UNCRITICAL
THINKING
BY SCIENTISTS
Scientists who are interested in the extraterrestrial life debate have voiced a series of illogical questions and assumptions about UFOs and abductions. For many of them, the UFO phenomenon cannot exist because of time and space problems. This old argument is familiar to all: “Space is so vast that even at the speed of light, objects cannot travel here in any time that seems feasible. Therefore, one cannot get here from there and thus UFOs as extraterrestrial phenomena can not exist.” J. Allen Hynek and other UFO researchers of the 1970s became caught up in this argument and in an effort to circumvent the space-time problem, they suggested alternative “ultraterrestrial” arguments like “parallel universes” and “other dimensions” as the UFOs’ origin.
In a sense, the problems of space and time generate tangential questions that are interesting to ask but cannot yet be answered. At this point we do not know the levels of science and technology that ultimately led to the development of a method of transportation to Earth that surmounted what we presently see as insuperable difficulties. The more appropriate question to ask is not, “How could they get here?”, but rather, “Are they here?” How they got here is ultimately an engineering question and is unanswerable. Getting sidetracked into arguments about the technological processes by which an advanced civilization has managed to traverse space and overcome time sheds no light on the critical fact of whether they are here or not. Being here is qualitatively different than getting here. We must be clear about that to our uncritical critics.
Similarly, skeptics have suggested that UFOs and abductions do not exist because the aliens are not acting according to a model that the society has decreed they apparently should. If they were acting in the proper manner, the arguments go, they would have already either shown themselves in a formal display, helped humankind overcome its problems, or taken over the world long ago. At the very least, they would not go around covertly flying hither and yon with no discernible reason — and they certainly would not be engaged in this behavior for over fifty years. Thus, their bizarre behavioral characteristics militate against their existence as an extraterrestrial phenomenon.
The critics use the same style of argument against the abduction phenomenon. If they were here, they would not be abducting people over and over again to get eggs and sperm. If they were here, they would not have to use women to gestate fetuses, they would gestate them in vitro without having to use humans. If they were here, they would not abduct average people, they would abduct “important” people.
I can say with absolute assurance that these arguments are based on a total absence of knowledge of extraterrestrial life and motivations. Since by definition the critics are not persuaded that UFOs are extraterrestrial these critics can therefore possess no knowledge of aliens. Thus, their arguments are anthropomorphized theories based on culturally determined notions of how aliens should act. A mixture of science fiction, “common sense,” and ignorance has produced suppositions that have, over the years, calcified into a sort of dogma that has become a litmus test of “reality.” If the abduction phenomenon does not fit that dogma, it does not exist.
But as Dr. John Mack said, “the phenomenon is what it is. All we can do is investigate and chronicle what is happening, sort what the abductees are describing, and try to make sense of it.” Our culturally determined expectations of how aliens should or should not act are of little consequence in the absence of knowledge about their motivations or technological limitations. Investigators must analyze what is happening, not what should be happening.
We have found is that the abduction phenomenon is extremely logical and rational. Everything the aliens do is for a reason. If they insist on abducting people over and over again, then they are doing it for a reason. If they take sperm and eggs over and over again, they have their reasons. If they use a human being rather than an in vitro device as a host for a fetus, it is for a reason. The fact that the phenomenon is widespread and clandestine is for a reason as well.
The evidence clearly indicates that the aliens know exactly what they are doing. They are conducting a physiological program that is well thought-out, and goal directed. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. We have been uncovering the various aspects of this program. Everything that we originally thought was inexplicable, incomprehensible, or even nonsensical has, upon reflection of the mounting evidence, been revealed to be logical, rational, and apropos. We have no evidence that the aliens are doing things “by the seat of their pants.” They do not, for example, stand around during an abduction wondering what to do next. Everything they do with abductees is planned, expeditious, and predetermined. We can only make sense of their activities from their viewpoint. Forcing their actions into a human perspective of what they “should be doing” is pointless.