linked to our body’s perception of light, affecting the regulation of our sleep and wake patterns and seasonal functions. Everyone’s third eye is already active, but most people do not know how to control it. It can be activated by anyone through deep meditation and energy healing techniques. 

In Sanskrit, the word “chakra” means “disk” or “wheel” and refers to the energy centers in your body. These wheels or disks of spinning energy each correspond to certain nerve bundles and major organs. To function at their best, your chakras need to stay open, or balanced. If they get blocked, you may experience physical or emotional symptoms related to a particular chakra.

There are seven main chakras that run along your spine. They start at the root, or base, of your spine and extend to the crown of your head. The third eye chakra is the Ajna chakra. Wikipedia defines Ajna as follows:

 It is a part of the brain which can be made more powerful through meditation, yoga, and other spiritual practices just as a muscle is. In Hindu tradition, it signifies the subconscious mind, the direct link to the brahman. While a person’s two eyes see the physical world, the third eye is believed to reveal insights about the future. The third eye chakra is said to connect people to their intuition, give them the ability to communicate with the world, or help them receive messages from the past and the future.

The third eye chakra is said to be the driver of strong principles, openness, imagination, gut instinct, and intuition. It’s also linked to imagination. The third eye chakra is said to be the source of taking energy. It takes energy from the universe, and it is in the upper part of the body whereas the sex center is the Sacral chakra in the lower part of the body, and it expels energy.

I came across the following 2017 article from Cheryl Costa recently. “Cheryl Costa is a native and resident of upstate New York who saw her first UFO at age 12. A military veteran, she’s a retired information security professional from the aerospace Industry. She’s been a speaker at the International UFO Congress and at the MUFON Symposium. Cheryl writes the UFO column “New York Skies” for SyracuseNewTimes.com. Besides being a journalist, she’s also a published playwright. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from the State University of New York at Empire State College.” Her article is as follows:

In last week’s post, we discussed how electromagnetic signals have been radiated into outer space. Signals that have acted like a beacon, suggesting to anyone who detects them that, “Someone is making noise on this little blue planet.”

The key to UFOs and contact with extraterrestrials, in a word, is “consciousness.” First, let’s discuss some background concepts. I spent seven years in the Buddhist monastic life, so I know a little bit about consciousness. The fundamental principle you must understand is the concept known as the “omni-consciousness.” The omni-consciousness is beyond comprehension, it permeates all things everywhere. Many folks look upon the omni-consciousness as the divine force that is at the core of many spiritual beliefs. 

All living things are part of the omni-consciousness. We, as human beings, with our “dualistic thinking” tend to think that we are separate from the omni-consciousness, but we really aren’t. We, ourselves, like all living things, are connected to the omni-consciousness because we are all a part of the whole. Again, I must empathize this one critical point, the omni-consciousness transcends time, space, vast distances and even dimensions in the multiverse.

People who are adept at deep meditation can usually touch the primordial knowledge and sense of knowing. Think of deep meditation as a way of quieting the day-to-day chatter of our ordinary, conceptual mind. When we can get ourselves into this meditative state of mind, interesting things are possible. Historically mystical practitioners like shamans, monastics and other forms of mystics have been able to reach out and touch “star beings,” as some indigenous tribes call them. Again, the key to this is our connectedness to all other living things though the omni-consciousness.

In recent years, there has been a movement within the experiencer movement (formerly called alien abductees) to reach out and contact extraterrestrial intelligence using altered states of meditative consciousness. There is structured process for this called the “CE-5 Protocols.” CE-5 stands for “close encounters five.”

Let’s take a moment and discuss the meaning of close encounters. The late Dr. J. Allen Hynek, as a UFO investigator, developed an original system back in the 1970s for describing and ranking various levels of contact with extraterrestrials and their occupants. The CE system takes into account distance and other special features related to the close encounter.

Dr. Hynek’s original system had three categories:

• Close encounters of the first kind:Strange objects seen nearby with no physical interaction with the environment.
• Close encounters of the second kind:Strange objects leaves physical evidence; for example, depressions in the soil, damage to vegetation, trace, or elevated radiation signatures, and perhaps some form of electromagnetic effect or interference.
• Close encounters of the third kind:Cases where occupants or entities are seen.

Much later, Dr. Hynek established a fourth category.

• Close encounters of the fourth kind: Deals with cases where witnesses experience lost time and perhaps feels as though they were abducted. This is also considered extraterrestrial initiated contact with humans.

In 1990, Dr. Steven M. Greer, a retired American medical doctor and Ufologist, founded the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI). It was through Dr. Greer’s efforts that a close encounter of the fifth kind, or CE-5, term was established.

 

• Close encounters of the fifth kind:CE-5 is characterized as human-initiated, mutual contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence through bilateral communication.

It should be pointed out that the first four CE categories are more or less passive in terms of the human observer interaction. CE-5 is unique in that it is a premeditated and human-initiated. How is this done? Certainly not with a radio apparatus or traditional physics-based technology.

This CE-5 effort is accomplished using deep states of consciousness. It doesn’t involve intoxicants of any sort. In fact, use of such substances is considered detrimental to the CE-5 exercise and are therefore banned from CE-5 events.

I realize some might think that attempting to communicate with extraterrestrial intelligence using the mind and directed conscious sounds ridiculous. But consider this: Have you never had a personal flash of extrasensory perception, experienced a mom’s intuition, been guided through a remote viewing exercise, or experienced a sense of peace and profound knowing from practicing deep mediation or prayer?

The evidence suggests that it’s real. The truth has everything to do with UFOs and making contact with extraterrestrials has to do with consciousness. It’s about practicing the art of quieting one’s mind, being at peace and reaching out with one’s heart to contact an extraterrestrial intelligence.

Dr. Greer and CE-5 regional associates have established a formal set of processes and protocols for preparing and performing a CE-5 event. The CE-5 folks I have conferred with tell me that CE-5 is a practical contact modality. They say that contact has been achieved in a real sense using the consciousness approach. Using CE-5 protocols in concert with meditation, and an attitude of positive intentions.

The CE-5 effort is a grass roots effort, and it is growing. At present, the majority of the people working at national-, regional- and local-level CE-5 contact efforts are experiencers — people who have previously had contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. – End Article

Wow – that’s pretty heavy stuff but is it crazy stuff?

As an engineer for nearly 30 years and a devout Christian, I often find myself grappling with the subject of extraterrestrial existence, purpose, intent and how to establish communication with at least one species of extraterrestrial of which I suspect there must be many. Now I am beginning to explore the possibility of this CE-5 approach in conjunction with the 6^th Chakra called the Ajna chakra or Third eye. Uncharted territory for me but there are a lot of well-educated and deeply religious people on this earth that believe in it without hesitation or reservation. They can’t all be wrong. What are your thoughts?

We look forward to any thoughts and opinions you would like to share with us here at the Extraterrestrial Communication Group. Thanks for spending some time with us.

Stephen J. Silva

Announcing the release of my book “Extraterrestrial Communication Code”. It can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XXZWQH1. It started out (some time in 2019) as a simple curiosity for me that escalated as discoveries were made through much research and analysis. Now it’s a book and a blog site available to all.

It’s a short, and easy read loaded with a lot of very interesting facts and analysis. The concept has never been published or put to the test. The book proposes an experiment in the end, to actually put the concepts to the test. It is intended to be something that sparks one’s imagination and encourage people to go to my blog site where I expand upon many of the concepts presented in the book. The goal for the blog site is to open a forum of discussion on the subject in general. Enjoy!