'Vast Alien Consciousness' and Acknowledgment

One of the more interesting arguments against USG acknowledgment of the ET presence is that the UFO/ET phenomenon represent a vast, powerful, and malicious alien consciousness (VAC) manifesting itself as 'flying saucers', 'alien abductors', fairies, etc., and that by acknowledging the reality of UFOs, this consciousness will be empowered to do us harm.

On the one hand, UFOs clearly represent a 'physical' reality--they emit and reflect light, reflect radar frequencies, interfere with electrical systems, and leave impressions on the ground when landing. On the other hand UFO experiences and related (or apparently related) phenomena often seem like 'paranormal' experiences, i.e., they often involve altered states of consciousness, and/or may seem to occur in a 'non-ordinary' reality, sometimes including strange beings and other anomalous apparently-physical phenomena. At present, we simply don't understand enough about the nature of consciousness and reality to know whether UFOs, etc., are real or simply manifestations of some VAC. Indeed, we don't even know what 'real' means, and whether everything in our reality--the entire Universe--might simply be a manifestation of some VAC.

Thus the issue is not whether UFOs are manifestations of a VAC, but rather whether they are malevolent, etc., and whether acknowledgment will empower them to do us harm.

While some aspects of the UFO phenomenon, etc., seem benevolent, or at least benign or indifferent, some clearly seem malicious or malevolent.

The 'empowerment' argument arises from the notion of the observer effect (in quantum mechanics), and the related notions of the power of intentions, expectations, and beliefs to shape our experiences and reality; or from the folklore notion that "if you don't believe in fairies (etc.), you won't see them, and they can't hurt you"; or perhaps from the psychological notion that expectations and beliefs influence perceptions.

An announcement by the US and/or other nations, or the UN, followed by massive media coverage, would have a dramatic effect on the consciousness of humankind. And certainly more people would see, or believe they had seen UFOs and/or had been 'abducted' or otherwise contacted by ETs, etc.

Indeed, if the President, in an address to the nation, flanked by military officials and leading scientists, declared that fairies were real, then we should expect more people to report seeing fairies.

While an announcement that 'UFOs are real' and the resulting media coverage would certainly have some effects on our experience, there are several problems with the argument that a VAC represents a grave or mortal threat to the United States and other nations.

First, the power of the collective of human consciousness to constrain the VAC interaction with humankind obviously far exceeds that of the alleged VAC. After six decades of UFOs (or thousands of years, as many believe), the VAC is apparently still incapable of significantly influencing our reality.

Second, cultures and civilizations throughout history have recognized (believed in) powerful forces and beings, and while their beliefs have had profound effects on their lives and cultures, so far, apparently, no civilization has been destroyed as a result of acknowledging these forces and beings. Of course it might be argued that never before in human history has the consciousness of the entire human race been affected to the extent possible with modern mass media and worldwide communications. The effect of mass media, however, could work both ways--statements by government officials and others, and media coverage could be used to promote fear, and feelings of helplessness, etc.--thus 'empowering' the VAC--or just the opposite; and thus dramatically influence beliefs and expectations of the world's people, and presumably, the reality they would experience.

For decades, elements of the USG have manipulated by various means and for various reasons, the attitudes and consciousness of the American people, and the USG Psychological Operations elements presumably would recognize the importance of this for managing reactions--for better or worse--to disclosure and contact in general, as well as any real or imagined VAC threat.

Third, since UFOs clearly have the ability to appear to groups of humans, and to cause aircraft, etc., to malfunction, and if they intend to force us to acknowledge them, why haven't they done something dramatic enough--appear over a major city in broad daylight, or cause an aircraft to crash in clear view of multiple witnesses, etc.--to initiate a media frenzy and the resulting change in our awareness?

Fourth, while some people may seek a personal physical or 'mental' interaction between humans and ETs, the purpose of this blog is not to suggest personal interactions, but rather an invitation to a very specific class of possible ET or other intelligences--beings who understand our civilization, are monitoring our communications, and who have simply been waiting for us (one or more governments) to accept responsibility for initiating contact--to communicate with us using our technology, initially with a simple recordable binary 'message'--an appearance, or not--or an optical alphanumeric message.

Of course it might be argued that a public welcome message, or 'request for communication', from a government, and the inevitable coverage in the news media would profoundly affect human consciousness, and as a result, empower a VAC to intrude more forcefully into our reality. But to the extent that our expectations, etc., are controlling the situation, the predominant expectation will be that an intelligence of the sort described above--whether a non-malicious VAC competent in our reality, or a nominal 'physical' biological and/or 'cybernetic' collective--either exists and is willing to contact us, or not.

VAC proponents can argue this endlessly, e.g., that public acknowledgment by a government of even the possibility that ETs are visiting our world will open the door for a whole range of malicious beings, etc., etc. If this is a concern, then the concern might be minimized by first using the 'diplomatic' initiative previously described (A Real SETI and Why It Matters), which will have no effect on the consciousness of the mass of humankind unless and until it succeeds, and the success is announced. Any response to a covert communications effort will not have occurred because of a change in the consciousness of a civilization, since only a handful of people were aware of the effort, but rather will have occurred because some intelligence already has the cultural and linguistic fluency, and the physical and technological competence in our reality to understand and respond to a request for communications from one or more governments, presumably for the reasons suggested elsewhere in this blog.

Finally, while a response to a covert 'request for communications' does not absolutely disprove the malicious-VAC hypothesis--indeed, in the foreseeable future we simply won't know whether UFOs, etc., are manifestations of a VAC far beyond our understanding of reality--it's irrelevant whether the response came from a VAC, ETs, ETs manifested by a VAC, or a superintelligent cosmic chipmunk living in Kansas City--the objective is to determine whether an intelligence is willing and able to communicate with us in our language(s), and whether such an intelligence has and is willing to convey information which may be of critical importance to the well-being and survival of our civilization.