The UFO Singularity (8 page)

Although alternate parallel dimensions obviously become useful in one’s effort to justify the paradoxes of time travel, one important thing that must be remembered is that dimensional theories of parallel existence and other ideas involving the less-easily reconciled aspects of space and time
are still only theories.
No matter how well justified they may seem, or from whom their advocacy may arrive, we cannot accept speculation as pure fact simply on the good faith that our talking heads on prime-time television would not mislead us. All too often, people are willing to sit down and watch their favorite network television programs that appear to be dissecting the deeper aspects of our existence—whether those programs purport to deal with subjects like alternate dimensions, or even UFOs and extraterrestrial visitors in ancient times—and they accept these things entirely as facts. We tend to forget that virtually anything seen on television, however credible it may appear to be, has been bestowed with a
greater priority that supersedes the merit of presenting factual information—and this priority demands that what appears must first be
entertaining,
above all else. Only then, so long as the content first offers interesting and compelling information that viewers will want to watch, will the facts be allowed to trickle down.

While this sort of prioritization of compelling content placed over factual merit may not be causing any real harm to anybody, it has certainly been effective in skewing people’s beliefs and attitudes when it comes to the complexities associated with the nature of reality and our universe. And this is certainly not intended to mean that nothing we see or hear on television can be trusted—only that once we understand the levels of prioritization that influence what we hear, and how we hear it, we would be wise to take virtually
anything
we hear with a grain of salt, and a healthy ounce or two of skepticism.

All this kept in mind, perhaps we should also consider whether the extra-dimensional qualities popularly associated with space-time, although meeting the criteria for being potential realities (and
very
compelling television content), could also be unnecessary as tools for explaining aspects of the hidden universe around us. Perhaps, based on the limitations of human perception, and the resulting philosophical concepts that emerge—for which we assign such names as “space” or “time”—the grand illusion that constitutes our reality really does have us fooled. The reality we perceive as a chronological progression through past, present, and future may in fact be as
illusory as the mirage that haunts the thirsty eyes of some lost and weary traveler. The oasis he seeks, which he will no doubt become convinced he can see in the distance, is the partial result of physical properties of nature misleading him, paired with a sincere desire on his own part to see that oasis in the first place.

It may be that, although technological achievements from our future
are
actually capable of influencing what we perceive as being events taking place in our present day, this may not require physical travel through “time” at all, let alone the existence of alternate dimensions. Furthermore, if we could suppose that time as we know it, represented by our own chronological progression through history, were an artifact of human perception, who is to say that humans of the future would need to be capable of “traveling” through time in order to perceive past, present, and future as a single, conjoined entity? To a future civilization whose levels of perception greatly exceed yours or mine, perhaps through the aid of cybernetic enhancements and other innovative science that await us in the coming years, moving through what we perceive as “time” could become a very different process—and far more easy.

And to be fair, there certainly are empirical studies that demonstrate how time is not the unbendable constant that we typically perceive. For instance, we are aware of the effects of what is called time dilation, which constitutes a difference between the way time passes relative to different gravitational masses, or even two individuals
traveling relative to each other. While this concept has become a fundamental precept within the physics theory of relativity, it illustrates with surprising finesse how time is not really everything we make it out to be.

Imagine a clock sitting on the ground that has been synchronized perfectly with an identical clock sitting nearby. A man arrives with his wife, and while he sits and watches one of the clocks, his wife takes the other with her on an airplane, which travels high into the sky, and at great speed. In this instance, differences between the passage of time relative to the two clocks becomes measurable; this is because the effects of a single source of gravity exerted against two objects can vary, based on such things as the distance each object is from that initial source of gravity, as well as the speed they may be traveling. And to be precise, what, exactly, is being affected is
the passage of time itself,
relative to either of those two objects and the conditions surrounding them.

The same general experiment just outlined has taken place more than once, each time displaying predictable outcomes based on relativity theory.
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This presents for us the notion that there are likely to be a number of odd universal conditions that, as we’ve begun to see already, humans are largely incapable of perceiving directly. For instance, because the effects of gravity on the passage of time differ in relation to the distance from the object exerting a gravitational force, when we walk down the street each day, our head and shoulders are literally passing through time at a slightly different rate from that
which our feet are traveling, because the latter are closer to the Earth and hence influenced differently by its gravitational pull. Though this is strange indeed, the effects are so minute that they are imperceptible to people going about their daily lives, and thus are very seldom even considered. We have adapted with time to function within these conditions, and with little thought about the actual mechanisms that may be underlying such simple acts as an afternoon stroll.

To be clear, the reason we illustrate all this here is because experiments with time dilation, with respect to their repeatable effects, show us that what we perceive as time is indeed somewhat pliable, and that physical actions humans may take can indeed cause minor shifts in the way time passes around us. We are still a long way from being able to harness any degree of functional manipulation of time, but we are nonetheless made aware, at least, of such realistic potentials. To apply this practically, especially with regard to the effects of time in relation to advanced UFO aircraft, Nigel Calder illustrates in his book
Magic Universe: A Grand Tour of Modern Science
how physical travel through space at tremendous speed might even constitute a form of time travel in itself:

If you want to exploit special relativity to keep you alive for as long as possible, the most comfortable way to travel through the Universe will be to accelerate steadily at 1
g
—the rate at which objects fall under gravity at the Earth’s surface. Then you will have no problems with weightlessness, and you can
in theory make amazing journeys during a human lifetime. This is because the persistent acceleration will take you to within a whisker of the speed of light.

Your body-clock will come almost to a standstill compared with the passage of time on Earth and on passing stars. Through your window you will see stars rushing toward you, and not only because of the direct effect of your motion toward them. The apparent distance that you have to go keeps shrinking, as another effect of relativity at high speeds.

In a 1
g
spaceship, you can set out at age 20 for example, and travel right out if our Galaxy to the Andromeda Galaxy, which is 2 million light-years away. By starting in good time to slow down (still at 1
g
), you can land on a planet in the next galaxy and celebrate your 50th birthday there. Have a look around before setting off for home, and you can still be back for your 80th birthday. But who knows what state you’ll find the Earth to be in, millions of years from now?
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One thing that could be implied here, with direct relevance to there being some potential connection between UFOs and time travel, involves the intricate interrelationship between high-speed travel through space, which UFOs are often observed doing, and the effects of time dilation and other conditions on the presumed occupants of such craft. Perhaps UFOs would not necessarily have
to represent the exploits of “time travelers” from Earth’s own future, at least in the literal sense, for a connection to exist in this regard. The effects of time dilation, and perhaps even the intentional, controlled manipulation of space-time itself, might come into play with any aircraft capable of technology that would allow the high-speed maneuverability often described in certain more incredible UFO reports. Thus, if we consider whether space-time might consist of certain illusory elements, often capable of misleading our incomplete human perception of reality around us, we might also have an easier time accepting that certain aspects of the greater UFO mystery, as Streiber and others have supposed already, could be related somehow with technology emanating from our own future. Still, while the notion presents an intriguing possibility, it must remain merely food for thought, for now at least.

Understanding how this interaction may be taking place and, perhaps more importantly, grounding ourselves in such a way that will allow us to better predict where future technologies may arise that will shed some potential light on this mystery, are far easier said than done. Therefore, in order to understand the vast potentials for an existent future technology that may await us, a surprising amount of knowledge may be gained from looking to our past; this is especially the case when we consider the years immediately following the Second World War, in which the obvious presence of some kind of incredible—and potentially dangerous—new technology appeared in our
midst, which were dubbed “flying saucers.” Indeed, the more obvious instances of early UFO encounters date back to the mid- and late 1940s. However, our examination of the potential for highly advanced, post-Singularity technologies in our midst (regardless of their specific origin, whether that be extraterrestrial or something else) will inevitably take us even further back in time—more than a century, in fact—to an era when the evidence for a variety of unique, advanced, and intelligently controlled technologies may have already begun to surface here on Earth.

In one’s frustration it is all too easy to seize on an explanation of the “Men from Mars” variety and to ignore the many UFO features unaccounted for.… We may be inadvertently and artificially increasing the significance of the conspicuous features while the part we ignore—or that which is not reported by the untrained witness—may contain the clue to the whole subject.

—Dr. J. Allen Hynek,
The UFO Experience: A Scientific Enquiry

T
he year was 1889, and a sudden frenzy had erupted among the members of a respected Philadelphia-area flight enthusiasts’ group known as the Weldon Institute. There, in the midst of the respectable assembly, a stranger had appeared—or rather, had
intruded
—whose imposing physical stature “was a regular trapezium with the greatest of its parallel sides formed by the line of his shoulders.”
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The man had willingly cast himself as a pariah on the afternoon in question, after boldly claiming in midst of the world’s greatest proponents of dirigible aircraft not only that the future of aviation lay in the use of heavier-than-air flying machines, but that he had already mastered the skies with this very sort of device.

“As man has become master of the seas with the ship, by the oar, the sail, the wheel and the screw, so shall he become master of atmospherical space by apparatus heavier than the air,” the infidel proclaimed to the angry congregation before him. “For it must be heavier to be stronger than the air!”
²

Blasphemy, they thought, just as the members of the Weldon Institute spilled into the hallway, chasing this irreverent bastard and his trifling ideas from the room before he further befouled the sanctity of their gentlemen’s lodge. And then, as abruptly as he had managed to
enter their secluded little world, this man seemingly
vanished
right in their midst—or so it had appeared. While the bewildered members of the Weldon Institute conversed excitedly with one another about this upset, their strange guest had been whisked into the air above, spirited away into the open sky by an enigmatic new flying technology he alone had managed to innovate.

Of course, the observant reader may already be aware that the dramatic portrayal of events unfolding were not recovered from the minutes of any real aviation club’s proceedings, nor was this man Robur, the dissident in question, ever the captain of any real heavier-than-air flying vehicle that had already managed to conquer the skies by 1889. The only real truth behind these events is that they appeared in print for the first time in 1886 under the title
Robur-le-Conquérant,
having been translated later into the English language and released to American audiences as a novel called
The Clipper of the Clouds
and, more popularly,
Robur the Conqueror.
³

Robur’s indignant approach to staking his claim on the open air, as envisaged by science fiction author Jules Verne, may have seemed like utter fantasy to most readers, and even Verne himself, who masterfully was able to pen accounts of people and places in countries he had never once visited. And yet, the enigma of Robur, so-called “Master of the World,” and, of course, his unusual flying vessel, may have been far closer to reality than Verne himself, or many of his readers, had ever realized.

The entire episode really began to coalesce with a well-known series of events that took place on the evening of Tuesday, November 17, 1896, in the skies over Sacramento, California. Just after eight o’clock a bright light was seen traveling through the sky, initially making no noise, as it appeared over the eastern horizon. The craft had been traveling slowly, occasionally bobbing up and down or from side to side as it glided overhead, which, in retrospect, seems reminiscent of descriptions quite familiar to modern UFO researchers that involve the so-called “falling leaf” pattern of descent, resembling a leaf gliding back and forth on its way to the ground.
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Among those who were said to have witnessed the strange apparition drifting through Sacramento’s night skies that evening had been the assistant to California’s secretary of state, as well as the daughter of the town mayor. Later reports would continue in the days that followed, with sightings reported by members of the mayor’s staff, as well as the Sacramento-area district attorney and deputy sheriff.
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