We haven’t reached Black Friday yet but fans of Doc Brown, Mr. Peabody and Doctor Who may have have already received the present they’ve wanted since they were kids.

“But thanks to some very interesting properties of space and time in Einstein’s General Relativity, traveling back in time may be possible after all.”

In a recent post on his Forbes blog, Starts with a Bang, theoretical astrophysicist and science writer Ethan Siegel lays out the parts and the plans for traveling backwards in time. Siegel claims this ‘time machine’ abides by Einstein’s general theory of relativity and will not destroy the universe as we know it. Yes! Tell us how to build one, Professor Siegel, so we can all go back change the answer on the test that kept us from getting into Harvard. Or one questionable election vote.

“The place to start is with the physical idea of a wormhole.”

Sigh. You skipped right over that part about Dr. Siegel being a “theoretical” physicist, didn’t you? Wormholes can exist theoretically – we just haven’t found one yet. Siegel starts with the accepted idea that positive/negative energy fluctuations can create a curve space wormhole that a particle could travel through from one point in spacetime to another. Who cares about particles, Dr. Siegel? We want to transport ourselves and possibly a cool-looking but poor-performing sports car back in time.

“If we want to scale that up, however, to allow something like a human being through, that’s going to take some work. While every known particle in our Universe has positive energy and either positive or zero mass, it’s eminently possible to have negative mass/energy particles in the framework of General Relativity. Sure, we haven’t discovered any yet, but according to all the rules of theoretical physics, there’s nothing forbidding it.”

With that assumption in mind, Siegel proposes a sort of reverse wormhole. Instead of the conventional “travel 40 light years out at nearly the speed of light, come back and you’ve aged 2 years while everyone else is 82 years older,” he proposes a wormhole with one fixed end and one that moves around at nearly the speed of light. The wormhole is created, you wait a year and then enter the end that has been in motion. When you come out at the fixed end, it’s 40 years prior. That means if you entered this wormhole today, you could travel back to 1978 …

I’m right again!

… provided someone in 1977 had created this wormhole. So Dr. Siegel’s time machine wormhole is dependent on a previous Dr. Siegel-type with his theoretical physics knowledge and more. What if that person was your grandfather? Could you go back in time to meet him and prevent your own birth?

“Satisfyingly, we discover that this form of time travel also forbids the grandfather paradox! Even if the wormhole were created before your parents were conceived, there’s no way for you to exist at the other end of the wormhole early enough to go back and find your grandfather prior to that critical moment. The best you can do is to put your newborn father and mother on a ship to catch the other end of the wormhole, have them live, age, conceive you, and then send yourself back through the wormhole. You’ll be able to meet your grandfather when he’s still very young — perhaps even younger than you are now — but it will still, by necessity, occur at a moment in time after your parents were born.”

So Dr. Seigel is satisfied that he’ll never be able to prevent his own birth, but are we satisfied that we’ll ever be able to travel back in time through one of these strange theoretical (for now) wormholes?

Anyone? Doc Brown? Mister Peabody? Einstein? Bueller? Anyone?

Inspired by the crop circle phenomenon, the 2002 movie Signsdraws broadly from the UFO mythos and, in one of its more comical scenes, has three of its characters huddled together in tinfoil hats, wracked by paranoia. Beyond such cliché, however, M. Night Shyamalan’s film exhibits a deeper—perhaps subconscious—awareness of the UFO phenomenon and of the effects of its mass-mediation in the post-modern world.

In the film, a Pennsylvanian farming family—headed by old-fashioned priest and widower Reverend Graham Hess (Mel Gibson)—is thrown into turmoil when a crop formation appears overnight in their corn field. From TV news coverage we learn that hundreds of similar crop ‘signs’ have appeared suddenly and simultaneously around the world, baffling experts. Graham is quietly concerned and seeks to distance his family from the inexplicable events unfolding around them by refusing them access to the media circus now spoon-feeding the hungry masses. “See, this is why we’re not watching TV,” says Graham, “people get obsessed.” For Graham, despite the undeniable physical reality of the sign in his corn field, and his own gut instinct that something strange is afoot, it is only through their mediation by TV news reports that the bizarre events can assume a sense of the ‘real.’

Discussing Jean Baudrillard’s notions of hyperreality, John Storey notes that, “Representation does not stand at one remove from reality, to conceal or distort it, it is reality”; implicitly aware of this, Graham opts to sever his own access to media imagery, leaving him free to interpret the outside events as he chooses and to continue to inhabit his own secure, albeit emotionally stagnant, reality. It is only when Graham catches a glimpse of an alien in his corn field one night that he submits to his family’s desire to be mediated (“Okay, let’s turn on the TV”). It is Graham’s submission to television that plants him firmly in the “present age” to which Feuerbach refers in The Essence of Christianity: an age “which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence…” For Graham, the grieving widower and priest faced with an incomprehensible threat to his family, now, more than ever, “Illusion only is sacred, truth profane.”

The reality of the situation is unpalatable for Graham, so he opts to filter it through the lens of television.

As the family watch live footage of numerous UFOs over Mexico City, Graham’s brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) quips: “the nerds were right”—a reference to the generic UFO believers he had mocked in an earlier scene. Shyamalan’s decision to have the alien craft arrive over Mexico City was inspired by the real-life mass-sightings of UFOs over this same locale during the solar eclipse of July 11, 1991 when hundreds of people witnessed what appeared to be a number of hovering, metallic, disc-shaped objects. Signs again draws from the UFO mythos during a scene in which Merrill reacts with horror as the TV news runs grainy, daylight footage of an alien prowling the backstreets of Paso Fundo, Brazil. This is an oblique reference the famous “Varginha incident” of 1996 in which three teenage girls claimed to have been traumatized by a daylight encounter with an unearthly entity in the Brazilian city of Varginha.

M. Night Shyamalan directs Abigail Breslin.

Several scenes later, the whole family has succumbed entirely to the mystical power of their television as they stare passively at the numerous “lights” now hovering over Washington DC and over hundreds of cities worldwide. Such is the magnetism of their TV screen that, rather than driving to the nearest city in an attempt to see the lights for themselves, or even simply stepping outside to glance up at the sky, the family considers it more natural to watch the events on television and, most importantly, to record them. “We have to tape this,” urges Graham’s son, Morgan, “this is very important… the history of the world’s future is on the TV right now,” telling his younger sister Bo (Abigail Breslin), “We need to record this so you can show your children this tape and say you were there.” Clearly, the Hess family understand, as theorist John Fiske does, that the postmodern media do not simply provide, “secondary representations of reality; they affect and produce the reality that they mediate,” and that, “all events that ‘matter’ are media events.”

Glued to the screen.

As the saucer-shaped lights twinkle overhead, the anchorman informs viewers that “This image has not been adjusted or enhanced in anyway. What you’re seeing is real. It’s unbelievable.” Later in the film, Graham asks himself, “Is this really happening?” Such dialogue points to an awareness on Shayamalan’s part that the literal existence of UFOs is difficult to accept, not because of what UFOs might represent (otherworldly intelligences), but because of how the phenomenon has been mediated (i.e. ridiculed) for over sixty years. Shayamalan’s concerns along these lines are expressed subtly in his decision to confine his UFOs and aliens securely to his characters’ TV screen as objects of media scrutiny for all but a few seconds of the film’s total running time.

“What you’re seeing is real. It’s unbelievable.”

The extent to which the family’s perception of UFOs has been historically mediated is also effectively illustrated through their inability to envisage what horrors might be unfolding beyond the four corners of their TV screen. When both their television and radio cease to function as a result of the unseen invasion outside, in the total absence of media to guide their perceptions, the Hess family are lost, as demonstrated when a terrified Merrill asks: “What’s going on out there?” A question to which Graham can only respond: “I can’t even imagine.” Indeed, in an earlier scene, when Merrill does attempt to make use of his imagination, he can’t help but fall back on iconographic imagery conjured by classic UFOlogical fiction, describing the scenes on TV as being “like War of the Worlds.”

During the film’s climax in which an alien intruder holds Morgan hostage in the Hess family’s living room, Shyamalan again chooses to objectify the aliens through television—this time quite literally. When Graham finally sees the alien up close it is in the form of a reflection in his TV screen, and, again, when the creature is defeated and lies dying on the floor, we see only its reflection in the glass of the television. Are aliens real, or do they exist purely as media constructs? In Signs, Shayamalan seems to answer the question with a question: “in today’s hyperreal society, does it even matter?”

One of several shots in ‘Signs’ in which the image of the alien is distorted quite literally through the televisual medium.

Signs is an anomaly in the UFO subgenre. Consciously or not, it engages with the UFO subject through the intellectual framework of spectatorship and hyperreality. As a meditation on UFOs as a media abstraction (viewed most comfortably through the filter of television), the film serves as a reflection of popular attitudes towards the phenomenon today, demonstrating that, when it comes to UFOs, even Hollywood in its mass-mediation of the phenomenon is acutely aware that there is no longer a clear distinction between a ‘real’ event and its media representation.

There are serious questions being pondered and actions being taken by our top minds these days and there’s no reason why the thought process shouldn’t be open to all humans, especially since the end result could potentially put all humans in danger of being destroyed by aliens … especially aliens who don’t like techno-pop music. The questions? Would you broadcast radio signals at a planet that may contain alien life? If you say yes, would you send music or words? If you chose music, what songs would you send? Space Oddity? Rocket Man? The 1812 Overture? Space Cowboy?

GeekWire reports that a group of scientists and artists calling themselves Sónar Calling GJ273b didn’t bother to ask us before transmitting signals on three successive days, Oct. 16-18, from the EISCAT radio antenna in Tromsø, Norway. The transmissions were aimed at GJ273b, a planet twice the mass of Earth, orbiting GJ273 or Luyten’s Star, a red dwarf in the constellation Canis Major. GJ273b is in a habitable zone orbit and could harbor life, so it’s a prime target for messaging extraterrestrial intelligence (METI) according to METI International, a co-sponsor of Sónar Calling GJ273b.

Can’t they already hear this?

The other sponsors are the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia, Spain, and the Sónar music festival in Barcelona. So the inhabitants of GJ273b will someday be tapping their toes (or whatever appendages they’ve developed) to flamenco, opera, Spanish jazz and classical guitar songs – right?

“We will turn the EISCAT transmitter into a musical instrument, sending basic melodies by transmitting pulses at a series of different radio frequencies that maintain the same sort of intervals between one another that we see in the intervals between musical notes.”

What is that … polka? (Sorry, polka fans). Do we want them to like us or hate us? Douglas Vakoch, president of METI International, says those “pulses” were composed especially for this project by people like sound artist Holly Herndon, French composer Jean-Michel Jarre and the experimental electronic-music duo Matmos.

That might not be too bad … except the Sónar Calling pieces are only 10 seconds long and transmitted as binary code at two frequencies, 929.0 MHz and 930.2 MHz. The signal will also contain some sort of ‘cosmic clock’ to help ETs figure out our concept of time … which will help them know when to clap to the music.

People like Stephen Hawking think METI is a bad idea, but this musical cat is out of the bag, man, so we should have some input into what’s being sent to other life forms. This could be an exercise that brings us all together. Then again, have you ever been involved in picking out music for a DJ to play at a wedding?

Would aliens request Freebird?

What could possibly go wrong? It’s worth a shot. My vote is for some New Orleans jazz like When the Saints Go Marching In. Even aliens should like that. And if they don’t, they can play it at our funeral after they destroy Earth.

What music would you send to an extraterrestrial civilization?

The following report – titled “Research Findings on the Chihuahua Disk Crash, originally from ‘JS’ to ‘Deneb Team Members'” and dated March 23, 1992 – was mailed anonymously to the late UFO researcher Elaine Douglass in July 1993. She forwarded the report to crashed UFO researcher Leonard Stringfield, who later published it. It tells a fascinating story of a crashed UFO, mysterious deaths, a huge conspiracy, and much more. But, is the story true? As we try and find the answer, let’s begin with the report itself, which I have presented, below, without interruption:

“On 25 Aug. 74, at 2207 hrs., U.S. Air Defense radar detected an unknown approaching U.S. airspace from the Gulf of Mexico. Originally the object was tracked at 2,200 knots (2530 mph) on a bearing of 325 degrees and at an altitude of 75,000 feet, a course that would intercept U.S. territory about forty miles southwest of Corpus Christi, Texas. After approximately sixty seconds of observation, at a position 155 miles southeast of Corpus Christi, the object simultaneously decelerated to approximately 1700 knots (1955 mph), turned to a heading of 290 degrees, and began a slow descent. It entered Mexican airspace approximately forty miles south of Brownsville, Texas. Radar tracked it approximately 500 miles to a point near the town of Coyame, in the state of Chihuahua, not far from the U.S. border. There the object suddenly disappeared from the radar screens.

“During the flight over Mexican airspace, the object leveled off at 45,000 feet, then descended to 20,000 feet. The descent was in level steps, not a smooth curve or straight line, and each level was maintained for approximately five minutes. The object was tracked by two different military radar installations. It would have been within range of Brownsville civilian radar, but it is assumed that no civilian radar detected the object due to a lack of any such reports. The point of disappearance from the radar screens was over a barren and sparsely populated area of Northern Mexico. At first it was assumed that the object had descended below the radar’s horizon and a watch was kept for any re-emergence of the object. None occurred.

“At first it was assumed that the object might be a meteor because of the high speed and descending flight path. But meteors normally travel at higher speeds, and descend in a smooth arc, not in ‘steps.’ And meteors do not normally make a thirty-five degree change in course. Shortly after detection, an air defense alert was called. However, before any form of interception could be scrambled, the object turned to a course that would not immediately take it over U.S. territory. The alert was called off within twenty minutes after the object’s disappearance from the radar screen. Fifty-two minutes after the disappearance, civilian radio traffic indicated that a civilian aircraft had gone down in that area. But it was clear that the missing aircraft had departed El Paso International with a destination of Mexico City, and could not, therefore, have been the object tracked over the Gulf of Mexico. It was noted, however, that they both disappeared in the same area and at the same time.

“With daylight the next day, Mexican authorities began a search for the missing plane. Approximately 1035 hrs there came a radio report that wreckage from the missing plane had been spotted from the air. Almost immediately came a report of a second plane on the ground a few miles from the first. A few minutes later an additional report stated that the second “plane” was circular shaped and apparently in one piece although damaged. A few minutes after that the Mexican military clamped a radio silence on all search efforts.

“The radio interceptions were reported through channels to the CIA. Possibly as many as two additional government agencies also received reports, but such has not been confirmed as of this date. The CIA immediately began forming a recovery team. The speed with which this team and its equipment was assembled suggests that this was either a well-rehearsed exercise or one that had been performed prior to the event. In the meantime requests were initiated at the highest levels between the United States and Mexican governments that the U.S. recovery team be allowed onto Mexican territory to “assist.” These requests were met with professed ignorance and a flat refusal of any cooperation. By 2100 hrs, 26 Aug. 74, the recovery team had assembled and been staged at Fort Bliss. Several helicopters were flown in from some unknown source and assembled in a secured area.

UH1 Huey

“These helicopters were painted a neutral sand color and bore no markings. Eyewitness indicates that there were three smaller craft, very possibly UH1 Hueys from the description. There was also a larger helicopter, possibly a Sea Stallion. Personnel from this team remained with their craft and had no contact with other Fort Bliss personnel.

“Satellite and reconnaissance aircraft overflight that day indicated that both the crashed disk and the civilian aircraft had been removed from the crash sites and loaded on flat-bed trucks. Later flights confirmed that the convoy had departed the area heading south. At that point the CIA had to make a choice, either to allow this unknown aircraft to stay in the hands of the Mexican government, or to launch the recovery team, supplemented by any required military support, to take the craft. There occurred, however, an event that took the choice out of their hands. High altitude overflights indicated that the convoy had stopped before reaching any inhabited areas or major roads. Recon showed no activity, and radio contact between the Mexican recovery team and its headquarters ceased. A low altitude, high speed overflight was ordered.

“The photos returned by that aircraft showed all trucks and jeeps stopped, some with open doors, and two human bodies lying on the ground beside two vehicles. The decision was immediately made to launch the recovery team but the actual launching was held up for the arrival of additional equipment and two additional personnel. It was not until 1438 hrs. that the helicopters departed Fort Bliss. The four helicopters followed the border down towards Presidio then turned and entered Mexican airspace north of Candelaria. They were over the convoy site at 1653 hrs. All convoy personnel were dead, most within the trucks. Some recovery team members, dressed in bio-protection suits, reconfigured the straps holding the object on the flatbed truck, then attached them to a cargo cable from the Sea Stallion. By 1714 hrs the recovered object was on its way to U.S. territory. Before leaving the convoy site, members of the recovery team gathered together the Mexican vehicles and bodies, then destroyed all with high explosives. This included the pieces of the civilian light plane which had been involved in the mid-air collision. At 1746 hrs the Huey’s departed.

“The Hueys caught up with the Sea Stallion as it re-entered U.S. airspace. The recovery team then proceeded to a point in the Davis Mountains, approximately twenty-five miles north east of Valentine. There they landed and waited until 0225 hrs. the next morning. At that time they resumed the flight and rendezvoused with a small convoy on a road between Van Horn and Kent. The recovered disk was transferred to a truck large enough to handle it and capable of being sealed totally. Some of the personnel from the Hueys transferred to the convoy.

All helicopters then returned to their original bases for decontamination procedures. The convoy continued non-stop, using back roads and smaller highways, and staying away from cities. The destination of the convoy reportedly was Atlanta, Georgia. Here the hard evidence thins out. One unconfirmed report says the disk was eventually transferred to Wright-Patterson A.F. Base. Another says that the disk was either transferred after that to another unnamed base, or was taken directly to this unknown base directly from Atlanta. The best description of the disk was that it was sixteen feet, five inches in diameter, convex on both upper and lower surfaces to the same degree, possessing no visible doors or windows. The thickness was slightly less than five feet. The color was silver, much like polished steel. There was no visible lights nor any propulsion means. There were no markings.

“There were two areas of the rim that showed damage, one showing an irregular hole approximately twelve inches in diameter with indented material around it. The other damage was described as a ‘dent’ about two feet wide. The weight of the object was estimated as approximately one thousand five hundred pounds, based on the effect of the weight on the carrying helicopter and those who transferred it to the truck. There was no indication in the documentation available as to whether anything was visible in the ‘hole.’

“It seems likely that the damage with the hole was caused by the collision with the civilian aircraft. That collision occurred while the object was traveling approximately 1700 knots (1955 mph). Even ignoring the speed of the civilian aircraft, the impact would have been considerable at that speed. This is in agreement with the description of the civilian aircraft as being “almost totally destroyed.” What was being taken from the crash site were pieces of the civilian aircraft. The second damage may have resulted when the object impacted with the ground. The speed in that case should have been considerably less than that of the first impact.

“No mention is made of the occupants of the civilian aircraft. It is not known if anybody or bodies were recovered. Considering the destruction of the civilian light aircraft in mid-air, bodies may well not have come down near the larger pieces.

“Unfortunately, what caused the deaths of the Mexican recovery team is not known. Speculation ranges from a chemical released from the disk as a result of the damage, to a microbiological agent. There are no indications of death or illness by any of the [U.S.] recovery team. It would not have been illogical for the recovery team to have taken one of the bodies back with them for analysis. But there is no indication of that having happened. Perhaps they did not have adequate means of transporting what might have been a biologically contaminated body. Inquiries to the FAA reveal no documents concerning the civilian aircraft crash, probably because it did not involve a U.S. aircraft nor did it occur over U.S. airspace. It should be noted that the above facts do not tell the complete story. Nothing is known of the analysis of the craft or its contents. Nothing is known about the deaths associated with the foreign recovery team. Nor is it known if this craft was manned or not.

“Other questions also remain, such as why would a recovered disk be taken to Atlanta? And where did the disk come from? It was first detected approximately 200 miles from U.S territory, yet U.S. air defenses extend to a much greater distance than that. If the object descended into the atmosphere, perhaps NORAD space tracking has some record of the object. Alternate possibility is that it entered the Gulf of Mexico under radar limits then “jumped” up to 75,000 feet. Considering prior behavior exhibited by disks of this size, it is probable that the entry was from orbital altitude. The facts that are known have been gathered from two eye witness accounts, documentation illegally copied, and a partially destroyed document. This was done in 1978 by a person who is now dead. Only in February of this year did the notes and documents come into the hands of our group.”

Well, that’s quite a story. It’s also quite familiar. In the world of fiction, a very similar scenario was played out in Michael Crichton’s novel and movie, The Andromeda Strain.

The book was published in 1969 and the movie was released in 1971. A TV mini-series followed in 2008. In the story a satellite of the U.S. military crashes to Earth in a small, isolated town in Arizona. Unknown to anyone, the satellite has brought back on its shell a deadly virus of unearthly origins. That only becomes clear when people start to die, their blood turned to powder. Suddenly, the race is on to find a cure to prevent the virus from wiping out not just the people of the little town, or even of just Arizona – but the entire world. Crichton’s story is indeed a cautionary one and which shows just how quickly the human race might come to a crashing end when faced with something so unpredictable and poorly understood as an alien virus.

Read the novel, or watch the movie, and you’ll see undeniable parallels between both of them and the alleged 1974 events described above. In their 2007 book, Mexico’s Roswell: The Chihuahua UFO Crash</em>, authors Noe Torres and Ruben Uriarte suggest across approximately 200-pages that the event was real. Maybe it was. But, consider this: the alleged UFO is said to have vanished off the radar screens near the Mexican village of Coyame. The village just happens to be less than a 2-hour drive from the Texas town of Shafter, where portions of The Andromeda Strain were filmed…

{ http://mysteriousuniverse.org/ }