A.D. After Disclosure

Carl Sagan: They’re Everywhere But Here

Like a lot of ufologists, I have a problem with S.E.T.I., or the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. It's always seemed to me that if UFOs are real, then you don't need to listen for alien signals from space, you should start looking here on Earth. So the news that the Allen Telescope Array near Mount Shasta is being shut down over the budget crisis leaves me with mixed feelings. I'm in favor of science, but I'm not in favor of sham.

But it has me thinking about one of America's earliest and strongest advocates of S.E.T.I., Carl Sagan.

Sagan took America by storm during the 1970s and 1980s and became, practically speaking, America’s public Scientist-in-Chief. He first entered millions of living rooms as the affable scientist who appeared regularly on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. The Cornell University professor had a passion for astronomy and a gift of making complex ideas easy to understand.

Sagan’s celebrity increased with the release of the PBS Cosmos series in 1980, when he became famous for his phrase “billions and billions” (which he denied ever saying exactlly in those words) to describe galaxies, stars, and planets. He pioneered the science of exobiology and promoted SETI through the use of radio telescopes to listen for signals from space.

As an investigative reporter for PBS, specializing in space science, I met Carl Sagan several times in 1981. Cosmos was still airing on the network, and the unmanned Voyager spacecraft was approaching the planet Saturn.

Sagan gave a live, on-air interview as the pictures came in and were assembled by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. He was effusive about what a great moment it was for humanity. He talked passionately about how this first step beyond Earth would someday lead to manned adventures further and further into space. He was positive that the universe, because of the sheer numbers of habitable planets and what he saw as the “bias” toward life, would be teeming with intelligent beings.

Letter from England: Synchronicity 2011

Call me a crank, but for many years now, I have been a watcher of sunsets and sunrises, a sky gazer in general, on this “pale blue dot” we call Earth, a “mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam," as Carl Sagan so beautifully and humbly immortalized our predicament. I was recently talking to a landscape photographer, and we both agreed it had to do with perspective, whether photographing or just gazing, of catching a moment, a zenith, the cusp before it turns. A kind of boundless immanence where nature, where life does not stop to catch its breath and goes on forever, into the inky phosphorus dark of imperial night, or the unconditional mystery and open promise of a new day.

These are the kinds of things I think about but the last six months have given me a new way to ponder because of two projects that seem to have "right place, right time" written all over them.

A.D. After Disclosure: The People’s Guide to Life After Contact

Richard Dolan and Bryce Zabel have some much more radical ideas on the question of UFOs, and the far ranging implications thereof for us on terra firma. Published in 2010, the book is a collaboration between an Oxford trained academic turned UFO researcher and historian, and a producer and writer who created the cult classic show Dark Skies, and former chair of the US Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Dolan has spent the last decade writing and publishing volumes of his UFOs and the National Security State, which meticulously chronicle a history of UFOs and their cover-up that is still being written, in the real world and on the page. A modern archeology of declassified documents and witness testimony, of lives and careers that were made, and even buried because of the UFO, the conceptual rosetta stone to understanding this subterranean world being the historical formation and ascendant hegemony of the National Security State. ‘Like the “missing mass” astronomers are trying to locate in the far reaches of our universe, the UFO phenomena rests on an ocean of dark matter, deep secrets, and forgotton wars fought only in shadows,' writes Jacques Vallee in the foreword to Vol.1 of Richard’s history.

Dark Skies: History is a Lie

Mid-January 2011 saw, for the first time on DVD, the release of Dark Skies. Watching it, the first thing that struck me about it is just how good it really is. It was ahead of its time, and tragically cancelled just as it was beginning so promisingly. No wonder that some people speculated it was cancelled for political, i.e., conspiratorial reasons, owing to its themes, which cover crop circles, cattle mutilation, alien abduction, ancient astronauts, secret space programs, and many historical personalities woven into the script including the Kennedys, with every episode reminding that History Is a Lie, following John Loengard and partner Kimberly Sayers as they go on the run across America from Majestic 12 and the alien threat. Certainly, it is criminal, the treatment the series was handed, given how much work and clearly love was put into it. The show captures some of the optimism, idealism, wonder and terror of the 60’s. The beautiful, glowing cinematography brings to life the ambiance of the times, without gimmick but with plenty of novelty and dark humour, each episode flies by and each year rolls on, passing through the decade, through the heights and the depths, bittersweet and retrospective, archive footage blending seamlessly and kinetically with the story, the sci-fi with the historical.

The need you buried deep,
The secrets that you keep are at the ready,
Are you ready?

Foo Fighters, The Pretender  

In the Beginning...

One of my favorite scenes is from the pilot, where Captain Bach of Majestic 12 and his suit-and-tie adorned team of need-to-knows investigating a classic-style crop circle make a fly-over in a military helicopter of the field. It’s just charming. It captures such a quality of the mystery and wonder and even naivety that must have accompanied any such incidents, where now the phenomena proliferates multidimensionally on dorm posters and fridge magnets, but back then was a very new world to be discovered, studied and conquered. You can easily imagine it would have been just like this, back then, to those in the know.

Calling Roger Ebert...

Roger Ebert has been getting a lot of attention this week for his beautifully written essay titled, A Quintessence of Dust. In it, he features the graphic below -- created by NASA -- showing 1,235 planets we know to exist as well as the suns they orbit. 

Here's the key concept to appreciate this: each planet is a black dot. Below the top row, you'll see our own sun over on the right side. The people who estimate such things are estimating that millions of such planets exist in our galaxy alone. Ebert's mind boggles at this and, of course, so does mine and probably yours, too.

I have a small bone to pick with Roger Ebert, however, even though I am a great admirer and have probably read several hundred of his film reviews. But, before I get to that, I want to invite you to feel some of the same wonder, mystery and curiosity that comes with this image. Take a few seconds now and look at it, and let it sink in. And, if you want to see it larger, just click on it and you'll see it on an even grander scale on your computer.

 

As I said, I love Roger Ebert and, as a fellow writer, I have to stand in awe of his skill and capacity. These traits have made him the most significant film reviewer of our time.

My bone to pick is that he appears to not understand the UFO situation and indirectly put down those of us who do. In the same week he wrote his essay about the worlds the Hubble is exposing us to, he also wrote this in his review of the new film, "Source Code."

"Source Code" is an ingenious thriller that comes billed as science fiction, although its science is preposterous. Does that matter, as long as everyone treats it with the greatest urgency? After all, space travel beyond the solar system is preposterous, and yet we couldn't do without "Star Trek." 

Ebert is saying that if you believe that it is possible to travel the galaxy and the universe that you believe in something that is preposterous. I say that very statement is preposterous.

I think Ebert is a smart enough man with, as he speaks about in his article, the curiosity it takes to consider these big questions and be on the leading edge of things. He could do the world a tremendous service, now that he is thinking about such things, if he would bring his game up on this subject.

What Does NASA Know?

UPDATE: When we first wrote about the Thursday NASA news conference, we ended with the advice to "Lower your expectations."

On that much, at least, we were right. Arsenic-laced life may be a big biological moment, but it's not life on Europa or copping to the truth about ET/UFO reality.

In any case, here is the original post...

NASA has called a news conference for this Thursday "to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life." Their words, not ours.

Of course this causes people to speculate about what those carefully chosen words might mean. Life on another planet? A new way to look for life? Evidence of previous life?

And, if you read the coverage from the establishment media types, many of them use the blog chatter the NASA announcement has stirred up to then imply "there go those crazy UFO guys again." It's a maddening game, to be sure. This graphic to the left is what CBS used to illustrate its coverage. They get to have their cake (invoking real ET contact) and eat it, too (making people who know something about the subject seem goofy). There's another excellent example of this shell game on CNN where they have goofy aliens in the photo and use the story as a springboard to smackdown people who take the bait and discuss this on the Internet. Sigh...

Back to NASA. We don't know what they've discovered, and they're not talking until they're good and ready, so we'll just have to wait. We tend to think that this will not be a blockbuster type of event, just something that moves the ball a little further down the field. A few yards gained, no score.

Clearly whoever's writing press releases for NASA has put something in writing that makes it seem that they may have found evidence to support the existence of ET life. Of course, Walter Haut wrote a pretty famous press release from Roswell back in 1947 and then had to pull that one back... you never know...

It's been a busy year, looking for life. The Kepler Mission has already found almost a thousand possible alien worlds while scanning a small section of space holding less than 200,000 stars. In September, NASA found Gliese 581g, a planet they think could hold liquid water on its surface. Two months later, NASA said they'd catalogued the 500th planet beyond our solar system. 

But that's not what they're going to announce.

From a basic reading of the press release (you can read it at the end of this post), this has all the earmarks of the space agency finding the right chemical signatures -- possibly relating to the Moon or Mars or (our own pony to bet on) one of Saturn's moons. Rhea has been found to have some oxygen and CO2. Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is also the subject of speculation given that two of the panelists named have written about the place in relation to the search for off-Earth life. 

Then there is Europa, of course, with (we believe) more liquid water than Earth!

Reason to consider the Microbes-on-Moons theories: the group of scientists in attendance includes an oceanographer who has used photosynthesis, arsenic and life in the same sentence; a geologist who's used knowledge of rocks to look for life on Mars; and a biologist who has speculated that Titan strikes him as resembling an adolescent Earth. There's also an ecological astrobiologist who specializes in the chemistry that has to happen in an environment to create life.

The bottom line is that these are not SETI-type disciplines. They are, however, relevant to planetary issues, or findings from our own solar system as opposed to Hubble-like discoveries of planets out there that might be suitable for life.

As for the huge revelation, don't look for NASA to make a disclosure with a capital "D." They haven't found a whale on Europa or even an insect on Mars. And even if they had, recall that these people are historically very closed minded on the subject of there actually being intelligent life visiting us here on Earth. For NASA, the action is all "out there."

As evidence that we should temper our sense of anticipation about Big-D "Disclosure," we offer this statement from NASA's own website, lifted from their "Ask an Astrobiologist" page, which goes to the mind-set of the astrobiologists who'll be sitting at the conference table:

Question: Has NASA any had UFO problems? (I'm doing a school project on them.)

Answer:  No, I can't imagine that NASA would have any problems with something that doesn't exist. The sad thing about UFO reports is that they distract so many people from understanding and enjoying real science.
(There is a lot of nonsense on the Internet about UFOs, but I do recommend the website http://skepdic.com/ufos_ets.html). 
David Morrison
NAI Senior Scientist

Thank you for your open mind, Mr. David Morrison. After Disclosure, you will have to sit in the corner and wear a special dunce cap. We hope you won't be too distracted. We digress...

We're not saying the news conference has anything at all to do with UFOs -- it doesn't. What we're saying here is that the way they think is to get excited about the discovery of an organism that can thrive on a cold moon but maintain a completely closed mind to the actual evidence for advanced, complex life-forms coming to visit us right here on Earth. 

The smart money is on Microbes-on-Moons. This is a far bigger deal than who Kim Kardashian is dating but it is not as big a deal as it probably should be, given that NASA -- or at least a few people there -- must actively know that Others are running around in our skies in vehicles that aren't supposed to exist from places that aren't here and that the life-forms operating these vehicles are definitely not just microbes.

Because of this head-in-the-sand mentality, we have one piece of advice for the rest of us about Thursday:

Lower your expectations.

• Just so you can see for yourself, however, here is the word-for-word release that NASA has up on its official site as we speak.

Let's Get Small

While researching this book, we also looked through a lot of quotations to use as scene-setters at the beginning of individual chapters. As it turns out, we ended up using two quotations per chapter; one from powerful lyrics of songs that are cultural touchstones, and one from the more traditional sources. There are so many great ones that it was a difficult winnowing process. One of our favorites didn't make the cut, but we present it here now:

“The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.”

Stephen Jay Gould, Paleontologist, 1996

Pondering this one, it reminded us of an email that was making the rounds a few years ago. We don't know where these pictures come from and, although we think they're scientifically in the ballpark, we aren't absolutely sure. If you know the provenance of the work, please let us know and we will properly credit the source and, likewise, if there are factual corrections to be made, we hope you'll post a comment to this post and set the record straight.

When this was showing up at our Inboxes, international astronomers had everyone thinking about the cosmos for at least a day by throwing Pluto out of the Solar System for being a shrimp, a "dwarf planet" that is so small it can't even control its own neighborhood. This means that size does matter, at least astronomically, and it is a perfect way to begin to wrap your brain around what this universe is all about and put in context how consciousness expanding the act of Disclosure may be against a backdrop of truly orienting us into the universe.

Comedian Steve Martin made a splash in 1977 with his debut album "Let's Get Small". By the time you get through this photo journey you will feel even smaller than Martin felt at his smallest but you'll have a new context that is what Gould was driving at. Ready? Here's picture number one.

Now this should make you feel pretty good. There's our home planet Earth looking like the biggest baddest kid on the block. Mars, which is our closest cousin in the solar system they say, looks like a puny runt compared to us. Now let's roll in the outer planets in the solar system.

Whoa! Suddenly we're looking downright tiny and insignificant. If Jupiter is a basketball, then we're a marble, barely. Mars has turned into a BB. And we're still in the local neighborhood. Now let's pop in our own sun, Old Sol.

Suddenly our scale is, well, underwhelming. We need the arrow to see the Earth because, at its current size, we'd miss it. We're getting seriously small. But at least we can agree that it's all relative because the sun is immense, right?

Contact: The Sheen Factor

Not that we want to pick only on the S.E.T.I. program but -- given that its enthusiasts seem to think that the universe is teeming with life but it couldn't possibly be here now -- it's a pretty big target. Then there's the Charlie Sheen factor that makes it simply irresistible.

 

The Arrival stars Sheen as radio astronomer Zane Zaminski who discovers evidence of intelligent alien life and, surprise!, they're here. Wikipedia has a pretty fair plot summary. Sheen can probably stand a little humor at his expense here. Before last year he made $825,000 per episode on Two and a Half Men, and this season that went up to -- are you sitting down? -- $2,000,000 per episode! And, of course, those of us who are breathlessly waiting for All Things Shee-tastic know that he thinks he is worth much more than that.

Just for a moment, consider how much UFO research could be advanced if he had donated a single week's salary to the cause.

Disclosure Comix #1 - Contact

From time-to-time as we wait for the book to be published, we'll be posting our "Disclosure Comix" which are stills from alien-themed films from the past, interpreted with a skew toward After Disclosure news and politics. They're for fun, protected as fair use because of their commentary, and should be looked at like an editorial cartoon on the Op-Ed page (remember newspapers?). Anyway, here is our first one, from Contact, starring Jodie Foster.

 

Contact, the film, was based on Contact, the book, written by Carl Sagan. We take Sagan to task in our upcoming book for his blind-eyed belief in S.E.T.I. and his condescending dismissal of the possibility of UFO contact. He always said the universe was teeming with life but they couldn't possibly be here. We disagree.