View of the Universe
In the past history of the evolving human mind , mankind has made a series of adjustments concerning his view of the universe. The first adjustment was to cease believing in a world that was anthropocentric, centered on man himself. After the higher civilizations of the Near and Middle East became conscious of the daily revolving sun, stars and wandering planets, they formulated a geocentric concept of the universe, often labeled the Ptolemaic theory. This was interrelated with mankind’s religious and psychological development. It took until the l6th century A.D. and the Copernican revolution for man to change his concept of the order in the universe. The scientists who were exponents of the (then) new heliocentric theory of the universe (with our sun at the center) faced opposition simply because heliocentrism ran contrary to Church doctrine, the primitive theories of St. Augustine and Dante, and the early speculations of Greek scientists.
Eventually mankind adjusted to the heliocentric theory of the universe and accepted the sun as the center, not only of the local family of planets, but also of the total sidereal assemblage. This necessitated further revisions in religion but man’s psychological makeup changes little; as he had clung previously to other official dogmas which proved to be incorrect, he adopted heliocentrism as a dogma. This was fairly easy to rationalize with quasi-scientific rationalizations and observations. For instance, the Milky Way lies along a great circle: it is a band of starry light that divides the sky into two practically equal parts, with about the same brightness in all its parts. By implication, therefore, the sun and earth are centrally located. Further evidence was that the numbers of stars seemed to the early census takers to fall off with distance from the sun in all directions as though the sun were central, and this position among the stellar billions provided man a dignity of location in the cosmos that was not at all disagreeable.
As late as 1917 the astronomical leaders held that the sun was central, or very near the center of the sidereal universe. But new evidence (such as the period-luminosity relation for Cepheid variable stars used as a sounding tool, and the determination of the distances and distribution of the globular star clusters) indicated that heliocentrism was also fallacious. Other “galaxies” were officially recognized, and the earth and mankind forever lost its position or great significance in the universe. While the introduction of heliocentrism had little philosophic impact in the sixteenth century, the death of that theory had much more significant repercussions on the concept of the universe and mankind’s uniqueness in a world that was no longer his, however flattering such advances of human knowledge were to the human mind.
The “galactocentric” hypothesis put man on the outer fringe of one galaxy, more than twenty-five thousand light years distant from the center, in a universe of millions of galaxies. Another psychological) adjustment had to be made, not only with the location of our earth in the time and space of the physical world, but with our location in the world of biological phenomena. Scientists and laymen alike have now had to accept the fact that man is not alone in the universe. The work of such scientists as Harlow Shapley and Su-Shu Huang suggests that not only if there life in the universe but that it may be fairly “close” to our earth. Huang suggested that Tau Ceti, a star 10.8 light years away, may have life-supporting planets. The adjustment of mankind necessitated by this would be, in Shapley’s phrase, our Fourth Adjustment. He states that, “The mystery of life is vanishing. Objective science is replacing the subjective miraculous.” He further suggests that the fifth adjustment may lie almost wholly in the “psychological realm”.
Of course the Fourth Adjustment is also psychological in nature. Psychology has shown us a great deal about mankind’s myth-making abilities (even needs) and one need not have a Ph. D. in psychology to be aware of this characteristic. If science is responsible for removing the “subjective miraculous”, it is also likely that quasi-science, fantasy, mythology and mass-media-culture would create replacements to fill the needs of a not-so-rational human psychological makeup. I feel that there are many causative factors involved in man’s turning once again to his mind’s inner world, attempting to dispel the fears and insecurities manifested in UFO phenomena.
One theory of UFO phenomena was advocated by the eminent pioneer in psychology, Carl Jung, who sees UFO sightings as cases or psychological projection, with a psychic cause. One of the explanations Jung offers is as follows:
” ….There are cases where the same collective cause produces identical or similar effects (i.e, , the same visionary images and interpretations) in the very people who are least prepared for such phenomena and least inclined to believe them. “This fact gives the eyewitness accounts an air of particular credibility: it is usually emphasized that the witness is above suspicion because he was never distinguished for his lively imagination or credulousness but, on the contrary, for his cool judgment and critical reason. In just these cases the unconscious has to resort to particularly drastic measures in order to make its contents perceived. It does this most vividly by projection, by extrapolating it contents into an object which then mirrors what had previously lain hidden in the unconscious….”
Jung offers further an interesting interpretation of flying “saucers”, as characterized by their roundness:
“If we apply the principles of dream interpretation to the round object — whether it is a disk or a sphere — we at once get an analogy with the symbol of totality, well-known to all students of depth psychology, namely the mandala (Sanskrit for circle). This is not by any means a new invention, for it can be found in all epochs and in all places, always with the same meaning, and reappears time and again, independently of tradition, in modern individuals as the ‘protective’ or apotropaic circle…a modern symbol of order, which organizes and encloses the psychic totality….”
“….Circular symbols have played an important role in every age in our own sphere of culture, for instance, they were not only soul symbols but ‘God-images’. God in his omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence is a totality symbol par excellence, something round, complete, and perfect.”
One can substitute the “ability to fantasize” for the word “projection”; Ray Bradbury [3] himself has said that “the ability to ‘fantasize’ is the ability to survive.”
Man’s imagination has almost no limits, although his theology seems to. I do not think it idle to speculate that the recent “Death-of-God” theology may have forced modern man to look elsewhere, especially to the heavens, for a new God. That we should externalize a quality so deeply rooted in man’s nature is not at all surprising and one need not accept Marshall McLuhan’s ingenious speculations to see that quite logically man uses his interior world with its enormous powers to try and locate what he has often believed to be omnipresent, yet somehow external. “God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere” is a doctrine that originated with St. Augustine in the third century A.D. More recently, Einstein spoke of a sphere in four-space as t he best mathematical model of the universe, being boundless yet finite.
The Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner says that “No one has ever portrayed an interesting heaven.” Arthur Clarke [5] sees that ET vehicles conform with Jean Paul Sartre’s notions of Man, Heaven and God. The ET’s are beneficent, not hostile — “Any race intelligent enough to conquer interstellar space must have first conquered its own inner demons.” They are practically omnipotent; the “aliens” would be able to “transmute any element into any other”, needing only raw materials and the energy of sunlight. I say “practically” omnipotent because even mankind’s concept of God limit Him; the God of St. Augustine could not achieve creation ex nihilo.
Arthur Clarke is more sophisticated than many of the Ufologists, and his belief in the possibilities of communication having already occurred between ET’s and our planet is not a religious faith. He cites the radio signals which have been monitored at M.I T since 1963, mentions the speculations of Fred Hoyle about a “galactic communications network”, and quotes M I T astronomer Alan Barrett:
“…The properties of the radio signals are strong intensity, narrow band width, origin from regions of extremely small angular size, strong polarization and, perhaps, variation with time. The apparent time variations of the amplitude of the signals seem to have a period of days, or weeks – somewhat longer than would be expected for interstellar communications, but not so much longer as to be unreasonable. While declining to claim that the signals do indicate a vast interstellar communications network, Barrett insists that such speculations have passed well beyond the domain or science fiction…..”
All those statements are very guarded, reflecting the realm of possibilities, not probabilities. Clarke later cites Hoyle’s speculation that a sufficiently complex signal from space might serve as a genetic blueprint for constructing an extraterrestrial entity. He also makes good use of humor and sarcasm, saying that aliens might think the dominant life form in the United States was the automobile. It is peculiar that he uses sociology and psychology quite often in building his case for ET’s.
Pro-ET observers are forever invoking the “Unimpeachable Source”, saying that this man’s credentials are beyond question. If this were to serve as the overriding criterion for assessing the nature of the UFO phenomenon, then we must also accept the necromantic arts, the hypnogogic state, ghosts, and reincarnation (Buddhists believe in reincarnation. ) Just because J. Allen Hynek has experienced a “flying saucer” affecting an automobile’s electrical system, must the world community necessarily accept his ET-intelligent-being explanation of UFO’s? We would put precious little faith in psychology, and forget that humans are fallible. Freud has been proven incorrect.)
Sociology and psychology have been misused in analyzing the Hill case, which John Fuller capitalized on. Too much faith was put in the ability of hypnosis to distinguish “reality” from hallucination. This brings me to the nature of hallucinations , imagination, fantasy, daydreaming, and their role and function in man and his consciousness.
Our culture is filled with fantasy, particularly in the U.S., the source of most of the UFO reports and activity. Science fiction has all but destroyed the animated cartoon television program. Hollywood has beaten to death the outer-space fantasy theme. Chuck Jones (successor to Walt Disney) and Ray Bradbury rightly bemoan these events; high quality fantasy has all but disappeared (although two Charles Schulz “Peanuts” episodes and Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” were rated among the top five TV specials in 1961). There is, in our mass-media-culture no alternative to intelligent fantasy for adults other than the outlet provided by UFO’s.
This discussion attempts to explain why believable fantasy is essential for the mental well-being of any culture, if only as an emotional outlet. It is not necessary to establish a need for “psychic housecleanings”, to borrow Norman Mailer’s phrase. People do “fantasize” — hallucinatory activities such as day dreaming are scientific fact. The importance of daydreaming has long been neglected in psychology and sociology. In 1966 Jerome L. Singer published his pioneer research [8] on daydreaming, where he writes:
“Very likely man’s capacity to daydream is a fundamental characteristic of his constitution. Like other abilities — perceptual, motor or cognitive — it is there to be developed depending on circumstances. “the practiced daydreamer has learned the art of pacing so that he can shift rapidly between inner and outer channels without bumping into too many obstacles. He has developed a resource that gives him some control over his future through elaborate planning, some ability to amuse himself during dull train rides or routine work, and some sources of stimulation to change his mood through fanciful inner-play.” (Emphasis added.)
This may provide us with a partial explanation for the fact that so many UFO sightings are made by experienced pilots – Air Force career officers and commercial airline pilots. Ufologists always cite the pilot’s experience as an indication of high credibility; but they fail to perceive that “experienced” implies routine, and routineness implies increased susceptibility to hallucinatory experience.
The questions and controversies raised by UFO phenomena are not likely to be answered conclusively, and the likelihood is diminished even more by the animosity between social and physical scientists. John Fuller, in a recent (sensationalized) article in Look magazine [9] said that the NICAP* people were disturbed by the fact that four of the first five scientists selected for the Condon Committee investigation of UFO’s at the University of Colorado were social, not physical scientists. It is difficult to judge the objectivity of the Colorado study group from John Fuller’s article, but it does seem to me that the brunt of the proof lies on those who subscribe to the ET theory. There seem to be no photographs of UFO’s that have withstood careful examination, and none taken at an astronomical observatory. Even Hynek says: [6] “What is needed is for us to find a baby UFO somewhere in the crates of UFO reports.”
No one has yet found a “baby” for Hynek or even a piece of a full sized UFO. The closest we come may be the efforts of cartoonists although the Australian girl who claims to have been made pregnant by a UFO alien may have something. Pro-ET investigators can be criticized for their rhetoric, fake photographs, and irresponsible quotations. (Hynek quoted the Soviet writer Felix U. Zigel, who has been strongly criticized by Soviet scientists.) It will require a great deal more sophistication to solve the UFO riddle, if it can be solved. The Air Force obviously has not and cannot handle it and NICAP hasn’t done much better. The social scientists have been accorded rough treatment from the physical scientists, who have themselves been irresponsible. It may be the philosophical approach which ignores all the “contradictions”, that will provide the best answers. (If men examine anything long enough and hard enough, “contradictions” always appear.) Scientists must admit that conflict is inevitable in a discussion of a human problem, and that we can’t be as “rigorous”as we’d like to be. As Dr. Floyd W. Matson [10] states; “When man is the subject, the proper understanding of science leads unmistakably to the science of understanding.”
UFOs and Aliens on Earth
Is their intelligent life out there? That is a question that has been asked for many centuries. Will it ever be answered? If it is, will people accept the truth or will they go on believing what they want to believe? There have been many documented alien sightings in this century, but there has never been any hard evidence or proof of their visitations. Is our government covering up this evidence for our own good, or are these sightings a figment of our imagination? Most scientists say that all of the sightings are just astrological phenomena that are visible in the sky and can easily be explained. Has our longing to not be alone in this vast universe caused us to hope, imagine and create some unseen strange space men? These are many questions that I have even asked myself. All I want is the TRUTH.
The Roswell case is one of the best-documented and most controversial UFO cases ever. In July of 1949, at a small airforce base in Roswell, New Mexico, a small, brightly glowing object was observed to crash land at about 11:30 P.M. There were many people who had seen the crash, and they had described that it was brighter, and fell much slower than any meteor they had ever seen. At St. Mary’s Hospital in Roswell, two Catholic nuns, saw the crash, directly north of them, and logged the crash in their diaries to have occurred on July 4, between 10:00 and 11:30pm. Southwest of the base, Corporal E. L. Pyles looked to see what at first he thought was a shooting star, only it seemed to be too large to be one. He testifies that the crash happened about 11:00 PM also. (Randle 17)
There were many Military officers in the area that had seen the object as well. The object was appearing on military radar for many days before the crash. Before the crash, on July 1, all of the officers and technicians at the base had been tracking an unidentified object on their radar. Starting on July 2nd, Steve MacKenzie, who was stationed at Roswell, was ordered to report to the White Sands Proving Ground radar sites and report directly to the brigadier general at the base. The Brigadier General’s orders were to inform him of all the movements the object made. At White Sands, there had been doubt as to whether this object was a malfunction of radar equipment or, if it was in fact, real. The airforce had other radar sites in Albuquerque and Roswell look at the area on their radar to determine if it was authentic. It was shown that they had, in fact, a real object. (Randle 23)