Despite the frequent warnings of both experts in the field and laymen, we continue to march along towards a future dominated by artificial intelligence constructs. For some reason, those with the ability to shape our futures just really want us to become the subservient Terminator fodder of a superintelligent AI hivemind built right into the very fabric of the technosphere. Are we creating our new overlords? Even worse, have already already created them? Could it be possible that we’ve already passed the tipping point and are already controlled by AI constructs?

It’s possible, according to technologist and historian George Dyson, son of theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson. Dyson has built a career out of studying the history of science and technology, and believes current trends point to a future in which the machines surely take over. To ring in the New Year in the most depressing and hope-crushing way possible, Dyson sat down with Edge.org to discuss the digital revolution and where he sees it heading. According to Dyson, we’ve already lost control of our most advanced technology and are already following the orders prescribed to us by the machines:

As computers proliferated, the humans providing instructions could no longer keep up with the insatiable appetite of the machines. Codes became self-replicating, and machines began supplying instructions to other machines. […] There is now more code than ever, but it is increasingly difficult to find anyone who has their hands on the wheel. Individual agency is on the wane. Most of us, most of the time, are following instructions delivered to us by computers rather than the other way around.

Think about it: your social media feeds, search engine results, suggested products on Amazon – all of these are curated for you by intelligent algorithms which study your habits even when you put the phone down for a few scant seconds. Ever notice how ads occasionally appear on your phone for things you’ve been talking about within hearing range of your phone? The machines are listening.

Let’s hope they like what they hear.

Dyson goes further, stating that whereas search engines and social media were once descriptive – that is, they were designed to map and index human knowledge and relationships – they have now become prescriptive. Google ishuman knowledge, and Facebook is your social life. When you want to know something, where do you go to look it up? When you want to know what your friends are up to, do you ask them or Facebook? According to Dyson, this shows we’ve already given up control to the machines, or at least those controlling the machines. As those companies give more and more control to their AI networks, though, we’ll see human control removed from the equation entirely.

As early as 2017, technology experts were already warning that there was a dark secret at the heart of AI: we have no idea how the most advanced systems actually do what they do. What happens ten years from now when these systems are exponentially more advanced than they are now? Will all-intelligent AI became the new gods? After all, humankind has always created our gods and supreme beings using whatever media were available to us at the time: stone, ink and paper, big-budget superhero films, and now machine learning algorithms. Will the new gods be as malevolent as the old ones?

Dyson does add a bit of hope, stating he believes we’ll soon see a new “analog revolution” spring up in response to the out-of-control digital revolution. Does that mean angry mobs of pitchfork-and-torch-wielding Luddites will =smashing computers and self-driving cars will become a more common sight?

Man, I hope so.

Well, I just got finished watching the latest episode of the new History Channel show, Project Blue Book. The episode’s title: “The Flatwoods Monster.” If you know your UFO history, you’ll know the story. If you don’t, here’s a summary from me from me on the strange matter: On the night of September 12, 1952, something terrifying descended upon the small, West Virginian town of Flatwoods. Precisely what it was remains a mystery to this very day. All that can be said for sure is that it was hideous, fear-inducing and downright monstrous. It has, appropriately, become known as the Flatwoods Monster. Situated in Braxton County and dominated by a mountainous, forested landscape, Flatwoods is a distinctly small town – that much is apparent from the fact that, today, its population is less than four hundred. Back in 1952, it was even less. On the night in question, however, the town found its population briefly added to by one visitor from…well…no-one really knows where.

It all began as the sun was setting on what was a warm, still, September evening. A group of boys from Flatwoods were playing football in the town’s schoolyard when they were frozen to the spot by the sight of a brightly lit, fiery object that shot overhead, provoking amazement and wonder in the process. All that the boys could be sure of was that the object appeared to be either egg-shaped or circular. Its color fluctuated from orange to fiery red. As the stunned children watched in awe, they saw the object begin to descend – at a high rate of speed, no less – and then appear to come down on one of Flatwood’s largest hilltops. Not surprisingly, being kids, they saw this as a big adventure looming large. The result: they, with a woman named Kathleen May and a recent U.S. Army recruit, Eugene Lemon, headed off for the scene of all the action. It wasn’t long before the group reached the hill in question – and with nightfall rapidly closing in.

Braxton County

(Wikipedia)

The first thing the group noticed, as they reached the darkened peak, was something brightly lit within the trees. What it was, no-one had a clue. But, it clearly wasn’t the lights of a farmhouse, truck, or car. Suddenly, the air was filled with a sickening odor – not unlike that of devilish brimstone. That was not a good sign. To their credit, however, they pushed on, determined to figure out the true nature of the source behind the lights. They soon found out: as the air became filled with a strange, sizzling sound, nothing less than a pair of self-illuminated red eyes could be seen getting ever closer. Kathleen May had the presence of mind to bring a flashlight with her and she quickly focused it on the eyes. In doing so, she also lit up the abominable creature that possessed those fiery eyes.

Looming before the now-hysterical band of intrepid souls was an approximately ten-feet-tall, floating monster, which appeared to be humanoid in shape, and which had a large black cowling behind its head – that gave the entire head a kind of “Ace of Spades” appearance – and that was possibly even cloaked. Maybe. Oddly, its lower half was ice-cream cone-shaped and had wires and cables running from it. This issue of the cone-shaped lower portion led flying saucer sleuths to later suggest the monster my actually have been encased within some kind of remotely piloted vehicle.

As the creature then turned its attention to the group, and wildly fired laser-like beams from its eyes, the brave band was suddenly brave no more. They didn’t wait to see what might happen next. One and all fled, screaming – possibly for their lives. Mrs. May breathlessly shouted to the boys to follow her to her home, which they all did. On arrival, and possibly as a result of exposure to the noxious odor that hung around the hill, several of the boys became ill, feeling nauseous and even outright vomiting.

Braxton County Courthouse

Kathleen May quickly and shakily called the local police, who, rather intriguingly, were busy responding to reports of what was described as an “airplane crash” in the area. It turns out that no such crashed aircraft was ever found – something which suggests the “airplane” and the brightly lit UFO that descended upon the high hill that night were one and the very same. As a result of the fact that Flatwoods was, and still is, a very small town, word soon got out about what had happened. Local media were quickly on the scene, and even the U.S. Air Force sat up and took notice. Despite intense investigations by the press and the military, the mystery of the Flatwoods Monster was never solved – the creature was long gone by the time anyone else was on the scene. It is, however, decidedly interesting to note that Flatwoods is only around 125 miles from the town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, where, from 1966 to 1967, yet another red-eyed monster was seen. Its famous name is Mothman. All of which brings us back to Project Blue Book and tonight’s episode.

In the show, the Flatwoods Monster of West Virginia is portrayed nothing like the Flatwoods Monster, which is a relatively minor issue of little consequence. The people of Flatwoods, however,  are presented as distrusting, gun-toting characters ready to blast the U.S. military with significant amounts of lead, which, in reality, did not happen. No one in town put a gun in the face of a U.S. military officer. Also, we see one of the characters jump, or get pushed, out of a window to her death. I’ve heard of TV companies being inspired by real events, but this is getting ridiculous. I wonder what the good people of Flatwoods are – tonight – thinking about the townsfolk who came before them and who have been portrayed in such a trigger-happy fashion. That’s my main gripe: the show-makers seem intent on making real people look bad. See my previous article here at Mysterious Universe, for example, in which I explain how, in episode 1, the creators of the show portrayed a WWII hero – pilot George Gorman – as someone who had descended into mental illness and who needed to be shot up with meds to keep him under control, something else which did not happen; not even in the slightest.

While investigators in the U.S. are checking into alleged close encounters with Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Putin is checking into close encounters with aliens. Specifically, he ordered the Russian army to investigate the suspicious collapse of a mountain in Siberia (when is the collapse of a mountain NOT serious?) which some people at the site say could only have been caused by a UFO. Just by chance, was the city near the mountain getting ready to hold an election?

“Me and colleague Mikhail were driving a truck with various food supplies for my shops towards Amga and in the general direction of Khabarovsk region. The night was clear. It was the sixth or eighth day of the lunar phase, so the Moon did not rise high and the sky was dark. Seconds before 1.30am the whole sky lit up. We saw a huge green-coloured body with a spectacularly bright and very long tail, falling almost vertically at about an 80 degrees angle. We saw it right in front of us, falling east to south. It all happened within three or four seconds.”

Meteor?

Eyewitness Alexey Dyundin is convinced what he saw on December 11th was a meteor, saying he knows what a falling rocket part looks like because the area gets a lot of those too. (And you thought pigeon droppings on your windshield were annoying.) Alexey Maslov, head of the Verkhnebureinsky district where the incident occurred, agrees – as any politician who doesn’t want to cause a panic would. However, records show there was no meteorite activity that night, nor is there a crater where the mountain collapsed. The other logical explanation is a landslide, but locals who have seen landslides say this river-blocking mountain of a slide is something else. (Many pictures of the pile here.) What else? The Siberian Timeshad this to say:

“Meanwhile, a poll of locals asked for views on the cause of the Bureya event. Some 27% said a meteorite crashing to earth, 40% a landslide – and 33% a UFO attack.”

The mountain of dirt that was once a mountain is blocking the river which drives the Bureyskaya hydro power reservoir, so the Russian defense ministry has a good reason as well as a good cover to send in the military, geomorphologists, geologists, hydrologists and land-surveyors to clear the debris and look underneath it for a possible cause.

“Given the significant size of the landslide, units of engineer and railway forces with special equipment, as well as army and transport aviation, will be involved in clearing the rock.”

Unfortunately, local residents won’t be able to see what the army finds because a state of emergency has been declared (of course) and the area is being evacuated because of “potential flooding.” Does Putin suspect something he doesn’t want them to know or see? Why do so many of them think the cause was a UFO? A tourist group from the neighboring Amur region was attempting to drive over the frozen river and inspect the site in the first week of January … there’s no report they arrived, what they found or if they made it out.

If one-third of the people in your town believed a so-called natural disaster was actually caused by a UFO, would our federal government investigate it? if it really was a UFO, would the Russian government share the information with ours? If they did, would our government share it with US?

“… and 33% a UFO attack.”

Why?

“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.” These were among the many memorable quips from the late Arthur C. Clarke, whose visionary scientific mind bordered the uncanny with his ability to foresee future technological trends and developments.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Clarke was certainly among those “distinguished but elderly scientist” types who were willing to place more bets in the possible camp than the cautious and careful realms of conventional thinking. Clarke, after all, was often willing to look where no other scientists of his day were willing to go, regularly dabbling with a cautious interest in fringe subjects as chronicled on his television series Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World. 

Clarke’s fascination with the mysterious cosmos was perhaps most evident with his views on alien life. “Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe,” Clarke said, “and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.” As a science fiction writer, many of his works dealt with ideas pertaining to alien life on other worlds. In his short story “The Star,” he tells of a scientific mission to a distant world, where the evidence of civilization discovered there is one that is long gone.

The story is told from the perspective of the mission’s chief astrophysicist, who also happens to be a Jesuit flirting with a crisis of faith. After he and his group conclude their study of the remains of an ancient world consumed by a supernova, he says to himself: “There can be no reasonable doubt: the ancient mystery is solved at last. Yet, oh God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem?”

The blend and, often, contrasts between themes of deism and alien life were common in Clarke’s writing. Another common feature in his science fiction had been his apparent knack for predicting future innovations and discoveries. In his 1973 novel Rendezvous with Rama, Clarke predicts not only asteroid impact early warning systems the likes of which are being developed today, but also the discovery of an alien spacecraft under circumstances that bear an eerie similarity to one recent–and controversial–astronomical discovery.

Rendezvous with Rama begins in the year 2077, as an asteroid impact occurs in northern Italy which prompts the creation of a system capable of detecting such threats in advance. While Clarke’s threat detection system doesn’t come along until 2077, it bears a remarkable similarity to the present-day Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), a robotic survey and early-warning system in development at the University of Hawaii and funded by NASA. ATLAS is designed to detect near-Earth objects in advance of a potential impact with Earth by as much as several weeks and targets smaller objects which previously might have been missed by astronomical surveys.

The “prediction” of an asteroid early detection system isn’t the only unique coincidence in Clarke’s novel. Rather, Clarke’s introduction of this early warning system allows for the discovery of a distant object outside the orbit of Jupiter, which is spotted half a century after the Italian asteroid impact. Initially mistaken for being a distant asteroid, the object, dubbed “31/439”, is later revealed to be an alien spacecraft. Probes are then sent to observe the object, which is given the name “Rama” after the famous hero of Hindu mythology, which is revealed to be a featureless cylindrical object nearly 35 miles long.

Artist’s rendering of the interior of Clarke’s “Rama” spacecraft

(public domain).

If the description above sounds familiar, you aren’t alone: the mysterious space rock 1I/2017 U1, or ‘Oumuamua as it is more popularly known, was almost named Rama instead, due to the remarkable similarities between the circumstances surrounding its discovery, and the plot line of Clarke’s novel. (This was only one of several remarkable coincidences that appear in Clarke’s writing, and an online search will reveal other cases where themes in the famous futurist’s writing apparently “predicted” future innovations.)

While the similarities between Rendezvous with Rama and the real-life discovery of ‘Oumuamua are interesting, to say the least, there may be more to be gleaned from the comparison.

In a recent interview with Haaretz that we touched on here at MU, the chair of Harvard University’s Astronomy Department Avi Loeb, defending his controversial speculations about “light sail” technologies that might be propelling ‘Oumumua through our solar system, said that “As soon as we leave the solar system, I believe we will see a great deal of traffic out there.”

“Possibly we’ll get a message that says, ‘Welcome to the interstellar club.’ Or we’ll discover multiple dead civilizations — that is, we’ll find their remains.” Again, Loeb’s comments bear similarities to things Clarke had written about in stories like The Star decades ago; perhaps he’s a fan of the late futurist, too.

So much has been written of what is arguably Clarke’s most famous work, 2001: A Space Odyssey, that it hardly requires additional mention here. Nonetheless, it would be worthwhile to point out that Clarke’s fictional scenario about the influences of alien life on humankind over time, and the idea that humans might be “invited” further out for play in the great intergalactic forest as our technological capabilities progress, is also thought-provoking in light of current discoveries.

“The only way to discover the limits of the possible,” Clarke once said, “is to go beyond them into the impossible.” This may be the best summary of Clarke’s approach, both toward the eventuality of human contact with alien life, and the future in general. Thus, it may be why he saw more success than many of his contemporaries: his remarkable vision of the future was one that saw beyond what was possible in his day, and likely well in advance of what is possible even in the present day.

There was once a children’s book called If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. It was spellbinding little tale about what happens when a mouse shakes you down for your baked goods and you give in. Spoiler alert: he takes you for everything you’ve got. Well, it might be time to update that story, a 21st century reboot if you will. The book could be called something like If You Give A Nerd A Particle Accelerator. It’s a working title.

I’ve been fascinated with CERN and the large hadron collider for years. It’s one of those perfect, real-life-science-fiction endeavors that is just so cool and so terrifying to a lot of people. It’s understandable. There’s a lot of wires and buttons and pipes and tunnels. All of which are intimidating by themselves. Add to that the search for something called the “god particle” and the idea of creating mini black holes, it start’s to look like something that just shouldn’t be. But it is, and we’re still here, seemingly unaffected—unless you buy the idea that we jumped universes the minute they switched it on, explaining why everything feels like it’s gone sideways and the proof is in the Berenstain Bears. If so, you’re right and I’m sorry.

Seemingly not content with the level of fear and fear-mongering they’ve caused, CERN is now looking for funding to build an even bigger, even badder particle collider to sit next to the LHC outside Geneva, Switzerland. The plan for the “Future Circular Collider” (which sounds like what mad scientists call things, but probably just refers to a circular collider that will be built in the future) was unveiled Tuesday, and officials at CERN hope that the 22 member states commit to providing the estimated 21 billion euros that would see the machine completed and operational by the late 2050’s.

“And now we shall smash….the future!”

That’s a lot of time, and a lot of money, but CERN believes it will be worth it. The FCC would consist of a 100 kilometer-long circular tunnel for smashing things together, which is four times larger than the tunnel at the Large Hadron Collider. Not only would the size of the thing be greatly increased, but the energy output as well. Frédérick Bordry, CERN’s Director for Accelerators and Technology, says:

“The FCC’s ultimate goal is to provide a 100-kilometre superconducting proton accelerator ring, with an energy of up to 100 TeV, meaning an order of magnitude more powerful than the LHC”

According to CERN’s website, the proposal would provide “tantalizingly more powerful particle colliders that can inaugurate the post-LHC era in high-energy physics.” Whenever physicists start using the word “tantalizing,” that’s a red flag.

The first phase of the FCC project would be the construction of the tunnel and an electron-positron collider that could be operational by 2040 at a cost of 9 billion euros. The second phase would be the “superconducting proton accelerator ring” in the same tunnel, which would require another 15 billion euros and an extra ten years of construction.

These machines just look like the sort of serious business I’ll never be a part of.

Credit: CERN

What will they use it for? The technical answer, I believe, is “blowing stuff up.” Extremely small stuff, but it’s the same basic premise. CERN says that they can’t predict what discoveries the FCC could produce, but CERN Director for Research and Computing, Eckhard Elsen gives a much less snarky explanation of the potential benefits to humanity:

“Proton colliders have been the tool-of-choice for generations to venture new physics at the smallest scale. A large proton collider would present a leap forward in this exploration and decisively extend the physics programme beyond results provided by the LHC and a possible electron-positron collider.”

So, blowing stuff up then. Got it. Excuse me, I have a children’s book to write.

It’s significant to note that the matter of a secret facility of Area 51-like proportions popped up in another setting, but also in 1962. As well as being the year in which Marilyn Monroe died, 1962 also saw the release of a novel that, two years later, was turned into a bug-bucks movie. The title: Seven Days in May. It’s an absorbing, thought-provoking story that tells of an attempted military coup to take control of the U.S. Government. Its authors were Charles W. Bailey II (who died in 2012 at the age of eighty-two) and Fletcher Knebel who, in 1960, interestingly, wrote a chapter on JFK for a book titled Candidate 1960.

The novel was so well-received, and became such a huge-selling book, that it wasn’t long at all before Hollywood was knocking on the doors of the publisher. And, it wasn’t long after that – specifically in February 1964 – that the movie version of the Bailey-Knebel book hit cinemas all across the world. Interestingly, the screenplay for the movie was written by Rod Serling, of The Twilight Zone fame. Serling was also a significant figure in the field of antiwar activism – to the extent that several intelligence agencies had files on Serling, including the FBI.

Seven Days in May starred a number of major movie-stars of that era, including Kirk Douglas, Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster, Fredric March, Martin Balsam, and Edmond O’Brien. In the story, Lancaster’s character of General James Mattoon Scott secretly initiates a plan to take over the elected U.S. Government (run by President Jordan Lyman and played by March) by force. General Scott sees President Lyman’s plans to enter into a nuclear treaty with the Soviet Union as weak and ineffectual and a danger to U.S. national security and to the American people.

It’s only when Kirk Douglas’ character of Colonel “Jiggs” Casey stumbles on strands of the plan that things slowly start to unravel. To his horror, Casey comes to realize that what begins as a wild suspicion is an all-too-real fact: the government is about to be toppled in favor of a new, military-driven government. When Casey speaks with the president and his closest aid Paul Girard (actor Martin Balsam), their response is filled with nothing but skepticism. At least, at first. It’s only when Casey shares all that he has found out, and the president begins to realize what is secretly going on right under his nose, that steps are taken to try and stop the coup and have the conspirators arrested as traitors. So, a race begins. It’s a race which will decide the very future of the United States.

Unbeknownst to just about everyone outside of the planned coup – including the president and his entire team – a top secret facility has been established out in the desert outside of El Paso, Texas. It’s the headquarters of the organization which wishes to overthrow the White House – an organization we come to learn is known as ECOMCON, or Emergency Communications Control. Senator Raymond Clark (Edmund O’Brien) is ordered to find the base. At first, Clark is doubtful that such a secret installation could have been constructed without any kind of Congressional oversight or funding. That is, until he sees it for himself. Clark learns it’s code-name is “Site Y.” As the story progresses, we see a mysterious death, mounting conspiracies, and intrigue and mystery, and we learn more about that Area 51-style secret base known as Site Y. And, finally, there is a confrontation between President Lyman and General Scott, a confrontation which brings the country back from the brink of a military dictatorship.

The document concerning Marilyn Monroe’s knowledge of a “secret air base” was allegedly written in 1962. That was the same year in which the Knebel-Bailey novel, Seven Days in May, was released and became a best-seller – and which had at its heart a classified installation that is practically impenetrable and which not even the president knows about. And, in 1964, in the movie spin-off, we are further exposed to the world of an Area 51-like base. In view of all this, one has to wonder if there had been a leak of data back in the early 1960s – a leak which reached the ears and eyes of a world-famous actress and a couple of enterprising writers, and which was focused on a clandestine facility that, for all intents and purposes, operated outside of the elected government.

We may never know for sure if such a leak did occur – and/or if a 1960s-era equivalent of Edward Snowden decided to blow the whistle on a real Site Y – but, there can be no doubt that while Site Y is fiction, it eerily mirrors what we know of Area 51: both have notable code-names. Both installations are buried deep in desert environments. Most people in government have no idea what goes on there. Not even the government can figure out where it gets its funding from. And, access to the base is almost impossible, unless one has the required clearance levels and a need-to-know.

It should be noted too that Fletcher Knebel – the co-author of Seven days in May – was someone who had a great deal of distrust of government and of the intelligence community. His novels – which included Trespass, Sabotage, and Vanished – are tinged with varying degrees of conspiracy. It’s also a fact that Knebel had a number of unnamed insiders in government who helped to ensure the accuracy of some of the concepts and government protocol presented in his novels. In light of all this, one has to wonder if one of those sources shared certain data with Knebel on Area 51, which he reworked into Site Y.

The world of law enforcement has a large arsenal of techniques, equipment, technology, and training at its disposal to help hunt down criminals and solve the many crimes that plague society. Yet, sometimes leads go cold, evidence is sparse, and not even all of these resources seem to be able to penetrate the murk, leaving a case to go unsolved. In some such instances police and even the FBI can be tempted to look past their usual repertoire of technology, to go out past known science and attempt to harness the powers of the unknown in an attempt to find answers, seeking the help of those with psychic gifts. Who are these people and do their powers really do any good? Welcome to the weird world of police psychic investigators.

One quite well-known supposed psychic who has claimed to have lent his unique set of mysterious skills to the police and FBI is a man named Troy Griffin. According to Griffin, he first became aware of his powers at the age of 12, when he had a vision of his friend in a car accident and the predicted crash happened exactly when and how he had seen it. Fortunately, no one was injured, and the young Griffin became convinced that he had the gift of clairvoyance, intuition and foresight, which he believed he could further hone with practice and use for good.

In later years he says he found he could discern what people were going to say before they said them, or predict certain events down to amazing accuracy, and he also became aware of another gift lurking there in his mind. As well as being able to predict the future, Griffin claims that he developed the ability to talk to the spirits of the dead, and that it is this ability which would end up making him popular among law enforcement, although it started mostly as a freelance hobby. Among his many supposed successes is the case of a missing woman named Lora Hale Costner, whose sister approached Griffin for help. The psychic would then divine “impossible” information that he should not have known about what had happened, saying that she was killed, how it had been done, and that he knew where the body was. When the sister sent this information to authorities they supposedly found the body exactly where he said it would be. Not only that, Griffin was able to point police to the perpetrator, 19-year-old, McKinley Lane Cody, who was found to have killed her after a drug deal gone bad.

This case and others like it apparently got Griffin on the police radar, and he became a sort of unofficial, unpaid psychic investigator for both them and he says the FBI as well, and he has supposedly worked over 100 cases in various countries such as the United States, Germany, Canada and Australia, mostly called in as a last resort when all else fails and the mysterious case has gone ice cold. Griffith says he has some sort of innate ability to look through pictures of missing people, such as the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System database and get a sort of psychic “hit” just by looking at the person’s eyes, as if that person is somehow calling out to him from beyond the grave. He says he will get further information when these people subsequently appear to him and talk to him in his dreams.

It sounds rather amazing, and to the families of the victims of crimes he has successfully “solved” it is, but he has also raised his fair share of skepticism. One problem is that the law enforcement authorities he claims to have worked with, including the FBI, have remained silent on Griffin’s involvement, neither confirming or denying his assistance. There is also the fact that by Griffin’s own admission he typically has an 18 to 20 percent success rate, which doesn’t sound really all that impressive, although he defends himself by pointing out in an interview with ABC News, “When you look at murder cases and unsolved missing persons, they’re very few percentage that actually get solved.”

Adding to the skepticism is that Griffin has been very close-lipped about exactly which cases he has worked or which ones were successes and why he thinks so, nor has he provided any proof that he really has ever worked with the FBI and police at all, making it all rather murky. Nevertheless, there are many who are confident in his abilities, and he has managed to make quite a living for himself, charging up to $300 dollars an hour as a freelance psychic or also as a spirit medium, although he says his work on crimes and his police and FBI work he does for free. For his part, Griffin says of the skepticism aimed at him:

I don’t take advantage of people that are grieving. Most are referred to me from what I did. I don’t charge them. I’m not coming with false hope either way. I’m not here to tell you yea or nay. I’m here to help. What I say to skeptics is, if you have never been in the people’s shoes that I walk with, don’t judge or put opinion on it until you really know if it’s real or not. The only way you’re going to know is if there’s ever a day that you need somebody like me. Then you’ll know. Before then you’ll probably never believe in me but the people that I help and walk away with closure moving forward. They’re the ones who believed in me. That’s why I continue to do what I do.

Another psychic detective who has claimed to not only have helped on official cases but also given training and lectures on criminal profiling to police officers, the CIA and the FBI, is profiler Deborah Schurman-Kauflin. She is well-known for her incredibly accurate profiles, which she in part credits her psychic abilities, of which she says in an article on Psychology Today:

I trained thousands of police officers, CIA and FBI agents and interviewed 25 serial killers and mass murderers. I was famous for how accurate my profiles tended to be. Many, many times, shrewd detectives told me I was so accurate it was eerie. There was a reason for that, a truth that I kept secret. I kept this secret because telling the truth about this subject is often taboo. The truth is that I am a psychic medium.

From the time I was little, I had spirits around me. I didn’t think it was strange because I thought everyone did. My family was very open to psychic phenomenon, and my mother’s aunt was also a practicing psychic medium. But even though I experienced things firsthand, like knowing people’s secrets, I was very skeptical. It became harder and harder to hide my abilities when working with police because I’d come up with things I had no way of knowing. And more than one shrewd detective outright asked me if I was psychic.

With her we face the same situation as Griffin, as police and FBI tend to shy away from talking about involvement with psychics, but she claims that these agencies most definitely are willing to use such gifts to get answers in times of desperate need. She also says that law enforcement and psychic prowess sort of go hand in hand, and that the police and FBI believe in these powers much more than they let on, of which she has said:

In law enforcement, it is not something that is widely accepted. However, the majority of detectives who I worked with admitted to going to crime scenes and asking deceased victims for help in solving their murders. I even know a homicide lieutenant who used a psychic to locate a body only to say he’d never admit that publicly for fear of ridicule. The interesting thing is that the best police officers are the most intuitive. They get gut feelings about suspects which later prove to be true. Some have prophetic dreams. How often have detectives pursued something “on a hunch?”

The reality is that people use their intuitive skills every day. You know when you meet someone, and your gut tells you that something is wrong even though the person looks normal? Perhaps something tells you not to take a certain route to work, and you later learn by doing so you avoided an accident. I’m sure many of you have stories of where your intuition saved you from something bad. I believe that those in police work have lots of protection from the other side, so it is not surprising that police can be some of the most intuitive people. Though not commonly accepted in police circles, psychic abilities are being used. With time perhaps people can be taught how to better ‘tune in’ to their own abilities and learn to trust their gut instincts. There is more to this world than meets the eye.

Whether they really believe in or rely on this power or not, and whether they want to admit it or not, state and federal law enforcement certainly do turn to psychics on occasion, although perhaps not as much as many may think, and not typically treating this information as some magical solution. In a 1993 survey on the matter it was found that a third of the 50 police departments surveyed admitted to using psychics, although in most cases this information was not treated any differently than tips from other, more ordinary sources. The FBI also uses psychics, although they typically deny it, and one former senior investigator for the FBI has explained that “psychics may be used as a last resort and as an investigative tool with caution,” although this information is not typically admissible in court. One retired Police Commander named Rick Bruno has also said of law enforcement and psychics:

We didn’t necessarily employ psychics. They sort of came out of the walls. Especially when reward money was set up. But we listened to anyone who might add something to the case. We still do. We had five innocent women murdered in cold blood in a clothing store. They were moms and sisters and daughters whose only crime was to be in the store when a monster walked in with a gun.

We had a hundred detectives working on the case. We even asked NASA if they had any available photos of the exterior environment to see if we might catch a glimpse of a getaway car or the murderer running away on foot. We sent cops to Texas and to England to follow up on leads. We were doing everything we could think of to find that son of a bitch. So when someone would call and say they had “a vision” of who the murderer was, or where he might be found, we listened. And we send cops out there to interview them.

It certainly does not help the case of psychic investigators that unfortunately some of the psychics who have helped law enforcement have been exposed as frauds. Before her death one of the most well-known and talked about psychic detectives of all was a woman named Sylvia Browne, who appeared on countless TV programs such as regular appearances on The Montel Williams Show, as well as news outlets, expounding her abilities and the important work she had done for the police and FBI. Indeed, allegedly had many endorsements from some of these officials, such as that of former FBI agent Ted Gunderson, who said of her powers, “I’ve worked with numerous psychics in the past and very few are really on target, but Sylvia Browne is probably one of the most accurate psychics in the country.”

However, despite this, an eye-opening article in a 2015 edition of The Skeptical Inquirer managed to mostly smash this illusion by digging into her past and scouring files requested from the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act. This research showed that not only had Brown made many misleading and outright false claims as to the extent of her police and FBI dealings, but also that there were no records of her dealing with the FBI at all. The author of the article explains:

There is no documentation released by the FBI to support the claim that Browne conducted any psychic readings for the FBI, either directly or indirectly. Moreover, Gunderson’s name appears nowhere in her FBI file, and the topics in the FBI release do not discuss working with the FBI. Thus, there is no evidence from the records that Browne was involved with the agency. Assuming Browne worked with Gunderson, it appears to have occurred after he retired from the FBI and when he was investigating aliens, “Satanic” child abductions, and numerous other conspiracies.

In addition, further damning evidence against Browne was her big mistakes, such as declaring a missing girl dead when she was later found to be alive, and she seems to have had just as many misses as hits. It was also discovered that not only had she apparently never worked with the FBI before, but her and her organization, the Nirvana Foundation for Psychic Research, had actually been investigated by them in the 1980s for “selling securities without a permit,” and “violations of federal law in applying for loans from federally insured financial institutions.” This in no way means that every psychic detective is a charlatan or fraud, but it certainly makes them look bad, and gives fuel to those who would doubt them. It has been pointed out that these people are merely very good at tricking everyone and feeding off of desperation, grief, and a potent desire for any answers at all, throwing out vague clues and relying on confirmation bias to do the rest. Famed skeptic Joe Nickell does not mince words when he says of their supposed abilities:

What people should realize is psychics cannot do what they claim to do. They have been reviewed by mainstream science, and they can’t do it. If they can do it, let’s see that they do it. It could be defined as ‘after-the-fact matching. In other words, the detectives have a missing person. They assume the person might be dead, but they’re looking to find that person. In comes the psychic, often ingratiating himself or herself with the family, forcing the police, pretty much, to have to pay attention to the psychic. The psychic will say things like, ‘I see water. I’m getting the number 7. I see some sort of tall structure,’ and so on. They call these clues.

Is this accurate? Are these and the many other psychics allegedly helping law enforcement merely frauds feeding off of suffering and strife, trying to make a name off of tragedy? Are their abilities really all bogus? Or are there some who under the right circumstances manage to reach out and touch some force that allows them to see into where others cannot? Whatever the case may be, there are many who believe this phenomenon to be genuine, and as long as there is hope that it could pry open cold cases and unsolved cromes there will likely be people in times of desperation that will seek these psychic detectives out, whether they really believe or not.

The discovery of ‘Oumuamua continues to prove itself one of the most fascinating and mysterious astronomy stories of our time. It all began in October 2017 when astronomers using the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii spotted a strange object passing through our Solar System at a high velocity. The object defied classification and still does, and its origin remains unknown. What is known is that it originated from somewhere outside of our Solar System, making it the first known interstellar object to visit our neck of the cosmic woods.

The path ‘Oumuamua took through the Solar System.

Almost immediately after its discovery, ‘Oumuamua’s odd behavior and characteristics caused many to speculate that it could be an alien craft or probe sent to explore our Solar System. That speculation grew stronger in November 2018 when astronomers Shmuel Bialy and Avi Loeb of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics published a study arguing that ‘Oumuamua’s anomalous acceleration and direction could mean the object isn’t a comet or asteroid, but instead an artificial craft or probe propelled by a “light-sail,” meaning it uses the ‘winds’ of solar radiation to propel it through space.

Of course, those claims attracted controversy, criticism, and outright jeers in some cases. How could two of the most respected astrophysicists in the country claim any possibilitythat an anomalous object in space could be artificial? How dare they! Don’t they know that science is supposed to suppress the imagination as opposed to ignite it? In response to the controversy, one of the paper’s authors sat down for an interview with Israeli news outlet Haaretz to discuss ‘Oumuamua and the resistance to acknowledge any possibility that ‘Oumuamua could be from an extraterrestrial civilization.

I don’t care what people say. It doesn’t matter to me. I say what I think, and if the broad public takes an interest in what I say, that’s a welcome result as far as I’m concerned, but an indirect result. Science isn’t like politics: It is not based on popularity polls.

That’s what professor Avi Loeb, chair of Harvard’s astronomy department, sat down with Oded Carmeli at Haaretz to share his perspective on the ‘Oumuamua controversy. According to Loeb, he only went public with claims that ‘Oumuamua just might be artificial after lengthy discussions with colleagues. “Scientists of senior status said themselves that this object was peculiar but were apprehensive about making their thoughts public,” Loeb says. “it could be that I’m committing image suicide, if this turns out to be incorrect. On the other hand, if it turns out to be correct, it’s one of the greatest discoveries in human history.”

‘Oumuamua (dot in center) as seen by the Pan-STARRS telescope.

Loeb adds that as a scientist with tenure, he doesn’t understand why so many other stodgy academics in ivory towers are afraid to take risks and imagine possibilities which may at first seem outlandish:

If you’re not ready to find exceptional things, you won’t discover them. Of course, every argument needs to be based on evidence, but if the evidence points to an anomaly, we need to talk about an anomaly. Who cares if this anomaly appeared or did not appear in science-fiction books?

The whole interview is worth a read for anyone interested in astronomy or the search for alien life. In it, Loeb lays out his entire argument for why we must be open to the possibility that ‘Oumuamua is a spacecraft or probe. It’s important to note that Loeb never comes out saying definitively that ‘Oumuamua is an alien craft, only that we must be open to the possibility that it could be based on the available evidence. Still, science has a long history of persecuting those who go against the paradigm or challenge popular opinions. Will Loeb be remembered in the future as a rebellious hero like Galileo, or a crank suffering from wishful thinking?