Viruses, Sprinters And UFOs

[poliphilo]

  Going to the doctor makes you ill. Stands to reason. You sit around in a waiting room with a lot of other poorly persons and you trade germs and viruses like they were baseball cards.

We were at the doctors yesterday for one of Ailz's routine appointments. Today we're both feeling bad- not anything it's easy to pin down- but a combination of stomach upset and mental sluggishness and aching joints. Carl- who didn't come to the doctor's with us, but is here this morning putting slap on window frames- seems to have the same thing, so I suppose it's "going round".

Being a carbon-based life form sucks. 

I'll probably watch the fag-end of the Olympics this afternoon. For all my earlier nay-saying I've been enjoying it. Aren't those Jamaican sprinters amazing?

The other thing I've been doing- over the past 24 hours- is read interviews with Jacques Vallee- the guy who inspired the character of the French UFOlogist (payed by Francois Truffaut) in Close Encounters. michaleen put me onto him. Vallee has been researching UFOs since the 50s and calls himself a "heretic among heretics". I like heretics. Even when they're wrong they perform a valuable service by making us rethink our orthodoxies. Vallee is sure UFOs are real but doubts they're extraterrestrial. Instead he thinks of them as portals between our dimension and- er- someplace else. If I'm reading him right (he's very vague and undogmatic) he reckons life on earth has been guided, tested, observed since the very beginning by critters we are inclined to think of as aliens and our ancestors saw as gods, angels and fairies. 

Actually he's more of a scientist than that brief overview suggests.  In the early sixties he and his colleagues were tracking satellites and found themselves observing a piece of goods that was totally anomalous and performed outside the limits of contemporary, earthbound technology. In the morning his supervisor destroyed the tape because- well- because he was a jobsworth who didn't want to have to deal with the implications. Ever since then Vallee has campaigned fiercely for scientists  to take this stuff seriously.

And so they should! 

Comments

[chochiyo-sama.livejournal.com]

I've always believed that it was the pinnacle of hubris for us humans to suffer under the illusions that we are alone in the universe.

Look at all those stars! They are all suns!

If only 1/3 of those suns have planets, and if only 1/3 of them have inhabitable planets, and of those if only 1/3 have life forms and of those only 1/3 have intelligent life forms--well, that is STILL untold bazillions of possible planets full of intelligent life forms!

How can there NOT be intelligent life out there besides us? (And let's face it--as far as intelligence goes, we are vastly over rated for the most part. *giggle*)

Cho

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've no doubt the universe is teeming with life.

Have aliens come and visited here? I think it perfectly likely. If we had the technology to get to other star systems I'm sure we'd use it.

[chochiyo-sama.livejournal.com]

I think it is totally likely as well. They may even be living quietly among us, observing and studying.

Perhaps that's what Bigfoot is--a shaggy alien. A wookie????

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

One of the odd things about UFO encounters is they seem designed to draw attention to themselves- whereas a sensible alien with advanced technology and all sorts of skills we know nothing of would surely be able to arrange to observe us without being noticed at all.

[oakmouse]

Vallee is rather a trip. I remember reading Passport to Magonia and nodding my head all the way through; his observations in that book make excellent sense.

Feel better!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think he's on the right track.

Thanks, I think it was one of those 24 hour things. I believe- once the tablets kick in- I'll feel brighter today.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Being a carbon-based life form sucks.

Amen, my friend.

I am hoping to become a nice, clean, succinct point-of-light, which seems to be what the Near-Deathers report.

As for what Valee says, it sounds exactly correct to me! I'll buy it, happily. As my ex-husband once said, Chemical rocketry won't bring us to aliens, or they to us. Sliding through dimensions, though--that sounds just right!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

What I've always wanted to do is fly.

I often do in dreams. And it always seems the most natural thing in the world.

I believe your ex husband is right. Chemical rockets may get us round the solar system, but if we want to travel further we'll have to develop a more subtle technology.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Glad you're enjoying Vallée. He really is thought provoking, so much so that the topic of UFOs seems almost to fade in light of his more far-reaching thesis. Personally, I think he makes perfect sense.

There's a passage in Dimensions where he states that, from a behavioural standpoint, UFOs seem rather like ghosts, but then explicitly refuses to pursue that line of thought to its logical conclusions. If UFOs are like ghosts, then they are like spirits generally, and in the case of demons and such, that would admit the possibility of humans initiating contact. Vallée didn't necessarily say it wasn't true, just that he didn't want to go there.