Commemorating the historic Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting—24 June 1947 (Full transcript and link to original radio interview from the 26th of June, just two days later.)
THE SIGHTING THAT STARTED IT ALL
Seventy-seven years ago today, a 32-year-old Idaho businessman and experienced pilot named Kenneth Arnold unwittingly ignited the modern fascination with unidentified flying objects. While flying his CallAir A-2 over the Cascade Mountains on 24 June 1947, Arnold spotted nine silvery objects weaving in formation near Mount Rainier. He later described their motion as “like a saucer if you skip it across water,” a phrase newspapers soon shortened to “flying saucers,” forever branding the phenomenon.
ON-AIR EXCLUSIVE
The broadcast of the first radio interview with Kenneth Arnold itself has its own remarkable backstory: for over forty years, the KWRC interview existed only in second-hand reports—until researcher Pierre Lagrange uncovered the original vinyl in 1988. This pristine recording finally lets us hear Arnold’s exact words and raw emotion in the immediate wake of his sighting and the media storm that followed.
Kenneth Arnold interviewed by Ted Smith, KWRC, 26 June 1947:
“Every newspaper across the nation has made headlines out of it, and this afternoon we are honored, indeed, to have here in our studio the man himself, Kenneth Arnold, who we believe can give us a first-hand account of what happened. Kenneth, first of all, if you’ll move a little closer to the microphone, please tell—in your own words, as you told us last night in your hotel room and again this morning—what you were doing and how this entire thing started. Go ahead, Kenneth.”
ARNOLD RECOUNTS THE FLIGHT
(Kenneth Arnold) “Well, at about 2:15 p.m. I took off from Chehalis, Washington, en route to Yakima. Every time any of us fly over the country near Mount Rainier, we spend an hour or two searching for the Marine plane that’s never been found; they believe it’s in the snow somewhere southwest of that area, at an elevation of about 10,000 feet.
I had made one sweep close to Mount Rainier and down one of the canyons, looking for any object that might be the Marine ship, and about fifteen minutes later, as I came up out of the canyon, I was approximately 25–28 miles from Mount Rainier. I’d climbed back to 9,200 feet when I noticed, to my left, a chain that looked like the tail of a Chinese kite—weaving and moving at terrific speed across the face of the mountain.”
FIRST IMPRESSION
“At first I thought they were geese, because they flew like geese, but they were traveling so fast that I immediately decided it had to be a formation of new jet planes.”
TIMING THE OBJECTS
“As the objects reached the edge of Mount Rainier, heading about 160° south, I thought I’d clock them. It was such a clear day, and I could use Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams as reference points—pilots love arguing about speed. They flipped and flashed in the sun like mirrors, and the glare through my Plexiglas windshield nearly blinded me.”
TAILS—OR LACK THEREOF
“It was about 2:59 p.m. when I started timing them with my sweep-second hand. I kept looking for their tails; they had none. Thinking something might be wrong with my eyes, I turned the plane around, opened the window, and looked out—still no tails.”
BRIEF BUT MEMORABLE
“The entire observation lasted no more than two and a half minutes. I could see them clearly only when they tipped and reflected the sunlight. They looked like a pie plate cut in half with a convex triangle at the rear.”
UNCONVENTIONAL FLIGHT
“I thought perhaps they were jet planes with their tails painted green or brown and didn’t think much of it, but I kept watching. They didn’t fly in the conventional formation taught in our Army; they wove in and out above the mountaintops and even dipped into canyons—probably by about 100 feet. Against the snow on Mount Rainier and Mount Adams, they were unmistakable.”
INCREDIBLE SPEED
“When the last one passed Mount Adams, I checked my watch: 1 minute 42 seconds. Later, using my map, I calculated their speed. Allowing for error, it was roughly 1,200 mph—even if I stretched the flight time to three or four minutes, they’d still be exceeding 800 mph. To my knowledge, nothing but some German rockets could do that.”
LEVEL FLIGHT, NO DIVES
“They maintained a more or less constant altitude—no climbing or diving, just straight and level. I joked with the fellows at the airport that they must have had a tailwind, but the joke didn’t help much.”
HAND ON THE BIBLE
“To the best of my knowledge, that is exactly what I saw. As I told the Associated Press, I’d be glad to confirm it with my hand on a Bible.
Kenneth Arnold in front of his CallAir A-2 plane
Whether it involves our Army or Intelligence, or some foreign country, I don’t know. But I did see it, and I did clock it. I just happened to be in the perfect position, and it’s as much a mystery to me as to anyone who’s been calling me for the last 24 hours.”
NEWSROOM FRENZY
(Newscaster Ted Smith)
“Kenneth, thank you very much. I know you’ve been busy these last 24 hours—I’ve spent some of that time with you myself—and both the Associated Press and United Press have been after you every minute. This story has been on every newscast and in every newspaper I know. United Press in Portland has made several telephone calls to Pendleton—to me and to you—and New York is clamoring for details.”
LOOKING FOR ANSWERS
“We may have an answer before nightfall. If it’s some new type of Army or Navy secret missile, there will probably be an announcement and that will be the end of it—or perhaps we’ll finally get a definite explanation. I understand United Press is checking with the Army and Navy now, and we hope for something concrete soon.”
STAY TUNED
“We certainly want to thank you, Kenneth, for coming into our studio. We’re pleased to give our KWRC listeners this first-hand report. Listeners, keep tuned to this station: any time we get something on our United Press teletype—from New York, Chicago, Portland, or any bureau across the nation—we’ll have it on the air.”
A CALL FOR SERIOUS INVESTIGATION
“We’ve seen something—hundreds of pilots have seen something—in the skies. We have dutifully reported these sightings, yet it seems we need fifteen million witnesses before anyone looks into the problem seriously. This is utterly fantastic—more fantastic than flying saucers or people from Venus or anything else, as far as I’m concerned.”
Most of us will never see a strange light dart across the night sky, let alone claim to be whisked aboard a craft not of this Earth. Yet, tucked away in public databases, government archives, and academic journals lie more than 200,000 firsthand accounts from people who insist such events happened to them. It makes one wonder if there is an extraterrestrial message hidden among the accounts.
No, I don’t have the time to read all those accounts personally, so I told Gemini AI DeepResearch to analyze them all for me. That’s what Large Language Models are good at. An unexpected picture emerged from the mountain of testimony: the alleged visitors, if real, seem far less interested in dazzling us with technology than in warning us about the way we run our planet.
How Many Cases Are We Really Talking About?
• Public databases: Roughly 170,000 sighting and contact reports sit in the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC) catalogue, with hundreds added every month. • Declassified government projects: Project BLUE BOOK’s 12,618 files and the FBI’s post-war “Vault” documents add a further trove. • Academic & clinical work: Thirty-plus peer-reviewed psychology papers (from Harvard, Goldsmiths, and others) and at least half-a-dozen social-science surveys have examined self-identified abductees and “channelers”—people who claim to relay telepathic messages from non-human intelligences. • Independent qualitative studies: Another six to ten book-length investigations—by scholars such as the late Harvard psychiatrist John Mack or the late Temple University historian David Jacobs—bring the formal research count to “just over forty.”
Summary
The tenor of over 200,000 UFO reports from credible experiencers, military personnel, and contactees is delivering the same urgent warnings, and it’s time we listened. There appears to be a deliberate, intelligent effort to guide humanity away from self-destruction. Here’s what they’re telling us:
Cosmic Wake-Up Call: Five Urgent ET Messages for Humanity’s Survival
“Disarm Now—Or Face Extinction” (Nuclear Warnings: A Clear Pattern) Resonance: Moderate to Low, with pockets of High Concern. Politicians & People in Power: While there’s widespread acknowledgment of the catastrophic potential of nuclear weapons, the urgency of immediate and complete disarmament is a highly contentious issue.
UFOs didn’t just happen to appear over nuclear facilities during the Cold War—they were intervening. Missiles mysteriously deactivated. Radar systems jammed. Military witnesses confirm: Something was sending a message. The message? “Your weapons are a threat to the entire cosmos.” This isn’t speculation—it’s documented.
“Earth is Dying—Act Immediately” (Environmental Crisis: A Dire Alert) Resonance: High in Acknowledgment, Moderate to Low in Sufficiently Urgent Action. Politicians & People in Power: There is now widespread, almost universal, acknowledgment among world leaders and major institutions that climate change and environmental degradation represent a significant, even existential, crisis.
From Jim Sparks to countless abductees, the message is consistent: “Your planet is in critical condition.” Crop circles, telepathic warnings, and visions of ecological collapse aren’t coincidences—they’re a galactic SOS. ETs aren’t just observing—they’re urging us to change before it’s too late.
“You Are Starseeds—Awaken” (Spiritual & Evolutionary Guidance) Resonance: Extremely Low to Non-Existent in mainstream political discourse. Politicians & People in Power: This type of message, rooted in specific spiritual or esoteric beliefs like the “Starseed” concept (which posits that some humans originated from other planets or dimensions to help Earth), generally does not resonate in mainstream political circles or among those in positions of secular power.
The most profound encounters aren’t about fear—they’re about ascension. Contactees describe downloads of cosmic knowledge, sudden healing abilities, and an overwhelming sense of universal connection. This isn’t fantasy—it’s a consciousness upgrade. ETs are trying to help humanity evolve beyond war, greed, and separation.
“Unite or Perish” (A Call for Global Solidarity) Resonance: Moderate, with Fluctuations based on Context. Politicians & People in Power: The idea of global solidarity is frequently invoked in international forums, especially when addressing transboundary challenges like pandemics, climate change, economic crises, and major conflicts.
The idea that ET contact could end human conflict isn’t wishful thinking—it’s inevitable. Once we accept we’re not alone, borders, religions, and ideologies will seem trivial. The message? “You are one species. Start acting like it.”
“The Great Filter is Real—Don’t Fail” (Warning of Civilizational Collapse) Resonance: Low in terms of the specific “Great Filter” terminology; Moderate in terms of underlying concern about civilizational threats.
Politicians & People in Power: The specific astrobiological/futurist concept of “The Great Filter” (a hypothesis suggesting that some event or condition prevents life from becoming an advanced space-faring civilization) is not commonly part of mainstream political discourse.
Advanced civilizations may have already fallen to the same traps we face: war, environmental abuse, and technological recklessness. UFOs could be survivors—or even guardians—trying to steer us away from the cliff.
The Truth is Here—Will We Listen?
This isn’t random noise. The patterns are too consistent, the witnesses too credible, and the stakes too high to ignore. The messages are real. The question is: Will humanity wake up in time?
1. Disarm Nuclear Arms 2. Heal a Dying Planet 3. Awaken Your Cosmic Heritage 4. Foster peace and unity 5. Avoid the Great Filter
An Overview of Online UFO Experiencer Reports: Accessibility, Themes, Hostility, and Messages for Humanity
The Enduring Mystery of UFOs & UAPs
The phenomenon of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), now more commonly referred to as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), continues to captivate public imagination and spark intense debate. At the heart of this mystery are the firsthand accounts of individuals who claim encounters with these unexplained objects—or even their alleged occupants. These UFO experiencer reports serve as a unique body of qualitative data, offering insights into personal interpretations of extraordinary events.
This report examines: ✔ The accessibility and estimated number of online UFO reports ✔ Core themes and narratives in experiencer accounts ✔ The spectrum of reported interactions—from hostile to benevolent ✔ Potential messages for humanity embedded in these encounters
Given the diverse and often controversial nature of these reports, a comprehensive approach is necessary—one that acknowledges both scientific skepticism and the profound personal impact these experiences have on those who report them.
🔍 Accessibility & Estimated Number of Online UFO Reports
The internet serves as a vast repository for UFO-related information, with numerous platforms hosting firsthand accounts, government documents, and independent research.
Archived websites from MUFON, NUFORC, and UFO forums.
📌 Estimated Total Online Reports: 200,000+
NUFORC: ~170,000
Project BLUE BOOK: ~12,000
CORGIS/GitHub datasets: ~80,000
FBI & other archives: Thousands more
👽 Core Themes in UFO Experiencer Reports
Analysis of these reports reveals recurring patterns in abduction narratives, entity descriptions, and emotional responses.
🛸 The Abduction Narrative
Many accounts follow a structured sequence:
Capture – Sudden inability to move/resist.
Examination – Invasive medical procedures (often reproductive).
Communication – Telepathic messages or warnings.
Return – Often with missing time or physical marks.
👾 Reported Alien Entities
✔ Grey Aliens (most common in North America) Small, large-headed, slanted black eyes. ✔ Nordic Aliens (often described as benevolent) Tall, human-like, blond hair. ✔ Non-Humanoid Beings (less common but reported globally).
✔ Fear & Trauma (most common in abduction cases). ✔ Mystical or Spiritual Awakening (some report profound love/connection). ✔ Sense of Purpose (belief in being part of a “cosmic plan”).
⚠️ Recurring Warnings
✔ Environmental Collapse (“Our planet is dying”). ✔ Nuclear Danger (UFOs frequently seen near nuclear sites). ✔ Humanity’s Self-Destruction (warnings about technology outpacing wisdom).
⚔️ Hostility vs. Benevolence in Alien Encounters
Reports vary widely—from terrifying abductions to uplifting contact.
🔴 Hostile Encounters
✔ Forced Abductions (loss of bodily autonomy). ✔ Medical Experiments (often described as painful). ✔ Animal Mutilations (linked to UFO activity in some cases). ✔ Military Concerns (UAPs in restricted airspace seen as potential threats).
✔ Early Contactees (1950s) – Aliens as peaceful guides. ✔ Spiritual Experiences – Feelings of universal love. ✔ Even modern abductees sometimes report healing, guidance, or spiritual uplift. ✔ Environmental Warnings – Urging humanity to change.
⚖️ Neutral/Ambiguous Cases
✔ UFO Sightings Without Interaction (most common). ✔ Observation-Only Encounters (no clear intent).
🌍 Potential Messages for Humanity
While no verified extraterrestrial communication exists, recurring themes suggest:
🌱 Environmental Crisis – Urgent warnings about Earth’s future. 25-35%
🕊️ Call for Unity – Speculation that contact could unify humanity.
🚀 Technological Caution – Fears of self-destruction via unchecked advancement. 15-25%
📌 Key Takeaway: These “messages” may reflect human anxieties.
How is society responding?
Popular culture, for one, has embraced the subject with gusto. Streaming platforms feature dozens of alien-abduction docuseries, while TikTok’s #uaptok hashtag has sailed past half a billion views. Mental-health practitioners quietly report more clients looking for “experiencer support groups” rather than traditional PTSD counseling, suggesting that people who believe they were taken no longer feel entirely alone.
Mainstream science moves more cautiously. In 2023, NASA convened an independent study that called for “serious, stigma-free data collection,” and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics followed suit with its own UAP committee. Medical literature still explains abduction memories largely in terms of sleep paralysis, dissociation, or fantasy proneness, yet outright dismissal is no longer the reflex it once was.
Politics remains the slowest arena. The 2024 U.S. National Defense Authorization Act ordered every federal agency to hand historically significant UAP files to the National Archives, marking an unprecedented bid for transparency. The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) has already analyzed more than 800 military encounters and promises a civilian reporting portal. France, Japan, and the United Kingdom have reopened or expanded their public UAP desks. Even so, no head of state has addressed the substance of the alleged messages—neither the nuclear warnings nor the environmental pleas. The United Nations has never tabled a resolution on them. In the halls of power, stigma still whispers more loudly than data.
Are we listening?
Polls by Pew and IPSOS show that a slim majority of Americans now believe intelligent life is visiting Earth. Only twelve percent, however, think their elected leaders treat the subject seriously. Meanwhile, global carbon emissions continue to rise, and the world’s nuclear stockpile just grew for the first time in two decades. If the visitors’ messages are real, we remain stubbornly off script.
A quiet crossroads
The existence of the data is no longer in dispute: more than 200,000 public reports and at least forty formal studies document the phenomenon. Stripped of lurid headlines and Hollywood tropes, the core warnings are surprisingly consistent—dial back nuclear brinkmanship, mend the biosphere, and evolve beyond tribal conflict. Governments have begun to lift the veil of classification, but policy inspired by those warnings is still in its infancy.
Perhaps the most telling statistic is not how many files exist, but how few decision-makers have read them. Disclosure, in other words, is happening. Whether we choose to heed the cosmic nudge remains an open question—one whose answer may determine whether humanity, too, becomes just another cautionary tale in someone else’s sky.
ContactProject.org: Is humanity ready for contact with extraterrestrial intelligence?
ETI is already near Earth, either in the form of drones, UAPs, or UFOs—whatever you prefer to call them. That is the premise of the Contact Project. The project proposal is therefore simple: instead of broadcasting a pinpointed message to a potential civilization far, far away, we can use simple, inexpensive, and widely available omnidirectional antennas to invite communication from objects or phenomena in Earth orbit. Moreover, this effort should not be limited to a short period of time; it should be sustained and undertaken with the broad agreement of people on every continent.
The message in the Contact Project might resemble the following:
“A Beacon in the Galaxy: Updated Arecibo Message for Potential FAST and SETI Projects” https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.04288, by Jonathan H. Jiang, Hanjie Li, Matthew Chong, Qitian Jin, Philip E. Rosen, Xiaoming Jiang, Kristen A. Fahy, Stuart F. Taylor, Zhihui Kong, Jamilah Hah, Zong-Hong Zhu.
A potential ETI is, of course, capable of decoding any human transmission we are already broadcasting, but the point of the Contact Project is to address ETI directly, acknowledge their presence, and actively seek contact.
Demonstrating such openness would prove humankind’s readiness for contact. By doing so, we would not be giving away anything new—such as our position—beyond what we already broadcast. It would simply be a friendly hello, as envisioned by the Contact Project organization.
“I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello.” The Beatles ‧ 1967
Why Liu Cixin’s Chilling Vision May Exaggerate the Dangers – in Space and on Earth
Dark Forest Hypothesis
1. A Tale of Two Dark Forests
Liu Cixin’s award-winning trilogy Remembrance of Earth’s Past (commonly called The Three-Body Problem series) popularized the Dark Forest Hypothesis: in a universe where every civilization fears annihilation and resources appear scarce, the safest strategy is absolute silence – or a pre-emptive strike on anything that betrays its position.
Yet, just as children often overestimate the terrors of a literal dark forest, adults may be overestimating the hazards of its cosmic counterpart. Both fears rest on questionable assumptions about scarcity, detectability, and universal hostility.
2. How Dark Is the Cosmic Forest – Really?
2.1 Abundant Resources • Asteroid mining makes most “resource wars” unnecessary. – Example: NASA’s current Psyche mission targets a metal-rich asteroid whose contents have often been cited – though the estimate is highly speculative – as being worth about$100,000 quadrillion. – Lower gravity and higher ore purity mean it is far easier to extract metals in space than to invade a habitable planet.
• Science-fiction authors anticipated this logic well before the 1970s, from Garrett P. Serviss (1898) to Isaac Asimov (1953) and Poul Anderson (1963-65).
2.2 Alternative Solutions to the Fermi Paradox
The silence we observe could stem from: • the brevity of civilizations’ effective ‘radio window‘ (50-70 years); • the Sanctuary Hypothesis (ETI nurture developing planets without revealing themselves); • crewed or uncrewed craft-based exploration rather than radio beacons (compare UAP/UFO debate). These sightings challenge the premise of universal silence.
ABC 7 NEWS, December 2024
2.3 Humanity Has Already Broadcast
Humankind has been broadcasting TV and radio signals since the 1930s. These signals can be received hundreds of light-years away. This may have triggered ETs curiosity.
Then, between 1945 and 1961, Earth detonated more than 2,000 nuclear devices. Each blast produced an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strong enough to be detected light-years away.
If an advanced civilization had been listening to early broadcasts of the Olympics, for instance, they’d have been surprised to see Earth suddenly erupting in artificial, high-energy flashes at irregular intervals.
In effect, we have already shouted our existence into the forest; worrying about a polite radio greeting now is like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.
The Ostrich Problem: Silence Isn’t Safety
If ETIs detected our radio signature, broadcast or EMP, but hear no follow-up, they might assume:
We’re hiding (suspicious).
We’re unstable (dangerous).
We’re ignorant (vulnerable).
3. Game-Theory Revisions: Three Big “What-Ifs”
Here are some of the big “what ifs” that challenge the whole “hide or attack” idea:
3.1 Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) on a cosmic scale If retaliation is credible – and especially if the cost of failure is extinction – first strikes lose their appeal, exactly as they did with Cold War nuclear strategy. Think about our own history with nuclear weapons. The concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is a huge deterrent. What if that applies on a cosmic scale too? Let’s say there’s a certain chance of a successful attack. And, crucially, if an attack fails, the attacking civilization faces a really nasty consequence – let’s call it the disaster of retaliation. We’re talking about something far worse than just wasting resources.
Here’s how that changes the math for choosing to “Attack”:
If one civilization tries to hit another:
There’s a certain chance it pulls it off. The attacker survives, though it still pays the cost of the attack, while the other civilization is wiped out.
But, there’s also a chance the attack completely flops. In that nightmare scenario, the attacker is the one facing the disaster of retaliation (or even total annihilation if the other civilization hits back hard), and the target is still around and really angry.
So, when you consider whether to attack, you have to weigh these probabilities. If the chance of a successful attack is low, or if the disaster of retaliation is utterly catastrophic (like in MAD), then the appeal of attacking first plummets. It might even make more sense to just stay hidden, which totally undermines the “attack first” logic.
Flaws in the Dark Forest game theory
3.2 The Impossibility of Hiding
Sufficiently advanced telescopes detect radio signatures and other technosignatures whether or not we transmit on purpose. Admittedly, humankind has only transmitted purposefully for only a bit over 67 hours in its entire history. But this doesn’t reduce over a century of radio and TV signals that are already out there. Within this 130 light-year bubble (260 light-years across) there exist between 700-1,140 habitable worlds. If stealth is futile, the strategic game reduces to “communicate or attack,” and communication becomes the cheaper, more mature, safer option.
The Dark Forest idea hinges on the ability to stay hidden. But what if detection is inevitable? Imagine super-advanced telescopes that can spot signs of life without anyone broadcasting a thing. In that case, the “Hide” strategy basically becomes the same as “Broadcast” – you’re going to be found either way. The whole benefit of trying to hide just disappears.
If being detected while hiding is as bad as outright annihilation, then: – If both civilizations hide → annihilation. – If one hides and one broadcasts → annihilation. – If one hides and one attacks → annihilation.
This scenario pretty much pulls “Hide” off the table as a viable survival strategy. It forces civilizations into a choice between broadcasting or attacking, since there’s no real hiding place left.
3.3 Civilizational Diversity Assuming every species is paranoid and violent ignores the probability distribution of motives. If even a modest fraction are cooperative, expected-value calculations tilt toward cautious outreach rather than universal suppression.
“Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization”, Mahatma Gandhi
Perhaps the biggest assumption of the Dark Forest is that every civilization out there is a paranoid, aggressive killer. But is that realistic? We can think about different “types” of players in our cosmic game. What if there’s a certain probability that a civilization is hostile, and also a probability that it’s cooperative?
Now, the overall benefit of broadcasting changes dramatically, depending on who you meet. It’s a blend of the risk of annihilation if you meet a hostile civilization, and the potential benefit of survival and cooperation if you meet a friendly one.
If the probability of encountering a cooperative civilization is high enough, and the benefits of cooperation are truly significant, then suddenly, broadcasting might actually be a better bet than attacking. It opens the door to the idea that some civilizations might actually try to say “hello” rather than “kaboom.”
So, while the Dark Forest is a chilling thought experiment, these added factors suggest the universe might be a bit more complex than just a cosmic shooting gallery.
4. Earth’s Own “Dark Forests”: Fear vs. Fact
U.S. National Parks – millions of annual visits into true wilderness – average roughly 0.11 deaths per 100,000 recreational visits. The leading causes are drownings (20.9%), car accidents (17.3%), medical events (12%), and suicides (12.4%), not wolf packs or bear maulings.
A global study of carnivore attacks from 1950 to 2019 documented 5,440 attacks, with about one in three being fatal. Likewise, tiger attacks in India average 34 deaths per year; direct wildlife fatalities in the United States hover around eight. Our imagination inflates the danger of forests much as it inflates the peril of first contact.
Star Trek: First Contact
In the Star Trek movie “First Contact,” the Dark Forest of the human heart (causing a nuclear Armageddon) proved much more dangerous than the meeting with the Vulcan emissary.
5. Why Would ETIs Attack Us?
Possible motives beyond resources:
First-strike paranoia (fear of future competition).
But if aliens wanted resources, they’d mine asteroids, not Earth. (Take that, Zecharia Sitchin – your ancient alien gold-mining slaves theory doesn’t hold up when space is full of purer, easier-to-extract metals.)
6. UAPs & the Pentagon’s Admission: Are They Already Here?
If Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs) are extraterrestrial probes:
They’ve seen our nukes, satellites, and wars.
Silence may look like hostility.
A controlled message (math, music, science) could be safer than ambiguity.
The Signal
A Science Fiction Short Story: In a universe filled with mysteries, signaling UAPs could change everything.
7. Synthesis: From Paranoia to Policy
Accept the beacon we have already lit (Radio and TV bubble, nuclear tests) and
Study apparent probes (UAPs/UFOs) with scientific rigor, but get out of the denial-loop.
Prepare a diplomatic framework – a “UN for exocivilizations” – before we need it.
Invest in asteroid-mining technology; abundance is the best antidote to resource anxiety.
The universe may contain dangers, but the data – from asteroid economics to wilderness safety statistics – suggests we routinely overrate them. Instead of cowering in silence, humanity should engage with the cosmos thoughtfully. We must do so armed with game-theoretic prudence, technological optimism, and a clear appreciation of how rarely the monsters in our dark forests turn out to be real.
Liu Cixin’s *Remembrance of Earth’s Past* trilogy, commonly known as “The Three-Body Problem” series, is a sweeping hard science fiction epic that explores humanity’s first contact with an alien civilization and the existential threats that follow.
1. The Three-Body Problem (三体): humanity learns an invasion fleet will arrive in 450 years; physics itself is sabotaged by proton-sized “sophons.”
Initial Setup & The Cultural Revolution: The story begins in China during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution, where astrophysicist Ye Wenjie witnesses the brutal death of her father. Disillusioned with humanity, she is later recruited to a secret military project called “Red Coast,” a deep-space listening station. There, she discovers a method to amplify radio signals using the sun and, in a moment of profound despair, broadcasts a message into space, essentially inviting alien intervention.
Present Day Mystery: Decades later, in the early 21st century, a series of mysterious suicides among prominent scientists plagues the world. Detective Shi Qiang (Da Shi) investigates, collaborating with nanotechnologist Wang Miao. Wang becomes entangled with a mysterious online VR game called “Three Body,” which simulates a chaotic planet experiencing extreme climatic shifts due to the gravitational pull of three suns.
The Trisolarans Revealed: Through the game and his investigation, Wang uncovers a vast conspiracy: the Earth-Trisolaris Organization (ETO), a secret society formed by humans who worship the Trisolarans and desire Earth’s destruction. The Trisolarans are the inhabitants of the chaotic “Three-Body” planet. Their civilization has been repeatedly destroyed by their unpredictable system, leading them to seek a new, stable home – Earth. They are on their way, but their fleet will take approximately 450 years to arrive.
Sophon Blockade: To prevent humanity from developing technology capable of resisting their invasion, the Trisolarans deploy “sophons” – proton-sized supercomputers that unfold into higher dimensions, act as omnipresent spies, and subtly disrupt fundamental physics research on Earth, creating the illusion that science is failing. The first book ends with humanity aware of the impending invasion but hamstrung by the sophon blockade.
2. The Dark Forest (黑暗森林): Luo Ji invents cosmic MAD – threatening to broadcast Trisolaris’s coordinates – and forces a temporary peace.
The Crisis Era and Wallfacers: With the Trisolaran invasion fleet on its way and sophons making all human communications transparent to the aliens, humanity enters the “Crisis Era.” To develop secret strategies, the United Nations designates four “Wallfacers” – individuals granted immense resources and autonomy to devise plans that remain entirely within their own minds, impenetrable by sophons.
Luo Ji and Cosmic Sociology: Among the Wallfacers is the initially reluctant and cynical astrophysicist Luo Ji. Unlike the others, he doesn’t have a clear military or scientific background. He slowly develops the “Dark Forest Hypothesis” (based on insights from Ye Wenjie): the universe is a “dark forest” filled with advanced civilizations, each acting as a silent, paranoid hunter. Any civilization that reveals its location becomes a target for pre-emptive destruction, as there’s no way to guarantee another civilization’s intentions are benign, and rapid technological explosion makes any unknown a potential existential threat.
The Deterrence Era: Luo Ji’s seemingly bizarre actions as a Wallfacer lead to his plan: he threatens to broadcast the coordinates of the Trisolaran home system to the entire galaxy, a suicidal act that would doom both Trisolaris and Earth (due to Earth’s proximity). This threat, known as “Dark Forest Deterrence,” forces the Trisolarans into an uneasy peace, as they realize Luo Ji can enact mutual annihilation. This ushers in the “Deterrence Era,” a fragile peace enforced by the constant threat of a “Swordholder” (Luo Ji) initiating the broadcast.
The Great Fleet Annihilation: Humanity flourishes during this era, building powerful space fleets, believing they have achieved parity with the Trisolarans. However, when the first Trisolaran probe (“the Droplet”) finally arrives, it effortlessly annihilates Earth’s entire space armada, revealing the vast technological superiority of the Trisolarans and shattering humanity’s hubris.
3. Death’s End (死神永生): deterrence fails, higher-dimensional weapons collapse the Solar System, and the protagonists ultimately sacrifice themselves so the universe can “bounce” and begin anew.
New Challenges and the Swordholder: The Deterrence Era continues, but Luo Ji is aging, and a new “Swordholder” must be chosen. The burden falls upon Cheng Xin, a kind and compassionate aerospace engineer. Her appointment is a calculated move by the Trisolarans, who correctly predict her moral nature will prevent her from activating the deterrence in a crisis. When the Trisolarans test the deterrence by attacking Earth’s broadcast stations, Cheng Xin hesitates, allowing them to take control of Earth.
Humanity’s Flight and Cosmic Revelations: A few human starships that had escaped the initial Droplet attack (including one that had gone rogue much earlier) manage to broadcast the Trisolaran coordinates, leading to the destruction of the Trisolaran home system by a higher-dimensional alien weapon. Earth, however, is then also targeted by a “Dark Forest” attack.
Two-Dimensional Attacks: The ultimate “Dark Forest” weapon, a “photoid,” collapses the Solar System into two dimensions, an irreversible process that kills almost all of humanity.
Light-Speed Travel: Cheng Xin and a few others escape on a light-speed capable ship. They encounter the former “brain-only” ambassador, Yun Tianming, who sends cryptic fairy tales that contain vital information about higher-dimensional physics and the nature of the universe.
Micro-Universes and The Big Bounce: The narrative expands to encompass the universe’s ultimate fate. It’s revealed that advanced civilizations, to survive cosmic catastrophes like dimensional collapse, create “mini-universes.” However, the proliferation of these mini-universes is draining mass from the main universe, preventing its “Big Bounce” (a theoretical cyclical collapse and rebirth).
The Final Choice: Ultimately, Cheng Xin and a few companions, after millennia of wandering the cosmos and witnessing countless cosmic events and the end of the universe itself, are faced with a profound choice: contribute their own remaining mass to the main universe’s rebirth, effectively ceasing to exist, or remain in their isolated mini-universe. They choose to return their mass, hoping to contribute to the cycle of universal renewal.
The trilogy is renowned for its grand scale, complex scientific concepts, and unflinching exploration of humanity’s place in a vast, indifferent, and dangerous cosmos. It presents a grim, yet intellectually stimulating, vision of interstellar survival.
A Science Fiction Short Story: In a universe filled with mysteries, the discovery of an extraterrestrial signal could change everything.
Chapter 1: The Question
Ray Faser leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled, staring at the projection of Earth’s nuclear test history—a timeline of detonations stretching from 1945 to 1996. The data pulsed like a slow, irregular heartbeat.
Two thousand nuclear blasts. Each one had sent an electromagnetic scream (EMP) into the void.
On the other side of the screen, Dr. Elias Varen, a senior astrophysicist with the SETI Institute, adjusted his glasses. “You’re suggesting we’ve already announced ourselves.”
“I’m saying we lit a bonfire in the ‘Dark Forest‘. And now we’re whispering ‘Hello?’ like we’re afraid of being rude.”
Varen exhaled. “The difference is intent. A nuclear EMP is noise. A structured message is a handshake.”
Ray leaned forward. “You think an advanced civilization hears a thousand atomic explosions and thinks, ‘Hmm, must be background radiation’? They’ll know what it is. And they’ll know it’s dangerous.”
Chapter 2: The UAP Variable
The Pentagon’s recent disclosures hung between them like an unspoken specter. Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena—craft defying known physics, lingering in Earth’s skies for decades.
Ray tapped the table. “If they’re already here, silence isn’t caution. It’s stupidity. We should be sending ‘We come in peace’ in every frequency we’ve got.”
Varen’s jaw tightened. “Or we’re confirming we’re a threat. Nuclear weapons, uncontrolled emissions—what if they’re waiting to see if we grow up?”
“Or waiting to see if we shoot first,” Ray countered. The Dark Forest isn’t just a theory. It’s a mirror. We’re the ones who nuked ourselves two thousand times. We’re the predators.”
Chapter 3: The Silence Gambit
A new voice cut in—Dr. Elena Papadakis, a xenopsychologist. “Assume they have detected us. Silence could be read as hostility. A predator hiding.”
Varen shook his head. “Or prudence.”
Ray laughed bitterly. “Prudence? We’re ostriches. Heads in the sand, asses in the air.”
He pulled up the latest UAP footage—a tic-tac object maneuvering at Mach 10. “They aren’t hiding. Why are we?”
Chapter 4: The Decision
The room fell quiet. The screen flickered, overlaying Earth’s radio bubble—expanding at light speed for a century, a glowing sphere of TV broadcasts, radar pings, and nuclear EMPs that might just serve as an unintended extraterrestrial signal.
Elena broke the silence. “If they’re here, they already know who we are. The question isn’t if we signal. It’s what we say.”
Ray leaned back. “How about ‘We’re not all psychopaths’?”
Varen didn’t smile. “Or we prove it.”
Outside, the stars burned cold and distant. Waiting.
Epilogue: The First Message
Three months later, the Arecibo successor array sent a single, repeating sequence toward a UAP hotspot.
Not mathematics. Not science.
Music. Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”
A handshake—or a plea.
The Dark Forest listened.
——————-
Author’s note The character of Ray Faser (and his author) have been waiting for reactivation ever since their first and last appearance in a short science-fiction story in a school newspaper in 1979.
Reference: The history of nuclear testing began early on the morning of 16 July 1945 at a desert test site in Alamogordo, New Mexico when the United States exploded its first atomic bomb. In the five decades between that fateful day in 1945 and the opening for signature of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996, over 2,000 nuclear tests were carried out all over the world. https://www.un.org/en/observances/end-nuclear-tests-day/history
Just the facts: PDF: Doppler Blueshift Calculations for WOW! signal (1977): download here | Discussion on the paper: Academia.edu
Preamble
In 2022, I published The WOW! signal, Part 1: Not made by humans?. For the longest time (3 years), I wondered why I left the possibility open for “Part 2” instead of just writing “The End.”
It’s now become clear that Part 2 is essential because it includes an important detail that was missing before: EQUATIONS!
Anyone can write anything, but without mathematical equations, it’s just prose. So, here, now, for anyone to check, are the steps required to verify the movement of the Wow! signal towards Earth at 10.526 km/s in 1977.
This truly represents a significant paradigm shift. Previously, the Wow! signal was just the most plausible and only candidate for a radio transmission of non-human extraterrestrial origin in space. Now it is shown that this signal was moving and en route to Earth.
Whatever this means (We Are Not Alone?), it is remarkable that the Doppler calculations on this signal have never been published before. Did the authorities believe it would cause a panic?
Introduction
The Wow! signal has been the strongest and only serious candidate for ETi radio communication for almost half a century. New calculations support that the Wow! signal may have originated from a moving source heading for Earth, adding to its significance in the search for extraterrestrial life.
The text describes the Wow! signal, a strong radio transmission detected by the Big Ear telescope on August 15, 1977, at a frequency of 1420.4556 MHz, which corresponds to a wavelength of 21.105373 cm. The signal’s expected frequency, based on hydrogen, is 1420405751.768 Hz, translating to a wavelength of 21.106114054160 cm. The Doppler shift calculations yield a speed of approximately 10,526 m/sec (37,893 km/h), suggesting that the signal originated from an object approaching Earth. Shown here are the steps to calculate the Doppler shift speed. For context, the average speed of asteroids is around 18–20 km/s, while comets that impact Earth typically travel at about 30 km/s. In comparison, the human-made Voyager spacecraft 1 and 2 are currently traveling at speeds of 15 to 17 km/s.
Image NASA: example of atmospheric entry, showing the Mars Exploration Rover aeroshell (MER).
For a better understanding, I added the illustration of the Mars Exploration Rover’s entry into the Mars atmosphere. NASA did choose this shape for its aerodynamic properties. It is possible that the Wow! signal originated from a UFO about to enter Earth’s atmosphere, as much as any other interpretation.
In conclusion, the Wow! signal appears to have originated from an unknown type of source that was approaching Earth at a speed of 10.5 km/s, as indicated by observations and these calculations. It is unknown if this is due to the source’s approach to Earth or the galaxy’s relative movement to Earth. Both scenarios are possible.
Investigations of the Wow! signal to date have not accounted for or mentioned the Doppler blueshift of the signal.
Doppler Shift Calculations for Wow! signal (1977), Page 1Doppler Shift Calculations for Wow! signal (1977), Page 2
“Extraordinary?” Sagan’s 1977 Standard Stuns UFO Dreamers
In 1977, when the film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” was released, Washington Post readers first heard of the “Sagan Standard”: that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.“
Carl Sagan uttered this aphorism in relation to the first film scene. In the scene, planes were found in the Sahara which years earlier disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. The notion of extraordinary claims was central to Sagan’s skepticism about extraterrestrial causes.
“There is no evidence that lights in the sky or the disappearance of ships or planes are due to extraterrestrial interference (in the Bermuda Triangle)”, Sagan said.
Reference: Second View, Sagan on ‘Encounters’
NEW YORK — Carl Sagan, the 43-year-old glamor boy of astronomy, is hunched down in the fifth row of the Ziegfeld Theater on West 54th Street, waiting for the five o’clock matinee to roll. Whoooooosh! A sandstorm rages across the screen, enveloping viewers in a yellow haze.
Bermuda Triangle, 1986: Nine years later, in the shadowy depths of the North Atlantic, the Russian nuclear submarine K-219 vanished beneath the waves. It left a chilling mystery in its wake. As the vessel settled silently on the ocean floor—nearly 18,000 feet (5.5 kilometers) below the surface—a more disturbing discovery emerged. The submarine’s full arsenal of nuclear warheads had inexplicably disappeared, raising extraordinary claims about what might have occurred.
Any attempt to retrieve or remove the warheads should have been impossible at such an unfathomable depth. It was beyond the reach of all human technology in 1986. Yet, the weapons had vanished nonetheless, leaving behind only unanswered questions and a silence as deep as the ocean itself.
Official records claim that the catastrophic incident aboard K-219 took place hundreds of miles from the Hatteras Abyssal Plain. This spot was the very location where the lost submarine ultimately came to rest (Wikipedia).
Yet this contradiction is curious, to say the least, inviting extraordinary claims and speculations.
Deep-Sea Riddle: Vanished Russian Nukes Hide Under Triangle
Consult the Marine Gazetteer Map, and you’ll notice a small dot nestled between Miami and Bermuda. This is the location of the Hatteras Abyssal Plain. In other words, it is inside the notorious Bermuda Triangle.
Science moves forward through doubt, evidence, and the enduring patience to pursue both. But in a case like this, extraordinary claims about the vanished nukes cannot help but intrigue those. These claims make people wonder what secrets still lie hidden beneath those mysterious waters.
Location of the sunk Russian nuclear submarine K-219. Until now, no publication has linked it’s sinking and the disappearance of it’s nuclear arsenal to the presence of the Bermuda Triangle.
Cosmos Mania: Sagan Turns the Universe into Prime-Time TV
In 1980 the name Sagan finally became a household name when Carl presented his extraordinarily successful TV series “Cosmos.”
The series covered topics ranging from the origin of life to a perspective of our place in the universe.
The Sagan Standard, first phrased in the Washington Post article from December 1977, that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” became the mantra of the series. Carl claimed that nearly every UFO sighting is based on optical illusions and misinterpretations.
Carl Sagan wrote regarding UFO claims:
“When confronted with a claim for which there is no compelling evidence, we should reserve judgment. I know of no evidence for visits to Earth by beings from other worlds.”
Sagan’s UFO Paradox: Fostering Scientific Rigor Through Skepticism and Advocacy
A landmark event highlighted the Carl Sagan UFO controversy: the 1969 symposium he co-organized for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). This meeting notably brought together leading UFO proponents, such as J. Allen Hynek.
Cameo of J. Allen Hynek in “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind”, an UFO encounter category he defined himself..
The meeting also included prominent skeptics, like the first theoretical astronomer of the United States, Donald Menzel. In 1968, Menzel testified before the U.S. House Committee on Science and Astronautics – Symposium on UFOs, stating that he, Menzel, considered all UFO sightings to have natural explanations.
While critics accused Sagan of legitimizing what they considered a “pseudoscience,” Sagan defended the AAAS symposium. He argued that significant public interest in UFOs warranted serious scientific scrutiny.
Carl Sagan was a prominent advocate for the search for extraterrestrial life. Yet, he remained a skeptic regarding Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) as evidence of alien visitation. This seemingly contradictory stance fueled the ongoing debate between UFO skeptics and believers. This is often referred to as the Carl Sagan UFO controversy.
Sagan’s influence on UFO studies produced its most significant beneficial effect by pushing researchers to ground their investigations more firmly in scientific methods. This emphasis on rigor contributed to the emergence of two distinct categories of researchers in the field.
SKEPTICS VS. BELIEVERS: The Secret War Over UFOs
A: Serious UAP researchers who set themselves the goal of identifying and cataloging UFOs, with the main focus on the assumption that there can be no extraterrestrial UFOs. Their focus was on finding conventional, or “banal,” explanations for sightings. They aimed to demystify the phenomenon and bring it within the realm of established science. The Carl Sagan UFO controversy played a role in how these explanations were pursued.
B: Marginalized Fringe UFOresearchers, who in contrast remained open to, or actively pursued, the hypothesis of extraterrestrial intelligence behind UFO sightings found themselves increasingly on the periphery. This group, while not necessarily uncritical or prone to accepting every hoax, was willing to explore unconventional explanations. These were explanations that the “serious” camp often dismissed outright.
UAP or UFO? The Government’s Sneaky Word Game to HIDE the Extraterrestrial Truth!
The contemporary preference for the term UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) rather than UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) starkly reflects the divide between serious and fringe research.
While both terms essentially refer to the same core mystery—observed objects or phenomena in the sky that are not immediately identifiable—’UAP’ has gained traction among those seeking to legitimize their research. They want to avoid the cultural baggage and stigma associated with ‘UFOs,’ which are often colloquially synonymous with alien spacecraft. This shift is part of the Carl Sagan UFO controversy, as different terminologies affect the perception of research.
Researchers, particularly those affiliated with governmental or academic institutions, often opt for ‘UAP’ to protect their professional reputations. They use it to signal a more data-driven, agnostic approach, free from preconceived notions of extraterrestrial involvement.
“BANAL” OR ALIEN? Inside the Bitter Feud Splitting UFO Hunters in Two!
The comparison between a case like the authors “Mufon UFO case #111680” and a frame from the Pentagon’s “Gimbal UAP” video can illustrate this division:
A MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) case, typically investigated by citizen researchers often aligned with the “fringe” category (though MUFON itself has varying methodologies), might present evidence and interpretations that lean towards or explicitly suggest an extraordinary (extraterrestrial) origin.
A government source released the “Gimbal” video, and serious UAP researchers—including military and intelligence analysts—analyzed it. They discussed its flight characteristics, sensor data, and possible but elusive mundane explanations. Although they acknowledge the video’s anomalous nature, they focus their rigorous approach on ruling out known technologies or natural phenomena.
In contrast, the “fringe” perspective may treat the footage as evidence supporting an extraterrestrial hypothesis. But this is due to careful consideration.
Unusual Flight Characteristics in Navy’s 2015 Gimbal UAP Sighting
A study by Yannick Peings and Marik von Rennenkampff analyzes the Gimbal UAP video.
“FRINGE” RESEARCHERS FIGHT BACK
In essence, Carl Sagan’s legacy in UFO studies is complex. His insistence on scientific rigor undoubtedly elevated the quality of investigation in certain quarters. It helped to filter out less credible claims. However, it also contributed to a climate where exploring the more speculative, yet potentially profound, extraterrestrial aspects of the phenomenon became scientifically and academically challenging. As a result, these inquiries were pushed to the margins. This is a key part of what makes the Carl Sagan UFO controversy so enduring.
In essence, Carl Sagan’s legacy in UFO studies is complex. His insistence on scientific rigor undoubtedly elevated the quality of investigation in certain quarters. It helped to filter out less credible claims. However, it also contributed to a climate where exploring the more speculative, yet potentially profound, extraterrestrial aspects of the phenomenon became scientifically and academically challenging. Consequently, such inquiries were pushed to the margins.
SAGAN’S PARADOX: Did His “Science First” Rule KILL the Search for Alien Life?
Was Sagan a hero of reason—or did his skepticism accidentally suppress the truth? The ongoing debate and the terminological distinctions highlight this enduring tension between cautious, mainstream scientific inquiry and the persistent, more speculative allure of the unknown inherent in the UFO/UAP enigma. Discussions continue over his role and influence in shaping public perception and scientific investigation of unexplained aerial phenomena. The Carl Sagan UFO controversy exemplifies this tension.
Aldebaranian Extraterrestrials and Telepathic Contact?
Upon reviewing the “Vril Project” material, it becomes clear that the details provided regarding the drawings and symbols—which supposedly form the basis for telepathic contact—are incorrect. On these grounds, I conclude that the proposed contact with an Aldebaranian species is entirely fictitious.
Aldebaranian interstellar space battlecruisers, AI extrapolation of images based on telepathic contact claims
Aldebaran is known as the bull’s eye ◎ in the constellation Taurus (The Bull), and is 65 light-years distant from us. It’s right next to the Pleiades (Seven Sisters) star cluster. Aldebaran has been described as a follower of the Pleiades.
Fun Fact: The Pioneer 10 probe, launched in 1972, is on its way to Aldebaran. Although it no longer communicates with the Earth, it will reach Aldebaran in about 2 million years.
Professor Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (author of “The Occult Roots of Nazism”) states that “In the early 1990s, the Austrians Norbert Jürgen Ratthofer and Ralf Ettl developed new Nazi UFO myths involving ancient Babylon, Vril energy, and extraterrestrial civilization in the solar system of Aldebaran.”
According to myth, the Aldebaranians made contact with the Third Reich and helped in the development of German UFOs.
an emerging fringe narrative claims Nazi Germany accessed a “stargate” to the star Aldebaran, using trance mediums and telepathic “light‐code” secrets in ancient Hebrew to justify genocide and develop advanced UFO and atomic‑implosion technology—dubbed the “Black Sun.” Drawing on works by Zechariah Sitchin and Phyllis Schlemmer, the theory links Sumerian and Babylonian empires to Nazi occultism and portrays extraterrestrial “Elohim” as the architects of Phoenician and Israelite origins.
According to the same account, post‑1945 American agencies seized Nazi UFO blueprints and recruited German scientists for both NASA and a covert “underground” space program. Proponents warn that Aldebarans—alongside reptilian “Draconians” and Grey aliens—now lurk within global elites, aiming to forge a Fourth Reich and a New World Order. Mainstream historians and scientists reject these claims as baseless, citing a complete lack of verifiable evidence for any terrestrial stargate or telepathic warfare
Origin of the Aldebaran Contact Claim
The initial reference to telepathic contact with Aldebaranian beings, through mediums such as Maria Orsic and “Sigrun,” originates from a single source: Ralf Ettl (d. 2006). According to David Childress, oftentimes a guest on “Ancient Aliens,” Ettl was residing in London in 1989. At that time, he received a parcel containing documents describing this alleged contact. Childress was the first to recount this origin story.
The “Vril Society” in Historical Context
The parcel purportedly contained information about telepathic mediums associated with the “Vril Society,” who contacted Aldebaran beings around 1919. However, an examination of historical references to the “Vril Society” reveals significant inconsistencies in the narrative:
• 1947: The first mention of a “Vril Society” appears in an article by defected German Third Reich rocket engineer Dr. Willy Ley, titled “Pseudoscience in Naziland.” Although Ley mentions the Vril Society, he makes no reference to telepathic mediums or extraterrestrial contacts. Instead, meditating upon an apple core reveals the nature of “Vril.”
• 1960: A subsequent reference to the “Vril Society” occurs in the book “The Morning of the Magicians,” which cites Ley’s article and introduces a link to the Theosophical Society and the Rosicrucians with the Vril Society.
• 1990: It is not until the release of Ralf Ettl and Norbert Ratthofer’s narrative, “The Vril Project,” that any claim of telepathic contact, extraterrestrial communication with Aldebaran, or connections to the Thule society or UFOs is introduced.
The Narrative of “The Vril Project”
Ralf Ettl and Jürgen Ratthofer describe a secret meeting held in December 1919. At this meeting, the innermost circles of the Thule and Vril societies gathered. The medium Maria Orsic allegedly presented two stacks of papers. One stack featured a bizarre-looking German Templar secret script, while the other contained what appeared to be a normal, legible text.
According to the narrative, these texts were received via mediumistic channeling—dictated both in a mysterious “temple script” and in a language completely unknown to the medium. Orsic herself believed that the unknown language must have been ancient and Near Eastern in nature. Later, it was asserted that this mysterious language was Sumerian—i.e., the language of the ancient precursors of Babylonian culture. The Aldebaranian language is identical to Sumerian! That’s because the Aldebaranians came to visit Earth 500,000 years ago. And then again later.
(The author Zecharia Sitchin told a similar story in 1976 in his book “The Twelfth Planet.” Only his extraterrestrial Anunnaki came from “Nibiru,” a planet in our solar system beyond Neptune.)
Critical Analysis of the Claims
A closer look at the claims and evidence presented in “The Vril Project” reveals several inconsistencies:
• Sumerian Writing and Language: Although the Sumerians invented writing, the script they developed—cuneiform—is markedly different from the so-called 13th-century “temple script” described in the narrative. Sumerian cuneiform is recorded on clay tablets that are over 5000 years old and bear no resemblance to any secret “Temple” script.
The messages received by Maria Orsic were in German and encoded with a simple substitution cipher. The availability of a cipher key would have allowed for the deciphering of the texts. This undermines the claim of an entirely unknown language.
• The Black Sun Symbol:
A central symbol in esoteric Nazism is the Black Sun, which appears in two distinctly different versions:
– Wewelsburg Black Sun Version: This version is found at Wewelsburg in Germany, which served during the Third Reich as the spiritual center of an emerging Nazi ideology. It’s only a fairly recent claim that the design resembles a Black Sun.
What is not known:
The spoked mosaic of the ‘Black Sun’ at Wewelsburg (designed after 1934) is derived from the decorative rim of the Samarra Bowl. This bowl was discovered by Ernst Herzfelder around 1914 and later exhibited in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. The bowl’s center features one of the oldest known swastika depictions. Samarra is located in the region historically known as Sumeria.
You can stretch the Samarra bowl’s meandering pattern to match the Wewelsburg mosaic’s pattern. It is strange that the authors of “Esoteric Nazism” didn’t pick up on this Sumerian connection.
– New Black Sun Version from “The Vril Project”:
Another Black Sun version was first presented in Ettl’s 1990 pamphlet “The Vril Project” and later featured in the pseudo-documentary “UFO: Secrets of the Third Reich” (1995). Peter Moon’s “The Black Sun: Montauk’s Nazi-Tibetan Connection” (1997) also presents this design. It is similar to the old flag of the Japanese empire. Additionally, this eye-catching design closely resembles the 16-spoke strobe disk of mechanical, low-bandwidth television. This type of TV was first pioneered in 1925.
In 1985, Carl Sagan posed a hypothetical question in his novel “Contact.” He asked, “What if the Nazis didn’t have television in 1936? Then what would have happened?”
What indeed? The video snippet below is from Ralf Ettl’s UFO film, which kickstarted the popularization of the “Reichsflugscheibe” theory:
Was Ettl inspired by Carl Sagan’s novel, to design his “Black Sun” based on a TV strobe disk? Could the “Aldebaranian” writing on it serve as evidence of “extraterrestrial influence?”
The Ettl Black Sun version Around the perimeter of the graphic is a slogan of the Thule Society. This slogan is encrypted using the “Templar Script” substitution cipher in German. By no means is it extraterrestrial. Spoiler: Here is the translation (click).
At the center of the disk, two runes are identified by Ettl and Ratthofer as a double “EH” rune (ᚾᚾ). In reality, the correct reading of the double Naudiz rune is “NN.” We can interpret this as an abbreviation for “Neo-Nazi.” This detail further suggests that the story is a post-war fabrication, as there was no such group before or during World War II.
Conclusion
An analysis of the available evidence exposes a series of anachronisms and inconsistencies within the “Vril Project” narrative. Erroneous claims regarding ancient language, misidentification of historical scripts, and contradictory symbolism all undermine the credibility of the telepathic Aldebaran contact story. In light of these discrepancies, the proposed contact with an Aldebaranian species must be regarded as entirely fictitious.
There are several false claims within the literature; this analysis restricted itself to the claim of telepathic contact by mediums of the Vril society. Almost all other claims are also false. Despite this, Revell created a UFO model based on the claims made in the Vril project about German flying saucers.
Verdict: FAKE
References
“The Sound of the Ancient Sumerian Language (Entemena of Lagash).” YouTube, https://youtu.be/3QticJ8mww4.
Ley, Willy. Pseudoscience in Naziland.
Barkun, Michael. A Culture of Conspiracy.
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. Black Sun.
Pauwels, Louis, and Jacques Bergier. The Morning of the Magicians.
“The Vril Project.” 1990.
Farrell, Joseph P. Nazi International.
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. The Occult Roots of Nazism.
Zündel, Ernst. UFOs: Nazi Secret Weapon.
de Lafayette, Maximillien. UFOs, Maria Orsic.
Wissensbuch der ILU-Lehre.
Ettl, Ralf. Das Babylonier Buch.
Fort, Charles. The Book of the Damned.
Strube, Julian. Die Erfindung des esoterischen Nationalsozialismus im Zeichen der Schwarzen Sonne.
UFO: Secrets of the Third Reich. 1995.
Moon, Peter. The Black Sun: Montauk’s Nazi-Tibetan Connection. 1997.
van Helsing, Jan. Geheimgesellschaften und ihre Macht im 20. Jahrhundert.
Ratthofer, N.J. Galaxisimperium Aldebaran.
van Helsing, Jan. Unternehmen Aldebaran.
Childress, David Hatcher. Vril: Secrets of the Black Sun
Imagine, for a moment, a solitary spacecraft drifting beyond the edge of our solar system. Onboard, a golden record spins silently, carrying whispers of human laughter, the songs of whales, and the crackle of a mother’s heartbeat. This artifact, this Voyager, is a testament to our yearning—a bottled message cast into the cosmic ocean. Yet, as it voyages through the interstellar dark, one question lingers like a shadow: If its call were answered, would we truly be ready?
The Fragile Mosaic of “Humanity”
We speak of “humanity” as a single chorus, but ours is a symphony of dissonance and harmony. Seven billion souls, fractured by borders, ideologies, and creeds, yet bound to a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. Could we, in the face of an extraterrestrial Other, set aside ancient grudges and newfound fears? Or would we splinter further, our divisions magnified under the cold gaze of the universe?
Are we, in our adolescence as a species, prepared to shield our flame—and to recognize the light of another?
Equipped: Beyond Ray Guns and Radio Telescopes
To be “equipped” is not merely to wield the tools of detection—the arrays of antennas listening for faint stellar murmurs or laboratories teasing apart Martian soil for microbial hieroglyphs. It is to cultivate the wisdom to wield them well.
The Moral Universe: Whose Ethics Will Guide Us?
What ethical compass will steer us if we encounter beings whose very biology defies earthly logic? Creatures who breathe methane, communicate in ultraviolet, or perceive time as a spiral rather than an arrow? The Golden Rule, ancient and universal, may falter in the face of such radical difference.
Passive Dreamers or Active Architects?
We are the ones whispering into the void, sending probes and involuntary signals like children skipping stones into a bottomless sea. But what if the sea answers? Have our antennas maybe already picked up a signal—a cosmic “hello”, that may rewrite our theology, science, and philosophy, if understood?
A Call to Cosmic Citizenship
The challenge before us is to mature as a species—to see ourselves not as tribes or nations, but as Earthlings. To recognize that every war, every injustice, and every act of ecological myopia weakens our readiness for the cosmos.
In the words of Sagan, “Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.” The universe does not care if we fail. But if we succeed—if we unite in curiosity, compassion, and foresight—we might yet earn a place among the stars.
So let us gaze upward, not with fear, but with the courage to confront our flaws. Let us craft a future worthy of the cosmos we seek to join. The night sky is alive with possibilities. The question is: Are we?
After all, the stars are not just distant suns. They are mirrors, reflecting back who we are—and who we might become.
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