Just as someone interested in matters such as the UFO Phenomenon and the so-called “paranormal” aspects of reality begins to conclude that these topics will always remain on the very fringes of both our collective radar and our collective curiosity, a startling piece of news comes to the fore, demonstrating that, as painstakingly slow as it may feel to those of us deeply invested in these matters, the collective imagination does eventually come around, finally entertaining and investigating these fascinating dimensions of reality.

Such news emerged with fresh, startling clarity in recent weeks with the publication of a trailblazing new book titled Skinwalkers at the Pentagon: An Insiders’ Account of the Secret Government UFO Program. The book, penned by James, Lacatski, Colm Kelleher, & George Knapp, details a truly ground-breaking program known as AAWSAP – the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program, that approached the topic of UAP – unidentified aerial phenomena – with a refreshingly broad lens, recognizing the uncanny but unmistakable connection between the UFO Phenomenon and what has come to be referred to as “high strangeness” or “the paranormal”.

It is one thing for a forward-thinking private think tank or some paradigm-challenging corner of academia to explore these matters. It is something else entirely for an official government body to do so. And yet, this is exactly the story we learn about in this book. The DIA – the Defense Intelligence Agency – steered 22 million dollars in tax-payer funds towards precisely this endeavor.

And, as is stated in the book, “AAWSAP personnel chose to launch the UAP program with as broad a scope as possible” and to “research paranormal phenomena that co-locate with UAPs and to examine psychic effects in UAP witnesses in addition to scrutinizing the core UAP technology itself.”

While this broad-reaching net was as ambitious as it was unorthodox, to say the least, ultimately the data it produced proved revelatory. And while the program seemingly opened up more new questions than it ever managed to answer, the findings are nevertheless essential, because they help to define the direction such research needs to take in the months and years to come.

It should not be surprising, however, that so many new questions emerged at the culmination of the AAWSAP program. Because, ultimately, these findings point towards the undeniable necessity to expand our current model of reality. But what were these revelations? And what do they hint towards in regards to the very fabric of what we call “the real”? These are precisely the matters we’ll seek to engage with in this, the 44th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

Slowly but surely, and with increasing pace in recent years, the human population is waking up to the idea that our world is being visited by intelligence(s) from “elsewhere”. As our sensor systems grow ever more refined with each technological iteration, and the planet becomes increasingly populated with increasingly high definition cameras, the evidence for the presence of these “Others” will undoubtedly only grow – forcing, at some point – you would imagine – a true reckoning by human civilization. At some point, as a society, we’ll need to openly ask this question of the UFO Phenomenon: Who are they, and where do they come from?

At one point in human history the answer to the question as the origin of these visitors seemed obvious (almost to the point where the question didn’t even need to be asked, from many people’s perspective). If they weren’t human, then surely they must be from “out there”, meaning “outer space” — and more specifically, from some other planet located within some far-flung star system within the Milky Way galaxy, or perhaps some other galaxy entirely. This argument is known as the “ETH”: The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis.

But over time, several considerations combined to bring this assumption regarding the origin of these Others, into question. First there was the understanding that the sheer distances involved in such travel were so, pun intended — astronomical — that the notion of transversing that distance in something like a space craft seemed unlikely, even if such vehicles could approach the speed of light.

Secondly, the data regarding the nature of the appearances of these Others seemed peculiar. Sometimes they appeared as “nuts & bolts” craft – with rumors circulating even of crash retrievals from such vehicles, going back 70 years now – while at other times they seemed to appear more as manifestations of light, or of hyperspace kinds of objects that could transform shape right in front of an observer’s eyes.

And then thirdly, there is the contributing factor of our evolving sense of the nature of the Cosmos; the very fabric of reality itself. In the last 100 years or so, science has postulated not just the 3+1 dimensions of reality we’re familiar with, but something more like a matrix of 10 or more dimensions, as one finds described in String Theory. Thus the notion of reality being a fabric of fixed space, where “travel” always necessitated movement from one fixed space to another in one physical universe began to be called into question.

Add to the mix that these “Others” look rather humanoid, and that they — in some form of another — may have been here all along, going back into the depths of human history, and beyond — has led some to postulate the source of these Others as being not so much merely “extraterrestrial”, as “interdimensional”. But what does this term suggest, exactly? Is this a reference to the extra dimensions posited in String Theory, or to the notion of a multiverse, or something else entirely? These are issues that are perhaps just as complex to unravel as they are intriguing to engage with. But that’s exactly what we’ll attempt in this, the 10th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.