May 2025

May 5, 2025May 5, 2025

UFO Truth: Witnesses, Speak Out!

I’m skeptical of UFO claims made by researchers based solely on secondhand anecdotes. It’s more valuable to hear direct testimony from a UFO witness themselves, rather than relying on third-party accounts. I personally reported UFO sightings to official channels, and as a UFO witness, they quoted my testimony anonymously:

Reference: Irish Salthill UFO sighting recalled

An Irish witness at Galway recalled a UFO incident from 1986

Why? Witnesses should be allowed to stay anonymous, but non-anonymous testimony should be prioritized. To be able to report a sighting only in anonymous mode takes away the credibility of the witness account. Anyone can fabricate a tale, overflow databases with false information, and overwhelm legitimate reporting.

The issue with relying solely on secondhand and anecdotal accounts of UFO sightings is a significant one. Retelling anecdotes can lead to the distortion of facts, the embellishment of stories, and the loss of crucial details. By hearing eyewitness accounts firsthand from a UFO witness, we can gain a more accurate understanding of the events in question.

Asking a UFO witness about their desire for anonymity and giving them the option to disclose their identities would enhance transparency and trustworthiness. Such an arrangement would allow for a more nuanced understanding of the evidence and potentially lead to more credible investigations.

In fact, some UFO research organizations, such as the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), do offer a UFO witness the option to remain anonymous or to provide their contact information. However, this is not always the case, and we need more transparency in this area.

The National UFO Reporting Center
Dedicated to the collection and
dissemination of objective UFO/UAP data
https://nuforc.org

May 4, 2025May 5, 2025

The Sagan Paradox, Chapter 2: Extraordinary Claims and the Bermuda Triangle

“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 Bombshell: Planes, Submarines & Atomic Mystery

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.”

– Carl Sagan

May 4, 2025May 5, 2025

The Sagan Paradox, Chapter 3: Skepticism and Egyptian Mysticism

UFO Smackdown: “Show Me the Proof,” Says Science Superstar

Carl Sagan, “The Demon-Haunted World” (1995), Ch. 11 (The Fine Art of Baloney Detection)

Rather than treating UFO research as a rigorous scientific inquiry into possibly extraterrestrial phenomena, Sagan rejected its validity on the grounds that it lacked the ‘extraordinary’ UFO evidence required by the scientific method and rested largely on unreliable eyewitness testimony, demonstrating his UFO skepticism.

Further reading: UFO Truth: Witnesses, Speak Out!

Witnesses should be allowed to stay anonymous, but non-anonymous testimony should be prioritized.

Radio Roulette: SETI’s Slow-Motion Search for Martian Pen Pals

Instead, he argued, the most promising avenue for detecting alien life was the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) via radio astronomy—a point he dramatized in his 1985 novel Contact. Of course, SETI has its own fundamental limitation: due to the speed at which radio signals travel, any interstellar message exchange could potentially experience lengthy delays, like years, decades, or centuries.

Interstellar two-way communication easily requires centuries, ruling it out for spontaneous chats. Despite this limitation, SETI’s search continues in hopes of finding concrete UFO evidence.

The shooting of “Contact” started in September 1996. Sagan himself was supposed to appear in a cameo, but he passed away 2 months after the shooting began. Sagan had been working on this project since 1979.

THE FIRST “PARADOX”: Reason meets mysticism

Ur-Uatchti, a winged sun disk, was once mandated to adorn every temple as protection against evil.

Throughout his career, Sagan loathed sloppy thinking. He famously derided Erich von Däniken’s ancient-astronaut theories—that extraterrestrials had a hand in erecting the pyramids—as nothing more than fanciful speculation, lacking credible UFO evidence.

And yet, in 1981, he purchased the Sphinx Head Tomb, the headquarters of Cornell University’s oldest secret honors society, designed in hauntingly authentic Egyptian style.

The symbol of the Sphinx Head Tomb Secret Society, Cornell University

What could possibly have enticed Carl Sagan—the very embodiment of rational, evidence-driven science—to take up residence in a building modeled on an Egyptian tomb? Granite walls etched with hieroglyphs, a false burial chamber—this was a home more temple than townhouse, a place charged with the power of millennia.

Those close to him sensed a shift. His daughter, Sasha, later recalled that almost immediately after moving in, her father’s health began to falter. The scientist who probed the furthest reaches of space found himself besieged by a far more intimate mystery: a sudden decline that culminated in his death on the winter solstice of 1996.

Reference: Lessons of Immortality and Mortality From My Father, Carl Sagan

What compelled a scientist such as Carl Sagan to relocate into a structure reminiscent of an Egyptian tomb? Did the ancient mystique of the tomb hold a deeper sway over even the sharpest mind of his generation? The first paradox has been set in stone—yet its enigma endures.

May 4, 2025May 5, 2025

The Sagan Paradox, Chapter 4: Stoned Genius

Dr. Sagan, writing under the pseudonym “Mr. X” described his history of marijuana use.

As the paragon of reasoned, evidence-based science, what could have possibly prompted Carl Sagan to light up a joint? He argued that marijuana can be a powerful tool for facilitating mind expansion. When he was high, he had breakthroughs in knowledge and moments of true insight, according to his experience.

He vigorously defended the validity of these pot-fueled realizations:

“There is a myth about such highs: the user has an illusion of great insight, but it does not survive scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that this is an error and that the devastating insights achieved when high are real insights; the main problem is putting these insights in a form acceptable to the quite different self that we are when we’re down the next day. Some of the hardest work I’ve ever done has been to put such insights down on tape or in writing. The problem is that ten even more interesting ideas or images have to be lost in the effort of recording one.”

Carl Sagan as Mr. X in “Marijuana Reconsidered”, 1971, pg 113-114

Reference: Psychiatrist Grinspoon Smoked Pot with Sagan—A Lot

Dr. Lester Grinspoon, associate professor emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, recalls exploring the cosmos with a little help from cannabis, and his best friend Carl Sagan.

Three years after Sagan’s death, Dr. Grinspoon decided to posthumously reveal Mr. X’s identity. His choice honored the world-famous scientist’s often-expressed wish to help end marijuana prohibition.

May 4, 2025May 5, 2025

The Sagan Paradox, Chapter 5: Cosmos Eating Space Probes and Sagan’s Response

SELF-REPLICATING PROBES

In the context of the Extraterrestrial Intelligence Search, in 1980 the mathematical physicist and cosmologist Frank J. Tipler published a paper, “Extraterrestrial intelligent beings do not exist.”

Reference: Extraterrestrial intelligent beings do not exist, Tipler, F. J.

Tipler sought a universal principle to explain the Fermi Paradox: the apparent absence of extraterrestrial beings on Earth. He contended that if extraterrestrial intelligent beings existed, then their manifestations would be obvious. Conversely, since there is no evidence of their presence, they do not exist.

Frank Tipler argued that if any extraterrestrial civilization ever built self-replicating von Neumann starprobes, those probes would grow exponentially. They would fill the galaxy in a few million years. Since we don’t see them here, Tipler concluded there are no other intelligent civilizations.

• Tipler assumed each probe would land on a new world and make just one or a few copies before moving on. However, he had no reason to limit its reproduction so drastically.

• Even if each probe were only 10 grams and doubled once per decade, in about 150 generations we’d have the mass of an entire galaxy. This conversion to machines would be on the order of 1 followed by 54 zeros grams (1 quindecillion tons). Moreover, this transformation would occur in less than 15 million years.

• Because we see no evidence of such galaxy-eating machines anywhere, Tipler said no one else ever invented them. Therefore, no one else is out there.

SAGAN’S RESPONSE

Carl Sagan pondered the arithmetic of Tipler’s solipsist argument. His response is a classic in the realm of science and philosophy. He draws attention to the limitations of our current knowledge and the vastness of the universe. By stating, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” Sagan cautioned against jumping to conclusions based on what we don’t know.

Sagan and William I. Newman challenged Tipler’s assumptions and conclusions, proposing a more realistic colonization model based on population growth and organization. This alternative model estimates a galaxy-crossing time of approximately one billion years, significantly longer than Tipler’s few million years.

Sagan further suggests that self-replicating probes are subject to evolutionary divergence, imposing unacceptable risks to altruistic extraterrestrial intelligent life (ETI). The ETI only communicate with other ETI through signals. This argument assumes that self-replicating machines are essentially uncontrollable because they must evolve.

Sagan and Newman also propose that the emergence of powerful weapons of mass destruction may impose a universal brake on unchecked expansion. This could potentially limit the spread of advanced civilizations. Ultimately, they emphasize the importance of experimentation in resolving the Fermi Paradox. Systematic searches using radio telescopes and other tools are necessary to settle the question of whether we are alone in the universe.

Reference: The Solipsist Approach to Extraterrestrial Intelligence, by Sagan / Newman 1983QJRAS..24..113S Page 113

Terrestrial Shortsightedness

Imagine New York in 1894, its streets choked with the clatter of hooves. Its futurists were drowned in calculations of manure. They predicted that by 1944 New York would drown in horse manure.

The futurists only saw linearity: more carriages, more waste, an apocalypse of filth. However, they could not fathom the silent revolution already stirring—the internal combustion engine, the horseless carriage—a paradigm shift that would render their equations relics.

So too might we falter when envisioning the starfarers of tomorrow. To assume interstellar travel or contact must devour suns is to chain possibility to the physics of this moment. What of the technologies unimagined? The spacetime shortcuts, the dark energy harnessed, the self-replicating probes born of nanoengineering? The cosmos whispers of mysteries we have yet to decode.

Carl Sagan may have cautioned Tipler that his reasoning could mirror that of the horse-cart prophets. One may fail to see beyond the boundaries of the known. The universe is not merely a puzzle to solve with present tools. It is also a frontier that reshapes the solver. As we once tamed fire and split the atom, so too might we one day dance with the fabric of spacetime itself. The answer to the Fermi paradox may not lie in the scarcity of civilizations. It may lie in the humility of our assumptions.

After all, the stars are not merely endpoints. They are teachers. Their greatest lesson might be this: To traverse the light-years, we must first learn to think in ways as boundless as the dark between galaxies.

Reference: The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894

By the late 1800s, large cities all around the world were drowning in horse manure. The London Times predicted in 1894 that in 50 years’ time, every street in London would be buried under nine feet of manure.

May 1, 2025May 1, 2025

Could the Voyager spaceprobe make contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence sooner or later, and could the aliens trace it back to Earth?

Artwork inspired by Linda Salzman Sagan’s design for the Pioneer plaque, which aimed to communicate with extraterrestrial intelligence, commissioned by NASA: click here view the original design

The Ocean of Time

Consider this: The cosmos is an ocean of time, vast and unfathomable. The future and the past may not be fixed shores but fluid horizons, ever-shifting. If time is a river, might there be civilizations advanced enough to navigate its currents? They could potentially voyage upstream against the flow and visit epochs long gone. Suppose such beings exist, they might step into our present, or even our yesterday, with technology that bends the fabric of spacetime itself. We can only speculate if extraterrestrial intelligence might be capable of such feats.

Messengers of Earth

Think of the Voyager probes, those celestial arks launched in 1977. They carry golden records engineered to last 5 billion years, etched with the sounds and stories of Earth. Drifting through the interstellar dark, they are destined to wander for millennia before brushing the icy fringes of the Oort Cloud, possibly to be found by extraterrestrial intelligences in the future.

Pioneers of the Unknown

And what of Pioneer 10 and 11, their plaques engraved with symbols and figures—a map to our tiny blue world? These messengers preceded Voyager by four years. They were charting a path through the unknown, potentially reaching minds skilled in decoding messages intended for extraterrestrial intelligences.

The Cosmic Recursion

Here we drift into a cosmic recursion—a loop of cause and consequence as enigmatic as time itself. Suppose it is not the distant future that answers our call, but the act of calling that creates the future. Could our probes, these fragile artifacts of hope, be both message and catalyst? A whisper that echoes backward through the aeons, compelling beings of tomorrow to seek the source of their own curiosity.

The Search for Answers

If a civilization unbound by time found Voyager or Pioneer adrift in the interstellar void, would they not use the pulsar map to trace its origin back? They could return to the blue-green world that cast it forth. And in doing so, might they not feel compelled to visit the time when it was launched? They might be drawn by the poetry of a planet daring to announce, “Here, we exist,” a statement echoing the hope of encountering extraterrestrial intelligences.

Unearthing Secrets

Imagine this: A civilization, millennia hence, unearths Voyager in the icy depths of the Oort Cloud. They decode its songs and its images of Earth’s shimmering biosphere, and wonder: Who were these beings? Did they survive their adolescence? Such reflections might prompt interaction.

Invitations to Explore

The probes, then, become not just messages but invitations. A handprint on the cave wall of spacetime, saying, “We are here. Come find us.” They serve as signals beckoning extraterrestrial intelligence to respond.

The Gift of Causality

By having declared our presence to the universe, we planted a seed in the garden of causality. Maybe a future civilization, emerging from the same evolutionary currents that shaped us, might trace their own lineage back to this moment. It was a moment when a fledgling species, trembling on the edge of self-destruction, chose instead to reach outward.

Sacred Relics?

To them, the Pioneers and Voyagers might be sacred relics, the genesis of their own yearning to explore. And so they return, pilgrims to their cradle, to ensure the message endures.

The Question of Solitude

And so we are left to wonder: Are we alone, or are we unknowingly surrounded by emissaries from tomorrow? In sending our songs and salutations into the dark, we cast a line not just across space, but through the infinite corridors of time. Who, or when, might one day tug the other end and reveal the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence?

A Silent Witness

Perhaps, even now, the answer is quietly orbiting the Sun or our planet—a silent witness to the audacity of a species. We dared to reach beyond our epoch and into the unknown.