Wednesday, April 12, 2006

I'm still pursuing the "ultraterrestrial" angle for my new book. I had thought I might devote a small chapter to the "alien autopsy," but given the latest news I think I'd be chasing phantoms.

Weirdly enough, I've been made aware of declassified Air Force documents indicating official interest in (presumably) indigenous "little people." (It stands to reason that the AF would at least look into the possibility, just as it examined the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis and its bearing on the UFO question.) The "kidnapping" theme is -- once again -- prevalent. Whoever these people are (given that they're "real" and not enduring psychological projections), they have an explicit interest in us; in some sense we're a big part of their raison d'etre.

By virtue of Occam's Razor, the genetic angle -- that they need our genes to replenish their population and/or keep disease at bay -- strikes me as the most probable. Intellectually, this takes some getting used to. I'd long interpreted the succubus/fairy/alien reproductive theme as a persistent metaphor; after all, what better way to illustrate our collective fascination with the "other" than having sex with nonhumans?




Dr. John Mack


In "Passport to the Cosmos," the late John Mack takes this approach, although he's careful to use the term "reified metaphor." In other words, the encounters recounted by "experiencers" are real, but colored by sexual imagery in order for us to make sense of something otherwise incomprehensible.

All the more reason, in my view, to transcend meat-based biology. The "others" might utilize techniques we might label "transhumanist." As flesh-and-blood entities, our ability to interact meaningfully with a "transcended" intelligence is liable to be severely stunted and cluttered with neurological biases.

Our sensory organs are incompatible with reality; while we're able to function in the narrow consensus world we've created for ourselves, we've denied ourselves the landscapes just outside our walls. Augmenting our brains is one way we might reclaim this territory.

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