Ever since the dawn of the modern UFO Phenomenon, a wide variety of terms have been used to describe people’s reactions to it. People have been fascinated, frustrated, shocked, perplexed, bewildered, frightened and inspired. And, because of the enigmatic nature of encounters with the beings associated with this Phenomenon, often several of these descriptors can and do apply for any given situation.

As has been pointed out numerous times on this podcast and elsewhere, when one widens the historical scope, it is not a stretch to wonder – even postulate – if beings from more distant folklore may be part and parcel of this same enterprise. And this is true not just because these events that come to us from the depth of recorded human history involve encounters with apparently non-human entities, but also because the nature of the encounters often involve similar elements.

That said, one could also argue that this might be an example of a brush simply applied too broadly. In other words, perhaps because of the very fact that these encounters across time do involve similar elements, we might be tempted to prematurely draw precise parallels where they perhaps do not exist. Were the creatures of faery lore the very same as our modern-day prototypical grey aliens? Or do we simply leap to this conclusion because they neither fit neatly within our tidy conventional zoological models?

In the 20th century, reaching a fevered pitch sometime in the 1990s, word of human abductions by these supposed grey aliens slowly became part of our cultural zeitgeist. The narrative around these more recent encounters involved apparent genetic experimentation and even full-on hybridization programs. Again though, if we widen the scope once more, one could postulate that some of the apparently anomalous leaps in our species’ cognitive capacity throughout hominin history were also the fruit of similar genetic intervention and augmentation programs.

People have also wondered aloud if the UFO Phenomenon marks the beginning of a new religious trend? Many postulated in the 20th century that visits by the space brothers – bearing an uncanny resemblance to ourselves – marked the beginning of a new frontier in spiritual discovery. But again, if we step back, adopting the 30,000 foot view, one can logically question if the very seed of religious belief and practice for our species, from our very earliest creeds on, were also the fruit, either directly or indirectly, of encounters with these same anomalous beings.

Which leads us to some pressing questions: are these beings the same groups of entities interacting and shaping us over time? Or is our imagination simply so limited that we have inappropriately drawn parallels where they simply don’t exist – opening up the possibility that perhaps our ontological landscape is simply much more complex and diverse than we’ve yet been able to really fathom, let alone truly reckon with.

While the history of anomalous encounters seemingly goes right back to the dawn of our civilization, more recent events raise a particularly pressing question: Does the apparent increase in our species’ interaction with some of these non-conventional beings in recent history – paired with what one could argue is a seeming march towards a cataclysmic collapse of our own making – suggest that, while interactions with non-conventional entities have existed across the breadth of human history, that they are now nearing some kind of culmination point – where, as some of the experiencer narrative would suggest -this results in a situation where everything and everyone is left completely different afterwards? And furthermore, is this coming apex inflection point terminal, or transformational for our civilization, and perhaps even both? These are the daunting, challenging and awe-inspiring matters we’ll seek to engage with in this, the 84th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.

When people are first introduced to the enigmatic topic known as the UFO Phenomenon, the working assumption is that this is a matter of determining whether or not aliens, i.e. extraterrestrials from some likely extrasolar source, have traversed the immense distances of outer space, to arrive at our blue pearl planet either to, A.) from a more positive view, study us, as in a scientific expedition, or, B.) from a less positive view, scope out our capabilities prior to some kind of invasion.

Perhaps it should not be surprising that this is where the conversation begins for people; including those who’ve flocked to this topic since 2017, when the revelations of a now famous New York Times article first entered the public sphere, suggesting to many that, despite decades of scoff and ridicule and X-Files jokes, perhaps there really was a there there.

Speaking of decades of scoff and ridicule, the decades leading up to the present one filled people’s minds with the very scenarios I just mentioned: that either these visitors from beyond are here as part of a scientific expedition, as in Star Trek, or as a prelude to a full-on invasion of our planet, as in War of the Worlds or Independence Day. These are familiar tropes in science fiction, and so it should not surprise us that this has worked its way into our cultural zeitgeist.

But those initial, rather tame and predictable questions about what the so-called UFO Phenomenon represents are quickly supplanted by much more profound, far-reaching, and, for some, disturbing questions, once newcomers really begin to start poking around and considering the plethora of reports made by credible witnesses, going back decades and decades – and perhaps even millennia – discussing in-person encounters with the intelligences supposedly responsible for the piloting of these sophisticated aerial vehicles known as UFOs or UAP.

Because, as I just mentioned, these encounters trace back deep into human history, and likely even pre-history, one could argue that these more recent “sci-fi” encounters are really in the same overarching category as what we might deem “religious” encounters from yester-millennia, the questions around what this all means suddenly become much more broadly sweeping and all-encompassing.

Many of the people who regularly tune into this podcast know that the UFO Phenomenon, general paranormality, and other so-called contact modalities such as NDEs, OBEs and psi phenomena are addictively fascinating matters. One could draw the conclusion that this is the case simply because the nature of the subject matter is seductive, and helps to distract people from the mundanity of their everyday existence.

While the subject matter does indeed draw one deeper and deeper into the proverbial rabbit hole the longer one pays attention with a keen, discerning eye, I think there’s more than meets the eye going on here. I think partly what’s going on is a kind of “remembering the future”. What I mean by that is that our collective fascination with this subject matter reflects a kind of mental bookmark to what becomes a key inflection point in our civilization’s history. You could describe it as the experience of living through the arising of an interference pattern, where the present is equally impacted by events from our past AND our future. Particularly significant points in time can tend to feel like this, even if it is confusing to those living through it.

Particularly thoughtful researchers, like the preeminent Jacques Vallee, have noted that what we are seeing take place with the modern UFO Phenomenon is simply the latest wrinkle in time of a larger phenomenon that has been manifesting since time immemorial. Here I speak of the interaction between human beings and other, sophisticated, bewitching non-human intelligences; intelligences so capable both in matters of the external AND internal sciences (manifesting in both the world and the mind) that they have undoubtedly played a key role in shaping the very meaning models that we currently shape our collective existence with and through.

Former rock star and later founder of TTSA, Tom DeLonge, ended up uttering what I have found – in retrospect – to be apt words in describing the nature and origin of many of the Others of which we speak. In one interview DeLonge said “The evidence doesn’t suggest it’s interplanetary, so, people need to understand religion, ancient texts…the occult…esoteric stuff…they need to understand that time is not linear – it’s parallel – & once you understand that all things – past, present, future – exist at one moment, which is what quantum mechanics is kinda figuring out, then they’ll realize there can be parallel realities right here, with advanced civilizations that are popping over with frequency. Not linear… not coming from Alpha Centauri here. And I’m not even suggesting that that can’t happen, too. But what *is* happening here is a little bit different.”

Indeed it is. And I would add to this insightful analysis – that I at first didn’t pay close enough attention to when I began this journey years ago – that it’s not that some of them are NOT extraterrestrial. In some very real ways some of the groups are. But, importantly, that’s only PART of the story. They are also interdimensional, but in a way that diverges from some of the ways that term has conventionally been used by astrophysicists, and is more inline with the way the term is applied, as DeLonge hints at, by enthusiasts of the occult and other forms of esotericism.

Notice there that I said “groups” – plural. And I stand by this. I am more convinced than ever that the evidence suggests more than one group is involved; and that these groups cover the gamut in terms of their developmental consciousness. I speak in terms of degrees of evolution because I have found this is both a more helpful and a more accurate way of describing the situation than painting in polarities of black and white – i.e. good vs evil.

Now, while Delonge has seemed particularly concerned with the ways some of the less mature groups have been working their will in our collective lives, I personally have experienced what it’s like to be in contact with, and be inspired by, groups who are typical of the more evolved, highly conscious end of the spectrum. And it’s a discussion of that particular interaction, and the way that it’s impacted my ongoing journey, that is the topic of this, the 75th edition, of the Point of Convergence podcast.

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.

When it comes to the history of the UFO Phenomenon, there are a few key players who have shaped the nature of the conversation. Of those individuals, those considered – at least initially, anyway – the most controversial, are the ones who suggested an alternative to the popular, and in many ways ubiquitous, extraterrestrial hypothesis: the notion that alien species had traveled to us by traversing vast distances of interstellar space.

That initial controversy fell by the wayside, in many ways, as evidence mounted over the decades suggesting the ETH really was either, if not wrong, then woefully incomplete, in terms of explaining the depth and breadth of the UFO Phenomenon; a phenomenon that seemed, upon closer inspection, to have much in common with tales of encounters with otherworldly entities from distant human lore.

Of course, Jacques Vallee stands out as perhaps the most influential in this regard. But standing right alongside him, in terms of positing an alternate origin hypothesis to explain the apparently non-human entities visiting and interacting with us throughout recorded history, is the figure of John Keel. Keel, ever a trailblazer, sought from the outset to study this subject in an objective way, unprejudiced by the prominent theories of his day.

And as he studied this subject in depth, Keel began to notice peculiar – though, to him, unmistakable – commonalities behind the appearance and behavior of phenomena such as UFOs and alien beings, and tales from occult literature going back deep into the depth of recorded human history. The crossover elements were so overwhelming in scope, in fact, that this recognition ultimately led Keel to conclude that a common origin was responsible for all interactions with supposedly otherworldly entities – whether they be supposed aliens from distant planets, or goblins arising from the underworld.

Keel suggested that these beings were not so much distant travelers from elsewhere in the fabric of our own spacetime, as interdimensional sojourners, emerging from some alternate plane that exists right alongside our own. He termed this vast “otherplace”, the superspectrum. And he termed the visitors coming from this parallel plane the “ultraterrestrials”.

Keel believed – even though that term “belief” was loathsome to him in many ways – that the vastly different entities we’ve experienced over time, including the craft supposedly traversing our skies, were all manifestations arising from this alternate plane of existence. Indeed he even wondered if perhaps one central and decidedly superior intelligence was responsible for all of these manifestations; manifestations that influenced the origins of our ancient religions as well as much more recent fields of interest and inquiry, such as the UFO Phenomenon.

What was the historical evidence, and direct personal experience, that led Keel in this peculiar – and, at first glance, perhaps counterintuitive – direction? These are the very matters we’ll seek to engage with, in this, the 37th episode of the Point of Convergence podcast.