In recent years, the term UAP (unidentified anomalous phenomena) has grown in popularity. It is often used in place of UFO and “unidentified aerial phenomena”, partly because it covers submerged and trans-medium objects, and partly because it sidesteps the stigma long attached to the word UFO. In military jargon, such objects are sometimes described as “fast-walkers”, as distinct from “slow-walkers” (satellites).

The mainstream media have suddenly taken an interest in the UFO/UAP phenomenon — beyond ridiculing it, that is. It’s odd enough that a new joke has emerged: “I used to believe in aliens before the government told me they were real.”

Headed up by Dr Stephen Greer, the Disclosure Project has been running since 1993. Greer is joined by numerous scientists and military figures, many of them senior, who contend that a “deep state” (a secret government within government) has procured and back-engineered non-human craft. It is also claimed that extra-biological entities are involved at covert facilities, largely in the United States.

From an Electric Universe perspective, of course, we would expect our own galaxy — let alone the wider universe — to be teeming with life. Greer goes further, however, arguing that breakthrough technologies — especially relating to clean, cost-effective energy — have been suppressed for the benefit of corporate interests and unaccountable power (the military-industrial complex), under the banner of national security. In other words: technology that could benefit humanity as a whole.

"We now have the technology to take ET home."
Attributed to Ben Rich, Lockheed Skunk Works, 1993. (Rich is often described as the father of stealth.)

Of particular interest to this website are the alleged propulsion mechanisms. The claim is that some craft operate on an electro-gravitic basis, though the physics remains unclear. In this US Citizen Hearing — UFOs — Science and Technology (Session 19) | The Citizen Hearing on UFO Disclosure — Greer and colleagues take questions from a political panel.

Notably, at 1:08:50, Thomas Valone PhD states that gravitational mass and inertial mass are not the same thing — contrary to Einstein’s principle of equivalence — and suggests inertial mass is fundamentally an electromagnetic phenomenon. If true, and if mass and gravity can be engineered, the speed of light may be less of a hard barrier than commonly assumed (though that would not necessarily imply time travel). In this framing, the “light-speed limit” becomes more like the speed of sound: a constraint within a medium, not the final word on what’s physically possible. The mention of zero-point energy also brings us back toward the older idea of an æther-like substrate — precisely the sort of concept modern gravity-only cosmology has tried to do without.

On a more cautious note: from an Electric Universe perspective, many “lights in the sky” are likely to be plasma phenomena. Not all — but a good many. (See below.) And since space is saturated with plasma and electromagnetism, it would be no surprise if the next leap in propulsion and energy turns out to be fundamentally electromagnetic. It will be interesting to see how popular science reacts, given how consistently it has downplayed electrodynamics in space, while ruling out FTL (faster-than-light) travel on gravity-only assumptions.

Between 1:07:00 and 1:09:00 in the hearing linked above, the speakers argue that mainstream physics remains unaware of what is allegedly understood within secret “black projects” — and that, regardless, official science is “opposed to anything that would violate their classical laws of physics.” They go further and suggest that “the laws of physics need to be rewritten.” From an Electric Universe standpoint, that kind of friction is hardly surprising.

This hearing took place in 2013. More than a decade later, the public conversation appears to have shifted — at least judging by recent mainstream reporting — while mainstream cosmology remains mired in its own dark age: the era of dark matter and dark energy.

NB. Could the Disclosure Project be part of an elaborate hoax? Some conspiracy theorists claim a “fake alien invasion” is being prepared to justify a New World Order under the banner of a “common enemy” — often labelled Project Blue Beam. Greer argues the opposite: that extraterrestrials are real, technologically advanced, spiritually advanced, and concerned for our welfare. Ufology has never lacked infighting and controversy; that much is certain.

"Most scientists never look at UFO evidence, which leads to their conclusion that there is no evidence."
Bernard Haisch

The leading theory-based rejectionist argument — one we all know well — is that the speed of light represents an absolute upper limit. Distances between stars are vast: more than four light-years to the Alpha Centauri system, roughly one hundred thousand light-years across the Milky Way, and millions of light-years between galaxies. Taken at face value, such scales appear incompatible with repeated or routine extraterrestrial visitations.

If travel is strictly limited to subluminal speeds, then interstellar — let alone intergalactic — journeys would indeed seem prohibitive. The crucial question, therefore, is whether “slogging through space” is the only conceivable mode of travel. The answer may well be no. Alternatives could involve the electrodynamic properties of the æther, light, and matter — ideas that sit uneasily with the gravity-only framework dominating popular physics today.

According to Thomas Valone PhD of the Disclosure Project, mass and gravity themselves may be subject to manipulation, potentially enabling FTL — faster-than-light — travel. Whether or not one accepts that conclusion, the claim highlights a deeper issue: the assumption that current theoretical limits necessarily define what is physically possible.

The Moon is an enigma. At about 25% the size of Earth — yet only around 1% of its density — our Moon is the third largest in the solar system after Ganymede of Jupiter and Titan of Saturn. Its orbit is almost perfectly circular, and it is tidally locked with Earth, meaning its orbital period matches its rotational period. It takes roughly 29 days both to orbit Earth and to rotate on its axis, resulting in the same side of the Moon always facing our planet — hence the so-called “dark side” we never see.

Furthermore, although around 400 times smaller than the Sun, the Moon is also about 400 times closer to Earth. This remarkable proportionality makes total solar eclipses possible — an intriguing coincidence. There are other peculiarities, too. When Apollo 12 deliberately crashed the ascent stage of its Lunar Module onto the surface, NASA reported that the Moon “rang like a bell” for almost an hour. This led some to speculate that the Moon might be hollow, perhaps accounting for its low density, which in turn encouraged more extravagant claims that it could be an artificial construct — even a platform from which an alien race might observe us. Yes, it is a leap.

“The Lunar Orbiter experiments had vastly improved knowledge of the Moon’s gravitational field and indicated the frightening possibility that the Moon might be hollow.”
Dr Sean C. Solomon, Professor of Earth and Planetary Science, Columbia University

To support claims of alien bases on the far side of the Moon, reports of lights seen moving across the surface are often cited, and there are indeed credible sources for some of these observations. However, plasma phenomena offer an alternative explanation for certain “moving lights,” as well as for some of the so-called mysterious surface features.

As discussed on the Electric Weather and EDM pages, electrical vortices or dust devils are expected from an Electric Universe perspective. Planets such as the Moon and Mars lack sufficient atmospheric moisture to provide an intermediate electrical path from the ionosphere to the surface via conventional lightning. In glow mode, these electrical vortices may appear as moving lights when seen from a distance. The discharges driving them share much in common with the Sprites and Jets phenomena discovered more recently in Earth’s atmosphere.

Furthermore, many surface structures attributed to alien activity may instead be electrical scars, including ridged “glass-tubes” (fulgurites), which admittedly do look unusual. Similar formations, however, have been recreated under laboratory conditions. Again, see the EDM page.

See also The Moon in myth.

Skepticism in its true sense means to suspend certainty. Not knowing in order to know better. Healthy skepticism is a good thing, in other words. Pseudo-skeptics, on the other hand, tend to be certain of their own world-view and dismissive of most alternative views, often describing them as either crackpot or conspiratorial. See the philosophy pages. Sadly, the whole UAP scene seems to be characterised by the credulous on the one hand, and the pseudo-skeptical on the other. For some it is a free variable which explains everything (the god of the gaps), while others dismiss it out of hand. Both views seem less than plausible to the genuine skeptic.

Bernard Haisch takes a scientific approach to this complex subject matter. He has been running ufoskeptic.org for some time.

NARCAP.org (National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena) was founded in 1999 to provide pilots and aviation professionals with a secure, confidential channel for reporting anomalous phenomena without fear of ridicule — or worse, suspension or damage to career prospects. Formal reporting can be time-consuming and, in some cases, professionally risky. NARCAP exists precisely to lower that barrier and to preserve technically informed testimony that might otherwise go unrecorded.

NARCAP define UAP as follows:

“An Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) is the visual stimulus that provokes a sighting report of an object or light seen in the sky, the appearance and/or flight dynamics of which do not suggest a logical, conventional flying object and which remains unidentified after close scrutiny of all available evidence by persons who are technically capable of making both a technical identification as well as a common-sense identification, if one is possible.”

The usual talking heads are reliably trotted out by the mainstream media whenever cosmology or astronomy enters public discussion. They tend to rehearse the same set of assumptions about black holes, dark matter, dark energy, the Big Bang, and related orthodoxies. Working within the constraints of relativistic, gravity-only models, they typically insist that faster-than-light travel is impossible, and on that basis effectively dismiss the possibility of alien visitation altogether.

Typical of this genre is the UK physicist and media presenter Brian Cox. Even the Guardian were critical of his TV show, Universe, describing it as “dumbed down” — a judgment that may be fair, though perhaps for reasons they did not fully articulate. In truth, Cox is competent at what he does and no better or worse than other familiar figures in the same role.

More disappointing, perhaps, are some prominent bloggers and internet personalities who are admirably contrarian on social or political issues, yet become strangely cautious when cosmology is discussed. On this subject they often freeze, like rabbits in headlights. In a widely viewed interview with Joe Rogan, Cox states without hesitation that the universe is saturated with dark matter and dark energy.

The plasma universe, by contrast, places no such heavy reliance on exotic, undetected entities. As argued elsewhere on this site, dark matter and dark energy function as conceptual stopgaps — blank cheques that delay the falsification of increasingly strained theories rather than resolving their underlying problems.

Among others, figures associated with the Disclosure Project frequently refer to zero-point energy — a hypothesised energy field said to permeate all of space and, in principle, capable of being tapped as a virtually unlimited source of power. As noted elsewhere, this concept bears a strong resemblance to the classical æther, which fell out of favour when Einstein’s theoretical framework came to dominate twentieth-century physics.

From a plasma cosmology perspective, however, æther-like models present no such conceptual difficulty. On the contrary, plasma physics readily accommodates structured, energy-rich media, and it is electromagnetism — not gravity alone — that appears central to understanding any such subtle or pervasive energy fields.

That said, claims of practical energy extraction remain speculative at present, and should be clearly distinguished from experimentally verified plasma and electromagnetic phenomena.

The 'free' energy alluded to above is sometimes referred to as Over Unity. Needless to say, this is a controversial field and many of the claims being made are dismissed out of hand in popular science circles.

Andrew Johnson, who takes a keen interest in the UFO phenomenon, discusses over unity in this interesting and humorous YouTube video entitled Infinite Energy. He is a lecturer with the Open University.

Johnson has his own web site: www.checktheevidence.com

The ancient-alien hypothesis is most commonly associated with Zecharia Sitchin and Erich von Däniken, who interpreted terms such as Anunnaki and Elohim to mean “gods who from heaven to earth came.” Proponents argue that these gods were, in fact, extraterrestrials possessing advanced technology that was later misinterpreted or mythologised by our ancestors.

While imaginative, this reading sits uneasily with the demonstrably sophisticated astronomical knowledge of many ancient cultures. Nevertheless, the hypothesis has evolved into something of a free variable, invoked to explain everything from Stonehenge to the Great Pyramid. Such claims are now commonplace — full marks for creativity, perhaps, but fewer for evidential restraint.

This is not to deny that the myth-making epoch left us with profound mysteries, nor that the true purposes of many ancient monuments remain uncertain. However, the evidential basis for ancient extraterrestrial intervention remains tenuous. It cannot be ruled out in principle, but it is arguably more productive to seek explanations grounded in the symbolic, astronomical, and geophysical contexts of the cultures themselves.

Ironically, conventional archaeology offers its own implausibilities. The pyramids, for example, are routinely described as monumental tombs built for egomaniacal kings — yet no corpse or mummy has ever been found within them. In this respect, orthodoxy and speculation may be closer cousins than either side cares to admit.

Plasma related petroglyphs have inspired a number of ancient alien claims. See pic right. Advocates of the ancient alien hypothesis typically interpret any circle around the head as a space helmet, be it a halo, headdress, crown, or whatever.

The idea that the pyramids were some form of resonant energy generator is growing in popularity. It is discussed in this interesting episode of the Why Files: TESLA KNEW The Secret of the Great Pyramid: Unlimited Energy to Power the World! It is claimed the stone used in their construction (principally limestone and granite) can be an excellent conductor of high-frequency electricity.

Andrew Hall of the Thunderbolts Project takes the energy idea to a new level, speculating that the head gear and related paraphernalia worn by Egyptians enabled them to harness electrical energy in a way we can only struggle to imagine today. Were they literally celebrating the spark of life?

Crop circles occupy an awkward middle ground between outright hoax and unresolved anomaly. Since the late 1970s, increasingly complex geometric patterns have appeared in crops across the UK and elsewhere, often overnight and without obvious traces of mechanical construction. While many formations have been convincingly attributed to human activity, others remain difficult to explain so easily.

The skeptical position, properly understood, is not to assume a single explanation in advance. It is beyond dispute that some crop circles are man-made, produced using boards, ropes, GPS guidance, and careful planning. Several artists and groups have openly demonstrated such techniques. This alone, however, does not automatically account for all reported features associated with the phenomenon.

A subset of formations exhibit unusual characteristics that continue to attract scientific interest. These include flattened crops bent at the nodes rather than broken, reports of altered seed germination, changes in soil properties, and occasional electromagnetic anomalies detected at or shortly after formation. Such claims are contested and unevenly documented, but they are not entirely without empirical basis.

From an Electric Universe perspective, it is at least conceivable that some crop formations may involve plasma or electrical processes interacting with the landscape. Laboratory experiments have shown that plasma discharges can produce complex geometric patterns and can affect plant tissue at the cellular level. This does not imply extraterrestrial intent, nor does it validate all crop circle claims, but it does suggest that purely mechanical explanations may not exhaust the available possibilities.

Importantly, acknowledging the enigma does not require abandoning skepticism. Extraordinary claims still demand extraordinary evidence, and speculation should not be confused with proof. At the same time, premature dismissal can be just as unscientific as uncritical belief. Crop circles, like many UAP-related phenomena, are best approached with disciplined curiosity rather than reflexive certainty.