Accounting for UAPs' zigzagging, 'brownian motion'

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As discussed in my previous post in this blog, I admit to having been caught off guard by the latest developments regarding UAPs and non-human intelligence. Nonetheless, I cannot help but take these developments seriously, and thus felt compelled to explore the subject further in two directions: first, to understand clearly how (im)plausible it is that the allegations are fabrications, given the legal context of the case; and second, to apply reason and information already disclosed to speculate educatedly on what we can expect a non-human intelligence to be like.

As luck would have it, the first part was already done 'for me' by Marik von Vennenkampff, writing for The Hill. I recommend his level-headed and well informed essay, which explains better than I could why I now take this whole thing quite seriously. In addition, yesterday I decided to watch James Fox's wonderful new documentary, Moment of Contact (about the Varginha UAP case in Brazil). I have always had respect for Jamie's work and this latest film doesn't disappoint at all: he captured very well what is perhaps the most important UAP/close encounter case of all times, because of the sheer amount, detail and consistency of witness accounts. As most of you know, I spent my childhood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And although I haven't been there in almost three decades now, childhood is a formative time, so I like to believe—perhaps too optimistically—that I can still judge the Brazilian demeanour, body language and tone of voice, in a culture-bound manner. Based on this, I do think the witnesses interviewed in the film were all telling the truth.

What this means is that, in addition to being a definitely psychological phenomenon in many ways—as I discussed in my own book Meaning in Absurdity several years ago—UAPs also have a stable physical facet: it would seem that there really are biological E.T.s from another star system visiting us by means of technologically advanced craft. Again, I hadn't expected this, but I am too committed to truth to ignore the new data. Perhaps, in fact, the high-strangeness aspect of the phenomenon is a thing apart, not directly related to metal spaceships from another planet. We may be dealing with two or more distinct categories here, artificially trying to stuff them together in our conceptual drawers. Or perhaps not; I don't know. (More on this in the next instalment of this series of posts.)

However, whatever the case may be, the idea of very physical—meant here in the colloquial sense, not as a nod to physicalism—aliens coming to visit us in very physical craft raises a number of new questions: what can we expect these beings to be like? What about their technology? And how can we make sense of their weird behaviour, such as the typical 'brownian motion' of their craft?

Since we are far from being able to visit other star systems, if these beings are visiting us they are obviously more technologically advanced than we are. Therefore, one educated way to speculate about them is to extrapolate the technology development curve we have been following. This is admittedly fraught with potential errors, as there is no a priori reason to think that their development arch would resemble ours in any way; yet, it's the best we can do when armed only with our own cultural and conceptual references.

With the advent of DNA manipulation technologies such as CRISPR, it has become clear that, in a perhaps not-so-distant future, humans will be able to edit their DNA to suppress undesirable characteristics and emphasise desirable ones. Even without understanding how protein manufacturing relates to morphogenesis—i.e., how the proteins made by DNA are assembled together in just the right way to form a working body—we can still learn to tune our bodies by means of DNA manipulation on a merely empirical, trial-and-error basis.

Therefore, it is plausible that a more technologically advanced alien civilisation would have vast control of their own genotypes and phenotypes, thereby designing themselves for whatever functions are culturally valued. Space travel is one such a function, which could benefit greatly from DNA manipulation: just as ants specialise phenotypically—some are 'armed' soldiers, others flexible engineers, yet others tireless farmers, etc.—E.T. probably also specialises for space flight and other activities. For instance, since space if a near-vacuum, the senses of hearing, smell, touch and taste become redundant except for intra-craft communication and instrumental output; only vision remains relevant with regard to the extra-craft environment. This way, it is an educated guess that the 'biologicals' found in crashed alien craft aren't the typical alien walking about in Zeta Reticuli, but specialised phenotypes meant for space travel. What we see here is not necessarily what we would see there, in their homes.

Another human technology trend to take into account is that of higher integration between the human body and the technology it controls. Today, we still interact with our phones and computers through physical touch. But there are promising developments in thought-controlled technologies, be it through measurement of brain waves or internal brain implants. Extrapolating this development arch, the ultimate goal is technology that reacts as instantly to our intentions as our own eyes and limbs do.

If this is where we are going, it is plausible to think that E.T. is already there. Then, by putting this idea together with the first trend discussed above, we get to a scenario in which alien pilots are DNA-engineered to be directly integrated with their craft. We should thus not expect their craft to have displays, keyboards, buttons and levers like ours do, but to be an extension of the pilots' minds, directly reactive to the pilots' intentions just as our eyes and limbs directly react to ours. This is an important point for any reverse-engineering team: they must abandon our paradigm of what 'controlling the craft' means, and think of it in a more organic manner. Regrettably, this also means that we probably won't be able to go for a joyride in an alien craft.

Interestingly, these ideas provide a way to understand one of the most bizarre but consistent aspects of the UAP phenomenon: their seemingly random, zigzagging, 'brownian motion' way of moving, which doesn't conform to any reasonable trajectory. They go back, forth, and sideways, in a manner we can't quite make sense of... unless, we understand that the craft aren't 'controlled' by their pilots at arms-length, but are instead extensions of the pilots' minds.

To see this, just consider our own eyes: we are constantly moving them around, scanning our environment in a fashion akin to brownian motion (most of us don't even realise that they are doing it all the time, even while dreaming, in the so-called 'Rapid Eye Movement' or 'REM' state). Different elements of our visual field grab our attention at different moments, leading to immediate, instinctive, jerking movements of the eyes so they can focus on that part of our visual field. We do it because we can only see the very centre of our visual field in focus and in high-resolution—an area corresponding to just about 0.1% of the field (!)—and must thus constantly scan our surroundings seemingly haphazardly, so to construct an accurate visual model of our environment. We do it autonomously, instinctively—as opposed to deliberately—this being the reason why the motion ends up being 'brownian' in nature. We bypass deliberation because our eyes are directly controlled by our minds, without the intermediation of a control panel. If the minds of E.T. pilots are directly linked to the motion and operation of their craft, their movements stand to also be spontaneous, instinctive, non-deliberate, and thus somewhat 'random.' And sure enough, this is precisely what witnesses report, repeatedly and consistently.

That UAPs move in a manner akin to how we autonomously move our own eyes—so to scan and construct a model of our surroundings—seems to me to betray their immediate, seamless connection with the minds of their pilots. This is the only logical, reasonable, satisfying way I could find to account for this consistent peculiarity of the phenomenon. And it, of course, suggests a more sophisticated metaphysical perspective, which does away with the delusional separation between mind and matter still prevalent in our own culture. But this is a topic for the next instalment of this series of posts, so stay tuned.

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