Posts

Posted on

Statement of the Contact Project regarding METI

Text revised and updated: 11. January 2022

Don’t Be Afraid of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence | Douglas Vakoch

Dr. Vakoch is President of Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI).

“As astronomers launch ambitious projects for Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence, alarmists worry that transmitting intentional radio and laser signals into space may provoke an alien invasion. These critics overlook one fundamental fact: it’s too late to hide.”

Dr. Vakoch, Feb 3, 2020


Dr. Vakoch is currently not associated with the ‘Contact Project & Initiative’. His statement was directed at the fact that humanity has been announcing it’s presence via radio signals to our cosmic neighborhood for the last 100 years. He did not mean to imply that Alien presences are already here.

This is what the Contact Project & Initiative is about:
The Mission of ‘The Contact Project & Initiative’ is to investigate UAPs/UFOs on every frequency, using real-time tracking, radio receivers and transmitters, HD video, HD images, optical and radio telescopes and passive & active radar, so that the question of the nature and origin of UAP can be answered without doubts.

The engine of this initiative will be an app custom designed to coordinate real-time reporting, alerting, documenting and contacting efforts.

Anyone can take part, there’ll be a public as well as a science data channel. The goal of the ‘Contact Initiative’ is to gather high quality evidence.

To do this every frequency will be scanned, including the 1420 Mhz hydrogen waterhole, which is legal as long as it’s done passively. If transmissions are found, the next step is to discover if UAPs react to radio transmissions. Broadcasting at a frequency of 1420 MHz is illegal under international law, however.

Should the UAP respond to transmissions on HAM or CB radio amateur frequencies, great! But what if it doesn’t?

To have any chance to stay legal under current law and to be able to broadcast at 1420 Mhz the UAP position data must be forwarded in real time to SETI for further investigation.

Actually, a memorandum should be drafted to provide for an exception to broadcast on 1420 Mhz for METI purposes. The relevant article of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is recommendation RA.769 : Protection criteria used for radio astronomical measurements

What does the Contact Project want to do?
We want to do METI (messaging ETi) with a target that’s already here, UAPs. We don’t have to worry about attracting the attention of “hostile” aliens by messaging them as they already know of us, if that’s what UAPs/UFOs are.

As things go, this possibility wasn’t seriously considered by the METI organization in 2015, because the subject of UAPs was still considered too crackpot then.

So, the statement issued by the METI organization regarding messaging extraterrestrial intelligence only covers targets outside of Earth’s atmosphere (statement here).

Since then, in 2021, this outlook has changed somewhat by the release of a preliminary assessment of the American Director of National Intelligence on UAPs (assessment here).

The METI statement called for a worldwide scientific, political and humanitarian discussion about the implications of messaging ET, before anything should be initiated. Arguably, since UAPs first made headlines in 1947 there’s been a worldwide discussion about “them” for over 75 years.

A lot of that time much of humanity reacted like an ostrich, sticking it’s head in the sand when hearing UFO reports. Or like three monkeys. Which comparison do we prefer?

Wisdom?

Did it never occur to anyone that these phenomena may be more than swamp gas or the result of delusions? Sadly, as a result of the swamp gas hypothesis, the METI statement covers only METI targets outside of Earth.

METI might wish to reconsider their statement. Because currently there seems to be no position on contacting UAPs, to the best of my knowledge.

METI says:
ETI’s reaction to a message from Earth cannot presently be known.

If extraterrestrial civilizations have a presence on Earth in the form of UAPs/UFOs or drone-like von Neumann probes they will certainly be able to monitor our news and events. We already know that there was no reaction from UAPs/UFOs to the Voyager space probes and the Golden Records.

METI says:
We know nothing of ETI’s intentions and capabilities, and it is impossible to predict whether ETI will be benign or hostile.

Experience shows that when UAP are pursued by military jet fighters they don’t react hostile. Civilian planes are not attacked either. It’s reasonable to assume that the intelligence behind UAPs is mostly benign.

“The threat to humanity from each other is magnitudes greater than from ETi. That hasn’t and shouldn’t stop us from talking to each other and that includes ETi.”

The Contact Project

GALACTIC FEDERATION?
All sorts of explanations about UFOs and their prospective occupants have been given, from the no-contact rule of a Galactic Federation to higher dimensional frequencies that mortals can join only after exhaustive preparation.

I didn’t make up the Galactic Federation link to UAPs, this claim comes from highly decorated former Israeli Space Security Chief Haim Eshed.

Healthy skepticism is of course in order as most sightings have a prosaic explanation, ranging from misidentifications to pranks and hoaxes. But they don’t account for every sighting.

To admit in 2021 that some UAP cannot be explained was a major step forward by the US government.

The Contact Initiative wants to find out if there is just one UAP that will respond to radio transmissions. And that is easy.

And to prepare for the possibility of a positive response from an UAP?
Not so easy.

Monolith © Utah Department of Public Safety Aero Bureau
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY – THE PROLOGUE INTERVIEWS

The Contact Project can be found on https://contactproject.org.

Contact Project on reddit: https://reddit.com/r/contactproject

←Previous | Next→

Posted on

“The Implications of the discovery of extra-terrestrial life for religion.” Royal Society presentation and article

Ted F. Peters 2011, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A | Summary by Erich Habich-Traut for the Contact Project, 2021

Three crosses on a hill at sunset. Free Church of Scotland, Reverend Sandy Sutherland, used with permission

The implications of the discovery of extra-terrestrial life for religion. Theologian Ted Peters wrote about the future of religion. He asked the following questions:

(i) Will confirmation of extra-terrestrial intelligence (ETI) cause terrestrial religion to collapse?

A few years ago, Ted Peters decided to put conventional wisdom to a test. Along with his Berkeley research assistant, Julie Louise Froehlig, he devised a survey: the Peters ETI Religious Crisis Survey:

Would the discovery of an extraterrestrial civilization cause a crisis in religious beliefs? Peters surveyed evangelical, protestant, catholic and orthodox Christians, and also Mormons, Jews, Buddhists and Atheists:

‘No’ is the answer based upon a summary of the ‘Peters ETI Religious Crisis Survey’. The discovery of an extraterrestrial civilization would not cause a crisis in religious beliefs.

When we turn away from one’s own personal beliefs and ask respondents to forecast what will happen to the world’s religions, including beliefs other than one’s own, something startling was revealed:

What the survey question above shows is the conventional wisdom of non-religious persons. They make a prediction about what will happen to religious persons: Atheists believe that religions will face a crisis.

Contrary, the Peters survey shows evidence that religious believers themselves do not fear that contact with ETI will undercut their beliefs or precipitate a religious crisis.

Then the paper examines four specific challenges to traditional doctrinal belief likely to be raised at the detection of ETI:

(ii) What is the scope of God’s creation?
This entire universe can be viewed as the product of God’s creative power and loving grace.

(iii) What will be the moral character of the alien intelligences we meet?
Will our extra-terrestrial neighbours be subject to sin? Will they have fallen, so to speak? Or, might the aliens have escaped the scourges that plague us here on Earth?

(iv) Is one earthly incarnation in Jesus Christ enough for the entire cosmos, or should we expect multiple incarnations on multiple planets?
What theologians agree on is that the incarnation we have witnessed within our own planetary history is that of the divine Logos, the divine mind through which everything in physical reality has come into being. They presume continuity between this incarnation and whatever exists despite its distance from us. 

(v) Will contact with more advanced ETI diminish human dignity?
Suppose we Earthlings begin to recognize that we are outclassed by our superior space neighbours.  Might we lose our dignity?

“Hand Of God”, NASA

The existence of a more advanced extrasolar civilization does not preclude our being an object of divine concern. Contact with alien intelligence will not disenfranchise us from being created in God’s image.

The belief that God has revealed himself in a supreme way, frees one to look for that which is of God outside that particular revelation. Christians should expect to learn new things about God from an encounter with aliens.

Conclusion
Despite the conventional wisdom, it is not reasonable to forecast that any of Earth’s major religious traditions will confront a crisis let alone a collapse should we confirm an encounter with extra-terrestrial intelligence.

Ted Peters believes that contact with extra-terrestrial intelligence will expand the existing religious vision that all of creation—including the 13.7 billion year history of the universe replete with all of God’s creatures—is the gift of a loving and gracious God.

Reference:
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: https://www.academia.edu/14721074/_The_Implications_of_the_discovery_of_extra_terrestrial_life_for_religion_Royal_Society_presentation_and_article

Ted Peters biography:
http://mttaborslc.org/ted-peters

←Previous | Next→

Posted on

SETI on the cheap

“There was a specific electronic signature (frequency) emanating from them (UFOs/UAPs) when they were going into or coming out of the water, so they were easy to track. “

wrote Bob Fish in an Email to John Podesta,
published on Wikileaks by Julian Assange.

Robert Fish, USS Hornet

Can we send “welcome” radio messages during a sighting at UFOs and listen back for a response? Of course we can. That has not been done yet. At least not by civilians. Someone asked on a forum what the frequency is that the Navy listened to…

The frequency is easy to find out.
When an UFO is near we use a multi frequency receiver that scans the entire (electromagnetic) radio spectrum in an instant. The “Uniden Close Call” feature is incorporated into many HAM radios. “Whistler Spectrum Sweeper” is another option.

Both are ways to find frequencies that are close to you with a very strong signal.

Uniden Close Call vs Whistler Spectrum Sweeper

The “AOR AR-7400” is another receiver that scans a predetermined spectrum in one second.

Licensed radio amateurs (HAM operators) near a sighting could try to find the correct UAP frequency and then try to make contact.

To do this there’s no need for highly sensitive multi billion dollar radio telescopes. SETI pointed their dishes at very narrow points in the sky, searching distant star systems for alien messages.

That is not necessary when the potential alien transmitters are close by.

With the open source smartphone app “UFO Alert!” any search partner will be informed immediately of interesting nearby UAPs.

If UAPs emit radio frequencies their signal will be close by and strong enough to be picked up by conventional antenna.

Avi Loeb
The question of “what are UAPs? is also being investigated by Avi Loeb with the “Galileo Project”: this consists of hundreds of stationary optical telescopes that hope to photograph UAPs in high resolution.

I don’t think pictures alone will be sufficient to explain UAPs, no matter how high the resolution. I wrote to Avi suggesting we pool our ideas.

Science has a tendency not to publish results until 100% certain about them. That could mean a delay.

Public channel
On the public channel of the “UFO Alert!” app there will be no such delay. Public participation and discussion about possible results is the apps main feature. It will be totally transparent.

Science channel
The “UFO Alert!’ may have search partners that take a more cautious approach in publishing their findings.

That’s possible due to the open architecture of the app. The results of one search partner or group may disagree with that of another.

Conclusive evidence
But the app of the Contact Project has one main goal: radio contact with UAP. The analysis of those transmissions, if they exist, should leave no doubt about the result.

Join the subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/contactproject

←Previous | Next→

Posted on

HANDSHAKE PROTOCOLS

The hand ✋Manus Dexter Palmar

So, we’re transmitting voice or data by radio to an UAP. They respond. What now?

Before we can have a meaningful communication with ETI (by radio), we need to agree on some form of handshake protocol. This is not just a friendly formality.

Communication, either analogue or digital, is dialogic. Dialogic processes refer to words uttered by a speaker and interpreted by a listener. We must make sure that the speaker is understood by the listener and that the listener can respond. It takes two to tango.

A handshake protocol can agree on the speed and language cypher to be used.

Language is seen as a cypher for thought, different groups of individuals employing unique sounds.

Language sets people apart, it seperates people into nations and regions. This gives them identity.

Digital V90 handshake

Computers or civilized states on common ground have developed handshake protocols for meeting strangers.

An example of a digital handshake are the modem sounds from dial up internet of the 1990’s. What we hear is the V90 handshake protocol of TCP-IP, the internet protocol.

In the movie end sequence in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, when the 5 note sequence is played and the mothership responds, we hear a demonstration of a tone-frequency handshake protocol that’s played by a musician.

Star Trek “First Contact”: ETI communication is initiated by handshake.

In the example from the Star Trek movie “First Contact”, a human literally shakes the hand of a Vulcan before communication is initiated. This is a dialogic handshake.

Not every human is comfortable shaking hands because of fear of viruses. Especially alien ones.

What kind of handshake protocol we’ll be using when we make First Contact with ETI we don’t know precisely.

But when it comes to the transmission of data then it will be a digital handshake. Therefore it’s pointless to expect to hear a single word from ET without ACK.

ACK SYN

ACK! SYN? Mars Attacks movie poster

Known as the “SYN, SYN-ACK, ACK handshake,” computer A transmits a SYNchronize packet to computer B, which sends back a SYNchronize-ACKnowledge packet to A. Computer A then transmits an ACKnowledge packet to B, and the connection is established.

←Previous | Next→

Posted on

Why I am coming forward now

During April 2020 I had a lot of time on my hands. It was the first Corona lockdown in Germany. I decided to sort through old 35 mm negatives in an old drawer in our basement. The drawer serves as a storage box.

As I was pulling the film strips through the scanner, I came across negatives from England, where I had lived in 1995. Between those negatives were two frames of particular interest.

Ilford XP2 35 mm film, 1995

Ilford XP2 film frames 7 and 8 showed an UAP. I was not prepared to find these pictures. I had completely forgotten this UFO sighting for 25 years. The only other two people who knew about it were my girlfriend and her father who were with me when the sighting took place.

The blurry camera images are not as good as what I saw with my own eyes that night in 1995. I got two exposures of the same object driving in a straight line at 70 mph on the motorway. That made it possible to actually triangulate distance, speed and size of the object:

Triangulation of distance to UAP, frames 7 & 8

It has been suggested that what I saw was an advertising blimp parked near the motorway. I don’t think so, because it had no advertising or any markings on it. Also, the object became 25% smaller as we drove towards it for approx. 15 seconds at 70 mph.

To get smaller the blimp would have to have traveled faster than 70 mph. But a blimp top speed is only 55 mph.

UAP?

That leaves me with the question: what did I see?

This is the reason I am stepping forward, now.
I know how to answer this type of question, once and for all.


—–

The Mission of ‘The Contact Initiative’:
to investigate UAPs/UFOs using real-time tracking, radio, video, gigapixel images and passive radar, so that this type of question can be answered without doubts.

The engine of this initiative will be an app designed to coordinate real-time reporting, alerting, documenting and contacting efforts.

The goal of the ‘Contact Initiative’ is to gather high quality evidence and, if possible, find out if UAP react to radio transmissions.

What do you think of the Contact Initiative? Join the discussion on https://reddit.com/r/contactproject or friend me on Facebook.

←Previous | Next→

Posted on

The Short Version of the Contact Project Research Proposal as PDF

5. Dec. 2021

Here’s the PDF version of the Contact Project research proposal, together with the introductory note and the “Contact app” flowchart. The working title for the Contact App development is currently “UFO Alert!”.

Download and email these documents to promote or evaluate the Contact Initiative. If you do forward these documents I’d be interested in the responses you get.

Contact Project: The Introduction Letter

Contact Project: The Research Proposal

Contact Project: The Contact app flowchart

A note on the Alien Marketplace, funding, etc.
As with most projects or initiatives, a positive cash flow greatly contributes to development speed and stamina.

The last chapter of the research proposal is the “The Alien Marketplace”. This type of chapter is more at home in a business plan than a research proposal and it outlines a funding possibility.

To finance the Contact Initiative a lottery and ad platform funded by advertisers and NFT trading technology are optional but not mandatory. It seems to be the most straightforward way to finance the app and its development and growth.

The Contact Project and Initiative welcomes donations and investments. Mostly the two are mutually exclusive, but I’m not an expert. How investment into the Contact Project could convert into equity has not been explored. I’m open to suggestions.

For donations: we are not tax exempt since this is the early start-up phase.

What do you think of the Contact Initiative? Join the discussion on https://reddit.com/r/contactproject or friend me on Facebook.

←Previous | Next→

Posted on

10. FUNDING: THE ALIEN MARKETPLACE

Artists impression

To motivate the public to take part in the Contact Initiative search and to download the app, prizes can awarded for UFO Alerts! that lead to detections of UAPs, staggered by evidence weight:

less important:
1. confirmed UAP pictures,
2. video,
3. radar images,

more important:
4. reception of radio emissions, 
5. verifiable conversation with ETI (CETI),
6. physical alien artifact,
7. actual landing of UAP with ETI.

NFT’s for verified UAP sighting pictures or video?
Alternative to cash prizes, credits may be given (that’s at the discussion stage), they could be collectible non-fungible tokens (NFT’s) linked to the detection record and/or the verified UAP pictures,. Their value is based on their historical value, rarity and desirability.

The whole endeavor (and prize money) will be funded by private enterprise through the “Alien Marketplace” advertising space.

This marketplace is accessed through the Contact app. To filter out fakes and false identifications AI algorithms and volunteers evaluate the results. The volunteers may be paid cash or NFT tokens that can be traded on the Alien Marketplace.

The app and the Contact Project Organization itself may be financed by advertisements in the APP, which sell on the ALIEN MARKETPLACE.

A ‘jackpot’ cash prize will go to the first person to report an UFO/UAP that makes contact. Lesser prizes are for genuine UFO reports, verified unidentified flying objects without explanation.

A credit system of some sort or a cash prize should be instituted to motivate the participants. False reports are penalized by subtracting from the prospective “jackpot” money of the participant.

Examples for advertisements on the ALIEN MARKETPLACE are any products of interest to UFO, SCI-FI and Fantasy fans, as well as the general population.

←Previous | Next →

Posted on

9. DESCRIPTION OF THE “CONTACT APP”

Realtime data feed about in progress UAP sightings

Creation of Adam / Earth Rise
Michelangelo / NASA

With the app named “UFO Alert!” (or “Contact Project App”) the Contact Initiative wants to engage with others who also think that they aren’t alone in the universe.

That includes not just our neighbors on planet Earth, should they exist. By that I mean neighbors on other planets.

We, the Contact Initiative, believe that there is a non-zero chance that UFOs/UAPs have an extraterrestrial origin. In other words and more precisely: we believe that UAP may be of extraterrestrial origin.

But we can’t be 100% certain.

In the past we may have seen something unexplained in the sky and wondered what it was… We never found out about it because no one told us and we didn’t have the tool to tell us.

We are the casual UFO/UAP witness.
We are 46 million people in the USA alone.
We wanna know what’s going on!

The UFO Alert! app

An tool to identify the identifiable and investigate the unknown.

click image to enlarge

Currently the flowchart of the app is not hewn in stone. No godly instructions were received on a mountain to create this.

This is a project in the brainstorming stage. To make it a reality compromises may have to be made.

That is possible because the app has a modular design. The app is composed of modules. Each module is desirable, but not essential to create the app.

For instance. the “Identified Flying Object Databanks” can be left out. They can be added at a later stage, or never. Omitting them would make the app programming much easier and faster.

How much can be realized at the first try?

That depends on
a) funding or
b) the selfless support from the open source community.

UFO Alert! is an open source UFO/UAP real time reporting tool. Every user who downloads the app is a “Search partner”. Users CAN register to use the app. During the registration users CAN enter their profession, such as pilots, air traffic controllers, military personnel, and age and hobbies.

Search partners can be anyone with a smartphone, radio operators, videographers, gigapixel camera operators, Unistellar telescope operators and (passive) radar operators, which are a subset of radio HAM enthusiasts and people that are close enough to have visual or audible contact with an UAP/UFO.

UAPs are a very transitory phenomenon. Often a sighting lasts less than a minute. Speed is of the essence to reacquire the target. Because it is in the reacquisition phase that the “UFO Alert!” app gathers most of its data.

The Contact Project

The “UFO ALERT!” app has two modes of operation: ALERT and CONTACT.

App users that report a sighting shall be called Alerters.

HAM radio and other operators that are sent the coordinates of the UFO shall be called Contacters.

What happens when an UFO is spotted?
The user who sees the object/phenomenon presses the “UFO sighting in progress” or “Alert!” button of the CONTACT app:


The app immediately uploads the timestamp and GPS coordinates of the sighting:


The user can also try to take snapshots or video of the UFO sighting with their smartphone. This provides real time additional data: the smartphone’s gravity sensors record the elevation and its magnetic compass records the azimuth:


The data are then sent to an “Identified Flying Object server”.
Here GPS and time data are parsed (and available elevation and azimuth). An astronomical real-time database, the NORAD database and air traffic databases are used to identify known flying objects near the UAP location, such as planets, planes and satellites. (To categorically exclude ship traffic, such as may have been filmed in Kumburgaz, Turkey, in 2007-2009, a marine AIS database should be included). Secret military projects are excluded via NORAD TLEs:


If the object is not identified,
it becomes a “prospective UAP” (PUAP):

GPS coordinates and other data of prospective UFOs/UAPs are forwarded as an ALERT to close-by Contacters using the same Contact app, to be investigated in more detail:

Contacters are selected based on their vicinity to the GPS coordinates of the sighting and their hardware/qualifications/experience. The contacters may be HAM radio operators and others (search partners with CB / HD camera / HD video / telescope / radar):

Should the same PUAP be reported multiple times at different locations a trajectory can be computed and search partners will be notified in advance of a possible PUAP arrival.

Users that spot the PUAP can fill out a standard UFO sighting questionnaire and/or supply more detailed reports that will be attached to the alert.

The presence of a not identified flying object has now been broadcast to users of the CONTACT app in the vicinity of the sighting via multiple routes (SMS, EMAIL, POP-UP APP NOTIFICATION).

Alerted by this notification:

HAM RADIO OPERATORS will be listening for incoming broadcasts from the sighting using multiband radio frequency scanners. Should the sighting be a remote controlled drone it would now be identified via the unique drone radio frequency signature.

If the PUAP is a viable UFO and not a drone → then HAM operators will attempt to make contact using a variety of radio bands. A pre-recorded message or data burst transmission may be broadcast towards the UFO.

TELESCOPE AND CAMERA OPERATORS
Other search partners may try to use the information to get radar or visual confirmation via HD cameras or automatic telescopes (for instance UNISTELLAR / VAONIS STELLINA). 

(PASSIVE) RADAR OPERATORS
A special field of amateur HAM radio is the analysis of passive radar data, often to observe meteor tracks. Sometimes unexplained tracks are recorded, showing flight maneuvers of objects at right angles. In case of these anomalous sightings an ALERT can be triggered with the aim of visual confirmation and radio contact.

VISUAL OBSERVERS
Any search partner who can verify the sighting by eye sight using the CONTACT APP provides real time data to the sighting in progress.

The CONTACT INITIATIVE effort may be coordinated via the members of SETI Institute / SETI LEAGUE / MUFON /  HAM and other organized networks.

All who download the app can make UFO reports.
A sighting by a single person is less convincing than an event that many witnesses report from a distance to each other.

An AI algorithm will analyze live reports coming in in real time to determine if multiple witnesses are reporting on the same thing. This takes into account the position and possible flightpath of an object.
 

To motivate the public to take part in this search,
prizes can be given for successful detections of UAPs, staggered by evidence weight:

less important:
1. confirmed UAP pictures, 2. video, 3. radar images,

more important:
4. reception of radio emissions,  5. verifiable conversation with ETI (CETI), 6. physical alien artifact, 7. actual landing of UAP with ETI.

Alternative to cash prizes, credits may be given, they could be collectible non-fungible tokens (NFT’s), whose value is based on their desirability.

The whole endeavor (and prize money) will be funded by private enterprise through the “Alien Marketplace” advertising space. This marketplace is accessed through the Contact app. To filter out fakes and false identifications AI algorithms and volunteers evaluate the results. The volunteers may be paid cash or NFT tokens that can be traded on the Alien Marketplace.

The Contact App flowchart as PDF: download here,
and as JPG: download here.

What do you think of the Contact Initiative? Join the discussion on https://reddit.com/r/contactproject or friend me on Facebook.

←Previous | Next→

Posted on

8. CHANCES OF ENCOUNTERING UFOs/UAPs

Reconstruction by author, MUFON #82139, Ireland, 1986

Based on personal experience the author of “The Contact Initiative” estimates the chance to spot an UFO/UAP in any one day to be approx. 1:10.000.

UAP photographs on 35mm negative film, frame 7 of 2. MUFON #111680, UK, 1995,
The UAP was grayish without markings as seen here. Photograph by author.

You may have a chance to take pictures or video of an UFO once every 50 years, as I did in 1995.

More impartial data than personal experience about the frequency of sightings comes from surveys. There are not a lot of surveys on the subject of UFO/UAP. More surveys should be carried out.

But there is one:

STUDY ON PUBLIC UAP SIGHTINGS
One available survey comes from Century Fox Home Entertainment. They did a poll for a promotional campaign of the Ridley Scott movie “Phoenix Forgotten“.

Reconstruction of “Phoenix Lights” by eye witness Tim Ley, USA TODAY, 1997

The “Phoenix Forgotten” plot was inspired by the “Phoenix Lights” UFO phenomenon from 1997. (Ref.: 1, Ref.: 2)

Over 1700 Americans were asked if they had ever seen an UFO:
16.74% responded positively (Ref.: 3).

If that percentage is any guideline, then we can say that 16.74% of 258.3 million adults (Ref.: 4), about 43 million Americans, had a UFO sighting.

MISIDENTIFICATION OF UFOs
 According to author Leslie Kean, “roughly 90 to 95 percent of UFO sightings can be explained”. (Ref.: 5)

The chief investigator of CUFOS in 1979, astronomer Allan Hendry, concluded from 1307 cases that 91.4% had a clear and simple prosaic explanation. 8.6% were classed as “UFOs” and 1.5% of those cases had no possible plausible explanation. (Ref.: 6)

This leaves us with 645,000 unexplained sightings from 43 million. This covers a time-span of 38.4 years, it being the median age of the US population (Ref.: 7).

If there are 645,000 completely unexplained UAP sightings in 38.4 years, we get 16,796 (sixteen thousand seven hundred ninety six) sightings per year. That’s 46 UAP cases without possible plausible explanation daily in the USA.

I believe this to be a fairly high number.

The Contact Initiative doesn’t want to wait around to get results. To maximize the chances of spotting UAP/UFO a large number of volunteer UFO/UAP spotters are needed.

And the method of spotting and forwarding a report of a sighting must be as simple as taking a photo or video.

The “CONTACT APP” (name may be changed) will be designed for this purpose, to be as simple as possible. But it will be the most powerful civilian use flying object identification program on the market.

One of its appeals will be that it provides near instantaneous identification of objects and phenomena commonly mistaken as UFOs: celestial objects, meteors, planes, blimps, military training exercises, satellites. The app gives feedback to the UFO spotter if what he/she saw is a known phenomenon.

The app records with high accuracy the position and time of the sightings and the number of users who see the same thing.

POSSIBLE UAP/UFO YIELD PER MILLION APP DOWNLOADS
If the Contact app is downloaded one million times (corrected), then the chances are that we will see 65 UAP cases without possible plausible explanation in a year.

That amounts to a bit more than one really, really, puzzling UFO case per week. This should be enough to engage and keep the attention of the public. Because, what good would be an UFO app that doesn’t spot UFOs?

PEACE OF MIND
On the other hand, incorrect identifications of common or explicable phenomena as UFOs should become less with the Contact App. This way the great majority of witnesses would feel less stress.

EDUCATIONAL VALUE
A large number of participants serves to raise the awareness of the possibility of Extraterrestrial Contact. What does it mean to be a part of a greater community of diverse intelligences in the Cosmos?

GOAL OF THE CONTACT INITIATIVE (CONTACT PROJECT)
The goal is to prepare for and meet a technological superior non-human species. That we’re not the most advanced technological species in the Universe is logical:

THE SAGAN
The Universe is billions and billions of years old. In it there are billions and billions of habitable planets. Modern human technology only exists since a few hundred years and we left the stone age just about 5000 years ago.

The development of life and intelligence is most likely not a one-time miracle confined to an infinitesimal speck of the Cosmos, the Earth.

BENEFITS OF FRIENDS
The potential benefits of contact to an advanced intelligent extraterrestrial species are incalculable to the future and destiny of the human race.

It may be that we don’t have much in common with each other except curiosity. But that alone would be a driving force of human determination and progress, geared at finding out more about the other.

DON’T BE AN OSTRICH
Should it turn out that UAP/UFOs are otherworldly emissaries of non-friendly intent, then it would also be important to find out. It could be fatal to stick our collective heads into the sand.

ULTIMA R̶A̶T̶I̶O̶ RADIO
These are the reasons why the Contact Initiative proposes to contact “UFO sightings in progress” by radio waves.

References:
1.: Kurt Russell claims he saw — and reported  — the ‘Phoenix Lights’,
https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2017/06/14/kurt-russell-claims-reported-phoenix-lights-ufos/394749001/

2.: Ex Arizona Governor saw a UFO during the 1997 Phoenix Lights, https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Former_Arizona_Governor_says_he_saw_a_UFO_during_the_1997_Phoenix_Lights

3.: New survey shows nearly half of Americans believe in aliens,
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/new-survey-shows-nearly-half-of-americans-believe-in_b_59824c11e4b03d0624b0abe4

4.: U.S. Adult Population
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/08/united-states-adult-population-grew-faster-than-nations-total-population-from-2010-to-2020.html

5.: UFOs, UAPs and CRAPs
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ufos-uaps-and-craps/

6.: Identification studies of UFOs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identification_studies_of_UFOs

7.: US MEDIAN AGE
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2020/65-older-population-grows.html

←Previous | Next→