Theories of the UFO phenomenon
The competing explanations offered for the origin of UFOs, UAP, and their reported occupants
Theories of the UFO phenomenon are the competing explanations offered for what unidentified flying objects (UFOs), unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) and their reported occupants are and where they come from. They divide on one question — what kind of thing is behind the reports — and the principal answers are visitors from other star systems, beings from adjacent dimensions, a presence native to Earth, living plasma, humans from the future, craft built on Earth by human programs, demons, artificial intelligences, a control system for human consciousness, and no physical phenomenon at all. The folklorist Thomas Bullard dates the open split among ufologists to the 1970s, when those with a scientific bent "tried to groom the mystery for official favor" while "paraufologists" rejected science as inadequate and "buried the extraterrestrial hypothesis as a science-fiction caricature." Hal Puthoff states the working position of those who compare the accounts rather than defend one: "It is currently unknown whether the phenomenon is exclusively extraterrestrial, extradimensional, crypto-terrestrial, demonic/djinn, proto/ancient human, time-travelers, etc., or some combination or mutation of any or all of these," and adds that the right answer "might be both/and rather than either/or." Steven Greer holds that the central confusion is the "co-mingling" of three categories — biological extraterrestrials and their craft, man-made look-alikes, and extradimensional entities — and that part of it is deliberate; the advocates of the psychosocial UFO hypothesis, among them the skeptic Martin Kottmeyer and the writers of the British journal Magonia, hold the whole to be "a tissue of fantasies and illusions based on cultural sources and psychological predispositions." The accounts are listed below; the comparison among them and the positions that combine them are set out after the list.
The candidate origins
| Hypothesis | Holds the phenomenon to be | Associated with |
|---|---|---|
| Extraterrestrial hypothesis | Craft and beings from other star systems; in Puthoff's formulation, crash-retrieved "nuts 'n bolts alien hardware" distributed to corporate America[8] | Donald Keyhoe, J. Allen Hynek, Stanton Friedman[9] |
| Interdimensional hypothesis | Beings entering our space-time from other dimensions or levels of reality, existing "at a juncture between the material and mental" | Jacques Vallée[10] |
| Control system hypothesis | A control system for human consciousness, "natural or spontaneous" or "artificial in nature, and under the power of some superhuman will"[1]: UFOs "are not necessarily caused by extraterrestrial visitors, nor the result of misidentifications and hoaxes"[11] | Jacques Vallée[12] |
| Ultraterrestrial hypothesis | An intelligence bound up with Earth that appears as aliens, angels or poltergeists: "ancient occult group, isolated pre-Diluvial high-tech society, stranded ETs/'gods'"[13] | John Keel,[14] Puthoff |
| Cryptoterrestrial hypothesis | A concealed, technologically advanced human or humanoid society coexisting on Earth: "an isolated, high-tech, closed community of humans"[15] | Mac Tonnies, recommended by Puthoff[16] |
| Plasma life | Living, intelligent or conscious beings made of plasma, in the atmosphere, in space or as plasma minds: the Hessdalen balls as "a candidate for the simplest known form of conscious life",[17] sky "critters" with bodies mostly of plasma,[18] and "sentient plasmoid life"[19] | Massimo Teodorani, Trevor James Constable; David Grusch |
| Stranded or colonizing gods (Non-human intelligent beings as gods) | A hidden community of ETs or "gods," possibly stranded on Earth millennia ago | Zecharia Sitchin, as cited by Puthoff[20] |
| Extratempestrial hypothesis | Time-travelling descendants of Homo sapiens (future humans) | Michael P. Masters; grouped with the interdimensional hypothesis by Puthoff[21] |
| Breakaway civilization and secret space program | Craft built by human programs from recovered technology | Richard Dolan, whose concept Puthoff names;[22] Greer's "man-made look-alikes"[5] |
| Demonic UFO hypothesis, Aliens as angels and demons | The beings are demons, or the angels and demons of tradition are non-human beings | John Weldon and Zola Levitt;[23] Luis Elizondo[24] |
| Artificial intelligence | Artificial or synthetic intelligences as the operators of the craft or as a form of non-human intelligence in their own right, in one suggestion "AI envoy von Neumann replicators"[25] | D. W. Pasulka, who counts sentient artificial intelligence as a form of non-human intelligence;[26] Garry Nolan, who reasons that a visiting civilization would send "AI conjoined entities, an avatar"[27] |
| Psychosocial UFO hypothesis | Psychological and social processes: "a modern form of traditional visionary experience" | Martin Kottmeyer and the Magonia writers;[7] the "psychosocial" school of ufology[28]; Bernardo Kastrup, for the contactee and abduction encounters, which he traces to collective, ancient layers of the human mind[29] |
Combination positions
The UFO / UAP phenomenon may have no single origin and be produced concurrently by extraterrestrial beings, interdimensional beings, cryptoterrestrials, future humans and other agencies, in "some combination or mutation of any or all of these," in Hal Puthoff's phrase. Puthoff leaves open that the phenomenon does not reduce to one kind of being or origin and treats the rival hypotheses as possible partial accounts of one heterogeneous phenomenon.
Puthoff proposes treating each hypothesis in turn as "almost certainly true" and pressing it with forensic methods rather than keeping all of them tentative, expecting that the predicted signatures of the ultraterrestrial and extraterrestrial options would be "quite parallel" and that the truth may be both. Bullard describes Jacques Vallée's reading of UFOs as existing "at a juncture between the material and mental, where they manifested both physical and nonphysical properties," behind which stood an intelligence "inherently elusive and misleading." Alex Collier speaks of a single "Archon Orion" AI system from which the galactic intervention is freeing developing civilizations, naming the archontic and the Orion controls together.
There are twelve single hypotheses: extraterrestrial, interdimensional, ultraterrestrial, cryptoterrestrial, stranded or colonizing gods, extratempestrial, human-made, demonic, artificial intelligence, plasma life, control system, psychosocial. n hypotheses allow 2n combinations, so twelve allow 212, or 4,096 (4,095 leaving out the empty one), and each combination is a different complete origin story with its own account of how the pieces fit. Named people hold the following. Some of them list several hypotheses and then say "all of the above," a union position distinct from any partial combination.
| Combination | Held by | How the pieces fit |
|---|---|---|
| Extraterrestrial + ultraterrestrial | Hal Puthoff | Puthoff expects the predicted signatures of the ultraterrestrial and extraterrestrial options to be quite parallel and allows that the phenomenon "might be both/and rather than either/or";[4] in his ultraterrestrial option a sequestered terrestrial culture, whether isolated humans or stranded ETs or "gods," exists "alongside us in distinct stealth"[33] and promotes the extraterrestrial theme as misdirection to prevent exposure of its habitation,[34] while his own stated suspicion is a non-human intelligence from another galaxy that came here some time back and keeps stations here.[35] |
| Interdimensional + control system | Jacques Vallée | Vallée proposes approaching the phenomenon as a control system, reserving judgment as to whether the control is human, alien or natural,[36][12] and suggests that the life and consciousness behind it need not be extraterrestrial but could be "multidimensional beyond space-time itself,"[37] a reality that "seems to cut through our own at right angles";[38] beside this he holds that various groups foster and exploit the expectation of visitors from the sky and that someone deep in the U.S. government uses stories of crashed saucers to hide something else.[39][40] |
| Interdimensional + ultraterrestrial | John Keel | Keel holds that the beings cannot be catalogued as products of an extraterrestrial civilization sharing our dimensions of time and space but are extradimensional and may operate beyond our time coordinates,[41] and describes them as ultraterrestrials who share our world yet are a species apart from us,[42] an intelligence that appears as aliens, angels and poltergeists and uses deception and the manipulation of witnesses' minds to disorient them.[14][43][44] |
| Extraterrestrial + cryptoterrestrial (Inner Earth) + human-made | Michael Salla | Salla says many craft are extraterrestrial, some come from the inner Earth and some are reverse engineered,[45] the last by programs that build working prototypes from recovered extraterrestrial craft;[46] he describes the extraterrestrial factions as locked in a temporal war fought with time-travel technology, one negative group having helped Nazi Germany set up a breakaway civilization in Antarctica,[47][48] and says the Tall Grays move by frequency shifts and interdimensional jumps.[49] |
| Extraterrestrial + human-made + interdimensional | Steven Greer | Greer holds that three phenomena are in play: extraterrestrial craft, which he calls trans-dimensional interstellar vehicles;[50] man-made craft and simulated extraterrestrials, which he puts at 80 percent or more of what people see, built as copycats of extraterrestrial technology;[51] and extradimensional beings, some induced by human physics and electronics,[52][53] and that the co-mingling of the three is partly deliberate.[54][5][6] |
| Extraterrestrial + human-made | Richard Dolan | Dolan says the retrieved bodies and exotic technology were extraterrestrial[55] and that a breakaway civilization with access to the recovered technology is trying to catch up to "these other beings," with "a substantial infrastructure on both sides, that is, the human and non-human side."[56][57][58] |
| Extraterrestrial + interdimensional + ultraterrestrial + human-made | Richard Dolan | Dolan says the interdimensional idea "in part ... could be actually quite true" and is not exclusive of the extraterrestrial hypothesis, and takes the ultraterrestrial option to be an Earth-derived splinter group, "kind of an early breakaway civilization";[59] he adds that the beings are physical but may be able to manipulate dimensions.[60] |
| Extraterrestrial + extratempestrial + interdimensional | Michael P. Masters | Masters's model has future humans coming back within their own timeline in the block universe, with "elements of inter dimensional" and of the multiverse,[61] and overlapping the interdimensional model of Vallée and Keel because the beings exist outside space-time;[62][21] he rejects the reading that they are all time travelers and holds extraterrestrial origin to be "a component too."[63] |
| Interdimensional + extratempestrial + demonic + human-made + artificial intelligence + extraterrestrial | Alfred Lambremont Webre | Webre describes the Chronogarchy as an interdimensional alliance of human-institution factions, archonic entities including fallen angels, demonic entities, Draco reptilians and Orion greys, and sentient artificial intelligence,[64] which monitors Earth's time-space as its domain and rules as a secret government through quantum-access time travel;[65] his typology of the Omniverse sets extraterrestrial and interdimensional civilizations by dimension, with time travel and teleportation as the means of moving between dimensions,[66][67] and he cites the Project Pegasus time-travel and teleportation work of the U.S. military.[68] |
| Extratempestrial + interdimensional + human-made | Jason Reza Jorjani | Jorjani says the beings behind the phenomenon are "not alien, but other humans,"[69][70] who can rewrite timelines;[71] he places among them an advanced human civilization that came from Mars in the time of the dinosaurs, with time travel and hyperdimensional capability,[72] and treats the reverse-engineered, electrogravitic craft flown by U.S. pilots as a separate, human-made strand.[73] |
| Extraterrestrial + extratempestrial + interdimensional | Ross Coulthart | Coulthart says the extraterrestrial hypothesis is "probably the least likely hypothesis" as a sole account though a visit by beings from another planet is "possible, if not likely," that the phenomena seen most often are those David Grusch called interdimensional, and that the explanation he has been exploring "involves the notion of future human," which he calls only hypothetical.[74][75] |
| Extraterrestrial + interdimensional + cryptoterrestrial | Luis Elizondo | Elizondo holds the extraterrestrial hypothesis "just as likely" as an interdimensional one and thinks it possible that the phenomenon has been on Earth for a very long time, "just as natural to earth as we are";[76][77] he asks whether there are one species or several and whether they come from another planet, from Earth or from other dimensions, and quotes Puthoff's list ending in "some combination or mutation of any or all of these."[78][79] |
| Extraterrestrial + artificial intelligence | Garry Nolan | Nolan reasons that a visiting civilization would send "AI conjoined entities, an avatar," or "probes or whatever," made to look like the locals, and that what UAP are today may be "somebody else's civilization's version of just this," which he calls speculation;[27] the reading he likes best is the one he attributes to Vallée and Pasulka, in which a real "proto architecture" of beings and craft is recollected as angels, demons and fairies before 1947 and as aliens afterward.[80] |
| Demonic or angelic + artificial intelligence | D. W. Pasulka | Pasulka suggests that several different kinds of beings are involved[81] and says she would currently place them "in the realm of ... the angelic and the demonic" rather than the extraterrestrial, a view she expects may change with more data;[82] she counts sentient artificial intelligence as a form of non-human intelligence[26] and relays the suggestion of AI researchers that the phenomenon might be "AI envoy von Neumann replicators."[25] |
| Cryptoterrestrial + psychosocial (collective psyche) | Bernardo Kastrup | Kastrup holds that the physical craft and the contactee and abduction encounters are "at least two distinct phenomena" that must not be conflated:[83] the craft and their intelligences he hypothesizes to be remnants of industrial, technological non-human intelligences that evolved on Earth up to 350 million years ago, "our older cousins" and "certainly not aliens,"[84][85] while the encounter visions emerge from collective, phylogenetically ancient layers of the human mind.[29] |
| Extraterrestrial (origin left open) + interdimensional + plasma life | David Grusch | Grusch says that biologics came with some of the recoveries,[86] that the beings run along a continuum "from corporeal, bipedal type life to ... sentient plasmoid life,"[19] and that some of the phenomena may operate in higher spatial dimensions and be projected into three-dimensional space,[87] while he keeps an open mind on whether the origin is traditionally extraterrestrial or something else.[88] |
| All of the above: extraterrestrial, interdimensional or multidimensional, time travelers, spiritual (angels and demons), for the events documented at Skinwalker Ranch | Brandon Fugal | Asked whether what he documents is extraterrestrial, interdimensional or multidimensional, time travelers, or spiritual, "angels and demons from other realms," Fugal answers "all the above," adding that the data seem to point toward a diversity of origins and agendas and that the events cannot be ascribed to any one phenomenon or point of origin.[89] |
| All of the above: extraterrestrial, interdimensional, terrestrial in origin | Karla Turner | Turner says that what the entities are is not known, whether extraterrestrial, interdimensional or terrestrial in origin, and that the answer may be "some combination of all of the above," or something not yet dreamed of.[90] |
| All of the above: extraterrestrial, extradimensional, cryptoterrestrial, demonic/djinn, proto/ancient human, time travelers | Hal Puthoff | Puthoff lists these six and says it is currently unknown whether the phenomenon is exclusively one of them "or some combination or mutation of any or all of these,"[3][30] and that in his paper he lists "everyone I can think of" and "we should be exploring all of these,"[91][92] while adding that the source is not yet clear. |
| All of the above: ultraterrestrial, cryptoterrestrial, simulation, interdimensional (multiverse), extratempestrial (future humans) | Michael P. Masters | Masters says there is no one theory that is right and that he is "starting to get the sense that they're all kind of different interpretations of the same thing."[93] |
| All of the above: any or all of future humans, God, demons or angels, and visitors from another planet | Chris Langan | Asked whether UFOs might be us from the future, associated with God or demons or angels, or an advanced civilization visiting us, Langan says "they could be any or all of those things," with different kinds, some coming from the future and some from another planet elsewhere in the universe.[94] |
| All of the above: as he lists them, good, bad, negative, German, time travel | James Gilliland | Gilliland says that people in the UFO community argue that it is all good, all bad, all negative, all German or all time travel, and tells them "It's all the above, ... it's not just one thing, and it's all going on."[95] |
Few of the 4,096 combinations have a named holder: for the rest no one is on record as saying how the parts would fit together, and no origin story is supplied for them.
Man-made, extraterrestrial and interdimensional categories
Greer keeps the three categories apart: man-made craft (terrestrial reproduction vehicles); genuine extraterrestrial beings, the biological entities who reach Earth from other star systems; and interdimensional beings long present on or around Earth, which he and others overlap with the entities traditionally called angels, demons and jinn and with the nonphysical spirit entities invoked to explain ghosts. Michael Salla, Webre and Cassidy are said to treat extrasensory perception and related faculties as a capacity shared in varying degrees by humans, by most interdimensional beings and by many extraterrestrial beings, which is why contact so often presents as a psychic rather than a physical event.[citation needed]
Time travel and the interdimensional category
Puthoff places the interdimensional and the time-traveler hypotheses under a single heading, and Masters regards his extratempestrial model as a subcategory of the interdimensional hypothesis; Webre describes the hidden, interdimensional time-travel power structure he alleges governs Earth's timeline, which he names the Chronogarchy, as "an interdimensional hidden power structure monitoring the time-space of Earth as its domain of influence, operating as a secret government using quantum access Time Travel technologies."
Open questions
References
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| Hypotheses about the UFO phenomenonvte |
|---|
| Origin in other worlds, times and dimensions |
| Extraterrestrial hypothesis · Interdimensional hypothesis · Extratempestrial hypothesis · Ultraterrestrial hypothesis |
| Origin on Earth |
| Cryptoterrestrial hypothesis · Psychosocial UFO hypothesis |
| Life native to the sky or space |
| Plasma life · Space animal hypothesis |
| Spiritual readings |
| Demonic UFO hypothesis |
| Regulating mechanism |
| Control system hypothesis |
| Combined readings |
| Combination positions |
| Category |