The UFO Singularity (2 page)

Chapter 7: Maleficium Intraspiritus: Dawn of the Soul Hackers

Chapter 8: The Operators: Memories of the Future

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

I
n a conversation I had with Micah Hanks many months ago, we were discussing the seeming “new paradigm” that has encompassed the entirety of ufological research. Over the past decades it seems that the focus—at least in the public mindset—has been on the overtly too-familiar cache of UFO sightings recorded in shaky video and blurry photographic images of lights in the sky or dots on the horizon. In people’s minds, the subject of UFOs borders on that far away fringe of societal pseudo-acceptance. In the public’s view, it’s the stuff that happens to the odd, weird, gullible, and superstitious, rather than the normal, studied, intellectual, and reasoned—no matter how disproportionate that may be from the reality of actual observers and experiencers.

The notion that aliens brought advanced technology to this planet sounds like the stuffs of overwrought science fiction to most people, and the very idea of alien abduction is so dissolute from what the majority of people experience, that the subject itself has been relegated to urban myth, folklore, and the cravings of individuals who have nothing better to do in life than create wild fantasies concocted from their own innate need for experience and meaning.

Blended into all of the highly dubious personal experience are the blatant dis- and mis-informational involvement of governmental and military participation in promulgating documentation, and dissemination of endless paper trails that discount the veracity of the extraterrestrial qualification to any aspect of the phenomena; thus devising rabbit-trailing conspiracy theories and endless unanswered questions buried deep within countless enigmas. The end result has created the perception that this field, in its entirety, bears the same general tone as pop cultural mythology; and it all gets placed into the same beat-up, old cigar box that sits tucked away on that metaphoric top closet shelf, filled with the stuffs of little green men, ghosts, goblins, Sasquatches, and all sorts of various and sundry beasties and conspiratorial tales.

But, as I mentioned, the paradigm is shifting. And this is more by design than it is by accident. Understanding what we are seeing and experiencing is difficult even in the very best of cases and incidents, and as a result the researches and studies conducted are dismally lacking in peer review and acceptance in contemporary academia, not to mention the scientific community in general. So the need to elevate the field from the status of mythos to acceptance is, at best, a daunting, yet necessary uphill climb. Ancient astronaut and alien theory and research, as it merges with archaeology, anthropology, cosmology, spirituality, and philosophy, is courting a miniscule, emerging segment of scientific academia represented less
by the established pundits, personalities, and legerde-main, than by rising, new minds untainted by the “religion” of the dismissive scientific establishment. These fresh, young turks are merging older outmoded understanding with the scientific study of extraterrestrial and intra-terrestrial influence on ufological phenomena. They are asking the big questions of science versus superstition, data versus experience, technology versus magic, human ingenuity versus extraterrestrial influence, and all with the intent of honing a clearer, more sophisticated, less dogmatically driven understanding of what has been—and to many extents still is—the UFO conundrum.

The following pages are meticulously crafted by futurist Hanks to identify aspects of human ingenuity that seem to surpass our current abilities, merging Transhumanism with current futuristic speculations and emerging technologies, all in a course of reconciling the fantastic with the plausible. Hanks explores the roiling questions revolving around interplanetary, intergalactic, and interdimensional traversing beings who may have delivered quantum technologies to the relatively backwater inhabitants of the Earth, set against the distinct possibilities that we humans may, indeed, be our own benefactors. In a way, I am reminded of the old whimsical hillbilly banjo song “I’m My Own Grandpa” when contemplating these possibilities—but have found a refreshingly cogent air with which Micah Hanks delivers an intellectually stimulating, reasoned investigatory romp through the different aspects of Singularity within the ufological enigma.

There is a distinct connectivity between man and the cosmos, and though this is certainly not new news, it bears deeper investigation as new constructs of old theories continue to surface and match pace with our burgeoning technological push into the future. When ancient mankind looked up to the stars, did he see just spots of light twinkling like so many diamonds spread across the swath of velvety black sky, or did he encounter something—or someone—that challenged his perception of reality? Did non-human intelligences course their way across our skies and touch down to the dust only to be revered as gods, devils, angels, demons, spirits, and everything in between? Or did ancient mankind simply bury the knowledge of anomalies away into the annals of oral and written record, evolving their way, through human ingenuity, to the advent of invention, proliferation, and eventual secrecy, hiding away the constructs of futurist machination like the fastidiously recondite Captain Nemo and his ship, the
Nautilus
of Jules Verne’s Victorian-era novel?

The Indian Vedas speaks of the
vimanas,
the flying craft of the Hindu gods. The Arabian myths refer to flying carpets, and the great airships of Western civilization are mentioned throughout later centuries. In the last generation, we have more modern versions of these aerial sightings in UFOs, flying discs, and every other conceivable description of non-terrestrial craft. Perhaps all this tells us is that a newer, fresher definition of space and time is essential in a complete understanding of what we have seen and encountered. Perhaps a merging of the evidences
ranging from alien greys, to Cold War technology, to interdimensional time travel, will bring us closer to the Singularity that has seemed to elude us to the present.

Perhaps just asking the right questions is the missing part of the equation that will draw us closer to the answers. And, perhaps, those answers are things we may already hold in the palms of our hands, and with diligence and perceptive persistence, we may uncover something about ourselves that links us to Singularity.

Scott Alan Roberts
June 7, 2012
New Richmond, Wisconsin

To open any book treating scientifically, philosophically or sociologically the future of the Earth is…to be struck at once by a presupposition common to most of their authors…they talk as though Man today had reached a final and supreme state of humanity beyond which he cannot advance.… No proof exists that Man has come to the end of his potentialities, that he has reached his highest point. On the contrary, everything suggests that at the present time we are entering a peculiarly critical phase of superhumanization.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,
The Future of Man

W
hen dealing with the subject of UFOs, a strong case can be made for their existence, regardless of whatever “they” may actually be. In fact, it becomes difficult to ignore the obvious presence of strange, intelligently controlled aircraft in our skies, following careful review of official documents that appear at the Websites of intelligence agencies such as the FBI, the CIA, and a host of others.

Especially during the last decade, most of the key military and intelligence organizations in the West have released information that shows at least some level of their involvement investigating the UFO mystery, beginning around the end of the Second World War. Many papers and files documenting such inquiries can now be downloaded online; looking beyond the United States, startling data from other governmental agencies around the world—once kept well out of view of the general public—have been released also, exposing an intricate level of interest in the UFO mystery shared by key groups and agencies in countries across the globe.

The mere proof of official interest in the UFO presence throughout the years cannot by itself make concrete the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, nor can it prove that any single phenomenon can be attributed
solely to the identity of the kinds of unidentifiable aircraft that are occasionally witnessed from time to time in our skies. If anything, probability would likely favor a combination of different solutions to the UFO problem, ranging from secret or experimental manmade aircraft, to interdimensional physics anomalies that challenge our concept of space, time, and reality. Somewhere between the two extremes, we may also be faced with the possibility that Earth has been visited by exotic life from other planets. Probing even deeper into the mystery, there could yet be stranger solutions to the enigma that exist somewhere in our midst, promising to reveal to the world things about ourselves that most of us could never imagine.

With this book, the primary goal has been to pare down the various sundry elements into a few likely possibilities, or maybe some intricate fusion between them, that bears greater promise in terms of explaining the UFO enigma in a new and perhaps even more technologically plausible way than past attempts. These possibilities are comprised of the notions that UFOs either represent an extraterrestrial or interdimensional intelligence from someplace outside planet Earth, or that they are indeed some form of terrestrial phenomena that has managed to harness a level of technological sophistication far exceeding that which most of us are aware of today. But perhaps even more troubling than either of these concepts are ideas that involve such things as the intelligence behind UFO reports stemming from some point in what we perceive as our future.

In order to successfully embrace such bold hypotheses, we are faced with a number of hurdles. For instance, one thing that we must explain, in the event that UFOs represent extraterrestrial intelligence, is what kind of technology could allow them the ability to traverse great distances through space in order to reach us. We are faced with similar problems in terms of coping with the mystery from an earthly standpoint; whereas doing so eliminates a need for explaining the rigors of space travel, whatever else the technology underlying the UFO phenomenon may be still appears far more advanced than what most known Earth technology could account for. Thus, could there be an alternative explanation regarding what processes might allow a technology so advanced that, when perceived by most of us, could be described as
magic
with equal efficiency?

The clear and simple answer is yes, though the approaches required in our attempt to understand technology along these lines demand the inclusion of a bold concept: an intelligence “explosion” conducive to the technological creation of some form of intelligence that far surpasses that which humans are naturally capable of.

What this statement embodies is something many refer to already as the
Singularity.
Seeds for technologies that will one day permit intelligence exceeding the capacity of the human mind have already been sown in the fertile grounds of many promising industries of today. These include interfaces that would allow direct communication between the human mind and computer systems,
as well as technology designed to biologically supplement the existing functions of our brains. Ultra-high-resolution brain-scanning technology will also continue to improve, allowing ways to study and build on the capabilities of the mind that are increasingly noninvasive. Additionally, the presently controversial fields of genetic engineering and nanotechnology will eventually begin to present new avenues of studying—or even manipulating—functions of the human body. Once a more complete understanding of our own biology is achieved on such a level, it might be argued that manipulating existing humans will become obsolete, in a sense. Such a brave new world, to borrow Huxley’s axiom, might involve far less self-manipulation, favoring instead the literal
creation
of new kinds of life and intelligence that would further narrow the boundaries between humanity and the technologies at our disposal.

But modern “Singularitarians,” as they have come to be called, perceive such an event as being something that exists only in the eventual sense; in other words, technological Singularity
will
happen at some point in our future, so long as the progression of human advancement of technology continues unencumbered. In fact, many of the leading advocates of an eventual
intelligence explosion
—that is, a point where the growth rate of technological advancement exceeds levels that are perceptible by us (and likely in conjunction with such things as the creation of self-replicating artificial intelligence)—have already predicted a general time frame for when we can expect to begin seeing the effects of such a Singularity.
According to Transhumanist inventor Ray Kurzweil and a number of others, technological growth at a rate so incredible that it begins to become imperceptible to (or maybe indistinguishable from) human intelligence could begin by around 2029. If Kurzweil and others are right, the Singularity is indeed very near.

But what if we didn’t have to wait to see what kinds of effects post-Singularity technology might have on our world? Strange though it may sound, now may be the time to consider whether a technological Singularity could have already occurred—and if not here on Earth, then perhaps someplace else.

Indeed, any advanced alien race that might care to visit Earth would likely have progressed through such an intelligence explosion or Singularity. Having emerged as more formidable entities in the shadow of their former physical selves (or perhaps even that of their creators), these beings might harness limitless technological capability that would greatly surpass even our attempts to understand how they might be achieved. Clark’s third law helps frame the circumstances thusly: Any such technology would appear literally to be some kind of
magic,
from the standpoint of a less advanced technological species like ourselves.