The extraterrestrial UFO hypothesis or extraterrestrial hypothesis and alien UFO technologies, proposes that some unidentified flying objects (UFOs) are best explained as being physical spacecraft occupied by intelligent extraterrestrial organisms (non-human aliens) from other planets, or probes designed by extraterrestrials.

The scientific community has shown very little support for the <abbr>ETH</abbr>, and has largely accepted the explanation that reports of UFOs are the result of people misinterpreting common objects or phenomena, or are the work of hoaxers.

Usage of the term

The term extraterrestrial hypothesis in printed material was used by Janine and Jacques Vallée in their 1966 book. It was used in a publication by French engineer Aimé Michel in 1967, by James E. McDonald (University of Arizona)

  • West Germany, in conjunction with other European countries, conducted a secret study from 1951 to 1954, also concluding that UFOs were extraterrestrial. This study was revealed by German rocketry pioneer Hermann Oberth, who headed the study and who also made many public statements supporting the ETH in succeeding years. At the study's conclusion in 1954, Oberth declared: "These objects (UFOs) are conceived and directed by intelligent beings of a very high order. They do not originate in our solar system, perhaps not in our galaxy." Soon afterwards, in an October 24, 1954, article in The American Weekly, Oberth wrote: "It is my thesis that flying saucers are real and that they are space ships from another solar system. I think that they possibly are manned by intelligent observers who are members of a race that may have been investigating our earth for centuries..."
  • The CIA started their own internal scientific review the following day.<!--Does 'the following day' follow the day the above article was published by Oberth?--> Some CIA scientists were also seriously considering the ETH. An early memo from August was very skeptical, but also added: "...as long as a series of reports remains 'unexplainable' (interplanetary aspects and alien origin not being thoroughly excluded from consideration) caution requires that intelligence continue coverage of the subject." A report from later that month was similarly skeptical, but nevertheless concluded: "...sightings of UFOs reported at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, at a time when the background radiation count had risen inexplicably. Here we run out of even 'blue yonder' explanations that might be tenable, and we still are left with numbers of incredible reports from credible observers." A December 1952 memo from the Assistant CIA Director of Scientific Intelligence (O/SI) was much more urgent: "...the reports of incidents convince us that there is something going on that must have immediate attention. Sightings of unexplained objects at great altitudes and traveling at high speeds in the vicinity of U.S. defense installation &#91;sic&#93; are of such nature that they are not attributable to natural phenomena or known types of aerial vehicles." Some of the memos also made it clear, that CIA interest in the subject was not to be made public, partly in fear of possible public panic. (Good, 331–335)
  • Extraterrestrial "believers" within Project Blue Book included Major Dewey Fournet, in charge of the engineering analysis of UFO motion, who later became a board member on the civilian UFO organization NICAP. Blue Book director Edward J. Ruppelt privately commented on other firm "pro-UFO" members in the USAF investigations, including some Pentagon generals, such as Charles P. Cabell, USAF Chief of Air Intelligence, who, angry at the inaction and debunkery of Project Grudge, dissolved it in 1951, established Project Blue Book in its place, and made Ruppelt director. In 1953, Cabell became deputy director of the CIA. Another defector from the official Air Force party line was consultant J. Allen Hynek, who started out as a staunch skeptic. After 20 years of investigation, he changed positions and generally supported the ETH. He became the most publicly known UFO advocate scientist in the 1970s and 1980s.
  • The first CIA Director, Vice Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, stated in a signed statement to Congress, also reported in The New York Times (February 28, 1960): "It is time for the truth to be brought out... Behind the scenes high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about the UFOs. However, through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense... I urge immediate Congressional action to reduce the dangers from secrecy about unidentified flying objects." In 1962, in his letter of resignation from NICAP, he told director Donald Keyhoe, "I know the UFOs are not U.S. or Soviet devices. All we can do now is wait for some actions by the UFOs."
  • In 1967, Greek physicist Paul Santorini, a Manhattan Project scientist, publicly stated that a 1947 Greek government investigation into the European Ghost rockets of 1946 under his lead quickly concluded that they were not missiles. Santorini claimed the investigation was then quashed by military officials from the U.S., who knew them to be extraterrestrial, because there was no defense against the advanced technology and they feared widespread panic should the results become public.
  • Although the 1968 Condon Report came to a negative conclusion (written by Condon), it is known that many members of the study strongly disagreed with Condon's methods and biases. Most quit the project in disgust, or were fired for insubordination. A few became ETH supporters. Perhaps the best known example is David Saunders, who in his 1968 book UFOs? Yes lambasted Condon for extreme bias, and for ignoring or misrepresenting critical evidence. Saunders wrote: "It is clear... that the sightings have been going on for too long to explain in terms of straightforward terrestrial intelligence. It's in this sense that ETI (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) stands as the 'least implausible' explanation of 'real UFOs'."
  • In 1999, the private French COMETA report (written primarily by military defense analysts) stated the conclusion regarding UFO phenomena, that a "single hypothesis sufficiently takes into account the facts and, for the most part, only calls for present-day science. It is the hypothesis of extraterrestrial visitors." The report noted issues with formulating the extraterrestrial hypothesis, likening its study to the study of meteorites, but concluded, that although it was far from the best scientific hypothesis, "strong presumptions exist in its favour". The report also concludes, that the studies it presents, "demonstrate the almost certain physical reality of completely unknown flying objects with remarkable flight performances and noiselessness, apparently operated by intelligent [beings] ... Secret craft definitely of earthly origins (drones, stealth aircraft, etc.) can only explain a minority of cases. If we go back far enough in time, we clearly perceive the limits of this explanation."
  • Jean-Jacques Velasco, the head of the official French UFO investigation SEPRA, wrote a book in 2005, saying, that 14% of the 5800 cases studied by SEPRA were 'utterly inexplicable and extraterrestrial' in origin. However, the CNES own report says 28% of sightings remain unidentified. Yves Sillard, the head of the new official French UFO investigation GEIPAN and former head of French space agency CNES, echoes Velasco's comments and adds, that the United States 'is guilty of covering up this information.' However, this is not the official public posture of SEPRA, CNES, or the French government. (The CNES placed their 5,800 case files on the Internet starting March 2007.)

Critical responses and positions of the ETH

People have had a long-standing curiosity about extraterrestrial life. Aliens are the subject of numerous urban legends, including claims that they have long been present on earth or that they may be able to assist humans in resolving certain issues. There is no scientific proof to back up these assertions, hence we cannot declare with certainty whether or not aliens exist. In spite of ardent believers that various UFO sightings are verifiable evidence for the ET hypothesis, no rigorous analysis has ever concluded as much.

U.S. military investigation and debunkery

On July 9, 1947, Army Air Forces Intelligence began a secret study of the best saucer reports, including that of Arnold's. A follow-up study by the Air Materiel Command intelligence and engineering departments at Wright Field, Ohio led to the formation of the U.S. Air Force's Project Sign at the end of 1947, the first official U.S. military UFO study.

In 1948, Project Sign concluded without endorsing any unified explanation for all UFO reports, and the <abbr title="extraterrestrial hypothesis">ETH</abbr> was rejected by USAF Chief of Staff General Hoyt Vandenberg, citing a lack of physical evidence. Vandenberg dismantled Project Sign, and with this official policy in place, subsequent public Air Force reports concluded, that there was insufficient evidence to warrant further investigation of UFOs.

In 1952, Life Magazine published "Have We Visitors From Space?" which popularized the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis and is thought to have triggered the 1952 UFO flap. Immediately following the great UFO wave of 1952 and the military debunking of radar and visual sightings, plus jet interceptions over Washington, D.C. in August, the CIA's Office of Scientific Investigation took particular interest in UFOs. Though the ETH was mentioned, it was generally given little credence. However, others within the CIA, such as the Psychological Strategy Board, were more concerned about how an unfriendly power such as the Soviet Union might use UFOs for psychological warfare purposes, exploit the gullibility of the public for the sensational, and clog intelligence channels. Under a directive from the National Security Council to review the problem, in January 1953, the CIA organized the Robertson Panel, a group of scientists who quickly reviewed the Blue Book's best evidence, including motion pictures and an engineering report that concluded that the performance characteristics were beyond that of earthly craft. After two days' review, all cases were claimed to have conventional explanations. An official policy of public debunkery was recommended using the mass media and authority figures in order to influence public opinion and reduce the number of UFO reports.

===Involvement of scientists===<!--Opinions among and research by scientists-->

The scientific community has shown very little support for the <abbr title="extraterrestrial hypothesis">ETH</abbr>, and has largely accepted the explanation that reports of UFOs are the result of people misinterpreting common objects or phenomena, or are the work of hoaxers. The physicist Stephen Hawking expressed skepticism about the ETH. In a 1969 lecture, U.S. astrophysicist Carl Sagan said:

:"The idea of benign or hostile space aliens from other planets visiting the Earth [is clearly] an emotional idea. There are two sorts of self-deception here: either accepting the idea of extraterrestrial visitation by space aliens in the face of very meager evidence because we want it to be true; or rejecting such an idea out of hand, in the absence of sufficient evidence, because we don't want it to be true. Each of these extremes is a serious impediment to the study of UFOs."

Similarly, British astrophysicist Peter A. Sturrock wrote

:"for many years, discussions of the UFO issue have remained narrowly polarized between advocates and adversaries of a single theory, namely the extraterrestrial hypothesis&nbsp;... this fixation on the ETH has narrowed and impoverished the debate, precluding an examination of other possible theories for the phenomenon."

An informal poll done by Sturrock in 1973 of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics members found that about 10% of them believed that UFOs were vehicles from outer space. In another poll conducted in 1977, Sturrock asked members of the American Astronomical Society to assign probabilities to eight possible explanations for UFOs. The results were:

{| class="wikitable"

|-

| 23% || An unfamiliar natural phenomenon

|-

| 22% || A familiar phenomenon or device

|-

| 21% || An unfamiliar terrestrial device

|-

| 12% || Hoax

|-

| 9% || An unknown natural phenomenon

|-

| 7% || Some specifiable other cause

|-

| 3% || An alien device

|-

| 3% || Some unspecified other cause

|}

The primary scientific arguments against ETH were summarized by astronomer and UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek during a presentation at the 1983 MUFON Symposium, where he outlined seven key reasons why he could not accept the ETH.

  1. Failure of sophisticated surveillance systems to detect incoming or outgoing UFOs
  2. Gravitational and atmospheric considerations
  3. Statistical considerations
  4. Elusive, evasive and absurd behavior of UFOs and their occupants
  5. Isolation of the UFO phenomenon in time and space: the Cheshire Cat effect
  6. The space unworthiness of UFOs
  7. The problem of astronomical distances

Hynek argued that:

  1. Despite worldwide radar systems and Earth-orbiting satellites, UFOs are alleged to flit in and out of the atmosphere, leaving little to no evidence.
  2. Space aliens are alleged to be overwhelmingly humanoid, and are allegedly able to exist on Earth without much difficulty often lacking "space suits", even though extra-solar planets would likely have different atmospheres, biospheres, gravity and other factors, and extraterrestrial life would likely be very different from Earthly life.
  3. The number of reported UFOs and of purported encounters with UFO-inhabitants outstrips the number of expeditions that an alien civilization (or civilizations) could statistically be expected to mount.
  4. The behavior of extraterrestrials reported during alleged abductions is often inconsistent and irrational.
  5. UFOs are isolated in time and space: like the Cheshire Cat, they seem to appear and disappear at will, leaving only vague, ambiguous and mocking evidence of their presence
  6. Reported UFOs are often far too small to support a crew traveling through space, and their reported flight behavior is often not representative of a craft under intelligent control (erratic flight patterns, sudden course changes).
  7. The distance between planets makes interstellar travel impractical, particularly because of the amount of energy that would be required for interstellar travel using conventional means, (According to a NASA estimate, it would take 7 joules of energy to send the then-current Space Shuttle on a one-way 50-year journey to the nearest star, an enormous amount of energy) and because of the level of technology that would be required to circumvent conventional energy/fuel/speed limitations using exotic means, such as Einstein-Rosen Bridges as ways to shorten distances from point A to point B. (see Faster-than-light travel).

According to the personal assessment of Hynek at the time, points 1 through 6 could be argued, but point 7 represented an "insurmountable" barrier to the validity of the ETH.

:"As far as I know, no claims of UFOs as being alien craft have any validity -- the claims are without substance, and certainly not proved". David Morrison

Despite public interest, up until 2021, NASA had considered the study of ETH to be irrelevant to its work because of the number of false leads that a study would provide, and the limited amount of usable scientific data that it would yield.

CIA

The CIA organized the January 1953 Robertson Panel of scientists to debunk the data collected by the Air Force's Project Blue Book. This included an engineering analysis of UFO maneuvers by Blue Book (including a motion picture film analysis by Naval scientists) that had concluded UFOs were under intelligent control and likely extraterrestrial.

Official White House position

In November 2011, the White House released an official response to two petitions asking the U.S. government to acknowledge formally that aliens have visited Earth and to disclose any intentional withholding of government interactions with extraterrestrial beings. According to the response, "The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race." Also, according to the response, there is "no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye."

  • Chariots of the Gods?
  • Cryptoterrestrial hypothesis
  • David Icke
  • Demonic UFO hypothesis
  • Extraterrestrials in Meitei culture
  • Fermi paradox
  • Giorgio A. Tsoukalos
  • Grey alien
  • Little green men
  • Murry Hope
  • Robert K. G. Temple
  • Space animal hypothesis
  • Time-traveler hypothesis
  • Zecharia Sitchin

Notes

References