Welcome to CrowdSource, your weekly guided tour of the latest intellectual disputes, ideological disagreements and national debates that piqued our interest (or inflamed our passions). This week: unidentified flying objects, or unidentified anomalous phenomena, or hyperobjects, or the Phenomenon …
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Bluer Than the Sun
3I/ATLAS is the name for an interstellar object currently passing through our solar system. Most scientists believe 3I/ATLAS is a comet. A few claim otherwise.
Visible Brightness. From a scientific paper published last week: “color photometry shows the comet to be distinctly bluer than the Sun, consistent with gas emission contributing a substantial fraction of the visible brightness near perihelion.”
Nine Anomalies. Harvard astrophysicist
suggests that 3I/ATLAS might be extraterrestrial technology. He compiled a list of nine anomalous properties of the interstellar object. The blue light is the ninth:
Alternatively, the non-gravitational acceleration might be the technological signature of an internal engine. This might also explain the report on 3I/ATLAS getting bluer than the Sun. ... For a natural comet this blue color is very surprising. …
“Isn’t That Wonderful Enough?” Particle physicist
takes exception to Loeb’s extraterrestrial speculations:
No Threat. NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy weighs in: “NASA’s observations show that this is the third interstellar comet to pass through our solar system. No aliens. No threat to life here on Earth.”
“Follow Comet 3I/ATLAS’s Journey.” NASA set up a webpage dedicated to 3I/ATLAS with a live tracker.
Interdisciplinary UFOlogy
Professor Loeb is one of an active group of academics, journalists and influencers who’ve taken an interest in Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) — or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), or whichever term one prefers for non-human intelligence. This group includes:
The Ethnologist/Historian. Professor of Religious Studies at UNC Wilmington D. W. Pasulka has garnered mainstream attention with two books that treat the culture around UFOs as an emerging religion. Her research convinced her that “the Phenomenon” is real.
The Astronomer.
of Stockholm University took a fresh look at old astronomical photographic plates from before the age of manmade satellites, cataloguing the curious “transients” therein — short-lived astronomical phenomena that, Villarroel speculates, could be aliens.The Philosopher. Professor
of Benedictine College wrote a philosophical account of UFOs, Unidentified Flying Hyperobject: UFOs, Philosophy, and the End of the World.“Hyperobject.” Madden makes use of philosopher Timothy Morton’s concept of “hyperobjects”: “entities of such vast temporal and spatial dimensions that they defeat traditional ideas about what a thing is in the first place.”
The Computer Scientist. Legendary Silicon Valley-based VC
has investigated UFOs since the 1960s. One of his main works is Passport to Magonia: From Folklore to Flying Saucers. Steven Spielberg made him a character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.The Chronicler. Prolific YouTuber
has compiled dozens of oral histories from “experiencers,” investigators and whistleblowers (some more credible than others). Any names we should have included in this post can probably be found on Michels’ channel, American Alchemy.
The Truth Is Out There
Increasing mainstream media coverage, several Congressional hearings, and decades of first-hand accounts from experiencers: something is going on.
What is the Phenomenon?
UFOs are “A Soft Sci-Fi Genre.” UFOs are probably fake, says
:
… first contact is likely to be solely observational, which in turn means being inconclusive and probabilistic. A reasonable first contact would be if we accrue evidence of distant alien civilizations from very far away, but then the quality and nature of that evidence is poor and uncertain, accompanied by a great deal of scientific debate.
UFO is Mythologized “Progress.” Writes
:
The idea that these aerial vessels could come either from another planet or from a secret project of a foreign power assumes that, either way, scientific progress anywhere in the universe would follow roughly the same trajectory, and that any such unexplainable marvel must ultimately be the result of science.
UFOs Are the Voice of Conscience. Building on the work of another philosopher, Bernardo Kastrup,
says:
[UFOs are] a manifestation of the collective unconsciousness, which may stretch beyond the hive mind of the human species to encompass something like a cosmic consciousness … The occasion of these eruptions from mind-at-large into our local psychic spaces is the imbalance brought on by our modern egoistic sense of self …
UFOs Test the Limits of Modern Science. In a brilliant essay,
outlines a taxonomy of UFO theorists:“Explorers” believe UFOs are extraterrestrial technology;
“Esotericists” believe they are supernatural entities;
“Disinformation-non-enjoyers” believe it’s all a hoax.
Paradigm Shift. Coffey argues that UFOs test the limits of modern science:
By anointing science as more than a legitimate form of inquiry into the visible world, as the inquiry whose methods both fully reveal and define the extent of its reality, we have as a culture perhaps bought ourselves a unique sense of stability and permanence in our collective representations. … The disinformation-non-enjoyer, usually someone invested in stability, authority, education … responds to the rumor of the UFO not as an oddity, but as a threat.
Another Perspective
From the Crowd
Readers write about the possible US-Venezuela war and political theory in the age of mass migration.
Yanqui Go Home! Author
on how the US hurt Venezuela:
There was indeed widespread extreme poverty in Venezuela ten years ago. What would a sane and humane superpower have done: 1) offer aid and trade, coordinated with other regional governments; or 2) institute illegal sanctions, now elevated into a total embargo, attempt to organize a coup, and finally threaten invasion?
“Omertà.” Author
thinks is missing part of the story:
… In a sense the question is a circular one: “why do mainstream political theorists not discuss topics that result in expulsion from the mainstream?” Well, either they don’t want expulsion or they’ve been expelled. Either way, it’s arguably less a gap in the theory than an omertà.
See you next week!
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