Rebuttal to the paper, “Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis”

by Tim Jones

Regarding comments made in the paper, “Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis”, by by Seth D. Baum, Jacob D. Haqq-Misra, Shawn D. Domagal-Goldman, it states that there has been no 'observation' or 'detection' of UFOs. However, it ignores an existing body of authentic, hard data, the veracity of which would hold up in a court of law. Examples of the type of information to which I am referring are air traffic controller's hard data and the resulting reports, indicating intelligently controlled solid objects performing aeronautical maneuvers well beyond the capabilities of the known aircraft our military possess.

Along with the hard data, there are corroborating eye witness reports by both commercial and military pilots and air traffic controllers, as to those same aeronautical maneuvers. An example of one of those reports is testimony given by John Callahan, former Division Chief of the Accidents and Investigations Branch of the FAA in Washington DC. In a 2001 Disclosure Conference Project* at the National Press Club, in Washington D.C., he testifies to the fact that in 1986, a Japanese Airlines 747 was followed by a UFO over Alaska for 31 minutes. For thirty-one of those minutes, there exist hard data, the air traffic controller's** experience in communication with the pilot and the pilot's eyewitness account.

Immediately following the event concerning the Japanese Airlines 747, John Callahan was asked to be present at a briefing. At the briefing, the CIA told all in the meeting that day, top FAA officials, CIA, military, (Reagan )White House Scientific Study Group and others, that 'this never happened', that they were sworn to secrecy, and the public cannot know.

There is only one conclusion John Callahan drew from his experience, “if it’s not the stealth bomber, then you know, it’s a UFO”. How is that the three authors can conclude (from the abstract of their paper) that, “While humanity has not yet observed any extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI), contact with ETI remains possible,” and (from the introduction of the same paper) that, “Humanity has not yet encountered or even detected any form of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI)...” ?

Further, Baum et al. (2011) points out that, “Mere detection of ETI refers to scenarios in which the entirety of contact is limited to the discovery that ETI exist. In other words, we detect the presence of ETI and thus can confirm their existence but have no further contact. This means no communication, direct contact, or any other possible contact mode. Here we argue that mere detection would provide a nontrivial benefit to humanity. If ETI do exist within the galaxy, then confirmation of their presence would have profound implications for human science, philosophy, religion, and society.”

If the authors state that mere 'detection' would have 'profound implications' on all aspects of life, why wouldn't they acknowledge this existing scientific evidence? I'll let the readers draw their own conclusions.

Note about Tim Jones: I have had two UFO sighting experiences, one of which was corroborated by a group of eye witnesses. I teach Academic English at Shanghai University, Shanghai, China.

Notes & References:
* “Disclosure Conference Project” video on YouTube.
**http://galactic.no-ip.info:81/radio/greer/disclosure2.html (scroll down to copies of the original documents signed by ATC's (air traffic controller) on duty that day.)
1.Seth D. Baum, Jacob D. Haqq-Misra, Shawn D. Domagal-Goldman, Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis, by http://sethbaum.com/ac/2011_ET-Scenarios.pdf. Seth D. Baum is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University. Jacob D. Haqq-Misra, Ph.D. is Postdoctoral Scholar at Penn State University, Rock Ethics Institute; and Research Scientist, Blue Marble Space Institute of Science. Shawn D. Domagal-Goldman is a Ph.D. in Astrobiology and Geosciences