What is your formation and your background?
You can find my online biography.
I probably started all this by getting involved in ham radio at the
age of 13. Eventually I became an electrical engineer with a
Bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and M.S.E.E. from the
University of Colorado. I pursued further graduate studies in math,
physics, astronomy, and astrophysics at the University of
California, Berkeley. My intended career had been in electromagnetic
fields and waves, wave propagation, and radio astronomy. But I wove
a more complex fabric, including brainwave research and information
security, owning a metaphysical bookstore, and managing UC
Berkeley’s SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project,
known as Project SERENDIP, in the years 1978-1982. Berkeley ’s
present-day SETI@home is an outgrowth of that project.
As your readers may guess, this does not tell the whole story. I
have always wondered about the great mysteries of life and have
tried to understand them, at times following psychospiritual
disciplines associated with Buddhism, Taoism, western occultism, and
others without name.
One of the great mysteries for that has engaged me has been the
problem of the human race: what it is, how it came to be what it is,
and where it might be going.
You previously told that you worked in the field of information
security. What is the purpose of that function?
That was a sweeping generalization that was supposed to cover my
work for the US Department of Defense many years ago, and the
civilian positions, mentioned in my online biography, that I held in
more recent years.
Probably the best way to describe these two periods is to say that
the DOD activities depended on my background in electrical
engineering as applied to communications, while the civilian
positions were more strictly in information security per se,
specifically uses of public-key cryptography and the securing of
computer systems for large corporations and government agencies.
Why did you create Open SETI and what is the purpose of it?
My experience with Berkeley ’s SETI program was not satisfying. You
could say "I knew too much" to be able to take the SETI paradigm
seriously and eventually I decided it was too compromising to
continue with it. I left the field in 1982 but watched it from a
distance for many years.
In 1994 I wrote a paper, The Opening of SETI, describing why I
thought SETI was irrelevant to its own quest for contact, and
proposing ways to "open" its paradigm. After presenting the paper at
a conference, I decided to make a web page out of it - a small
website. Two years later I broadened the scope of the website to
include consciousness-expanding and experiential aspects, calling
this The End of Enchantment. Later I cut this into two websites:
The
End of Enchantment, which became a joint project of Malou Zeitlin
and myself, and Open SETI, a greatly-expanded version of the
original paper.
Open SETI finds that the interface between the original SETI
premises and the unknown can be expanded infinitely, like some sort
of Mandelbrot fractal. There are many regions in that interface that
SETI forbids even thinking about, but which are a pure delight to
pursue. But Open SETI is serious, not a flight of new-age fancy. I
would hope that a true scientist or engineer would be able to
recognize and accept this.
Another very important departure of
Open SETI is the way it treats
myth. Simply put, Open SETI honors myths. Right from the
introduction, Open SETI asserts that all human experience is
mediated by myth, and western science is foolish to believe it has
escaped this essential condition. Open SETI bids us to relax and
allow our myth and many others to bring potential knowledge to us.
Finally, Open SETI and The End of Enchantment are audacious [bold]
enough to try to construct a myth, weaving elements that our
scientific/technological society has ignored.
Do you experiment personally some strange experiences like UFO
sightings, abduction, etc. What were the consequences in your life
and your work ?
I have nothing to offer you here. I am driven by a sense of seeing
clearly (or so it seems to me) and a need to explore and express
what I see.
You didn’t lived personally an experience with
alien, UFO, abduction
and your relatives either. So, why are you so fascinated by this
subject? As a scientist, you could always follows the standard
"pattern" of the search of knowledge and don’t be attracted by "ET
hypothesis". So, what are you deep personal motivations?
Each of us has an "essence nature" (I have just now coined this term
for this interview) with a fragment of consciousness that has been
extended, distracted, and to varying degrees "trapped" by the
physical world and its games. The "essence nature" includes its
being, its knowledge, its powers, etc. It is really quite an
incredible being from our everyday perspective.
For reasons that are
mysterious at this point, the "essence nature" provides a varying
amount of itself, its knowledge, and its powers for the use of its
incarnated consciousness fragment. I believe it remains for the
consciousness fragment - what we call a person - to grasp what has
been made available to it at any particular time, or not. And before
it can be grasped, usually there needs to be a reminder of some kind
that will cause the person to take notice.
For some people, a major life-changing event may be required to
cause them to take notice of what has been offered to them. For
others, it may be a dissatisfaction with the world as presented,
which causes them to actively search. For others, there may be a
piece of news or some other information that is out of synch with
the conventional view, but is simply recognized as noteworthy. A
parallel to this would be an event in a dream that reminds one that
there is waking world that contrasts greatly with the dreamed world.
I was of the latter type, or maybe I was dissatisfied and searching.
It didn’t take much... just a story that was out of synch with the
common world but that reminded me of something. The story came to me
in the form of a book that I had somehow acquired when I was around
14 years old. It spoke of UFOs, and in particular, of the case of a
military pilot named "Mantell" who chased one while flying his Air
Force jet.
I don’t recall much more than that. Just the sense that
this could not be a mistake; this really seems to have happened and
it means everything - EVERYTHING - must be different from what I had
believed only a moment before. The story was completely inconsistent
with the common world view, and yet I chose it instinctively as
being consistent with the truth.
Do you ever encounter scientists that have strange experience with
E.T (abduction, UFO sightings and transcendental "revelation")
working for SETI for instance? In case of yes, how did they evolve?
What were their perceptions of the problem of E.T phenomenon?
"Working for SETI..." You probably mean The SETI Institute. I have
never been told of anyone in that organization having an experience
like that. However I can think of one or two individuals in the
broader SETI community who have had this. It troubles them deeply
because they cannot discuss it publicly, and yet it is the most
important driver of their work.
Would you mind if I ask you to describe more precisely what happened
to them?
One of them has attempted to live a double public life. He poses as
a scientist who thinks the way other scientists do, while he also
maintains a personal website, open to the public that goes into
extremely intimate details about his experiences and how they
disrupted his life and the lives of others who were close to him.
Anyone who reads the website will realize that a person cannot have
experiences like that and still think and operate the way a
conventional scientist does.
THAT realization can have an impact on
the professional prospects of the person, one way or another,
depending on what the person is attempting to do. Whether it HAS had
that impact, I cannot say. I presume the person of whom I speak
understands the danger and is proceeding with courage and his own
kind of integrity.
The second person has decided to conceal his experiences from public
view, and to attempt to find professional opportunities that satisfy
him on both sides of his life’s experience. He would probably agree
that this has been a difficult path.
The general meaning to be drawn from the experiences of these two
individuals is that "strange experiences" can present very great
challenges for anyone trying to pursue a professional career in a
world that does not officially acknowledge the reality of those
experiences.
Let start with this "hypothesis": some scientists and workers for
SETI are well aware of the UFO phenomenon and really believe that
the US government is in "physical" and tangible contact with E.T,
E.B.E and related technology. How can you explain the
"schizophrenic" situation of the SETI institution which continues to
pretend that we are still looking for a signal, an intelligent
contact and which know the reality of the situation. Don’t you think
that this "hypothesis" is realistic? Do you know some scientists
(who will remain anonymous) who agree with this hypothesis?
The hypothesis is quite plausible, given what we know of our
society’s other institutions. In this model, a few scientists and
workers at the top will have been briefed and there will be a
program which they are following. Those not at the top, who do not
know, would be moved by the force of personality of those who do
know. This model would lead to the behavior that we see.
What would be the motivation of those who hold the knowledge?
It would either be 1) very black or 2) a misguided patriotism or
maybe some sort of fantastic earth-human chauvinistic
protectiveness. If 2), I can hardly imagine the convoluted rationale
that they use.
In another model, no such knowledge is held by anyone and they are
operating in such a way as to maximize the possibility of keeping
their organization viable and their salaries paid.
In another, they are blinded by the rules of their science and are
trying to be good scientists and to be accepted as professionals by
the scientific community.
Which is correct? At one time, around 25 years ago, I personally
knew some of today’s SETI leaders. AT THAT TIME they seemed to be
operating according to the last and next-to-last principles
mentioned above. Today anything is possible.
Do you think like certain authors that Science is entangled in a web
of manipulation, of slowing up of knowledge?
Yes. I make some references to this situation throughout my website,
including one to Halton Arp’s essay What Has Science Become? in the
Journal of Scientific Exploration. In fact, Halton Arp’s career is a
perfect example, as he has shown that presently-accepted cosmology
is all wrong and can be maintained only by suppression of perfectly
good data.
The problem is that science requires funding and all funding sources
have their agendas, which are based on acquisition of economic,
military, or political power; not primarily the pursuit of knowledge
for its own sake - although there is a measure of allowance,
recognizing that pure knowledge today can lead to power tomorrow.
Do you think that the SETI will voluntary not change the way that
they analyze the "useful" frequencies that they agree to check in
case of an intelligent signal?
Ideally, if "SETI" detects a signal that meets their simple criteria
for "intelligence", and that is not obviously of earthly origin,
they are supposed to focus more resources on that signal, looking
for confirmation of the detection and increasing their ability to
discern any details.
In fact, it is already acknowledged that tentative detections must
be checked with authorities against the possibility that they are of
clandestine human origin.
I ask you, if it is then determined that these are signals of
artificial nature and NOT of human origin, do you think the
authorities would release the information into the public domain?
Can you explain to our readers the concept of "Incrementalism" which
looks to be quite important in your perception of the E.T
phenomenon?
Thank you for recognizing the importance of this key concept in
Open SETI.
The principle is so simple and obvious, yet is not recognized by ANY
scientists in the SETI community. It comes about because SETI
confines itself to searches for evidence of "ET" activity that
matches our own present-day or expected near-future capabilities.
You see this all the time: when one of these SETI scientists
proposes a new search methodology, he or she will without fail
justify the proposal by showing that our own society would be
capable of producing the evidence for which they would search.
The most obvious example is SETI’s refusal to look for evidence of a
local ET presence, because they have been persuaded that ET would
not be able to come here from wherever they are. Now that has been
modified to allow a little discussion of the value of searching for
robotic probes because we know how we would build those.
As our knowledge and technology improves incrementally, then the
range of search modes that SETI is willing to discuss also expands
by the same increment. It is as though we are willing only to search
for our technological mirror image.
Like Nigel Kerner (some of our readers are familiar with his
theory), you seems to give a certain importance to ancient sacred
text. Can you give us some ancients texts that looks important to
explain the origin of man and how those old scriptures can be
correlated to last scientific our archaeological finding?
We are still waiting for our copies of Kerner’s book to arrive, so
we are not yet familiar with the texts he uses in his research.
I have not read any of the original ancient texts, although
The Book
of Enoch and
The Popul Vuh are at least on my list of materials to
study, and of course I acknowledge the Vedas, the
Nag Hammadi texts,
and other scriptures from diverse cultures around the world.
However, in terms of derivative works, I might mention that
The Shining Ones (Christian and
Barbara Joy O’Brien), which I am reading
now, extensively consults several little-known texts, including Kharsag Epics Nos. 1-9 (taken from Sumerian tablets),
The Atrahasis
Epic (a story from nineteenth century B.C.E. Mesopotamia that
includes both a creation and a flood account), the Askew Codex (a
collection of ancient Coptic documents), and the Bruce Codex
(another Coptic collection).
As to how to correlate these with latest archaeological findings, I
can only suggest the obvious: use them as suggestive guidance in
planning research, compare findings with them, contemplate the
meaning of discrepancies, and so forth. In other words, consider
that whoever wrote them may have been recording actual human
experiences.
You don’t seem to agree with one point of the theory of Nigel Kerner
and Michael Cremo about the devolution concept: the fact that we are
in world of entropy, of more and more chaos? Can you explain how and
why you don’t agree with this? Can you explain to us who La Violette
is and why you agree with him?
Yes, entropy perpetually increases in a closed system but the system
that we take as our physical world is not closed. This is a very
important part of the world view of
Paul LaViolette, whose work is
highlighted and reviewed on several Open SETI pages. Readers can use
the website’s search facility to locate the key passages.
Briefly, LaViolette is an "astrophysicist" whose work is not in the
mainstream but has turned some very important heads. I used the
quotes because he earned his Ph.D. in systems theory, although he
has published in the field of astrophysics, and has had access to
the Very Large Array, etc.
His several books comprise an elegant "theory of everything",
beginning with the dynamics of the subquantum domain, showing how
this generates subatomic particles and physical fields, including
gravitational fields, and their observed characteristics and
behaviors, building all the way to vast cosmological systems, not
failing to bring in human mythological systems along the way.
LaViolette accomplishes all this with just a very few equations
describing subquantum dynamics. That’s it! the result is
breathtaking.
Now, for the purposes of answering your question, I’ll just say that
for LaViolette, energy isn’t just "there", arising out of the
mythical big bang and running down ever since. Rather, it comes out
of the subquantum domain constantly and in accordance with specific
principles and conditions. The most important condition is the local
gravitational density. The greater it is, the more energy "comes
out". This "genic energy" is incredibly important for understanding
how astronomical objects work.
Important for us, here and now, because, living in a galaxy as we
do, we are subject to what LaViolette describes as "Galactic Superwaves" - periodic galactic core explosions whose shock waves
have in the past and will continue to rampage through this galaxy
and all others.
Out of his theory, LaViolette lists numerous predictions, which have
been being fulfilled one by one ever since he originally published.
Many more have yet to be tested!
You are probably waiting for me to say whether or not I think
species can "evolve" upwardly in such a system without the help of
an outside agency. My answer to that has perhaps not so much to do
with the influx of genic energy as rather with the programming in
DNA, and this programming represents information/energy from an
unexpected and unknown source.
This is a separate issue. We do have
DNA; it does have an incredible program in it; various other races
have tinkered with it. I believe they too have DNA-based genetics.
So what do we have here? Perhaps you can tell me. :-)
What do you think of the Disclosure Project of Dr Greer? Jean-Pierre
Petit, a French astrophysical scientist think that Disclosure
project is a trap set by Intelligence agency to track the military
and scientist who wanted to tell the true, that it is in fact
disinformation ?
I have always thought that
the Disclosure Project has been based on
naive expectations. Disclosure cannot be forced; those who hold the
information are far too powerful to be pushed into doing what they
do not wish to do, or saying what they do not wish to say. And the
media will always protect them.
Therefore, whether or not it is a deliberate trap is not a
significant distinction. Whistle-blowers will not achieve what they
desire, but they will expose themselves. In the process, they may
entertain a few spectators.
What do you think about the Reptilian thesis defended by people like
David Icke, Branton, etc. who believed that all our civilization,
our world and our religions are manipulated by a race of ET called
the reptilian (identified as the Anunnaki) and that all the demonic
activities recorded in the history of religions are in fact those
Reptilian-short Greys aliens? Do you agree with
Jacques Vallee or
even Nigel Kerner when he sees the E.T as non physical entities,
some kind of "Godhead" trapped in a devolutional process? Or with
the thesis that those entities come from earth, inner earth (hollow
earth theory, underground civilization, bases and tunnel)?
There are many questions within this question!
People like
David Icke come from an ordinary style of consciousness
to paint a very spooky picture. On my own pages both in Open SETI
and The End of Enchantment I try to handle this in my own way. Yes,
we have a serious problem.
Regardless of physical heritage, of which I am not certain, I do
think we have been under the direct influence of "controllers".
Countering this is our own higher aspect, which is supreme, but
which leaves our incarnated part to deal and grow, or not, according
to its own predilection and prowess. There is a game aspect to all
of this. Yes to the concept of "Godhead" trapped. And yes to
something very important going on beneath our feet. I can’t be too
specific; I just do not have the information.
Do you agree like John E. Mack that the alien phenomenon is a good
thing for us, that they are in fact benevolent?
I don’t support that. "Benevolence", however, can be found on a
higher level, from which the game emerged. My conviction on that
point makes it possible for me to sleep at night and to enjoy my
days.
Do you agree with some theories (like Kerner) that our evolution
process could be explain only by an Alien and intelligent outside
manipulation (the presence of Junk DNA is still a mystery)? And that
the Darwinian voluntarily misleads us?
Again, sadly, Kerner’s book has not arrived! But DNA developed
somehow. We and others may learn to "improve" it. But the
DNA
itself... the question is whether or not it could have evolved out
of simple molecules given the entire universe as an ensemble of
possibilities, and endless time (not just a few billion years as
currently believed). I guess I am not ready to answer that question!
Did you ever heard about the twelfth planet hypothesis from Sitchin?
The fact that a planet that can sustain life don’t need to be close
to the Sun and that a planet with light elements (not heavy like
metals etc...) with water and a capacity to self produce her own
energy (radioactive, some kind of inner light) can sustain life. The
so called twelfth planet is in this case and brings the elements of
life on earth. Earth at the beginning was not a good candidate to
produce life because to much heavy elements. Do you think that this
conception is scientifically possible even if it is unorthodox?
I have read most of
Sitchin’s books. They provide much information
that has been neglected by modern society. But they do not provide
all of the essential aspects of the picture he paints, and they have
other "downsides" which we could address if you wish. One of the
gaps relates to your question: How did the "Anunnaki" happen to be
living on this planet "Nibiru"? Did they "evolve" there (assuming
humans and humanoids "evolve", which is an assumption I do not
make), or did they arrive from somewhere else?
If they arrived from somewhere else, and did not simply originate
and evolve on Nibiru, then the characteristics of Nibiru are not so
important, are they?
This comes under the general heading of what I call "colonization",
a consideration that has been utterly missed by the SETI community
because they have been persuaded that interstellar colonization by
living beings is utterly impossible. Thus they go on in a tiresome
way about "good candidates for producing life" and "bad candidates".
Aside from colonization by living beings, there is the interesting
possibility of colonization and even environmental engineering by
DNA itself. You will have to refer to my pages for more details
about that.
Why the USA is so concerned about ET search phenomenon, alien
abduction, etc?
I don’t completely understand your premise. Do you mean the people
of the USA or some open or black aspect of the government ? Or some
other "black" group not officially connected with the government?
I will assume you mean the common levels of American society - the
common people, and everyone else not a part of a black group. Then I
have to ask, how concerned are they? Perhaps you mean they seem to
be more concerned about these phenomena than the European or Belgian
societies are. And that would require some sociological study to
determine even if the premise is correct.
I would just say that the people are as concerned as somebody wants
them to be. That "somebody" has a power structure that can control
media presentations. The people follow like sheep. Therefore,
somebody wants the society to have exactly the concern that it does
have. And why does somebody want this? My answer is perhaps
supremely paranoid: they want it because it will assist them in
their consolidation of power.
How might it so assist? It could be a deflection or distraction
designed to handle people’s noticing that something is "broken" in
the common world view. Or it could be a step toward a major
operation of some kind.
Because of your position and your conception in physics and
metaphysic, have you been ostracized or victimized by your
colleagues?
Never. For most of my life I was able to "compartmentalize" my
thinking and discourse. But this was not satisfying, as you can
imagine. After I began to develop Open SETI, I found that my
colleagues not only could not grasp what is was, but were not even
interested.
I do know that one or two of them would occasionally browse my
pages, but this would be their private experience and we never
discussed it.
Do you believe that one day, in a very close future, we will have a
clear and full disclosure about the subject of UFO and Alien?
Disclosure? No. An event promulgated by aliens themselves? They have
not done anything like that since the "gods" left us several
thousand years ago. Who can tell whether or when they will do it
again.
