We live in a world in which secret surveillance is becoming ever-more dominating. Just about every bit of data on our iPhones can be secretly accessed. Our every online activity can be scrutinized behind closed doors. Even our Smart TVs are wide open to hackers. And, who is responsible? The government, of course. As one example: regardless of what you or me think of the Edward Snowden affair and its attendant revelations, the fact is that Snowden demonstrated – to an extraordinary and disturbing degree – just how much of a 1984-like society we have become. And in an incredibly short period of time, too. The National Security Agency and other agencies of government have the ability to penetrate just about every aspect of our private lives: our medical records, where we take our vacations, what books we might buy on Amazon, and more are all issues that can be easily accessed with the right technology. But, it’s not just government that has taken us down a path to an Orwellian nightmare. The surveillance state is now a part of our culture, too: take, for example, the outrageous trend of companies now regularly demanding access to the passwords of the Facebook accounts of their employees.

Of course, the primary reason for such widespread spying – and lying about the spying – is due to the current state of the planet: the war on terror, in other words. When it comes to shutting down terrorist cells, finding and wiping out crazed bombers, and tracking down those who would do us harm, surveillance technology has achieved a great deal. The problem is, though, that it has gone too far. The lunatics are now running the asylum. Common-sense has gone out of the window. Does an eighty-year-old lady – living with just her cat for company – really need to be a victim of data-collection? No. In other words, the surveillance has reached unwarranted, outrageous proportions. All of which sets the scene for a study of another kind of surveillance, one which involves not terrorists – of the foreign or domestic kind – but none other than those people who claim to have been taken away by extraterrestrials. We’re talking about the alien abduction phenomenon. The government secretly spends vast amounts of money on monitoring those who claim to have been kidnapped by strange, unearthly beings with even stranger agendas? Most people would laugh at such a scenario. They shouldn’t though: that is exactly what is going on. And, it has been going on not just for years, but for decades. For some, the dangerous and sinister Men in Black are the cause of all the paranoia. Now, onto UFO paranoia.

(Nick Redfern)

Watching 24/7

All around the world, people have reported close encounters with extraterrestrial entities. Witnesses describe being kidnapped in the dead of night by large-headed, black-eyed creatures from other worlds. Those same creatures have become popularly known as the Greys. People subjected to alien abduction typically report intrusive experiments that revolve around genetics, human reproduction, and even the creation of alien-human hybrids. There is, however, another aspect to the alien abduction controversy. It is, perhaps, the most sinister aspect of all. Abductees very often report being followed and spied upon by military and government personnel. It is typical for abductees to see black helicopters hovering directly over their homes, in intimidating style. Mail is very often intercepted. Letters are opened. Phone-calls are monitored. Emails and social media are hacked into. Strange men dressed in black suits photograph the homes of the abductees. All of which brings us to the matter of what have become known in the domain of alien abduction research as “MILABS,” or “Military Abductions.” According to numerous abductees, after being kidnapped by alien entities, they are shortly afterwards kidnapped again…by the government.

These follow-up MILABS are the work of a powerful group hidden deep within the military and the intelligence community. It is the secret agenda of these highly classified organizations to figure out what the goal of the so-called Greys really is. And, the best way for the government to get the answers is to interrogate and monitor those who have come face-to-face with the UFO phenomenon: the abductees, themselves. The idea that agencies of the U.S. government, the military and the intelligence community are actively and secretly monitoring Americans who have been subjected to the alien abduction experience may sound outlandish to many – perhaps even paranoid. The startling reality, however, is that such a situation is not at all outlandish. And nor is it paranoia-driven. In fact, quite the opposite is the case. It’s very important to note that there is an amazing precedent to the alien abduction controversy and its connections to government spying. It all revolves around what is known as the “Contactee” phenomenon, which had its origins in the early 1950s.

(Nick Redfern)

George Van Tassel’s Integratron, a historic part of the Contactee phenomenon

It was in the summer of 1947 – specifically June 24 – when the UFO phenomenon began. That was the date on which the first report of an encounter with what quickly became known as a Flying Saucer occurred. The witness was a pilot named Kenneth Arnold. He encountered a squadron of such craft near Mt. Rainier, Washington State. In the days and months which followed, more and more sightings of such craft occurred: a phenomenon was born that is still very much with us to this day. But, in those early days, the UFOs hardly ever landed. Even when they did, their crews never exited their craft. That all changed, though, in the early 1950s when – after a few years of deliberately staying behind a curtain of secrecy – they slowly but surely showed themselves. Long before the first alien abduction incident was

reported, elements of the U.S. Government were already secretly monitoring certain figures in the United States who claimed close encounters with extraterrestrials. Agencies were carefully collating files, listening in on phone calls, and intercepting the mail of dozens of people. Those same figures became known as the Contactees. It’s important to have an understanding of the Contactee phenomenon, as it serves to demonstrate how and why it led government, military and intelligence personnel to focus on the claims of E.T. interaction – and then to do precisely the same when the abduction issue took off.

(Nick Redfern)

“Giant Rock,” California where George Van Tassel hung out. So did the FBI, now and again.

Most of the secret work in the Contactee field was carried out in the 1950s. It was undertaken to learn what was allegedly being done to American citizens by our mysterious visitors. At the time, the bulk of the work fell under the auspices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and at the express order of none other than almost-legendary FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover. How do we know this? Simple: thanks to legislation brought about under the Freedom of Information Act, numerous files on the Contactees have now been released into the public domain. Real X-Files? You bet. Those files make it abundantly clear that the U.S. Government went to extraordinary steps to ensure that the Contactees were placed under careful, secret watch – and particularly so those Contactees who were clearly influencing public opinion on matters relative to not just alien visitations, but also in relation to politics, the economy, and religion. In light of all the above, it’s no wonder that both Contactees and Abductees have become paranoid about how they are/were watched by both the “others” and by government agencies.

Have you ever gotten emotional while texting? Was the emotion anger? Did that emotion cause you to do something you regretted later? To paraphrase an old meme, there’s a ‘bot for that. Specifically, engineers have developed a “handheld social robot” which they describe as a “mediator in text messaging between humans.” Does it work before the angry owner throws it against the wall?

“I’m sorry, I am late. The appointment slipped my mind. Can you wait another hour?”

How does that make you feel? That’s one of the questions researchers at Japan’s University of Tsukuba used to test OMOY — a handheld social robot developed to act as a buffer between an incoming text and the emotional response of the recipient. As he explains in the journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI, co-author and engineering professor Fumihide Tanaka says a text message has only written words to convey meaning – no facial expressions, vocal intonations, personal explanations or other means of controlling the emotional response of the receiver. Thus, what appears to be an upsetting message generates and upsetting or angry response that may be uncalled for.

Researchers at the University of Tsukuba create a handheld social robot that can appear to convey emotions by shifting an internal weight while reading out text messages, which may help improve digital interpersonal interactions.

Credit: University of Tsukuba

“(OMOY is) equipped with a movable weight actuated by mechanical components inside its body. By shifting the internal weight, the robot could express simulated emotions.”

Enter OMOY, the text message mediator. Instead of the recipient reading the text, OMOY reads it aloud and the recipient listens to the message. OMOY’s software then interprets the text message and gives a verbal opinion, a recommendation to stay calm, an expression of sympathy or some other response to control the recipient’s emotions. At the same time, the handheld robot makes physical movements which are designed to reinforce the calming response.

“The weight shift pattern used in this study makes the user feel strong intention of the robot.”

Ninety-four participants (51 males; 43 female) were recruited at the University of Tsukuba. Their level of anger caused by a text message was measured using ten questions with and without the OMOY mediator. The study found that with just the response and the movement of the weight shifts, most users perceived the ‘intention’ of the robot was to help them calm down and they did. This was done with a very simple robot – OMOY has no arms or legs or moveable face to make body gestures or facial expressions. Based on that, the study suggests the robot could be replaced in future tests with other handheld gadgets such as stuffed animals and cushions equipped with the movement mechanism.

Robot platform, named OMOY, used in this study. A 250 g tungsten weight is attached to the weight carrier unit, which allows the weight to move along a 2D planar space. We modified the weight carrier unit from the original version reported in Noguchi and Tanaka (2020): a linear guide rail and a Dynamixel motor were installed.

Credit: Frontiers in Robotics and AI (2022).

DOI: 10.3389/frobt.2022.790209

Can a simple handheld robot facilitate anger management during texting? Take a deep breath before responding.