UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

I want to begin by simply saying that this article is not about Tom DeLonge. Ok. Maybe a bit. It is more “around” him than “about” him.

The man has taken significant abuse as of late. He has been the topic of much discussion over the last year or so within the UFO community concerning his “Sekret Machines” project. Some are calling him one of the most important contributors to modern Ufology, some calling him a charlatan and a fraud, while others yet consider him a victim of a conspiratorial disinformation campaign. Whatever the case, last week fared no better for him. Promising a huge announcement concerning the UFO phenomenon, Mr. DeLonge stepped onto a stage, and live streamed his plan to essentially crowdfund a three-prong company which will use future technology today to travel the stars. His mission is to better humanity.

A still from the “To the Stars Academy” live stream event.

In a public statement, according to the Stereogum music news website, DeLonge stated,

The public interest in the outer edges of science and the understanding of phenomena has always been suffocated by mainstream ideology and bureaucratic constraint. We believe there are discoveries within our reach that will revolutionize the human experience, but they can only be accomplished through the unrestricted support of breakthrough research and innovation.

In a Facebook post, DeLonge explained one of his company’s main objectives,

We are aiming to build this ElectroMagnetic Vehicle to Travel instantaneously through Space, Air and Water by engineering the fabric of Space-Time.

Sounds great.

Fancy. (Image: To the Stars/DeLonge)

I want you to put aside your personal opinions concerning Mr. DeLonge and his band of high ranking spies, scientists, and government officials for a moment. It fundamentally does not matter. The ideological ship has sailed for his “To the Stars Academy”, and it has charted its course. We must wait and see if the wind takes it into far reaches of technological progress, or into the back swell and impending rocks.

Rather, I want to you to think about the UFO community, and the effect Mr. DeLonge has on it.

I’ve written extensively on the UFO community, and its cultural history, ideologies and mythologies. In the book, UFOs: Reframing the Debate, I suggested that the UFO community is disenfranchised from mainstream culture. The men and women who make up the UFO community are lost toys who may moonlight in regular everyday society, but in the bulk of their thoughts and actions regularly challenge its arbitrary authority.

The government and multinational corporations are not to be trusted. There is a UFO truth embargo. Insert whatever ideological nonsense you wish. There is an inherent mistrust within the community of the powerful, and the institutions which assign power. In other words, authority is viewed with disdain.

In reality, this mistrust probably stems from the alienation of the UFO community from ‘normal’ culture. The community deems the UFO phenomenon as being incredibly important, and the established systems which arbitrate knowledge, such as the academia, the sciences, popular media, and various political bodies, won’t give UFOlogy the time of day.

While Mr. DeLonge most likely has honest intentions, we must appreciate that the vast majority of the UFO community is ideologically alienated from the mainstream. Regardless of ‘the truth,’ his position within culture is that of privilege. While we may never know why he was chosen by high ranking government officials to be the torchbearer of alleged UFOlogical truth, one can assume it had to do with his fame and ability to allocate capital to various projects (social capital as well as monetary). Or not. Again, it really does not matter. To the community at large, his wealth and fame tips the ideological balance within UFO discourse.

Due to the very democratic, if not anarchic, nature of the UFO community (in that no one person or organization is UFOlogy), DeLonge’s ability to shift the discourse is threatening. Similar to how Donald Keyhoe and others in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s galvanized the extraterrestrial hypothesis into UFO discourse and popular culture, so too may DeLonge’s particular hypothesis regarding UFOs become how the mainstream interprets the whole of UFOlogy. It is not that DeLonge is right or wrong, it is that there will always be dissent within the UFO community. By its very nature, UFO discourse resigns itself to challenging those who claim to ‘know the truth.’

DeLonge, and his supporters, may consider this jealousy or envy, or some other surface level emotional response to his success. I think this is a dangerous path to tread. The UFO community is a heterogeneous mix of people and ideologies, and DeLonge is simply one voice in a very complex political and nuanced choir. While he may be used to being front man, he surely must know that this is not possible here.

(Image: Paper Magazine)

The proliferation of the extraterrestrial hypothesis kneecapped UFO discourse, and the UFO community. It is one of the key reasons why UFOlogy is considered a fringe pseudo-science. Perhaps the UFO community does not want to walk down that path again? Perhaps it has learned that allowing one ideology to become the ideology stifles debate and creates zealots, instead of promoting critical thought and reasonable discussion. Perhaps the UFO community has seen its fair share of big promises only to be left disappointed time and time again.

Mr. DeLonge is a man of two worlds; pop culture icon and member of the UFO community. It is a curious mix, since neither world can agree with the other. Many in the UFO community view him as an outsider; “he cannot be one of us because of who he is.” In some curious twist of logic, Mr. DeLonge finds himself a bit of an outcast among the social outcasts. Yet, by the same token, the mainstream views his latest announcement with a critical tone, and a few snide remarks just for good measure. The risk he took in this move is significant, and we can only hope that fortune truly does favour the bold.

As Mr. DeLonge continues his project, he must look to the ideological influence he generates. He must also be cautious. Others in the UFOlogical field who were once regarded as heroes were later torn to shreds; puddles of blood and ridicule is all that remains of them. That being said, the UFO community must also look to itself. Those upon the fringes of culture should worry about the hypocrisy of casting a fellow outsider out into the night. Mr. DeLonge is no hayseed, and his expertise of UFO lore is, from what I’m told, impressive.

I am not suggesting that the UFO community drink the Kool-Aid Mr. DeLonge is serving, however, perhaps before attacking the man, it should check to see if he is truly poisoning the cup.

In the 1930s, a small glass cylinder of ancient provenance was discovered in Baghdad. Simple and of otherwise inconsequential design, the strange little object did convey a message: that in ancient times, and at least as early as 2,700 BC, artificial glass was being produced for various purposes.

Similar discoveries in the way of these mysterious ancient glassmakers turned up 12 miles from Haifa, Israel, within a large cave, when a bulldozer on site struck a large 6 by 10 foot glass slab, first believed by archaeologists on site to have been a large piece of vitreous stone. Upon closer examination, the slab was indeed found to be glass, as confirmed in 1964 by a group of American glass experts who visited the site.

While the early production of such materials is fascinating unto itself, at least in terms of the engineering skill it displays, there are more unusual allusions to glasswork that appear in history, which might suggest more technical use of glass in the creation of mirrors, lenses, and even sighting devices.

Among the most famous examples is the “famous” mirror attributed to Ptolemy Euergetes, under whose reign the item was purportedly placed in the Pharos lighthouse off the coast of Alexandria. In his aptly-titled 1860 book, Stories of Inventors and Discoveries in Science and the Useful Arts: A Book for Old and Young, the antiquarian John Timbs (who also used the name Horace Welby) wrote of this strange “mirror,” described as being capable of sighting objects at great distance:

This mirror is stated by ancient authors to have represented accurately every thing which was transacted throughout all Egypt, both on water and on land. Some writers affirm that upon its surface an enemy’s fleet could be seen at the distance of 600,000 paces; others say, more than 100 leagues! Albulfeda, in his description of Egypt, states this mirror to have been of “Chinese Iron” which Buffon considers to mean polished steel; but a writer in the Philosophical Magazine, 1805, supposes the metal to have been tutenag, a Chinese metallic compound, capable of receiving the highest polish. The existence of Ptolemy’s mirror has, however, been generally treated aa a fiction; but Father Abbat, in his Amusemems Philosophiques, first published at Marseilles in 1763, considers that it may have been at the time the only mirror of its kind, and, being a great wonder, its effects may have been greatly exaggerated; making allowance for which, nothing remains “but that at some distance, provided nothing was interposed between the objects and the mirror, those objects were seen more distinctly than with the naked eye; and that with the mirror many objects were seen which, because of their distance, were imperceptible without it.”

“It is certain that, under some circumstances, objects may be seen at a much greater distance than is generally supposed,” Timbs concluded. “Thus it is stated that the Isle of Man is clearly visible from the summit of Ben Lomond, in Scotland, or 120 miles distant. Brydone states, that from the summit of Etna mountains 200 miles off may be distinguished; and, during his visit to Tenerife in 1856, Mn Piazzi Smyth saw objects at a much greater distance.”

The implication here, of course, is that perspective may have had more to do with claims of sight over great distances with the use of this “mirror,” rather than the unique qualities imbued by its formation in “Chinese Iron.” The description of the device, and its attribution to metal obtained from the Orient, does bear a passing similarity to the “Chinese Magic Mirror,” a device with the perceived capability of becoming transparent, and/or projecting designs when bright sunlight was cast upon it (more on these devices can be read about on page 16 of the PDF found here).

Strange though the description may seem, many scholars have noted its apparent similarity, at least in terms of its function, to modern telescopes. For some time, the creation of the telescope was credited to the 17th century astronomer Galileo. However, a patent for such a device was later found to have been filed in 1608 by the Flemish maker of eyeglasses, Hans Lippershey, at least one year before Galileo improved upon the design and built his own.

Centuries before this, it is known that the ancient Norse seafarers possessed lenses made of polished crystalline rock, which would have been of enough quality for use in a telescope; whether or not they actually created such devices remains unclear. However, claims of similar devices in antiquity have turned up elsewhere over the years, which include the Chinese Emperor Chan, who around 2283 BC was alleged have paired two magnifying lenses together, allowing him “to magnify planets.” Pliny the Elder also wrote of Roman Emperor Nero employing some variety of magnifying device, which he used to observe the Colosseum games from a distance.

In 2016, The Royal Astronomical Society reported on the discovery of a series of megalithic tombs in Portugal, whose long, narrow entrances might have functioned as early sorts of telescopes, although sans any lenses. “These structures could therefore have been the first astronomical tools to support the watching of the skies, millennia before telescopes were invented,” the RAS reported.

If nothing else, such historical accounts lend some credence to the idea that telescopic devices may have been in use in some parts of the ancient world. Perhaps they were widely regarded as novelties at the time, and hence, we don’t see anything akin to mass production related in the archaeological record today. And, when considered alongside items like the famous Antikythera mechanism, the notion that such “high technology” might have been implemented in some parts of the ancient world, at least on a small scale, really isn’t that farfetched.

Even Galileo is said to have believed that people in ancient times discovered and used telescopes. Whether or not they were on par with the instruments he helped craft and improve, at least he could have been right that similar technologies had been used well in advance of his era of astronomical discovery.