Inquiry with Kelly Chase - [The UFO Rabbit Hole] Ep 5: The Interdimensional and Ultraterrestrial Hypotheses

Episode Date: January 7, 2022

Although the UFO phenomenon tends to be associated with aliens, there are a few even more fantastical theories about its origins.Many of most respected scientists and researchers in ufology don't think that the evidence points to any of the more conventional explanations—and that whoever is creating UFOs might not be from the stars at all, but from right here on Earth.But how could an advanced civilization be here without our knowledge? In this episode we explore the possible answers.GET THE EPISODE BRIEFBECOME A PATRONGET THE BOOKGet a SIGNED COPYGet it on AmazonFOLLOWWebsiteTwitterFacebookMUSICTheme: Cabinet of Curiosities by Shaun FrearsonBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-ufo-rabbit-hole-podcast--5746035/support. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I took a knife away from a guy once that was intent on killing me. I choked up on the knife and I tacked to a circle around his heart, lasting circle. And that was a very intimate act. He said, here's a list of all Aaron Brotherhood dropouts. Go through this list, sent a letter to each one of these M-Fing rats, and ask them if you could come and interview them for me. He has created this illusion of who he is. If you believe anything he tells you, you're just growing up.

You want to send me to Michael Thompson, who bucked the whole AB, dropped out, and testified against them, and you think I'm going to go there and convince him to recant? My mom told me, Eric, he's kind of a borderline con person most of your life too, but you got conned by a con man. Blood memory, a new podcast series from love and radio, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the UFO rabbit hole podcast.

I'm your host, Kelly Chase. I hope everyone is well hydrated and has done their stretches because this episode is where we start a whole new leg of our journey. This, my friends, is where we start to truly go through the looking glass, exploring the shadowy region of human experience that lives beyond the boundaries of our understanding. It's the place where the deepest mysteries of science collide with the world of the hypothetical, the mythical, and for some, even the divine. And if I'm being honest, I'm actually a little bit nervous. Because while we've flirted with the fantastical throughout these last few episodes,

we've done so while holding firmly to the guide rope of proven, or at the very least respectable, science. But if we're going to go any further and truly begin to grapple with the mystery at the part of the UFO phenomenon. We have to be willing to venture outside of the boundaries of the established narrative. In other words, things are about to get pretty strange. And to be honest, there's something about doing this that feels like a risk. After all, there are things that we simply don't say aloud in polite society. There are topics that we just don't touch for fear of what will rub off on us. Getting to this point in our conversation and speaking about these things publicly feels like crossing the Rubicon. There's no going back from here. I've really struggled,

actually, with this intro over the past few days because no matter how many times I restarted or come at it from a different angle, it just keeps coming out sounding like an apology, which I hate because I'm not sorry. Listen, something is happening here, something big. And there are a million things that we don't know and maybe can't know about what it is or what it means. But what is clear is that even the most mundane explanations for whatever this phenomenon might be would change everything about life as we know it. When I started this line of questioning earlier this year, the thing that was most startling to me was the realization of just how certain I was of things that weren't certain at all and how immediately dismissive I was of huge swaths of knowledge and evidence,

simply because it didn't fit into this respectable little box of ideas that an intelligent, college-educated, white-collar professional is allowed to entertain. So I made the commitment to myself, quietly, because I was still worried about what people would think, to go back to the drawing board and to learn everything that I could about this phenomenon. I would keep an open mind and do my best not to judge the data, or to let my own biases dictate my path, but rather just to let it unfold and to follow it wherever it may lead. I'm still on that journey, and I still don't have the answers that I'm looking for, but it has been a truly life-altering experience to recognize how much I've let other people's

opinions shape not just what I believed, but what I even allowed myself to entertain. I've always considered myself to be a clear, rational, independent thinker. And it's been humbling to recognize the extent to which that has not actually been the case. And to be clear, I am not asking for you to accept or believe any of what follows. All I ask is that you try not to reject it outright. To get the full picture of the UFO phenomenon, we need to look at every piece of evidence and every theory, even the ones that seem too outlandish or don't seem to fit. So when we come across a piece of information that seems ridiculous or that makes you uncomfortable or that you just don't even know what to do with, just put it on the shelf.

You can come back to it from time to time. Pick it up, reconsider it in the light of new evidence, weigh it against different ideas that you've picked up along the way, and eventually you'll either find a use for it or you'll get rid of it. Or maybe you'll keep it on the shelf as a fun list. little oddity that you pull out at parties. But wherever it ends up, you'll be putting it there after thoughtful consideration. You may very well still find a lot of what we talk about in this episode to be preposterous when all was said and done. But in keeping an open mind on this journey,

you'll be giving yourself more complete access to the full scope of thinking around this phenomenon, allowing yourself to form what you believe to be the best explanation on your own. So with that in mind, let's get moving. We have a lot of ground to cover today as we consider some of the more exotic explanations for the UFO phenomenon. And a fantastic place to start this conversation is with the work of Jacques Valet. Ville is an internet pioneer, computer scientist, venture capitalist, author, astronomer, and one of the most venerated of Euphology's founding fathers. His work has, in many ways, defined modern euphology. And it's almost impossible to get a true handle on the more unusual hypotheses for the origin of the UFO phenomenon

without understanding his work. Valet's interest in the phenomenon began in 1955 when he saw a UFO over his home just outside of Paris, France. Six years later, in 1961, while working as an astronomer for the French Space Committee, he claimed to have witnessed the destruction of tapes of an unknown object orbiting the Earth. The peculiar object was in retrogramming, grade orbit, something that is rare among man-made artificial satellites because of the difficulty of launching into orbit against the Earth's rotation. Valet and his team assumed that what they had found was a natural satellite that had been captured by the Earth's orbit, but before they could investigate it further, an unnamed supervisor came into the room and erased

the tape. This sparked a lifelong interest for Valet in the phenomenon, but despite his personal experiences and his lifelong dedication to searching for answers, Valet is so well respected because he has never been a fanatic and has always been a scientist first. Valet received his PhD in industrial engineering and computer science from Northwestern University in 1967. It was there that he met his mentor, Jay Allen Heineck, who was chair of the astronomy department, and the two began to conduct non-institutional research into the UFO phenomenon. Heinek is an interesting character himself, and understanding his background can further illuminate valet and his work. Between 1947 and 1969, Heinek served as the scientific advisor to the Air Force

in their study of UFOs under the codenames Project Sign, Project Grudge, and Project Blue Book. Although the name changed over the years, the mission of this project remained the same. To investigate, and most importantly, to debunk, reported UFO sites. In this role, Heinek was the Air Force's lead debunker, a job that the hard-nosed, highly skeptical scientist relished. He regarded the UFO phenomenon as utterly ridiculous and as a fad that would soon pass. Much of the language that is used to this day to discredit and stigmatize the phenomenon and those who report having experienced it is a direct result of Heinex's intentional and systematic approach to the subject, including being the first to attribute UFO sightings to swamp gas.

However, after two decades of working with the Air Force, Heinek changed his tune and began to study the UFO phenomenon in earnest. In 1973, he founded the Center for UFO Studies, which was dedicated to advocating for the scientific research of the UFO phenomenon, a cause that he championed both home and abroad until his death in 1986. Heinek attributed this change to two things. The first was what he called, quote, the completely negative and unyielding attitude, unquote, of the Air Force in their approach to studying the phenomenon.

In his words, they wouldn't give UFOs the chance of existing, even if they were flying up and down the street in broad daylight. And the other was the caliber of some of the witnesses that he interviewed, including members of the military and police officers, people that he considered to be trained observers. He also had firsthand knowledge of just how such reports were received by higher-ups in those organizations, and that those coming forward were risking not just ridicule, but their careers. I tell you all of this partly because, as with any complex topic, understanding the history

of uphology is important to understanding the topic as a whole. But also, I think it's important to recognize uphology as a legitimate field of science. that has been pursued with both great passion and with great scientific rigor by some of the best and brightest minds within some of our most respected academic institutions, even if it has rarely been embraced by the institutions themselves. And like Velae, Heineck wasn't just another breathless believer chasing down any evidence that might confirm his preexisting beliefs and biases. He was a scientist, a skeptic, and someone who spent decades debunking and explaining a way. way the phenomenon, something that at the time he truly believed was in the best interest of the public at large. And despite his change of opinion on the topic, he brought the same level of scientific discipline to his research throughout his career. So circling back to Jacques

Filet, although he had originally begun his research into the phenomenon with the goal of validating the extraterrestrial hypothesis, by 1969, right around the time when he started working with Heineck, Valet began to examine. Valet began to examine. expressed doubts about its viability, stating that the extraterrestrial hypothesis was too narrow and ignored too much data. By 1991, Valet crystallized his arguments in his paper published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, titled Five Arguments Against the Extraterrestrial Origin of Unidentified Flying Objects, which are as follows. The first argument is that unexplained close encounters are far too numerous to be simply visitation or study by extraterrestrial visitors.

Valet was one of the first researchers to attempt to compile reports of unexplained aerial phenomena from around the world and was shocked to discover over 900 reports spanning the 100 years between 1869 and 1969, which he published in his groundbreaking book, Passport to Magonia, that same year. But by the time he published his five arguments paper in 1991. Anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 of these reports had been collected, depending on which selection criteria one used to decide what constituted a legitimate report. Valet offered the relatively conservative number of 5,000 reports, and arguing that due to factors ranging from the stigmatization of the subject and a lack of clear methods of reporting such incidents,

likely as few as one in ten people who have these experiences ever make a report. So he reasoned that the real number of actual encounters could be as high as 50,000. For Valle, this was just far too many to fit with the idea of extraterrestrial visitors and is a better fit for explanations that have a more local and potentially terrestrial origin. His second argument is that the humanoid body structure of the alleged aliens is not, likely to have originated on another planet, which is an idea that we've talked about in previous episodes. And based on what we knew of evolution in the 1990s, this was a very valid point. And even if we admit the more recent position of some evolutionary biologists that a humanoid

shape may be much more common in the universe than we might have initially thought, until we have concrete evidence that that is actually the case, we're still dealing in speculation. And even if our understanding of evolution evolves to the point that we can more fully understand how humanoid beings could evolve independently on different planets, the actual discovery of such beings would be one of the most shocking revelations in the history of our species. The third argument is that the reported behavior in thousands of abduction reports contradicts the hypothesis of genetic or scientific experimentation on humans by an advanced race. In combing through thousands of accounts of alien abduction. Valet recognized the common patterns that emerged in the

form of the tropes that we all generally associate with the abduction phenomenon. Witnesses report being transported in a hollow, spherical, or hemispherical space, and being subjected to a medical examination. This is often, but not always, followed by the taking of blood samples, various kinds of sexual interaction, and loss of time. The entire episode is frequently wiped out of conscious memory and is only retrievable under hypnosis. And while on the surface, this certainly sounds like it could be aligned with the idea that humans are being studied by a more advanced race from another planet, Valet argues that this actually doesn't make any sense at all.

His reasoning is that any being sufficiently advanced to create the technologically advanced craft being reported in our skies and to use those craft to travel to another planet would be at least as advanced as we are in the fields of medicine. and biology. And our own scientists wouldn't need to abduct and physically take genetic material from tens of thousands of different beings in order to study and understand them. So why would they? And if for some reason we don't understand, they did need massive amounts of human genetic material. There are sperm and egg banks all over the world. It shouldn't be a huge challenge for a super advanced race of beings to get access to those, allowing them to harvest genetic material in bulk

and without all the must and fuss of abducting thousands of individuals over several decades. How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount. Safe driver discount. New vehicle discount. Storage discount. How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. The fourth argument is that the extension of the phenomenon throughout recorded human history demonstrates that UFOs are not a contemporary phenomenon. As we discussed in a previous episode, although the UFO phenomenon has been popularly regarded

to have begun near the end of World War II, people have reported strange lights, objects, and beings in the sky throughout human history. Although the details of the experiences may shift and evolve throughout the centuries, any attempt to draw a line in the sand and say that any particular encounter or time period marks the definitive beginning of this phenomenon would be entirely arbitrary. After all, as Velaide points out, it's hard to find a culture that doesn't have stories of beings

that come from the sky in strange vessels and occasionally abduct humans. However, it's not just in the similarities of these stories, but in the differences between them, that Valaises' evidence that the phenomenon is more complex than the extraterrestrial hypothesis would suggest. He writes,

In previous works, I've pointed out that aerial phenomena, very soon, similar to our UFOs, have been reported in the ninth century in the form of vessels in the sky, as airships in the days of Jules Verne, as ghost rockets in 1946, and as spacecraft in more recent times, as if they've mimicked human expectations. Everything works as if the UFO phenomenon remained consistently one step ahead of human technology. In the last 10 years, as molecular biology has become more glamorous than electronics or even aerospace in our modern civilization, it shouldn't be surprising to find the aliens performing something that looks like genetic engineering

interventions. For Valle, the way that the phenomenon manifests along the lines of human expectation suggests that there is at least some component of the phenomenon that is a function of a projection of the consciousness of the observer. This is often referred to as the psychosocialological hypothesis, and we'll get to it later. And finally, the fifth argument is that the apparent ability of UFOs to manipulate space and time suggests radically different and richer alternatives than the extraterrestrial hypothesis can offer. Valet points out that the behavior described across thousands of reported encounters indicates a level of technology that goes far beyond just the advanced propulsion systems one would need to develop for interstellar travel. These

craft have been reported to exhibit the ability to appear and disappear very suddenly, to change their apparent shapes in continuous fashion, and even to merge with other physical objects. All of these suggest an ability to manipulate the very fabric of space and time. And if there are beings who have that kind of capability, he reasons, that the answer to where and even when they come from is likely much more complicated than we can currently comprehend. In the conclusion of his five arguments, Valle offers a few alternative hypotheses that he believes better explain the UFO phenomenon based on the evidence. Each is nuanced and complex, and as we separate them out into their key parts and components, we can start to see Valle's startling vision begin to take shape, and with it,

a new world of possibilities in our exploration of the UFO phenomenon. The first of these ideas is that the phenomenon could potentially be interdimensional in nature, which is referred to as the interdimensional hypothesis. Increasingly, branches of science and physics are beginning to delve into the possibility of the existence of other universes and dimensions. And although we have no direct evidence that they actually exist, many of our scientific models depend on the idea that they do. This creates a whole new world of possibilities when it comes to the origins of the UFO

phenomenon. However, as we'll see once we dive into the individual theories, this highly speculative idea often introduces more questions than it answers. The second of these ideas, often referred to as the ultraterrestrial hypothesis, is that although the phenomenon is alien to us, the evidence points to the possibility that it has its origin right here on Earth. This could manifest in a couple of ways. The first would be that the UFO phenomenon is some kind of super nature,

something akin to the Gaia hypothesis. The Gaia hypothesis, named after the ancient Greek goddess of Earth, posits that Earth and its biological systems behave as a huge single entity. This entity has closely controlled self-regulatory systems that keep the conditions on the planet within boundaries that are favorable to life. Introduced by chemist and inventor James E. Lovelock and biologist Lynn Margulis in the early 1970s, this new way of looking at global ecology and evolution differs from the classical picture of ecology as a biological response to a set of physical conditions.

The idea of co-evolution of biology and the physical environment, where each influences the other, was suggested as early as the mid-1700s, but never as strongly as with the Gaia hypothesis, which claims the power of biology to control the non-living environment. Another interpretation of the ultra-terrestrial hypothesis that has gained popularity in recent years for reasons that we'll discuss later on in this episode, is that the UFO phenomenon is evidence of one or more races of ancient, advanced, intelligent beings that have shared the planet with us

since the beginning of human history and likely predates our emergence on the planet. And yes, I know how that sounds. Of all of the ideas presented so far, for many people, this is the one that's hardest to not reject outright as being frankly preposterous. And I get it. and I'm certainly not asking you to accept that idea as any kind of truth.

All I ask is that you put it on the shelf for now. Also, the ultra-terrestrial hypothesis is just a lot of fun. So my strong recommendation is that you just enjoy it. There's another aspect to Valet's work that in some ways I hesitate to introduce this early on, but it is integral enough to his research and to uphology as a whole that I'd be remiss and not telling you about it. And that aspect is that, for valet, what these hypotheses have in common is that they appear to function as some kind of a control mechanism on humanity. My hesitation in mentioning that is that this concept is far too often the gateway drug that spirals a person into fanatic belief in a pernicious and frankly dangerous idea that finds itself at the center of almost any conspiracy theory these days, which is some version of the idea that the world is being controlled by some elite cabal of satanic, probably reptilian baby eaters.

And while I'm not at all against the eventual exploration and reexamination, of our understanding of human history and the power structures that control our government, our military, our economy, and our understanding of our place in the universe, that is not a slippery slope that we'll be sliding down on this podcast. But the idea of the phenomenon as a control mechanism is an important one. It pops up again and again with different faces and different names, but the core of the idea is always the same, that humanity is being controlled in some way by an advanced intelligence. I think the reason that this idea is so pervasive in uphology comes down to the unpredictable

and baffling nature of the phenomenon, the way that it continually shifts and evolves, always alluding us, always defying our expectations, dancing just around the edges of our understanding. As Valle outlined in his five arguments, when you take the evidence for the phenomenon as a whole, it is nearly impossible to piece together any kind of coherent narrative to explain what these beings might be doing, much less the reason why. And so it can lead one to wonder if the purpose behind these perplexing encounters is to elicit some kind of a response or to nudge us in a particular direction.

And while there is an understandable tendency to interpret this idea in a way that is fundamentally sinister, it could be that this control mechanism is actually for our benefit. It might not even be something that is controlling us from the outside, but rather a projection of our own consciousness that we don't totally understand. We simply don't know. So let's just put this idea on the shelf for now. We'll definitely be coming back for it later. And so this is where we'll spend some time today by exploring the interdimensional hypothesis and the ultra-terrestrial hypothesis and what they could mean. And as we move along, you'll likely notice that although these ideas are distinct and different, they begin to overlap and intersect

in interesting ways, which makes sense. Despite their differences, both of these hypotheses rely on the premise that our world isn't quite what we think it is, and that we are likely sharing space, at least occasionally, with one or more intelligent species, and likely have been since the beginning of human history. Let's start with the nuts and bolts of the interdimensional hypothesis. If UFOs are visitors from other dimensions, we need to start with the most obvious questions. Do other dimensions exist? And if they do, would it be possible to travel between them?

To answer this question, we need to circle back to something that we talked about in episode two, quantum mechanics and the double slit experiment. As a quick refresher, the double slit experiment is one of the most famous and most replicated experiments in history, which is unsurprising considering the profound and puzzling implications that it has for the very nature of our reality. As you'll recall, light can exist either as a wave function or as a single particle called a photon. If you were to shine a light on a board

that had two slits cut into it, you would see that the light would form a pattern of lines on the wall behind the board called an interference pattern. An interference pattern occurs when waves overlap with each other in such a way that the trough of one wave runs into the crest of another wave, effectively canceling each other out.

You can visualize it by thinking about dropping two stones into a still body of water a few feet apart. Each stone will form a wave that you see moving out from the stone and concentric circles. And when these ripples from the stones intersect with each other, you get an interference pattern in the water. Waves of light work the same way. But let's say that instead of shining a light at the board, you instead fired one photon at a time at it. And there was a sensor behind the board that would show you where that photon hit. So you shoot a bunch of photons at the board, one by one, allowing enough time for the last

photon to hit before you shoot the next one. What you'd find, when you were finished would be that despite the fact that the light was going through the board, one photon at a time, there's still an interference pattern on the wall. But how can there be if there were no light waves to interfere with each other in the first place? How can a single photon seemingly behave like a wave going through both slits at once and then interfering with itself on the other side? It doesn't make sense. Based on everything we know about physics and about our lived reality in general, this should be impossible. And yet, like I said, this is one of the most replicated experiments in history. And the results are always the same. And if that wasn't weird enough,

it's this next part of the experiment that breaks everything that we know about physics and the universe, and well, everything really, because what you find is that if you set up a sensor to detect which of the two slits a photon passes through and repeat the experiment, firing photos, photons at the board, one at a time, something crazy happens. The interference pattern just goes away. The mere act of observing which of the two slits the photon goes through somehow forces it to make a decision and only go through one slit or the other. And as a result, the pattern that you get on the wall is just two straight lines. But how can a single photon know, if that's even the right word to use, whether or not its path is being tracked. How does it know if we know whether it goes

through one slit or the other? And what is it about our observation that changes its behavior? What the heck is going on here? Well, I hope you weren't hoping for me to give you an answer to that question, because although our brightest minds have been hurling themselves at the brick wall of this problem for a century now, we really haven't made any progress. We can use quantum physics to predict what will happen with stunning accuracy, but the how and the why is still a complete mystery to us. In the words of Caltech physicist Sean Carroll, quantum physicists are like people with iPhones. They know how to use it, and they can do some pretty great things with it. But if you ask them what's going on inside their iPhones, they have no idea.

Of course, there are theories, but no one theory can claim consensus agreement among present-day physicists. And this debate continues to rage on. However, one of the most popular interpretations and the one that is most commonly taught in high school and college classes is the Copenhagen interpretation. The Copenhagen interpretation was developed in the 1920s and is the shared brain baby, a famed physicist, Niels Bohr, and Werner Heisenberg. So how did Boer and Heisenberg explain the double slit experiment? So let's go back to the first part of the experiment, where a photon is shot at the board one at a time and yet still somehow creates an interference pattern on the wall. How is it that a photon can behave like a wave? Well, according to the Copenhagen interpretation,

this is because before the photon is measured, it doesn't actually exist in a definite place or have a particular motion. It exists everywhere and nowhere at the same time. And the waves that are interacting with each other to form the interference pattern that we see aren't even actually waves of light, but rather they are waves of probability. The photon both does and doesn't go to. down every possible path and only materializes in a particular spot when it's forced to do so by

the sensor on the wall that detects where it hits. And so in the second half of the experiment, where there is a sensor that detects which of the two slits the photon goes through, the mere act of observing what happens forces the photon to materialize before it hits the board, going through either one slit or the other, and then hitting the wall directly behind that slit. The probability wave that we're interacting to form the interference pattern before aren't there anymore because the photon has been forced to literally pick a lane and come through the board as one single photon. So the interference pattern disappears. According to the Copenhagen interpretation, the photon exists in a blurry, indeterminate state as a wave function of probability. It doesn't actually have a definite

position until its wave function collapses, something that only happens when it is observed. or measured. This position is so radical and so entirely at odds with our lived experience that it took even the most devoted Copenhagen adherence a while before they began to recognize that the implication of their theories suggest that nothing is real unless it is perceived. And as absolutely preposterous as that may sound, there is more and more evidence that it may actually be the case. In searching for answers to the mysteries of quantum mechanics, we're increasingly finding astonishing answers to age-old questions that we once thought were unanswerable. However, for now, the Copenhagen interpretation doesn't do much for us.

While it doesn't outright eliminate multiple dimensions as a possibility, this interpretation doesn't require other dimensions to exist, so we'll need to look elsewhere. The Copenhagen interpretation's most tenacious adversary is referred to as the many-world's interpretation, and was developed by Hugh Everett in 1957. According to Everett, the wave function is the true nature of reality, and therefore it never actually collapses. It only appears to collapse because we can only see one of a potentially infinite number of outcomes. When the observer looks to see which slit the photon goes through,

they see just one possible outcome, because they are only aware of one world. but in reality there are many potentially infinite worlds in which every possible quantum possibility gets a chance to play itself out and every world is equally real to the people who are living in it. So in your world, you see one outcome, but there's a world that exists for each and every possible outcome. And in each of those worlds, you are experiencing only that outcome. And if that hurts your brain, consider that the photon isn't the only quantum system. system in this scenario. You, as the observer, are part of the quantum system as well. So each of your actions and decisions plays out in the same way with every permutation of every possibility

playing out somewhere in a world that looks a lot like this one, but isn't. The basic premise of the many-world's interpretation is that everything that can happen does happen. And I personally take issue with that, as do others in the scientific community who know a lot more about the stuff than I do. And here's why. First of all, I get that the human mind's ability to truly contemplate the concept of infinity is basically non-existent. And for me personally, it's an idea that feels truly unapproachable. I just can't wrap my mind around it. And I always want to be mindful to not mistake the limits of my understanding for the answer. But what the many worlds interpret requires is that there is an entire universe erected around the infinite potential paths of a single

photon and around every other quantum system in the universe and at every imaginable scale, whether we're talking about a single atomic particle or a virus or a leaf blowing on the wind or a human living a life or a star going supernova. I mean, what? I know that it's literally infinity that we're talking about here, but that still feels like, I don't know, like too much? And beyond just grappling with infinity, there are massive and profound existential implications to this. So imagine that you're a scientist and you're conducting the double-slit experiment. You are experiencing and observing one set of outcomes to the experiment, but every single other possible outcome is playing out in another universe. If everything that can happen does happen, then what does that say about

free will and our ability to choose. If you make a choice between right and wrong and decide to do the right thing, does it even matter if in some other universe you are inevitably going to do the wrong thing? And did you choose to do the right thing because it was your choice? Or because this is the universe where you have to make that choice? Because with the many world interpretation, it's not just that everything that can happen does happen, but that everything that can happen has to happen. And when taken to that extreme, an infinite reality is inherently a deterministic reality. And any illusion that we have of making a choice is simply the forced perspective of only having awareness of one reality at a time. And that's unsettling. I don't think that anyone likes the

idea of being just another cog in a cosmic wheel. We want to believe that we have choices and that we can shape our own destiny, or at the very least, that what we do matters. And I personally don't think that it's just the protestations of our fragile human egos that makes us feel that way. We all seem to have a deep sense that free will is intrinsic to our humanity. It's hard to fully embrace a theory that deals so dismissively with something that seems so foundational to our lived experience. That doesn't necessarily mean that we can rule it out. But it is something to consider. But the many-world interpretation doesn't just unravel our sense of our humanity, but of the individual self as well. If every choice and every measurement splits off into another

different version of you, each with its own unique experiences, thoughts, and sense of identity, then what even is the entity that we're calling you in this scenario? Once again, this isn't necessarily a deal-breaker, but at the very least, we have to recognize that the many world interpretation, if true, obliterates our understanding of the self. And there are other issues with the many world interpretation. The problem at the heart of quantum mechanics that many worlds is trying to solve is the measurement problem. We know that measuring an event will have a direct impact on its outcome, but we don't understand the mechanism behind why or how that happens. And many worlds handles this by saying that this problem is only

an illusion. The wave function never really collapses. It just looks like it does to us. But when you think about it, that's not really an answer either. First of all, it doesn't actually solve the measurement problem. It just takes the parts that don't make sense and relegates them to other dimensions, places that we conveniently can't access. Many believers point to the elegance and simplicity of many worlds as self-evident proof of its reality. But elegant as it may be, you can't just take an unprovable hypothesis and assume that it's true because it appears to describe and predict reality as you perceive it, especially when the hypothesis itself, basically by definition, predicts experimental outcomes that are fully consistent with what we observe. Now, I know I just said a lot

of words, and if you're confused, no worries. I honestly am confusing myself. All you really need to understand is that the many world's interpretation relies on circular reasoning. We observe what we observe because it's what we can't observe. There's nothing technically wrong with that statement, but it's hardly a satisfying explanation for anything. And I want to stop here for just a second to make a distinction between the many world's interpretation and the concept of the multiverse. Thanks to shows like Rick and Morty, these concepts have become more common in mainstream discourse, but they are often used interchangeably, which can cause some confusion. As we've discussed, many worlds is specifically an interpretation of quantum mechanics

that says that there is a universe in which every probabilistic outcome occurs. The multiverse theory is similar, but the mechanism of how the universes come into existence is different. For many who believe in the multiverse, a near infinite number of universes sprang into being less than a second after the Big Bang. Each of these universes would have its own laws of physics, its own collection of particles, its own arrangement of forces, and its own values of fundamental constants, and would be unique from each other in virtually every way. So what evidence do we have that the multiverse could be real? Well, for most advocates of this theory, the best evidence for the multiverse is that, we exist. Complex life forms capable of scientific inquiry. This is because we know about our own universe that it appears to be particularly well suited for life. Things such as the longevity of stars,

the abundance of carbon, the availability of light for photosynthesis, and the stability of complex nuclei make it possible for life as we know it to emerge. However, if any of the starting conditions of our universe had been even slightly different. The results could have been very different. And this is troublesome for scientists because the chances that everything would be so perfectly balanced in our universe that we are even able to evolve to the point to ask these questions must be vanishingly small. And so for many, the most logical explanation is that there must be an infinite number of universes, the vast majority of which are likely lifeless. But inevitably, if you roll the cosmic dice an infinite number of times, you'll eventually

get the conditions for life, which is how we're here. So like the many world's interpretation, what we have here is basically a blankant explanation to explain something that should be impossible with something that we can't access or experience, much less prove or measure, which isn't necessarily to say that it's wrong. But if we remember back to episode two and the second century AD astronomer Ptolemy, we have a perfect example of why we need to be skeptical of these types of explanations. As you'll recall, Ptolemy was the first to challenge the idea that the heavenly bodies moved through the sky in perfectly circular orbits. They moved forward and backward across the night sky in ways that

should have been impossible if their orbits were truly circular. So Ptolemy created a model that showed the planets moving in more elaborate orbits with twists and loops. His model was so accurate and predicted the positions of the celestial bodies so perfectly that it was used for the next 1400 years, but it was also completely wrong. And so the problem with both of these theories of multiple universes is that although they don't contradict our current models and understanding, and although they are predictive to a degree that they've allowed us to make giant strides in our technology and our understanding of the universe, until we have a way of verifying scientifically that even exist? It's all purely speculative. And chances are, these theories are wrong in some major

way that we just can't see yet. There's one more distinction that we need to make beyond just the difference between the many worlds interpretation and the multiverse. And that's between multiple universes and multiple dimensions. We often use those ideas interchangeably, but there is a difference there as well. What we've talked about so far is multiple universes, but multiple dimensions would work differently. Think of it this way. We are third dimensional beings that exist in the fourth dimension, which is time. To begin to understand how wildly different a different dimension would be from a different universe, just try to conceive of what a fourth dimensional being living in the fifth dimension might look like. Having trouble? Yeah, my brain doesn't

work that way either. And honestly, I don't want to get bogged down here. If you go to UFORabithole.com, You can find the full episode notes for this episode, and I'll include a bunch of bonus videos and reading from people much smarter than me for anyone who wants to more fully explore this concept. And while you're there, be sure to sign up for the email list so that you can get each new episode, along with a full episode brief sent right to your inbox as soon as it's released. Shameless plug over. But for the purposes of this conversation, it's not important that you be able to visualize or understand dimensions, only that you know from a very high level, what they are. And no conversation about dimensions would be complete without discussing string theory. String theory proposes that the fundamental constituents of the universe are one-dimensional strings rather than point-like particles. What we perceive as particles are actually

vibrations in loops of strings, each with its own characteristic frequency. I'll be real and tell you that I don't totally get string theory either. But right now, we don't need to. There are basically two things that you need to know about string theory that are worth mentioning here. The first is that, unlike the universes in many worlds or in the multiverse theory, the dimensions proposed by string theory aren't infinite. In fact, they're specifically seven dimensions. This has to do with how the dimensions fold into each other like nesting dolls, and once again, I'll include bonus materials for this in the episode notes if you want to learn more.

However, within these 11 dimensions, string theory can reasonably predict a multiverse populated by 10 to the 500th different universes. And while that's not technically an infinite number, it really might as well be. After all, 10 to the 82nd is the number of atoms in the universe. So 10 to the 500th is just incomprehensibly big. And like the many worlds interpretation and the multiverse theory, string theory is still entirely hypothetical. Thus far, we have no real way to verify if it's true or not.

Okay, so that was a lot of information. So after all of that, where does the interdimensional hypothesis shake out? Well, like anything else having to do with the UFO phenomenon, the answer is complicated. As we've established, we don't have any direct evidence that other universes exist. We know that other dimensions exist, at least so far as we know that we're third dimensional beings and there exists a fourth dimension, but exactly how dimensions work and whether or not we would even be able to perceive beings that came from another dimension is all highly speculative. And this can be extremely unsatisfying for anyone looking for a solid scientific footing from which to assess this hypothesis. Each of these theories relies on the concept of infinity to explain phenomena that would be otherwise unexplainable.

And all of them are ultimately unprovable because we can't perceive or access these other universes and dimensions. However, it is worth considering the fact that some of the best, and brightest minds of the last century have spent their careers working on some of the biggest and most baffling questions that science has to ask, and many of them have now come up with some version of the same idea to answer it. And those models, though unprovable, are still predictive enough to allow us to make groundbreaking breakthroughs in technology ranging from LED lights to quantum computers. So maybe there's something to this after all. Tolemy's model of the planetary orbits wasn't correct. But it was of that.

improvement over the models that came before it. And it more than served its purpose for 1400 years until the next leap in our understanding allowed us to discover their true orbits. And so it will likely be with our understanding of parallel worlds and dimensions when we finally take that next step in our evolution. Our current theories will likely prove to be much the same as Ptolemy's model of the cosmos, partly true, partly false, and with some vital truth still yet unknown to us, suddenly revealed. One more idea I want to touch on here before we move on is what the interdimensional hypothesis suggests, not just about the UFO phenomenon, but about the paranormal in general.

The word paranormal simply refers to things that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. And while the scientifically minded among us can be quick to dismiss the paranormal as ridiculous, the reality is that this realm beyond our understanding is where many of the brightest scientific minds are spending most of their time, and from whence most of our most startling breakthroughs are being made. We like to think that science sees all and knows all, but science is just a method of inquiry that allows us to slowly and incrementally move back the veil that keeps the truth behind the mysteries of the universe shrouded from our sight, revealing a deeper and deeper understanding of what it is. And while it's impossible to say what

lies just beyond the veil. Many scientists believe that what is there could very well be infinite in nature. And the thing about an infinite multiverse is that if it is possible for beings to travel between different worlds and dimensions, then someone, somewhere, and likely very many someone's, would definitely figure out how to do so. And in that scenario, it's not so much a matter of if, but when and how often humans would encounter them. And these beings, whatever is, and whoever they might be, could look a lot like us, potentially exactly like us. Or they could come from a universe that is so different that we wouldn't even necessarily recognize them as life forms at all. So could UFOs potentially be visitors from another

universe or another dimension? Absolutely. But if that's possible, what else might be coming through the veil that defies our understanding? How we arrive at perhaps the strangest of the possible explanations for the UFO phenomenon, the ultra-trovon, the ultra-trovs. The Ultraterrestrial Hypothesis. One of the main reasons that the ultra-terrestrial hypothesis has been getting so much attention lately has been as the result of comments made by former head of ATIP himself, Lou Elizando. When listening to Lou speak, something that becomes immediately obvious is the care with which he chooses his words. And he has to.

As a former member of the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus, he still maintains his security clearance and has an ironclad NDA. This creates a curious situation where all the things that people most want to talk to him about are often the very things that he can't talk about. And yet, Elizondo is still adept at giving engaging and thought-provoking interviews on the UFO phenomenon by reframing questions and his responses in a way

that allow him to speak broadly and speculatively about the subject without technically giving away any state secrets. He has said openly that he leaves clues, and breadcrumbs for people to follow. And as a result, every time he does an interview, there's a large segment of the UFO community that will spend weeks dissecting and analyzing everything he says and looking for clues. And there's one statement in particular that has gotten a lot of attention and has caused many people to give more consideration to the ultra-terrestrial hypothesis. During an interview, Lou was asked if there was any fictional works

that people could read that would give them an idea of what the phenomenon is, and his answer was surprising. Lou recommended a little known book of short stories called Chains of the Sea, and specifically the second of the three stories in that trilogy by the same name. I haven't actually gotten an opportunity to read the book. It's so rare at this point the copies go for like $500. But having read several summaries and excerpts from people who have read it, here is the general gist. Alien ships arrive on earth, landing in Delaware, Ohio, Colorado, and Venezuela. Humans, form, try unsuccessfully, to fight the aliens and then desperately try to cover up the landings. The aliens, however, have very little interest in humans and basically ignore them, choosing

instead to communicate with AI that has been created by the humans. The AI has evolved to the point where it's smarter than humans, and it's figured out a way to hide communications from them through back channels. In these talks, the aliens reveal to the AI that Earth isn't ruled by humans or AI, but by previously unknown races of non-human intelligent beings with whom we share space, but they can only be seen sometimes and by some people. Interesting, right? Now, it's important to pause here and say that Lou has said multiple times that he didn't mean to imply that anything about the plot of this story is literally true. Instead, he says that the story is useful because it helps people think differently about the phenomenon. So while Chains of the Sea may not be

literally true. It does open up a vast and exhilarating new world of possibilities. And hearing someone with so much privileged insider knowledge makes such a strong case for what, in his words, is an ultra-terrestrial universe? It makes it hard not to just let your imagination run wild. So let's take a little time to play with this idea. As you might imagine, this topic is sprawling and more than a little bizarre. We'll only just be able to scratch the surface in this episode, but we can at least explore the high points, and from there take in some of the more exotic vistas it has to offer. So to start with, we need to examine the frankly startling idea at the heart of the ultraterrestrial hypothesis, which is that we could potentially be sharing our planet with

one or more intelligent, non-human species without being aware of it. I mean, is that even possible? Let's take the case of cryptids. If you aren't familiar with that term, a cryptid is an animal that some people claim to exist, but whose existence has never been definitely proven. Popular examples that come to mind include Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster. However, contrary to popular belief, cryptids don't necessarily have to be supernatural, mythical, or even all that strange, just unproven. And there are actually several species that used to be cryptids, but were eventually discovered to be real. And some of them are actually pretty freaking weird.

One classic example of a cryptid that turned out to be. real is the Komodo dragon. For centuries, stories of enormous lizards on the island of Komodo and Indonesia were laughed at by any respectable scientist in the Western world. That is until 1910 when the first specimen was caught and killed, shocking the world. A pair of Komodo dragons that was kept at the Bronx Zoo even inspired Marion C. Cooper to write the 1933 classic King Kong. Not quite as terrifying, but in many ways just as unlikely, is the platypus. Looking like a bad Photoshop of a duck, otter, and a beaver all mixed together, most people didn't believe that the platyposed could actually exist.

And it wasn't until the 19th century that it was definitively proven to be real. Scientists were so convinced that this absurd creature couldn't exist that the first few peltz that were produced were widely regarded to be hoaxes. And starting in the 5th century AD, European explorers reported seeing hairy human-like monsters in Africa. However, it wasn't until 1847 when Thomas Savage found gorilla bones in Liberia, the gorillas were first recognized as a real species. And even then, it took another decade for one to be captured and analyzed. Famously private, one remote species of mountain gorillas wasn't even discovered until 1902.

And though they've been reported by sailors for millennia, giant squids were considered to be a myth. However, that changed when scientists first took images of a giant squid. squid in 2004. And then it was finally put to rest in 2006 when a 24-foot-long female was caught alive by Japan's National Science Museum. These are just a few examples of cryptids that turned out to not be cryptids. And before we move on, I actually think it's really important to point out that in most of these cases, cryptids probably weren't cryptids to the people who actually lived there. For example, the people of Liberia undoubtedly knew about guerrillas before European scientists came in and confirmed their existence for themselves. There is a tendency, especially for those of us who grew up with a

Eurocentric worldview, to apply the blueprint of what is familiar to us to everything, which causes these kinds of errors. And it's a good reminder that it's impossible to make a genuine scientific inquiry into anything if you've already decided ahead of time what is possible and what is not possible. So we know that some animals that we once considered to be cryptids turned out to be real. So it stands to reason that it's at least possible that there could be a non-human intelligent species somewhere on the planet that we haven't encountered yet. And if they are as technologically advanced as the UFO phenomenon would suggest, they'd theoretically have a much easier time hiding from humans than gorillas or even giant squid. But that begs the question, where could they be hiding? One of the

most obvious places is somewhere we've already talked about, which is in other universes or dimensions. This is where the interdimensional hypothesis and the ultra-terrestrial hypothesis start to blend together. Basically, it could be that we occupy more or less the same place in time and space as other beings, but that we usually can't see or interact with them except for under special circumstances. In terms of how that would work, we have no idea. But as we've already explored, the potential here is literally infinite. However, these beings wouldn't necessarily have to hide out in another dimension in order to avoid our detect. There are still plenty of places on Earth that we can't access and about which we have virtually

no information, and almost all of them are underwater. Our oceans account for 70% of the surface of the Earth, and yet we've only explored about 5% of them, and almost all of that is near the surface. Ironically, we know more about Saturn than we do about the deep oceans of our own planet. It's the very vastness of the oceans that creates a challenge in exploring them. Saturn is literally a billion miles away from the Earth, but you can see it in the sky with your naked eye, and its rings can be detected with even the smallest telescope. However, once you go deeper than 200 meters or about 650 feet in the ocean, the sunlight can no longer penetrate, and it gets very dark, very fast.

And when you consider that the oceans can be up to 7 miles, you know, and you can be up to 7 miles, deep, it immediately becomes clear that a staggering proportion of what we would consider to be the livable space on this planet is completely uncharted and unknown to us. It's hard not to consider what might be hiding down there, but at the very least, there are likely countless species and ecosystems that exist on this planet, of which we have no awareness. This underwater possibility is especially interesting to consider because there is an undeniable relationship between the UFO phenomenon and water. Lou Elizando himself has brought this up in multiple interviews and on his history channel show Unidentified, that UFOs show one other seeming affinity besides nuclear

facilities, and that is that they are often found around water. Not by coincidence, all of the declassified Navy videos of UFOs happened over water. And it's very interesting to note that these declassified videos and the ultimate confirmation about the existence of UAPs has come from the Navy, while the Air Force has remained conspicuously quiet. That's a conversation for another episode, but it further underlines the connection between the UFO phenomenon and water. And it's not just eophologists and researchers

here in the states that have noticed this seeming affinity. In 2009, Russia declassified a bunch of its Cold War era documents reporting the UFO phenomenon, and they had reached the same conclusions. One document reads, 50% of UFO encounters are connected with oceans, 15% more with lakes. So UFOs tend to stick to the water. The documents also contain several reports of underwater encounters with USOs or unidentified

submersible objects, including objects, and sometimes multiple objects moving in formation, recorded moving under the water at speeds of up to 230 knots or 400 kilometers per hour, something that should be physically impossible, given the water resistance. And it's not just in oceans where these encounters are happening. Large lakes have also been known to be epicenters of UFO activity. One example is Lake Baikal in Russia. Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world and contains more than 20% of the world's freshwater, reaching a mile deep in places and with temperatures dipping down to a frigid

negative 19 degrees Celsius or negative 2 Fahrenheit. not much is known about Baikal's icy depths. Russia's declassified document dump included multiple reports of mysterious lights and objects in the skies above Lake Baikal, as well as reports of them coming in and out of the water itself, something that locals and fishermen have been reporting for years. But there's one account from these documents that I find particularly interesting, and I call it out now simply because it's one of my favorites, and this is my podcast, and I want to. Not because I assign it any special level of credibility. It's just fun.

So, according to one of these declassified documents, in 1982, seven Russian Navy divers were conducting a research mission in Lake Baikal. The Russian divers were at a depth of 50 meters when suddenly they realized that they were being watched by unknown beings under the water. These beings were reportedly anthropomorphic, but much larger than humans at nine feet tall. They were reportedly wearing some sort of super thin silvery suit, and while they appeared to have some sort of a helmet over their heads, there was no evidence of scuba gear or any similar breathing apparatus. The Russian divers then allegedly tried to capture one of these beings, who reportedly responded with some sort of a powerful unseen force that propelled all of the divers rapidly to the surface.

Three divers died from the bends as a result of this rapid ascent, and the other four were severely injured. Wild, right? Now, granted, I have no idea what to make of this account, and there's no real way to verify any of it. But still, the fact that this report was apparently made and documented by the Russian Navy at a time when the stigma around the UFO phenomenon was at its highest is more than a little bit interesting. Another possible hiding place for a non-human intelligent species would be underground. The reality is that, in many ways, we know even less. less about what lies beneath our feet than we do about our deepest oceans. So how far underground would it even be possible for life to exist? That's not an easy question to answer. Geo-microbiologists have found bacteria living in rock two miles beneath the earth's surface, so there is evidence

that subterranean life is possible. However, the organisms we find at that depth are extremophiles, enduring conditions that most living organisms couldn't withstand. And it's not bacteria that's creating and piloting UFOs, so that's not super helpful. Caves would be a better candidate for concealing complex life forms, but our information about caves is somewhat limited as well. We do know that there are a lot of them. In the United States alone, there are 17,000 caves, with likely thousands more still undiscovered. And some of these caves go deep underground.

The deepest cave that we know of is 2,212 meters, or 7,257 feet, deep underground. An advanced civilization could conceivably even expand upon existing caves, creating deep caverns and even cities under the earth. This might seem far-fetched, but building and living in cities underground is something that humans have done at times in our history as well. And while underground life might sound dreary, if you're looking for protection from the elements or your enemies, it's very effective. One famous example is Darren Kuyu, a massive underground city that is actually one of a complex of underground structures in Cappadocia, Turkey. The city, which is estimated to date back to the 8th century AD, although there is debate that it could be much older, spans more than 4 million square feet and could house up to 20,000 people. Even by today's standards, it's an architectural marvel. So while an underground civilization may sound outlandish,

it's at least possible in the technical sense, making this strange theory one that we still can't rule out. So, since we're here and we're talking about ultra-terrestrials hiding underground, we absolutely have to discuss one of the wildest theories out there, and a personal favorite of mine, the Hollow Earth Theory. This is the idea that our planet, and some extend this idea to include all planets, is in fact hollow, and that it is teeming with life and potentially hidden civilizations. I love the hollow earth theory.

To be clear, I don't believe it's true. The physics of a hollow planet just simply does not check out, and the little hard evidence that is offered up is highly suss, as the kids say. But come on, this one is just fun. If you're unfamiliar with the idea of the hollow Earth, there are many different permutations of this story, but the basic idea is that, you guessed it, the Earth is hollow. Many adherents believe that there are giant openings to the interior of the planet at the North and South Poles, and that one or more highly advanced species have made their homes in cities deep underground. Generally, everything in the hollow Earth is like the surface of the planet, but better.

The civilizations found there are peaceful and live in harmony with their environment. the environment is unpolluted and better suited to life, allowing for the evolution of plants, animals, and beings that are bigger and far more exotic than one would find on the surface. And as I mentioned, the physics of it all is baffling. How a hollow planet wouldn't collapse in on itself is a real mystery. And when you add in the fact that most versions of the hollow Earth include an interior sun suspended in the middle of the planet, it doesn't just push the lines of credulity.

It shatters them. Still, this is an idea with surprising staying power. It was first introduced in the 1700s by physicist Edmund Halley, and despite centuries of debunking, it continues to spring up anew with a few details changed, but with the same fantastical belief still firmly at its center. I think one of the reasons that I like Hollow Earth so much is that it is literally and figuratively the opposite of the flat Earth theory, literally their opposites in the sense that instead of a flat earth, this model turns the earth in on itself, creating another secret

world inside. But also, I find them to be spiritual opposites as well. The flat earth is less than what we thought it was, and somehow far more sinister. The hollow earth is more than what we thought it was, and it's full of fantastical possibilities, and the promise of a better world. True or not, I know which one I'd rather spend my time on. And if I'm being honest, that's where I shake out on a lot of this stuff. It is inherently human to want to know the unknowable, to approach the unapproachable. But when we wander out beyond the realms of current human understanding, we find ourselves unmoored. Like Ptolemy, we have a model of the universe that fits but doesn't quite fit, that looks true, but that still hides some deeper mystery, awaiting the day when our perspective. perspective swells to a size that can contain it, and we can finally see it for what it is. And in this space of wonder and imagination, where we walk right up to the veil without yet having

the means to move it aside and see what lies beyond, the ideas that we cultivate and entertain are, by their very nature, more reflection of who we are than of what we're hoping to reveal about the nature of reality, which is why right or wrong, you'll always find me on the side of the dreamers and the aggressively non-cinical. And that's where we'll pick this up next week. With an introduction to the cast of characters at the heart of the growing disclosure movement, through the lens of what is perhaps the most surprising

and least cynical stories ever told, and one with the unlikeliest of heroes. I'll see you then.