Ep 4: Are UFOs Humans From The Future
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Welcome back to the UFO Rabbit Hole Podcast. I’m your host, Kelly Chase.
Over the last two episodes we’ve discussed two potential explanations for the UFO phenomenon — that the highly advanced technological craft that are being recorded in our skies and in our oceans could be secret human technology, or that they could, in fact, be extraterrestrial.
But despite the fact that we tend to associate UFOs with either of those two possibilities, we’re just barely scraping the surface in our understanding of what these craft could actually be. And I’ve got to warn you — from here on out, things get pretty strange.
In the last episode we talked about one of the most puzzling aspects of alleged alien encounters — which is that they look a lot like us. In other words, they’re anthropomorphic. Which is a mashup of two Greek words — anthrop meaning “human” and morphic meaning “shaped” — so literally human-shaped.
And as we discussed, although the idea that extraterrestrial beings would be anthropomorphic is counterintuitive, the more we learn about how evolution works, the more likely it seems that we could encounter intelligent beings from other planets who look a lot like we do.
The Future Human Hypothesis
But what if there was another explanation? What if they aren’t just human-shaped, but actually human? What if what people are seeing aren’t extraterrestrial beings that happened to evolve along a similar evolutionary path — what if they are a part of our evolutionary path, but they’re just further down the road than we are?
This is what is referred to as the Future Human Hypothesis. The basic premise of this hypothesis is that the origin of the UFO phenomenon isn’t from another world, but from this world far in the future.
Michael Masters, a professor of biological anthropology at Montana Technological University is a proponent of the future human hypothesis. In his book Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon, Masters makes the argument that, although we tend to associate UFOs with extraterrestrials, that it actually makes a lot more sense that they have a terrestrial — and more specifically, human — origin, saying:(1)
“We know we’re here. We know humans exist. We know that we’ve had a long evolutionary history on this planet. And we know our technology is going to be more advanced in the future. I think the simplest explanation, innately, is that it is us. I’m just trying to offer what is likely the most parsimonious explanation.” (2)
And he does have a point. As we discussed in the last episode, until we get incontrovertible proof of exterrestrial life, we just simply don’t have enough data to know how common it is for life to develop and how often that life evolves to a level of technological advancement that would make interstellar travel possible. And even then, interstellar travel is something that is only hypothetically possible using hypothetical technology. There are just a lot of unknowns there.
As Masters points out, the future human hypothesis doesn’t need to overcome any of those challenges. We don’t need to unlock the mysteries of the universe to find an explanation for this phenomenon. All the answers we need are right in front of us.
And yet, as we’ll see, the future human hypothesis offers us anything but easy answers.
So let’s take a little time to explore this idea, starting with the question of how humans might evolve to look in the future.
How Will Humans Look In The Future?
Now it’s impossible to play the tape forward on evolution and know for certain what humans will look like in the future, but we only need to look at our own evolutionary path up until this point to see how drastically a species can change over time. And we know enough to make some basic assumptions that allow us to at least approach this as an interesting thought experiment.
So, based on what we know, what might future humans look like?
We Will Probably Look More Alike
Well, if current trends continue, they will probably look much more similar to each other than present-day humans do. Humanity, as we know it, is very diverse. Over the last 200,000 years or so, as humans spread out across the globe, we developed different traits based on adaptations to our environment, interbreeding with other ancient human species, and random mutation. As a result, there is a stunning amount of variety in our skin color, eye color, hair color and texture, height, etc.
However, as we become more technologically advanced our world is getting smaller. We’re no longer isolated from each other in little pockets of humanity, and we’re increasingly mixing together in one giant genetic melting pot. (3)
The natural result of this is that our genes are becoming more homogenized. Dominant traits like brown eyes become much more common than recessive traits like blue eyes. And the traits that aren’t tied to one specific gene like skin color and eye shape blend together causing people to look more and more alike.
But aside from looking more alike, how else might humans evolve physically in the future?
We Might Have Bigger Heads And Eyes
In 2013, artist and researcher, Nickolay Lamm, worked with computational geneticist, Dr. Alan Kwan, to illustrate what humans might look like 100,000 years from now. Based on their research they theorized that human foreheads would continue to get larger and cranial capacities would continue to accommodate larger brains — a trend that started in the 14th century. (4)
They also proposed that as humans begin to colonize space, that we will probably have much bigger eyes to help us see better in low-light environments. According to Kwan, these eyes would likely be “unnervingly large” by today’s standards. And we might even develop eye shine to further enhance our low-light vision.
Just A Fun Thought Experiment?
Not everyone agrees with these predictions — and honestly, there’s no real reason for them to do so. It’s all just wild speculation. (5)
What it comes down to is this: close-encounter accounts typically describe UFO tenants as bipedal, hairless, human-like beings with large brains, large eyes, small noses and small mouths. And that’s interesting — super interesting. But just because the beings that people report seeing in and around UFOs look like us, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are us. But they could be.
What Might Future Humans Be Doing Here?
So let’s have a little fun with this and assume that UFOs are future-human in origin. The first and most obvious question is what are they doing here?
There are three basic buckets of possibilities:
- They’re just curious.
- They’re trying to save us.
- They’re trying to save themselves.
They’re Just Curious
Let’s start with the idea that they are just curious. The thinking with this theory is that if a species evolved technologically to the point where time travel was possible, then the natural inclination would be to go back in time and check out what things were like in the past.
So it could be that they are basically tourists. Maybe in the distant future instead of taking a Caribbean cruise, you can vacation by going back in time to see dinosaurs, then fly through Egypt to watch the pyramids being built, and then pop up north and a few thousand years to catch the fall of Rome before heading back home. That does sound pretty awesome. And it makes sense that if we could do such a thing, that we probably would. So that is one possibility.
Another possibility is that they could be more formally studying us. Time travel would be an absolute game-changer for historians and archeologists of the future. Instead of painstakingly collecting artifacts and data and piecing them together, scholars and scientists could go back and see what was going on during a particular time period for themselves.
They’re Trying To Save Us
It also could be that they aren’t here just to observe us, but that they are here on a very specific mission. And some people think that that mission could be to save us by preventing some massive calamity. Maybe they are here to warn us of an impending disaster. Or maybe their goal is just to alter the timeline just enough to avert some unknown outcome.
One major reason that some people gravitate toward this particular explanation is that there is an undeniable connection between UFOs and nuclear technology. Where there are nuclear weapons and nuclear facilities, you tend to find lots of reports of UFO sightings.
Over the last decade or so, more and more current and former members of the US military have come forward to talk about UFO encounters in which these craft didn’t just seem to be interested in our nuclear weapons, but interacted with them directly.
One such alleged incident occurred on March 24th, 1967 at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. US Air Force Captain Robert Salas was the on-duty commander of a secret underground launch control facility that night and he claims that he saw a giant UFO disable 10 nuclear weapons. (6)(7)
The saucer-shaped craft was seen floating above the base by multiple guards stationed on the ground. And Captain Salas watched in astonishment as all 10 nuclear weapons were powered down and rendered useless — something that should have been impossible as all 10 of the weapons were running on 10 independent systems.
Salas reported that it took over a day to get them all back online. No damage to the weapons systems was found, nor has there ever been an explanation for what happened that day. And this is just one of literally over 100 reports from members of our military regarding this sort of phenomenon at nuclear sites. (8)
Many people look at this correlation and wonder if it could be that future humans are trying to warn us off from the devastating potential consequences of using our nuclear weapons. And it’s not like nuclear war is the only potential disaster that we’re currently flirting with as a species. It could be that they are doing their best to save us from ourselves.
They’re Trying To Save Themselves
And finally, it could be that they aren’t trying to save us, but trying to save themselves. We might have something that they need to survive. But what could be going on in the future that would cause humanity to look back into its past for help?
Going back to Michael Masters and his book on the future human hypothesis, Identified Flying Objects, he proposed that they could be coming back to harvest our DNA. The idea is that if the homogenization of human DNA continues into the future, that could make us particularly vulnerable to extinction.
For a species to stay strong and viable, there needs to be a lot of variation among individuals. If there isn’t enough variation, the species will become vulnerable to diseases caused by everything from recessive traits to viruses — and they could be wiped out.
And if you needed to introduce more variation into your DNA, your ancient ancestors would be a great place to start, if you had the technology to do so.
Once again, this is all purely speculative. But it’s possible.
Ross Coulthardt and The Future Human Hypothesis
I’ll be honest and say that I struggle with the Future Human Hypothesis. For reasons that we’ll talk about in just a minute, I just ultimately don’t find it to be very satisfying. However, there is one odd bit of potential evidence in support of this idea that I personally find too compelling to ignore.
There is this award-winning, investigative journalist from Australia named Ross Coulthardt who recently wrote a book on the UFO phenomenon called In Plain Sight: An Investigation Into UFOs & Impossible Science. This was a big departure and a big risk for someone who had built his career and reputation on being a “serious” journalist.
And yet, Coulthardt stuck to his guns, believing that there was more than enough evidence to not only confirm that the UFO phenomenon is real, but that there has been a massive international coverup to hide this fact from the public.
And recently, he’s come out in interviews and said that, according to some of his high-level contacts inside the US government, UFOs are, in fact, humans from the future. Listen to the answer he gave in an interview with Curt Jaimungal on Theories of Everything when he was asked to comment on Lue Elizondo’s now infamous “somber” comment.
Wild, right? This conversation goes on from here and is a fascinating interview to listen to. I’ll link it up in the comments so you can go check out for yourself.
Although I’m not the biggest fan of the Future Human Hypothesis, Ross Coulthardt is someone who is well-respected, not just in the UFO community, but in the world of mainstream journalism. He has a reputation for being a hard-nosed and fearless investigator who has taken on and taken down everyone from terrorists to organized crime sindicates. So when Ross says something like this, it’s hard not to listen and wonder if he might be onto something.
Granted — and Coulhardt himself is aware of this and is the first to admit it — his information is only as good as his sources, and right now we don’t know who those sources are, or what their motivations might be for telling him these things. The reality is that intelligence agencies lie all the time, and it could be that he’s being intentionally fed misinformation.
But Coulthardt’s sterling reputation leads many to believe that this is very likely what he’s being told by his contacts in the government. Whether or not it’s true is still up for debate.
Problems With The Future Human Hypothesis
Because here’s the thing — the Future Hypothesis has some real issues. There’s not enough evidence to rule it out, but like I said — there’s something about it that is just unsatisfying.
First of all, let’s say that Coulhardt’s sources are right and they are here to save us from some impending disaster. It begs the question, why wouldn’t they just tell us that? Why would they instead decide to dick around for 80 or so years, popping up randomly but without any clear intention or message?
And I also don’t know that I totally buy that even if there was a huge calamity of some kind that whatever remained of humans in the future would choose to go back and fix it. Think about it — if you had the ability to go back in time and prevent some horrible atrocity from happening, like if you could go back and prevent the Holocaust from happening, the knee jerk reaction is that yes, of course, you’d do it. In a heartbeat.
But how far back would you go? And what would you change to be certain that it wouldn’t happen? And — and here is where it gets messy — what impact would making those changes in the past have on the people who are alive in the present?
What if no one lost a loved one in the horrors of the concentration camps? What if all the high school sweethearts didn’t have to go away to fight a war never to return? It sounds fantastic — like a miracle.
But then you consider all of the people who were born because those people never returned. If you go back and save them, how many people are you killing in the present? And is causing them not to exist the same thing as killing them? And what if you found out that saving millions of lives would mean causing millions more to never exist?
And how would you even make that decision? Do the people who were around first get priority when it comes to choosing who to save? Do you make the choice that saves the most lives or do you make the choice that causes the least amount of suffering? And how would you even know any of those things ahead of time?
There are no easy answers when it comes to anything that involves time travel, particularly when you start talking about altering timelines.
And that’s really where the primary issues with the Future Human Hypothesis lie — with the idea of time travel itself. It causes all kinds of problems that we aren’t sure how to solve. And much like anyone who claims to understand the plot of Tenet, I’m suspicious of anyone who claims to have any definitive answers on this issue. Because, to start, we don’t even know for sure that time travel is even possible.
Is Time Travel Possible?
Actually, that’s not true. There is one kind of time travel that we know is possible, but unfortunately, it doesn’t really help us with this scenario. And that’s because, the only kind of time travel that we know how to do, at least theoretically, is going forward into the future — but with this kind of time travel, it’s a one-way ticket. (9)
Traveling Forward In Time
We know that we can go forward in time through a property of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity called time dilation. So, as a quick refresher, we know from Special Relativity that time is not constant, and that the faster you move — or the stronger the gravitational field you’re exposed to — the slower time moves for you.
In a technical sense, all of our astronauts who’ve spent any time in space are also time travelers because as they move at tremendous speeds in space, time is actually moving fractionally slower for them than it is on Earth. However, the difference is only about 38 microseconds per day, so we don’t notice it.
But if we were to be able to put a human into a craft that could travel at near the speed of light, it would be possible to send that person far into the future, while only a few hours or days pass in their time. But this only works when you are trying to go forward in time.
So obviously that’s a problem. Because while it could give us clues as to how we might be able to visit future humans, it doesn’t explain how they could come see us. And if the trip is only one way all of the primary theories for why future humans might come here start to fall apart.
Traveling Backward In Time
So let’s go back to this idea of traveling backward in time. Sure, we can’t do it now, but if we’re talking about human technology thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years in the future, it seems like we could probably figure it out eventually, right? So why are so many scientists adamant that traveling backward in time isn’t possible?
The main reason is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Almost all of the laws of physics are symmetrical with regard to time, which means that they would work the same way whether time were going backward or forward.
For instance, imagine that you’re playing pool. You hit the cue ball with your pool cue, and that cue ball hits the 8 ball into the corner pocket. You win! Hooray. And if you wanted to understand exactly how much force was transferred from your hand to the pool ball to the eight ball, you could use physics to figure that out. It’s just a math equation.
But if you could run time backward and watch as the eight ball pops back out of the corner pocket to roll back and hit the cue ball which rolls back to hit your pool cue, you’d basically have the exact same math equation, but just in reverse.
If all of the laws of physics were symmetrical in this way, technically there would be no real reason for time to move forward instead of backward. (10)
However, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is the exception. This Law states that over time, everything moves from an ordered state to a disordered state. This is called entropy.
Think about what would happen if you put a drop of ink into a glass of water. Very quickly the drop starts to lose its shape. It spreads out through the water, and within a few minutes it will have lost its shape and structure entirely. You won’t see a drop of ink in water anymore. The water will be dyed one, consistent color as the ink distributes itself evenly within the glass.
No matter how many times you try it, the ink in the glass will do this in a couple of minutes, totally on its own, even if you don’t stir it. And yet, no matter how long you leave that glass there — even if you could somehow leave it there undisturbed for 1000 years, the ink molecules would never come back together. Once the ink has distributed itself through the water, you can’t get the ink back out again.
The Second Law is why you can mix the ingredients for a cake, but you can’t unmix them. And this doesn’t just apply to cakes, but to everything in the Universe. Once something is mixed up, it can’t be unmixed. This implies a directionality to time that many physicists think can’t be overcome.
Can You Change The Past?
Granted, not everyone agrees, and there are some physicists who think that backward time travel could be possible, but most of them agree that even if you could travel backward in time that you probably wouldn’t be able to change anything.
The example that’s often used is the Grandfather Paradox. Basically, if you went back and killed your grandfather before your parent was born, then you would never be born. But if you were never born, then who killed your grandfather? (11)
Many of these physicists suspect that if you went back in time and tried to change things that you would be prevented from doing so in some way. Like let’s say you went back in time to try to prevent the COVID pandemic by stopping Patient Zero from getting infected. The theory is that even if you were able to stop that from happening, that the pandemic would still happen in some other way. Maybe you would become Patient Zero.
It’s all highly speculative, because – while it’s fun to think about — time travel doesn’t just break our brains, but it breaks everything we know about the laws of physics and how they work.
Which is why Tenet didn’t make any goddamn sense, and I stand by that. Don’t @ me.
So that’s where we’ll leave the Future Human hypothesis for now, and next week we’ll explore yet another potential explanation for the UFO phenomenon — yes, there are more. And as we go further down this rabbit hole, the people and ideas we will encounter grow curiouser and curiouser.
See you next time.
Sources
- Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon by Michael Masters
- Are The Aliens Us? UFOs May Be Piloted By Time-Traveling Humans, Book Argues | Space Insider
- Future Humans Will All Look Brazilian, Researcher Says | Business Insider
- How The Human Face Might Look In 100,000 Years | Forbes
- No, This Is Not How The Human Face Might Look In 100,000 Years | Forbes
- I Saw Giant UFO Disable 10 Live Nukes At Top Secret Base – And Pentagon Is Covering It Up, Says US Air Force Captain | The Sun
- UFOs Disable Weapons At Nuclear Facilities, According To These Former USAF Officers | The Debrief
- UFOs & Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites | Robert L. Hastings
- Time Travel Is Possible, But It’s A One-Way Ticket | Science Borealis
- Why Does Time Go Forward Instead of Backward? | Popular Mechanics
- Time Travel Is Theoretically Possible, New Calculations Show. But That Doesn’t Mean You Could Change The Past | Business Insider
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