Breaking News! The Cryptoterrestrials Reconsidered...

Screenshot of the Reference page from a recent academic research paper (see below).

"In a new paper that's bound to raise eyebrows in the scientific community, a team of researchers from Harvard and Montana Technological University speculates that sightings of "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena" (UAP) —  bureaucracy-speak for UFOs, basically — "may reflect activities of intelligent beings concealed in stealth here on Earth (e.g., underground), and/or its near environs (e.g., the Moon), and/or even 'walking among us' (e.g., passing as humans)."

Yes, that's a direct quote from the paper. Needless to say, the researchers admit, this idea of hidden "cryptoterrestrials" is a highly exotic hypothesis that's "likely to be regarded skeptically by most scientists." Nonetheless, they argue, the theory "deserves genuine consideration in a spirit of epistemic humility and openness."

- Via the June 11, 2024 Futurism news article: Harvard Scientists Say There May Be an Unknown, Technologically Advanced Civilization Hiding on Earth.

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Well, it's been awhile, but I'm always happy to report news stories directly related to Mac Tonnies.  This one regards a research paper presented by Tim Lomas, Brendan Case, and Michael P. Masters from the Harvard Human Flourishing Program and Montana Technological University, which can be read online. See: The Cryptoterrestrial Hypothesis: A case for scientific openness to a concealed earthly explanation for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena.

Much of it will seem familiar, but the bones of  Mac's 2011 "thought experiment" are now seen in the light of recent developments in the field of UAPs. Note: although referred to as "bureaucracy-speak," - and although I've said it before - we know UAP from another beautiful mind: Bruce Duensing. 

BTW, Nick Redfern is listed in the references, too.

In other news, I recently read 3 Big Think articles which might interest readers of this blog. Via the first article, What was it like when Venus and Mars both died?, we have the following:

"It is entirely plausible that, for the first few hundred million years of our Solar System’s history, we possessed three life-friendly worlds: Venus, Earth, and Mars. Venus most likely experienced a relatively quick death, as its close proximity to the Sun created a water vapor-rich atmosphere, which trapped enough heat to create a runaway greenhouse effect, ruining its chances for life early on. But Mars fared much better, and for 1.5 billion years, our Solar System may have possessed two heavily-inhabited planets, where single-celled life developed and took hold. It’s quite plausible that wherever life developed first — whether on Earth or on Mars — a random asteroid strike would have kicked material from that inhabited world up into interplanetary space, where primitive life forms could have been transported to the other, yet uninhabited world.

It’s possible, from that perspective, to consider that perhaps all Earthlings arose from Martians, or alternatively, that any life on Mars may have its ultimate origins traceable back to Earth. Mars’s magnetic field protected it from the Sun for all that time, allowing rivers and sediment buildup and hydrogeologic processes to take place. It was only because of its small size, which caused it to cool fast, lose its magnetic protection, and then its atmosphere, that it eventually became uninhabitable."

What goes around, comes around.

Also see: Even the smartest AI likely won’t be “alive.” Here’s why.; and  Does science fiction shape the future?