IS IT TIME TO RETHINK SETI?

By Martin Snow

The Space.com website recently published an article by Leonard David titled SETI chief says US has no evidence for alien technology. ‘And we never have.’ The article is primarily commentary provided by Bill Diamond, the SETI Institute President and CEO. Like previous SETI sourced articles, SETI continues to dismiss the efforts of Ufologists, Field Investigators and members of the scientific community that are working to gain a better understanding of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon.

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According to Diamond, “We do not have any evidence of any credible source that would indicate the presence of alien technology in our skies. And we never have.” Despite Diamond’s claim, the infamous “Tic Tac” observed in 2004 and engaged by Cmdr. David Fravor, in his F-18 Super Hornet, has not been adequately or fully explained. The “Tic Tac” exhibited flight capabilities far and above what we currently have in our military arsenal. The presence of the “Tic Tac” was tracked on radars, filmed using advanced targeting pods, and visually observed by air crews. Scientific analysis of the “Tic Tac’s” recorded performance by scientists with the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU) determined the energy management required for such maneuvers, was far beyond anything we humans are capable of. It is also important to note that the “Tic Tac” is but one of hundreds of observations and detections of anomalous phenomenon by military personnel and air crews. Unfortunately, nearly all of these remain classified.

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Diamond states that “we should not equally jump to the conclusion that UFOs are alien technology in the absence of any compelling evidence to that effect.” However, we continue to have an ongoing phenomenon of unidentified objects appearing in our skies and under our waters. Are they alien? Are they something else? Isn’t the purpose of scientific investigation to study, understand and explain the phenomenon as it is presented? Are we really without any compelling evidence given nearly 200,000 sighting reports collected over decades by government agencies and organizations such as NUFORC and MUFON? Even if 99% of these sighting reports are dismissed as misidentified, known objects that leaves 2,000 reports worthy of further investigation.

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Diamond goes on to expound the age-old argument they cannot get here from there because of the vast distances and if they had such technology, they would not crash as allegedly happened in Roswell in 1947. Anyone that has worked in aerospace, whether it’s atmospheric flight or space-based systems, knows there are a multitude of variables that can cause the unexpected to happen. No matter how advanced technology becomes, the risk of malfunction or failure never completely goes away. The James Webb Space Telescope, our most advanced space borne telescope, had 344 potential single points of failure.

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To be fair, Diamond also makes a valid point. “If such beings exist, they would likely send hardware here first and not biology, …Long before they sent any craft into our sky, they would have some understanding of what they were dealing with … they would already know everything about our atmosphere, our airspace, our technology and more.” Occurrences of sky objects and "sky people" have been recorded throughout human history. Aliens sending hardware first, may have already occurred long, long ago. One could also ask why would aliens send biologicals at all and instead only send technology? Perhaps it is for the same reasons humans explore the depths of our oceans or the surface of the moon in person - to experience it firsthand. It is also conceivable that the phenomenon we are currently observing is both technology and piloted objects.

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Diamond claims that every UFO is an “accidental observation.” He further claims that there are no “instrumentation, technology, or methodology to discern what they (the witnesses) are looking at!” True, UFO/UAP sightings tend to be random occurrences. But disagree that they are not being recorded on instrumentation such as radars, MADAR, and a myriad of new detection systems being employed specifically to capture, characterize, and study this phenomenon. The methodology is the Scientific Method. It should be pointed out that rare and unusual weather phenomenon are also “accidental observations,” yet we still make careful study of the weather.

Diamond’s arguments about the validity of the UAP subject seem somewhat conflicted. On one hand he pokes fun at the phenomenon by purporting if you could send beings, “the most interesting thing you can do is draw circles in crops … come on!” Yet, he also goes on to accurately assess in detail the “statistical probability that we are alone in the universe is ZERO.” While crop circles are a whole other topic for discussion, some researchers hypothesize that crop circles may represent a form of non-contact communication related to UAP.

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Diamond considers the most compelling argument against the idea of extraterrestrial visitation to be lack of government funding to study UAP/UFO. The government has historically wanted the whole UFO subject to just go away. The initial government funded programs such as Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book, were efforts to discourage the public interest in UFOs and explain away the multitudes of sightings as misidentified prosaic objects such as aircraft, balloons, and the planet Venus. However, since 2021, the U.S. government has been involved in UAP on a level never before seen. The last three National Defense Appropriation Act (NDAA) bills, signed by Congress, specifically earmarked funding for the study of UAP.?

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SETI and organizations studying UAP are actually pursuing the same objective: to determine, with verifiable evidence, whether we are alone in the universe. Why the principals at SETI feel compelled to be publicly dismissive of efforts to study UAP is unknown. Does the attention placed on UAP pose a threat to SETI’s funding or the government’s continued interest in working with SETI? Is Bill Diamond truly convinced that alien life can only be “out there” and could not possibly be visiting here?

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Perhaps it is time for an evaluation of SETI. The SETI website states, “the institute has approximately 100 scientists as well as specialists in administration, education, and outreach.” With such a large and credentialed staff, what are SETI’s results after decades of listening? Is SETI still a worthwhile investment? Drawing from Bill Diamond’s own logic, is it reasonable to assume that an alien civilization, with such advanced technology, would produce signals in a form that could be detectable by SETI? ?With regard to UAP, Diamond contends that advanced aliens would likely have the capability to not be seen. Couldn’t they just as easily have the technology to not be heard? Maybe it is time to rethink funding SETI.