Extraterrestrial Hypothesis vs Utraterrestrial Hypothesis

Since seeing a couple of triangle UFOs last year, and because they looked so concrete and real as opposed to some nebulous apparition, I've had to re-evaluate everything I've thought previously about the UFO phenomenon and "Aliens".
But here's my question, for those of you who espouse to the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis, what are your arguments against the Ultraterrestrial Hypothesis including the connection between UFO lore and anamolous phenomenon.
For the most part, but I do admit perhaps being on the fence about this, I adhered to John Keel's conclusions about UFOs and everything connected to that phenomenon. Here's a quote from wikipedia when I google John Keel:

"Influenced by writers such as Charles Fort, Ivan Sanderson, and Aimé Michel, in early 1966, John Keel commenced a full-time investigation of UFOs and paranormal phenomena. Over a four year period, Keel interviewed thousands of people in over twenty U.S. states. More than 2,000 books were reviewed in the course of this investigation, in addition to thousands of magazines, newsletters, and newspapers. Keel also subscribed to several newspaper-clipping services, which often generated up to 150 clippings for a single day during the 1966 and 1967 UFO "wave".

Like contemporary 1960s researchers such as Dr. J. Allen Hynek, and Dr. Jacques Vallee, Keel was initially hopeful that he could somehow validate the popular extraterrestrial visitation hypothesis. However, after one year of investigations, Keel realised that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was untenable. Indeed, both Hynek and Vallee eventually arrived at a similar conclusion.

As Keel himself wrote, "I abandoned the extraterrestrial hypothesis in 1967 when my own field investigations disclosed an astonishing overlap between psychic phenomena and UFOs... The objects and apparitions do not necessarily originate on another planet and may not even exist as permanent constructions of matter. It is more likely that we see what we want to see and interpret such visions according to our contemporary beliefs." [1]"

Any comments would be appreciated.



[edit on 2-8-2006 by Palasheea]

[edit on 2-8-2006 by Palasheea]

Originally posted by Palasheea
Any comments would be appreciated.

I think people like to start out with the Little Green Men from Mars notion, because it's something we can more easily get a handle on. It's easier for us to imagine that the "aliens" are essentially like us, but just happened to evolve on a different planet and were smart enough to figure out a way to fly their little ships to Earth. It's a nice, comfortable idea.

Unfortunately, the data doesn't automatically lend itself to that explanation. The strange way UFOs seem to only be a few years ahead of us, technologically. The way there are so many shapes involved that never seem to exactly repeat their activities. The nagging absence of good, unimpeachable evidence. The abduction stuff. And way too much other "weird" stuff happens in connection with UFOs -- psychic and time effects, in particular. If you want to widen the database, you may want to include folkloric encounters people have reported with things like leprechauns and angels. Unless you want to just throw out all that data, it's pretty hard to fit it all into a simple "aliens from other planets" theory.

But if they're not just space aliens, what are they? Do we even have a construct in which to fit them? They could be time travelers from Earth's future, or distant past. They could exist in a different dimension of time, something we might see as "backward" or "tangiential" to the dimension of time we perceive. Parallel universe dwellers. Physical projections placed in our minds by an alien consciousness we can't understand. Physical projections of our own unconscious minds. Something else entirely?

And when it comes to trying to fit the data into a box we can understand, it becomes apparent that even though we've made some great technical accomplishments over the last couple millennia, we're still very hampered in out perception of reality and the universe. We're just animals with a few narrowly defined physical senses. Our machines help us extend those senses, but we still have to interpret them in a very narrowly defined way. We're pretty good at living and moving in a 3- or 4-D world, but if there are other dimensions or universes, we sure can't detect them or comprehend them very well. So we're kind of stuck.

The best we can really do at this point is keep collecting the data, and hope that someday we'll be able to put it in an understandable framework. The key word being "hope." Maybe we'll never figure it out.

Originally posted by Enkidu
Unfortunately, the data doesn't automatically lend itself to that explanation. The strange way UFOs seem to only be a few years ahead of us, technologically.

I don't think that defying the known laws of physics is exactly just a few years down the road.

Originally posted by CaptainKirk

Originally posted by Enkidu
Unfortunately, the data doesn't automatically lend itself to that explanation. The strange way UFOs seem to only be a few years ahead of us, technologically.

I don't think that defying the known laws of physics is exactly just a few years down the road.

Oh, you never know. The laws of physics are not immutable, and maybe it only seems like they're defying the laws, simply because we don't know exactly what all the laws are. A hundred years from now (which I consider to be "a few'), we'll probably have all kinds of technological stuff that will make us shake out little 21st Century heads in amazement.

Enkudu, you said "But if they're not just space aliens, what are they? Do we even have a construct in which to fit them? "
Good question. So could it be that these space aliens are really much like those same beings who exist in the paraphysical realm that wreaths our planet? Only in the case of those beings that some call "aliens", it very well could be that they are in fact from other galaxies but do not inhabit the physical realm, as we know it, but DO inhabit the paraphysical realms of those planets and solar systems they claim to come from.
For example, say an alien comes along and says he's from Sirius. Yet, supposing it was common knowledge that that planet is populated by beings just like us -- creatures of the human species. And supposing, just like Earth, whose occupants have had close encounters with beings from other dimensions i.e fairies, ghosts etc... -- supposing the planet Sirious also has it's own paraphysical realm and it's those beings who are now visiting Earth. So in that sense, would these Sirian paraphysical beings be classified as Extraterrstrial even though they are actually paraphysical beings from another planet and not the actual occupants of that planet who live in the physical realm?

Originally posted by Palasheea
So in that sense, would these Sirian paraphysical beings be classified as Extraterrstrial even though they are actually paraphysical beings from another planet and not the actual occupants of that planet who live in the physical realm?

That's all well and good, but we're far from defining and proving the existence of any coherent "paraphysical" realm where these "pseudo-aliens" might come from. I know it's popular to imagine a less physical realm where all kinds of ghosts and entities hang out, but I'd say there's even less good evidence of that than of real flying saucers from other planets. After all, we know for sure there are other stars and planets out there in space. That's more than we have for evidence of a paraphysical realm. So trying to use one to help explain or illuminate the other is not much of a help.

But in answer to your question, if ghosts really exist, and if they exist on a planet in the Sirius system and that's their "home," and if they came to visit Earth, I suppose I'd classify them as both extraterrestrial and ultraterrestrial (which also includes Earth-based time travelers and beings from other versions of Earth in alternate universes). None of which has ever been proven to exist, BTW.

P.S. -- But what about this...? How would you classify an organic robot (like the Greys), built by humans in the future, but currently living on the Moon in the secret farside base?

[edit on 2-8-2006 by Enkidu]

Enkidu, quite the contrary, there's an abundance of "evidence" that there is a paraphysical realm, but I see you are a paranormal skeptic so I will not even be going into what that evidence is as there's too much of it to even go into here.

But as for organic robots created by future Earth scientists that now live on a secret base on the far side of the moon, well, I don't know if they were made by humans from the future -- though who knows? That very well may be the case. There are many people out there who have been informed in one way or another that there's a space colony up there. I grew up in a NASA neighborhood and such speculations were always talked about at our summer block parties. Lol

[edit on 2-8-2006 by Palasheea]

[edit on 2-8-2006 by Palasheea]

Originally posted by Palasheea
Enkidu, quite the contrary, there's an abundance of "evidence" that there is a paraphysical realm, but I see you are a paranormal skeptic so I will not even be going into what that evidence is as there's too much of it to even go into here.

Oh, I'm every kind of skeptic. Paranormal, UFO, alien, God, Jesus... I'm pretty much skeptical of everything that comes at me second- or third-hand, and is based primarily on anecdotal evidence. I have a very long list of things that are necessary for me to accept something as "real," and not just somebody's overactive imagination at work. Evidence is not always reliable or unimpeachable. That's where good old "proof" comes in, which is quickly followed by consensus.

Originally posted by Enkidu

Originally posted by CaptainKirk

Originally posted by Enkidu
Unfortunately, the data doesn't automatically lend itself to that explanation. The strange way UFOs seem to only be a few years ahead of us, technologically.

I don't think that defying the known laws of physics is exactly just a few years down the road.

Oh, you never know. The laws of physics are not immutable, and maybe it only seems like they're defying the laws, simply because we don't know exactly what all the laws are. A hundred years from now (which I consider to be "a few'), we'll probably have all kinds of technological stuff that will make us shake out little 21st Century heads in amazement.

Fair enough, but UFO's have been reported making the same crazy maneuvers and reaching the same incredible speeds for the past 60 years. This means that this technology has just been a few years off for later half of the twentieth century.