Why the non-interventionist policy?
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Time-travel Theory
What if the reason for the game of cloak-and-dagger is because they're our future selves and any form of involvement would alter our history? Doing a little digging I found one website (www.terrestrialextras.com...) that expanded on this theory and asked some intelligent first questions:
While the theory has some good merits, i.e. explaining non-interventionist behavior, it does have holes, for instance, the Colares UFO attacks. Also why would these crafts let themselves be seen? If this really was our future-selves and we had the power of time-travel I would assume any mistakes could be easily reversed. Then again what if our future selves had a history where these events transpired and therefore to maintain continuity they violated their non-interventionist dictum? Or maybe, we're seeing something that's a combination of future time-travel and ET intervention.
This may pose more questions than it answers, but it's the first time I've been able to swallow the idea that we're possibly witnessing future humans observing their past.
Then again I still have a hard time accepting time-travel if only because I subscribe to Peter Lynds theory, as described in Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics : Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity, which more or less states "time is a man-made construct and doesn't physically exist."
Others people thoughts on the subject somewhat differ.
| “ | Time travelers from the future would not need to be too concerned about violating non-interventionist policy by being seen occasionally, if they are traveling back to a time when the prevailing belief is that UFOs are aliens. The belief itself is their cover. Such as is now. | ” |
That is an interesting theory, depending on what view of 'time travel' you take - their actions would sort of 'fit in the gaps' of recorded history. Always explainable as something else, unnoticed, or never affecting the outcome of 'future history'.
Of course, the same theory could be applied to time-traveling aliens. For example, aliens contact humanity in the 23rd century, notice the state of society and recorded history, then start traveling back in time and visiting to learn more, secure in the knowledge that their investigations will have no effect on the 'present day'...
Chaos Theory
One of the problems is the Colares incident is a clear example of active involvement by some external actor that clearly affected lives and would have in one way or another changed the future. Furthermore, if you subscribe to chaos theory, the flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time, what the atmosphere actually does diverges from what it would have done. So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or maybe one that wasn't going to happen does.
I would argue the same would be true of any UFO sighting. Especially radar cases like the 1957 RB-47 encounter.
Tampering
| “ | The common error is to assume that all that has happened so far is the "original", so that anything the time travelers do would be an alteration. But what if alterations happen all the time, but we continue to believe these events are the "originals"? Why do we assume there is such a thing as a non-intervention policy? Maybe our history is shaped by interventions. | ” |
In response I wrote:
I suppose it could be argued if a time-traveler went back in time and saved JFK that history would change in such a way that I would have never known JFK was assassinated in the first place. That's a hard thing to fathom and as far as I can tell I have never seen any observable changes to historical record, even though it's likely incorrect to assume I could know if it did change. However, if history was malleable it's probable that people would simply disappear from a time-line, that includes me, you, or anyone for that matter. Since I still exist I'd like to think that's indicative that the past isn't being tampered with.
Science Project Theory
| “ | such advanced civilisations may value the search for knowledge from uncontaminated species more than direct, interspecies communication, thereby accounting for apparent covertness regarding their presence.
... The ET motivation for space travel could be to increase their knowledge through exploration of space rather than to colonise and seek domination [39]. Thus hypotheses have been set forth regarding why such ETs would be aware of our presence but not yet have contacted us overtly. Among these are the zoo, nursery and quarantine or embargo hypotheses [1,38,40-42]. Most of these posit that the ETs involved have frequently scouted us out semi-covertly and have concluded that we are either not yet mature enough for open contact, or not prepared for it, since any abrupt, overt contact could cause societal chaos and governmental downfalls. Also postulated is that ET interference with our society would prematurely bring an end to our civilisation’s continued development if it occurred before our knowledge has progressed to the point that we could understand where the aliens could have originated and how great their head start over us could be [39]. A serious inconsistency in this reasoning, however, is that maintenance of total ET covertness towards Earth and the solar system would still lead to societal chaos whenever the covertness or embargo was eventually lifted, unless the ETs carried out a programme of gradual disclosure—a ‘leaky’ embargo [1,43]. Although the zoo or embargo hypothesis may be unverifiable, the leaky-embargo hypothesis may be verifiable if the UFO evidence is taken into account. Much of this evidence appears to constitute just such a leak in the embargo: a grass-roots educational programme in the form of the phenomenon, which has been in operation since 1947, if not before. Many sightings have been of a nature to attract attention to their craft and let isolated groups of witnesses know that its occupants are aware of us [24,44]. A key category of such cases involves reports wherein persons within a traveling vehicle frantically witness an object pacing them even though their automobile or aircraft makes turns that rule out the sighting of an astronomical or other ordinary object as any explanation. Similarly, in a number of the aircraft cases the unknown object, which was either pacing the aircraft or presenting itself to it, was detected on radar as well as visually [23-25,27]. | ” |
The Truman Show theory
This is more of a comical hypothesis rather than something that's seriously considered, but it's worth jotting down for posterity. I believe the original idea came out of a South Park episode called 'Canceled.' The theory is that "visitors" are observing and recording our interactions for their entertainment.
Somewhat like The Truman Show to expose themselves would ruin their "reality tv."
This idea was also discussed in this thread on ATS.
Notes
References
Further Reading
External Links
- ATS - The non-interventionist policy of UFOs / aliens, why? - Opened the question up to discussion.
