Ever since human beings have had some sense of the immensity of the Cosmos, when we look up to the starry array above their heads in the dark of night, an enduring question emerges: How many other planets with sophisticated civilizations like ours are out there? With a thousand pinpricks of light coming through that black tapestry of the night sky, many of us logically assume the cosmos is likely teeming with life.

Of course, that initial impression, based more on a hunch perhaps than solid data, has only grown stronger and stronger as our understanding of the immense scope of the universe has come more fully into view. Dazzling as the earth, our home planet is, it is but one rock circling one star in one star system amongst hundreds of billions in our Milky Way galaxy alone. And likewise that galaxy is merely one of trillions scattered across the vast expanse of the cosmos.

The so-called Fermi paradox arises from the apparent conflict between the lack of clear, obvious signs of extraterrestrial life despite consistently high estimates for their probable existence. This paradox is named after Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi, who, as the story goes, in the midst of a casual conversation with fellow physicists Edward Teller, Herbert York, and Emil Konopinski, in almost the precise middle of the 20th century, exclaimed, when thinking on these matters: “But where is everybody?”, or something to that effect.

It is indeed a perplexing matter. As time has gone on, we’ve gathered more and more evidence not just about how gargantuan the cosmos actually is, but how, as Dr. Ian Malcolm, a character in the original Jurassic Park movie played by Jeff Goldblum famously says, “Life finds a way”. In other words, life seems to spring up even in the most inhabitable of environments. That being the case, and considering how many goldilox-like planets must exist, even amongst the many planets that are perhaps not suited for life, where are all those civilizations? Why are we not finding clear evidence of their existence?

Of course the Fermi paradox makes certain assumptions, firstly about the nature and ultimate reality of the spacetime construct we find ourselves seemingly firmly embedded within. But also about the notion that civilizations that are perhaps out there – and perhaps much more advanced than we earthlings, would not choose to interfere with our ability to perceive their existence. When you really think about it: this is a rather strange assumption to make. After all, we manipulate our environment almost the moment we gain the ability to. Why would this not occur with interstellar civilizations that have mastered interstellar and perhaps even intergalactic travel in the same way we’ve mastered intercontinental travel?

And of course, last but certainly not least, there is the clear evidence, gathered not just over the course of what you might call the modern UFO era, reaching back to the early to mid 20th century, but even to our distant religious lore and early Creation myths, suggesting these Others have been here for a very long time, perhaps even predating us as beings walking this blue pearl of a planet.

So, all this being the case, what does this mean? Why are we simultaneously being visited and interacted with by these various non-conventionally human others, while also being presented with a visible universe that appears starkly devoid of life? These are the compelling and head-scratching matters that we’ll endeavor to make sense of in this, the 71st episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

In the long-running history of the UFO Phenomenon, numerous aspects of encounters with these Others stretch our imaginations to the breaking point, pushing the outer limits of our capacity to even conceive of technologies that could accomplish what our eyes and others senses are telling us we’re apparently witnessing.

In terms of the demonstration of evidently advanced technology, the craft controlled by this supposedly non-human intelligence make maneuvers that are not only death-defying, but that break our very notions of how physics works. Engineers and aviation experts tell us that, not only do we not have vehicles that can perform like this, but that we can’t really even presently conceive of how such feats could be accomplished — even theoretically. Add to the mix that reports suggest a direct consciousness link between pilot and craft is key to the operation of these vehicles, and our understanding is stretched even further.

Teleportation is another apparent feature on display with these craft. In other words, not only do witnesses — including trained, expert, military witnesses — see these UFOs/UAPs racing across the sky at breakneck speeds, making 90 degree turns on a dime, without even slowing, but witnesses have also reported seeing craft — even massive mother ship types the size of football stadiums – suddenly materialize before their eyes, out of nowhere. And they can apparently disappear — dematerialize — just as quickly and completely.

And the wizardry on display by these Others doesn’t stop with the demonstration of their external technology. They also readily demonstrate an ability to interact with us directly — mind to mind — that is equally baffling. Not only can they seemingly control our very perceptions: to the point that we can no longer trust the output generated by our brains to be an accurate depiction of what’s actually “out there”, but, despite clear species and vast cultural differences, they seem able to effortlessly communicate with us, telepathically, bypassing the need for language translation altogether.

Furthermore, not only is the means of their communication almost always telepathic in nature, but this direct telepathic communication seems to come across at a much broader bandwidth than typical human communication; meaning the entire, nuanced emotional content of a thought is shared — seemingly instantaneously. And even more startlingly, the human beings being contacted find that they can communicate back — through the same telepathic means — just as easily.

Somewhat disconcertingly to some, even when one chooses not to share a thought, one’s thinking and feeling seems still to be laid bare to these Others. In other words, they can seemingly read out minds and hearts, as it were. Furthermore, and even more discombobulatingly, they seem to have knowledge of ever figment of our lives, and not only in its present state, but going back into the distant past — as well as the distant future.

But how? How is all of this accomplished? How are we to make sense of this? Figures like Dr. Edgar Mitchell, the 6th man to walk on the moon, and Dr. Rudy Schild, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, have led the way in engaging in these matters, advancing some intriguing possibilities. And the fascinating new conceptions around the nature of the intelligence behind the UFO Phenomenon, postulated by Mitchell, Schild and others, is the topic of this, the 12th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.