Claim: Time-Travelling Humans are Causing Close Encounter Experiences

[SkepticSteve]

It's of course a bit of a stretch to debunk one "unknown" which has been made up to explain another "unknown", but I felt that the argument has reached a level of sophistication that it needs closer scrutiny before it expands into another conspiracy theory or is used to substantiate new ones.

Dr. Michael P. Masters is a biological anthropologist and professor at Montana Tech who has written about his theories on the nature of UFO sightings in his books "Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon" and "The Extraterrestrial Model".

In his work, Dr. Masters argues that many UFO sightings can be explained by a time-travel hypothesis. He suggests that the UFOs may actually be advanced time-traveling vehicles that have been built by future humans, and that the sightings of these craft are being misinterpreted as extraterrestrial in origin. Dr. Masters also draws on his expertise in biological anthropology to support his hypothesis. He argues that if humans were to continue to evolve over thousands or millions of years, they would likely develop physical features that resemble the classic "grey alien" archetype commonly associated with UFO sightings.

Further arguments and evidence he brings forward in favor of a "time-travelling human hypothesis" are:

• Experiencers reporting containment procedures during their encounters
• Missing time being caused by the propulsion method of UAPs distorting spacetime
• Frequently reported UFO silence being caused by an infrasound shift due to distortion of spacetime
• Interspecies breeding compatibility i.e. "hybrid babies" being only possible if both species being related
• The commonly reported "flying saucer" being alledgly an optimal shape for a time-travel vehicle
• The bipedal template not succeeding in simulation studies under gravitational forces resembling those of the more common "super earths"
• Aliens / ETs having a couple of times a slip of a tongue and telling abductees straightforward they are just humans from the future
• ...

There is certainly a lot to unpack here. However, I think it could interesting to consider whether or not Michael Masters has been cherry-picking information. E.g. distorting CE cases such that they fit his hypothesis, misinterpreting and misunderstanding scientific work and concepts he cites to validate his ideas, etc. I also highly question whether his concept of time-travel considers that planets and star systems actually move through space and not just stay fixed...

 

[Mauro]

It's of course a bit of a stretch to debunk one "unknown" which has been made up to explain another "unknown", but I felt that the argument has reached a level of sophistication that it needs closer scrutiny before it expands into another conspiracy theory or is used to substantiate new ones.

Dr. Michael P. Masters is a biological anthropologist and professor at Montana Tech who has written about his theories on the nature of UFO sightings in his books "Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon" and "The Extraterrestrial Model".

In his work, Dr. Masters argues that many UFO sightings can be explained by a time-travel hypothesis. He suggests that the UFOs may actually be advanced time-traveling vehicles that have been built by future humans, and that the sightings of these craft are being misinterpreted as extraterrestrial in origin. Dr. Masters also draws on his expertise in biological anthropology to support his hypothesis. He argues that if humans were to continue to evolve over thousands or millions of years, they would likely develop physical features that resemble the classic "grey alien" archetype commonly associated with UFO sightings.

Or the common perception of how humans 'should' evolve (which is by itself just a speculation) has influenced the common perception of how 'grey aliens' (who noone have ever seen) should be.

Further arguments and evidence he brings forward in favor of a "time-travelling human hypothesis" are:

• Experiencers reporting containment procedures during their encounters

Is this anything specific to time-travel?

• Missing time being caused by the propulsion method of UAPs distorting spacetime

Has 'missing time' ever been confirmed?

• Frequently reported UFO silence being caused by an infrasound shift due to distortion of spacetime

Mumbo-jumbo

• Interspecies breeding compatibility i.e. "hybrid babies" being only possible if both species being related

That would be nice, should some modern human - future human hybrid ever be found.

• The commonly reported "flying saucer" being alledgly an optimal shape for a time-travel vehicle

Is the 'optimal shape for a time travel vehicle' known? Is it round? Why not a cube?

• The bipedal template not succeeding in simulation studies under gravitational forces resembling those of the more common "super earths"

What does this mean?

• Aliens / ETs having a couple of times a slip of a tongue and telling abductees straightforward they are just humans from the future

Any alien/ET ever shown to be real? Any alien abduction ever confirmed to be real?

• ...

There is certainly a lot to unpack here. However, I think it could interesting to consider whether or not Michael Masters has been cherry-picking information. E.g. distorting CE cases such that they fit his hypothesis, misinterpreting and misunderstanding scientific work and concepts he cites to validate his ideas, etc. I also highly question whether his concept of time-travel considers that planets and star systems actually move through space and not just stay fixed...

In short, not much to unpack actually, just a bunch of speculations built over vague and misinterpreted pieces of informations (I'm judging from your resume, I'm not going to read that book for sure!).

By the way, beyond all the absurdities created by the well-know time paradoxes, time travel also breaks the principle of conservation of energy (go back in time, extract energy, go forward in time, release energy, rinse and repeat). I'd rather believe in good old green men from Beta Reticuli, their prior probability is immensely higher than time travellers

 

[JMartJr]

He argues that if humans were to continue to evolve over thousands or millions of years, they would likely develop physical features that resemble the classic "grey alien" archetype commonly associated with UFO sightings.

I've run across this argument before, it seems to me to be based on the misconception that evolution has a goal in mind, a direction it "wants" to go, momentum from past evolution carrying into the future.

Evolution being based on the selection of random mutations and variations, that seems impossible. You can't predict which variations will arise; that makes it a bit tricky to say what future evolution will produce. That is not even taking into account not knowing what environmental facters might arise or change to do the selecting.

 

[Ann K]

He suggests that the UFOs may actually be advanced time-traveling vehicles that have been built by future humans, and that the sightings of these craft are being misinterpreted as extraterrestrial in origin. Dr. Masters also draws on his expertise in biological anthropology to support his hypothesis.

If his expertise were in theoretical physics time travel would still be a remarkably evidence-free hypothesis, but to back that assumption with "Well, if aliens look vaguely human-like, they could have evolved that way" is more on the level of pure imagination.

Experiencers reporting containment procedures during their encounters

Interspecies breeding compatibility i.e. "hybrid babies" being only possible if both species being related.

"Containment procedures" is an anecdote told by people whose actual experiences have never been verified. "Hybrid babies" is a concept out of popular fiction. Neither meets the criteria for either argument or evidence.

The whole thing sounds a lot to me like any hypothesis that begins with the words "If the moon is made of green cheese, then..."

 

[MapperGuy]

I've run across this argument before, it seems to me to be based on the misconception that evolution has a goal in mind, a direction it "wants" to go, momentum from past evolution carrying into the future.

Evolution being based on the selection of random mutations and variations, that seems impossible. You can't predict which variations will arise; that makes it a bit tricky to say what future evolution will produce. That is not even taking into account not knowing what environmental facters might arise or change to do the selecting.

Humans are rapidly taking command of our own evolution. Fixing genes that caused early deaths, changing others to "improve" this or that characteristic. If we can't do it today we will a century from now. Once we find a configuration we all like we can keep that forever, the environment will no longer have anything to say about it. Future people will all be "above average".

And why would a future person, whose genome is "perfect", want to create a baby with us "imperfect" people from their past? They will just make whatever change they feel like with none of the messy interactions with us inferiors.

So much nonsense in Dr. Masters arguments. I would believe UFO's are aliens long before I would believe they are time travelers.

 

[Mendel]

We now have options:
• "we can't explain it, therefore it's aliens"
• "we can't explain it, therefore it's time travelers"
• "we can't explain it, therefore it's ghosts/spirits"
• we can't explain it, but it's probably something mundane

The fun thing about it is that as long as we're unable to sort any sighting firmly into one of these categories, that sighting lacks the evidence to support any of these categories; and without support, option four (something mundane) has statistics in its favor, as the record of identified sightings is 0% for the first three options.

 

[Mendel]

By the way, beyond all the absurdities created by the well-know time paradoxes, time travel also breaks the principle of conservation of energy (go back in time, extract energy, go forward in time, release energy, rinse and repeat).

I'd reverse the procedure, i.e. extract energy in the future and bring it into the past, which, if repeated, makes a huge chunk of energy available out of nothing.

But across the space-time continuum, energy is still conserved, because the energy balance before and after these maneouvers (either one) is equal.

I also highly question whether his concept of time-travel considers that planets and star systems actually move through space and not just stay fixed...

The question is whether there's a temporal "escape velocity" that needs to be met to separate the time travelers from their gravity well.

 

[Mauro]

But across the space-time continuum, energy is still conserved, because the energy balance before and after these maneouvers (either one) is equal

I don't think that's true, for instance: go back in time and use the potential energy stored in a rock at a certain height to charge a battery, then bring the battery back to the future with the harvested energy. This does not break the conservation principle: the rock now sits at a lower height and the energetic balance is okay, as you say. But now go back again in time a little more than before, when the rock still is at the original height: one can now extract energy again from its potential energy to charge another battery and by going back in time many times, every time a little more so the rock is always found at the original height, one can charge as many batteries as he wishes, always from the same potential energy.

 

[SkepticSteve]

By the way, beyond all the absurdities created by the well-know time paradoxes, time travel also breaks the principle of conservation of energy (go back in time, extract energy, go forward in time, release energy, rinse and repeat). I'd rather believe in good old green men from Beta Reticuli, their prior probability is immensely higher than time travellers

Masters avoids discussing issues with paradoxes arising or the branching out of timelines by advocating for the cosmological block universe model. His interpretation of it is, that the past, present and future exist simultaneously and thus the energy integrated across the entire life-time of the universe stays constant. Time-travel is in his view then paradox-free, because according to him also the block universe model allows for unintuive causality chains to exist, as long as they do not violate hard physical constraints. Or in other words: Everything that will happen has already happened and if those future events did not have a direct effect on the present it means that a chain of causal events arranged itself in the future such that to negate any effects on the present.

So much nonsense in Dr. Masters arguments. I would believe UFO's are aliens long before I would believe they are time travelers.

Lovely debate going on here!

 

[Ann K]

without support, option four (something mundane) has statistics in its favor, as the record of identified sightings is 0% for the first three options.

Ah yes, but (putting on my official UFO True Believer hat) "What about THIS one???!?"

Here's the conundrum.
Scenario 1: If your run of coin flips has always come up tails, that tells you nothing about the next flip. So if you decide never to flip that coin again and just ignore it, you're defining the future by the past, and "Man will never fly" becomes a reality. Statistics from past events are not a good thing to rely on.

Scenario 2: Your coin actually has two tails - at the present - and there have been no alien craft in our skies, but at some undetermined time in the future it's substituted by one with both a head and a tail, so you still need to check every flip.

Scenario 3, and I think by far the most likely: The next sighting turns out to be a perfectly normal terrestrial object using attainable technology and obeying the laws of physics ...but comes from an enemy power with nefarious purposes. Ding ding ding! You better take a closer look at THAT one!

 

[Bob Jase]

Humans are rapidly taking command of our own evolution. Fixing genes that caused early deaths, changing others to "improve" this or that characteristic. If we can't do it today we will a century from now. Once we find a configuration we all like we can keep that forever, the environment will no longer have anything to say about it. Future people will all be "above average".

And why would a future person, whose genome is "perfect", want to create a baby with us "imperfect" people from their past? They will just make whatever change they feel like with none of the messy interactions with us inferiors.

So much nonsense in Dr. Masters arguments. I would believe UFO's are aliens long before I would believe they are time travelers.

Why, who doesn't want sex with an australopithicine? Apparently George Jetson does.

 

[deirdre]

So much nonsense in Dr. Masters arguments.

you mean in the paraphrase of Dr. Master's arguments? or have you read his books yourself?

Lovely debate going on here!

Article:

Focus on individual claims of evidence, not broader theories, and with one claim of evidence per thread

Source: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/posting-guidelines.2064/

 

[Mendel]

Scenario 1: If your run of coin flips has always come up tails, that tells you nothing about the next flip. So if you decide never to flip that coin again and just ignore it, you're defining the future by the past, and "Man will never fly" becomes a reality. Statistics from past events are not a good thing to rely on

Statistics are often quite reliable.

And they don't preclude one of the unlikely options being proven correct by conclusive evidence.

But for those reports without good evidence? I'm going to believe in statistics over the paranormal.

 

[Ravi]

Tricky though, to come up with (counter) arguments when we only have the paraphrased conclusions from SkepticSteve. I am sure the book is trying to explain.

That said, it is well discussed topic, I think. I am sure many SF books can be found only about this topic, lol.

 

[Eburacum]

I'd reverse the procedure, i.e. extract energy in the future and bring it into the past, which, if repeated, makes a huge chunk of energy available out of nothing.

If you continually bring mass/energy from the future into the past, you are increasing the current mass/energy of the universe; do this too much and too often, and you could cause a Big Crunch. Not recommended.

 

[NorCal Dave]

Where to start. Leaving the time-travel to others, I'll agree with notion that Dr. Masters is trying to find solutions for problems that may not exist, at least not physically. The Greys for example may not need to be explained with evolution and the future, if they are more likely a cultural phenomenon.

Dr. Masters also draws on his expertise in biological anthropology to support his hypothesis. He argues that if humans were to continue to evolve over thousands or millions of years, they would likely develop physical features that resemble the classic "grey alien" archetype commonly associated with UFO sightings.

The standard Grey:

Grey aliens

, also referred to as Zeta Reticulans, Roswell Greys, or Grays, are purported extraterrestrial beings. They are frequent subjects of close encounters and alien abduction claims. The details of such claims vary widely, but typically Greys are described as being human-like with small bodies with smooth, grey-colored skin; enlarged, hairless heads; and large, black eyes.

Early grey-like creatures appear in literature from the late 19th century by Folingsby:

In 1891, the novel Meda: A Tale of the Future was published by Kenneth Folingsby, in which the narrator encountered small, grey-skinned aliens with balloon-shaped heads.

And Wells:

In 1893, H. G. Wells presented a description of humanity's future appearance in the article The Man of the Year Million, describing humans as having no mouths, noses, or hair, and with large heads. In 1895, Wells also depicted the Eloi, a successor species to humanity, in similar terms in the novel The Time Machine.[7]

Note in both cases it's either directly said or indirectly implied is that these are what future humans would look like. That humans could evolve into smallish beings with large heads is hardly a new concept.

Into the 20th century Aleister Crowley was contacting a grey-like entity:

As early as 1917, the occultist Aleister Crowley described a meeting with a "preternatural entity" named Lam that was similar in appearance to a modern Grey.

There was also a young readers novel from the '30s with similar creatures:

In 1933, the Swedish novelist Gustav Sandgren, using the pen name Gabriel Linde, published a science fiction novel called Den okända faran (The Unknown Danger), in which he describes a race of extraterrestrials who wore clothes made of soft grey fabric and were short, with big bald heads, and large, dark, gleaming eyes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_alien

So, prior to the start of the UFO age in the late '40s, there was a number of literary occurrences of creatures very similar to Greys. And these are from stories, aside possibly from Crowley, these descriptions do not come from contacts.

The Greys go from marginal literary characters to the mainstream with the publication of The Interrupted Journy in 1966 which recounted the Betty and Barny Hill abduction case from 1961. The first famous case of it's type.

Betty had various descriptions of her captors from a series of dreams she had and hypnotic regression sessions, that included the grey color:

They appeared nearly human, with black hair, dark eyes, prominent noses and bluish lips. Their skin was a greyish colour

In 1990 it was noted that Barny's description and sketch was very similar to an entity from a TV show:

In part, Kottmeyer wrote:[45]

Wraparound eyes are an extreme rarity in science fiction films. I know of only one instance. They appeared on the alien of an episode of an old TV series The Outer Limits titled "The Bellero Shield." A person familiar with Barney's sketch in The Interrupted Journey and the sketch done in collaboration with the artist David Baker will find a "frisson" of "déjà vu" creeping up his spine when seeing this episode. The resemblance is much abetted by an absence of ears, hair, and nose on both aliens. Could it be by chance? Consider this: Barney first described and drew the wraparound eyes during the hypnosis session dated 22 February 1964. "The Bellero Shield" was first broadcast on 10 February 1964. Only twelve days separate the two instances. If the identification is admitted, the commonness of wraparound eyes in the abduction literature falls to cultural forces.

Barny's collaborative sketch and the character from the TV show:

Interesting also is what the TV character says:

The episode featured an extraterrestrial with large eyes who says, "In all the universes, in all the unities beyond the universes, all who have eyes have eyes that speak."

Compare that line to some of Barny's regression memories:

Under hypnosis, Barney said things like, "Oh, those eyes. They're there in my brain" (from his first hypnosis session) and "I was told to close my eyes because I saw two eyes coming close to mine, and I felt like the eyes had pushed into my eyes" (from his second hypnosis session) and "All I see are these eyes…. I'm not even afraid that they're not connected to a body. They're just there. They're just up close to me, pressing against my eyes."[25]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_and_Betty_Hill_incident

I'll note that IIRC, in season 1 of the podcast Strange Arrivals which covers the Hill case, host Toby Ball plays some of the actual recordings of Barny under hypnosis, including the above quote. It's compelling. He's clearly experiencing something intense during the sessions.

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-strange-arrivals-59865365/

Also interesting is that it appears Greys may be largely and American thing:

https://www.google.com/books/editio...BAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA135&printsec=frontcover

If the Greys are evolved future humans, are they only evolved future Americans? Or do other evolved future humans appear different in other places?

Or is there simply no need to invoke time travel to explain a cultural phenomenon.

 

[Vattic]

• The bipedal template not succeeding in simulation studies under gravitational forces resembling those of the more common "super earths"

What does this mean?

How I read it:

• Super earths, exoplanets with a mass greater than Earth's, but much lower than Uranus or Neptune, are the most common type of exoplanet in the Milkyway.
• Any visiting aliens are therefore most likely to be from super earths.
• Bipedal creatures aren't viable on these planets because of higher gravity.
• Therefore typical alien encounter descriptions don't fit, while visits by aliens from the most earth earth planet fits better.

 

[Eburacum]

Super earths, exoplanets with a mass greater than Earth's, but much lower than Uranus or Neptune, are the most common type of exoplanet in the Milkyway.

Note that superearths only appear to be more common than Earth-sized planets (and smaller planets) because they are easier to detect. We don't know the real statistics yet.

 

[Ann K]

Statistics are often quite reliable.

And they don't preclude one of the unlikely options being proven correct by conclusive evidence.

But for those reports without good evidence? I'm going to believe in statistics over the paranormal.

I agree. But the less-likely options are the reasons why we still have to check the next one ...and the next ...and the next.

 

[Ann K]

If the Greys are evolved future humans, are they only evolved future Americans? Or do other evolved future humans appear different in other places?

Or is there simply no need to invoke time travel to explain a cultural phenomenon.

Nobody needs to explain a thing until there is evidence that there is a thing to be explained. Masters skipped right over that essential step and jumped right to the "explanation" thing, which makes me wonder if he had a pet explanation in his mind just looking for a topic to which it might be applied, whether or not it was needed there.

 

[SkepticSteve]

How I read it:

• Super earths, exoplanets with a mass greater than Earth's, but much lower than Uranus or Neptune, are the most common type of exoplanet in the Milkyway.
• Any visiting aliens are therefore most likely to be from super earths.
• Bipedal creatures aren't viable on these planets because of higher gravity.
• Therefore typical alien encounter descriptions don't fit, while visits by aliens from the most earth earth planet fits better.

That's the correct interpretation.

Where to start. Leaving the time-travel to others, I'll agree with notion that Dr. Masters is trying to find solutions for problems that may not exist, at least not physically. The Greys for example may not need to be explained with evolution and the future, if they are more likely a cultural phenomenon.

Just to clarify: Masters' arguments are derived to one degree from extrapolating from evolutionary trends in the homo lineage (e.g. encephalization, receding jawlines) and to a second degree by suggesting that self-domestication / civilization leads to pedomorphic traits being increasingly retained (I think Yuval Noah-Harrari made similar claims within his Sapiens books) . Masters also argues that certain cultural factors may also further contribute to idealizing neoteny.

One example brought forward within 'Identifying Flying Objects' is the comparison of the facial features of a juvenile chip to an adult one. Effectively, showing that the juvenile characteristics come much closer to the facial structure of anatomically modern humans.

But otherwise, I agree on your analysis arguing for a possible cultural origin.

Also interesting is that it appears Greys may be largely and American thing:

View attachment 58966
https://www.google.com/books/editio...BAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA135&printsec=frontcover

If the Greys are evolved future humans, are they only evolved future Americans? Or do other evolved future humans appear different in other places?

Or is there simply no need to invoke time travel to explain a cultural phenomenon.

According to Michael Masters they could be - or they are Asian...

 

[Mauro]

How I read it:

You may be right.

• Super earths, exoplanets with a mass greater than Earth's, but much lower than Uranus or Neptune, are the most common type of exoplanet in the Milkyway.

This may or may not be true, as @Eburacum pointed out

• Any visiting aliens are therefore most likely to be from super earths.

A nice non-sequitur, aliens (if any exist) would originate on the kind of planet able to originate them, not on the 'most common type of exoplanet'.

• Bipedal creatures aren't viable on these planets because of higher gravity.

This may or may not be true, but if true it makes the previous sentence even more illogical that it already was.

• Therefore typical alien encounter descriptions don't fit, while visits by aliens from the most earth earth planet fits better.

I take it as meaning 'visits from an earth-like planet fit better', which I can agree upon, after all we only know of life originating on an Earth-like planet, so if we'll ever get a visit it will probably be from an Earth-like planet. But the 'therefore' is unwarranted, because this does not follow at all from the illogical premises, and how 'Earth from a future time' is then singled out among all the possible Earth-like planets, choosing the most complicated and improbable possibility, still eludes me. Nothing to see here except sloppy reasoning.

 

[MapperGuy]

you mean in the paraphrase of Dr. Master's arguments? or have you read his books yourself?

Article:

Focus on individual claims of evidence, not broader theories, and with one claim of evidence per thread

Source: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/posting-guidelines.2064/

No, I have not read the book (or the one he published earlier that seems to contain some of the same material)..

I did the next best thing. I read the reviews of the book on the Amazon web page selling this book. People who leave long reviews there usually include their own synopsis of what the book is about (or parts of it at least). The reviews appear to agree with some of Skeptic Steve's bullet points. The reviews suggest the book is a collection of previously published accounts that Dr. Masters is trying to use to build a picture that demonstrates the "humanness" of the beings described. This would indeed lend support to the idea the UFO pilots are human descendants, so he seems have done his homework.

It's the lack of any hard evidence and ties to hard science that seem to be missing.

NorCal Dave's post on Grays as a cultural phenomenon also brings up the frequency with which they can be found in fiction and previous reporting. What this means is that future reports of Grays are less and less credible, because "everybody" is familiar with them.

If you want to get on the UFO tour or sell a book make up a story about Grays! If you have an experience (dream, sleep paralysis, drug induced hallucination, etc.) what is your subconscious mind going to dredge up? Grays! They are ubiquitous in connection with the UFO world, so future reports that don't include an actual body (dead or alive) don't add to the credibility of reporting.

 

[Mendel]

I agree. But the less-likely options are the reasons why we still have to check the next one ...and the next ...and the next.

I'd agree if you replace "less likely" with "unprecedented".

They're myths, painted in the terms of the predominant culture.

 

[Vattic]

You may be right.


This may or may not be true, as @Eburacum pointed out


A nice non-sequitur, aliens (if any exist) would originate on the kind of planet able to originate them, not on the 'most common type of exoplanet'.


This may or may not be true, but if true it makes the previous sentence even more illogical that it already was.


I take it as meaning 'visits from an earth-like planet fit better', which I can agree upon, after all we only know of life originating on an Earth-like planet, so if we'll ever get a visit it will probably be from an Earth-like planet. But the 'therefore' is unwarranted, because this does not follow at all from the illogical premises, and how 'Earth from a future time' is then singled out among all the possible Earth-like planets, choosing the most complicated and improbable possibility, still eludes me. Nothing to see here except sloppy reasoning.

You'll get no disagreement from me. I saved any criticism only because my goal was to interpret.

 

[JMartJr]

NorCal Dave's post on Grays as a cultural phenomenon also brings up the frequency with which they can be found in fiction and previous reporting. What this means is that future reports of Grays are less and less credible, because "everybody" is familiar with them.

Not sure I agree. People are also familiar with things that do exist, after all!

I remember some years back when divers first noted and reported weird hunched-up agonistic behavior in reef sharks. Presumably the sharks had been doing it forever, but once it was noted and reported, then more people were watching for it, seeing it and reporting it. Familiarity led to an increase in accurate reporting. (Of course, so did the number of pictures, videos, scientific papers noting it, etc... something lacking in reports of "greys.")

Picture source (and more info on reef shark agonistic swimming, if that interests you): http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/topics/b_agonism.htm

 

[Bob Jase]

If grays are really time-travelling humans then how do supporters of that idea explain Nordics, Reptillians, Insectoids & the rest of the alien menagerie? I explain all of them as unevidenced bunk like fairies, trolls & goblins.

 

[SkepticSteve]

If grays are really time-travelling humans then how do supporters of that idea explain Nordics, Reptillians, Insectoids & the rest of the alien menagerie? I explain all of them as unevidenced bunk like fairies, trolls & goblins.

I think we focus here solely on "time travellers" as an explanation to the close encounter experience and the ridiculousness of it that invalidate this idea again and not specific clouse encounter experiences.

But to answer your question:
Masters himself is not giving much consideration to reports of "different races". The little explanation he offers is that he speculates that they might be from different points in time. E.g. Nordics just a few thousand years, while Greys are a couple of ten thousand years in the future, while Reptilians/Insectoids might come from a post-human earth or might be actual aliens. Alternatively, he suggested in podcast appearences that different races might to a certain degree represent different "human races" being propagated into time. With the Nordics being of Northern European ancestry, while the Greys could be of East Asian origin. I know - it's ridiculous.

But again, I do not think dissecting his time travel hypothesis by looking at specific close encounter experiences is a good idea. Instead, a better approach is by looking into his "theory" and showing that itself is illogical bunk.

 

[Mendel]

Instead, a better approach is by looking into his "theory" and showing that itself is illogical bunk.

But it's not. It merely defies physics, as do the other options.

 

[NorCal Dave]

But it's not. It merely defies physics, as do the other options.

It defies physics, as we know it, not how the future Grey us know it .

This is one of those in between threads for which I wish there was something like a "branching thread". It's a central claim: Aliens/UFOs are time traveling future humans, with multiple bits of evidence to support it. So, each piece of evidence should be a separate thread, like: Grey aliens are proof of time traveling humans and so on. The problem is it creates a bunch of disparate threads all related to a central claim that don't warrant a complete sub-forum that something like 911 does.

The article by Sydigais that was titled something like, "10 Ways to Debunk the Debunkers" was similar. It doesn't need a sub-forum, but tackling his points in one thread becomes unwieldly, but dealing with the claims separate creates multiple isolated threads that get lost.

An OP that states the central claim that then included links to the various individual bits of evidence. I know Rory tried something like that in the Calvine photo thread. I don't know, just thinking out loud as it were.

 

[Mendel]

It defies physics, as we know it, not how the future Grey us know it .

You have to be aware of your mindset here.

"We can't prove that ghosts don't exist" vs. "we can't prove ghosts exist".
"We can't prove that aliens don't visit us" vs. "we can't prove aliens visit us".
"We can't prove that time travel is impossible" vs. "we can't prove it's impossible".
but
"We can't prove that's a balloon" vs. "we've proven it's a balloon in several similar cases".

You need to decide which mindset you want to live by.

A variation of this, "we can't prove foreign adversaries don't use breakthrough technology to spy on us (or harm us, see Havanna)", is used to give US taxpayer money to UFO research. The ESP variant has been used to achieve the same, without result, decades ago.

They scare people by positing "but what if it is possible?" and then get them to part with their money and/or attention. In actuality, all of these are nothing more than scary stories told at the campfire, just more expertly presented.

 

[Itsme]

I think it could interesting to consider whether or not Michael Masters has been cherry-picking information. E.g. distorting CE cases such that they fit his hypothesis, misinterpreting and misunderstanding scientific work and concepts he cites to validate his ideas, etc.

The work of the late Richard H. Hall may help to answer your question. Richard Hall catalogued UFO cases, and below is a link to all cases he catalogued which involved 'occupants'. The list covers the period 1954-1989:
https://www.nicap.org/occupants_hall.htm

 

[NorCal Dave]

The work of the late Richard H. Hall may help to answer your question. Richard Hall catalogued UFO cases, and below is a link to all cases he catalogued which involved 'occupants'. The list covers the period 1954-1989:
https://www.nicap.org/occupants_hall.htm

I took a look at the "report". I suppose it could use a thread of its own, but it's probably not worth it. It strikes me as a typical NICAP and to a lesser extent MUFON type "report". It's largely just a collection of random anecdotes with some superficial musings on said anecdotes. There isn't even a simple attempt at breaking down the sightings into any sort of statistically meaningful categories.

For example, here are some of the descriptions of occupants for sightings between 1954-1963:

By far the most common type is the small humanoid wearing "coveralls" and some kind of headgear, usually round or helmet-like.

The reported beings typically were 3-4.5 feet (0.9-1.4 meters) tall and wore coveralls and round, translucent headgear resembling "diver's helmets."

Small beings with large heads and prominent ears besieged a farmhouse for hours shortly after the sighting of a descending UFO.

Very tight, form-fitting coveralls often are described, and sometimes what appeared to life-support systems.

In several cases, the entities displayed details of appearance strikingly similar to some of the foreign humanoid reports— small size, large glowing eyes and clawed hands. In other respects, there were some notable differences; for example, none of the domestic reports described the `diving suits' that were so often reported in the French and Italian cases."

So, smallish guys in coveralls but not always.

In addition, there seems to be the assumption that all of these are real events and there is no thought giving to possible explanations. Note the last desicription above:

...small size, large glowing eyes and clawed hands.

That appears to come from these 2 accounts in 1955 (bold by me):

July 3, 1955 Margaret Symmonds, Stockton, GA 3:30 A.M.
Four 3-1/2 to 4-ft tall beings, gray garb, long arms, large reddish eyes, pointed chins, small mouths, clawlike hands; beings in road apparently digging with sticks; witness swerved car to avoid hitting them.

August 21-22, 1955 J. C. Sutton family, Kelly, KY. 8:00 P.M.
Two or three 3-1/2 ft tall beings, large heads, big ears, large luminous eyes, long arms, clawlike hands, luminescent torsos; disc-shaped craft landed, dog barked violently, beings approached house one or two at a time, floated at times.

Sounds a lot like these guys:

To be fair, these guys are from a 1957 movie, Invasion of the Saucer Men, but many of the descriptions have analogies in the pop culture of the time. Something NICAP and others frequently ignore.

After talking about some of the things found in the various sightings, the author then lists 24 anecdotes from September 1954 to July 1959. And that's it. There is no attempt to categorize any of the information.

For example, a quick look shows that 7 of the reports included a "diving helmet" or "headgear" or "diving suit". Or 5 reports included "grey skin" or "grey garb" or "grey coveralls" while 1 report had "green coveralls". I would expect at least a few charts or at the very least a breakdown of things like this. No fancy database software is needed, just glance through the reports and make some notes, see if there is a trend. In the 2 reports from Venezuela, the occupants are short and harry (bold by me):

November 28, 1954 Gustavo Gonzalez, Jose Ponce, Caracas, Venezuela
Three hairy dwarfs with glowing eyes; glowing sphere blocked road; Gonzalez struggled with being which knocked him down, second emerged, blinded him with light beam.

December 10, 1954 . Lorenzo Flores, Jesus Gomez, Chico, Venezuela nighttime
Four 3-ft tall, hairy, strong beings; UFO like two bowls rim to rim just off ground; beings tried to drag witnesses on board

I'd venture there some sort of cultural aspect to the Venezuela reports, that was different from the European and North American ones.

The report continues on in the same vein split into various time periods with a collection of anecdotes and some musings but no real analysis and many of the same problems. Here is a sighting from 1978 (bold by me):

February 3, 1978 Janine Home, Seven Mile Beach Tasmania 9:30 P.M.
One thin being with large rounded head, moving back and forth in window of disc with dome, flashing body lights, whining sound heard.

https://www.nicap.org/occupants_hall.htm

So, the year after this guy appeared in Spielberg's CEO3K (1977):

If Masters is using something like this NICAP report, it's very easy to cherry-pick, as the descriptions are all over the place and there is no effort to categorize any of them nor check for frequencies of similarities, and no cross referencing with possible cultural influences. It's just 75-100 anecdotes that one can pick through to draw their own conclusions. Pick out all the cases with "grey skin or garb" and forget about the hairy ones.

 

[Eburacum]

The fact that the occupants of UFOs are described as a wide range of beings could be considered consistent with the appearance of humans from the future. In a few centuries or so, humanity may well adopt a wide range of genetic and physiological modifications, perhaps as adaptations to exotic environments on other planets, or even as exotic fashion statements in an arbitrary future cultural milieu. So almost any body-shape might be possible for humans at some time in the future - greys, nordics, goblins or reptiles, whatever.

But this doesn't prove anything, really. If we were being visited by an advanced alien civilisation with sophisticated biotechnology, these aliens could presumably disguise themselves as any of these forms - even though their own native forms might be entirely different (they could be robots, slugs, cephalopods or sentient biofilms as far as we could tell). There is literally no way to distinguish between future human visitors and alien visitors from a suitably advanced civilisation.

 

[Ann K]

For example, here are some of the descriptions of occupants

I find it amusing that the assumption is made that our alien visitors have sufficiently advanced technology to cross interstellar distances (or, for that matter, to cross centuries), yet they're described as digging in the road with sticks.

 

[Itsme]

I find it amusing that the assumption is made that our alien visitors have sufficiently advanced technology to cross interstellar distances (or, for that matter, to cross centuries), yet they're described as digging in the road with sticks.

Well, our astronauts basically did something similar after they arrived on the moon. They collected rocks and planted a flag. I'm just glad our alien visitors did not plant a flag...

 

[NorCal Dave]

I find it amusing that the assumption is made that our alien visitors have sufficiently advanced technology to cross interstellar distances (or, for that matter, to cross centuries), yet they're described as digging in the road with sticks.

Yeah, I also liked this comment in relation to all the supposed "crashed" alien crafts (bold by me):

They have been observed "taking samples," "repairing their craft," and engaged in other activities.

We managed to cross inter-galactic space and enter Earth's atmosphere, but that damn transmission keeps acting up! I guess if they are actual physical space craft, they would have some sort of maintenance schedule.

The fact that the occupants of UFOs are described as a wide range of beings could be considered consistent with the appearance of humans from the future.

There is literally no way to distinguish between future human visitors and alien visitors from a suitably advanced civilisation.

That may be true, but the claim here if I understand it right is that the classic Grey alien, is in fact an evloved human. As noted in the OP:

Dr. Masters also draws on his expertise in biological anthropology to support his hypothesis. He argues that if humans were to continue to evolve over thousands or millions of years, they would likely develop physical features that resemble the classic "grey alien" archetype commonly associated with UFO sightings.

If SkepticSteve is relaying what's in Master's book accurately, his claim is that future humans would look like Greys, not that future humans would look like all kinds of different things. It's not a good thread because it's a list of claims from a book and we're not giving the claim as it actually appears in the book.

 

[John J.]

He argues that if humans were to continue to evolve over thousands or millions of years, they would likely develop physical features that resemble the classic "grey alien" archetype commonly associated with UFO sightings.

Why? As a biological anthropologist, Dr Masters should know better.

We're all familiar with the large-headed, big-brained aliens and mutants from popular culture, but the biological realities make it unlikely that we're headed that way.
Evolution isn't Lamarckian. If we (for the sake of argument) use our brains more but lead less physically demanding lives than earlier generations, it doesn't cause our offspring to have larger brains and less robust bodies.

Masters also argues that certain cultural factors may also further contribute to idealizing neoteny.

The jaw and its musculature has become more gracile (less robust) in humans, probably in part due to our use of cooking.
Genes for strong jaws (and big teeth) were no longer a competitive advantage, whereas a genetic disposition to growing these robust structures necessitates the use of nutrition and physiological resources that might be better used by other structures (e.g. the brain), or dispensed with altogether (having lower nutritional requirements is a competitive advantage).

It's been hypothesised that neotenic-type features in women (large eyes [but see below], slender jaw) mimic the features of infancy and so trigger a "nurturing"/ protective response in many men; this is found across ethnicities, as described in
"Their Ideas of Beauty Are, on the Whole, the Same as Ours": Consistency and Variability in the Cross-Cultural Perception of Female Physical Attractiveness", Cunningham M., Roberts A.R. et al 1995, February, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
PDF here https://genepi.qimr.edu.au/staff/ni...ham_FacialBeauty_Pers&SocialPsych_261-279.pdf

However, selection for neotenic features is not the whole story. Many women prefer male faces with masculinised, non-neotenous features, such as a "strong jawline". "Chinless wonder" is a derogatory term. Many women have a preference for taller men; both sexes prefer a high leg length: torso ratio in "ideal" partners, non-neotenic traits. Most men have larger penises than gorillas (or any other primate), women have permanently enlarged breasts, unlike any other mammal- again, not neotenic traits.

Cunningham et al (and many others) have found a preference, particularly amongst men, for partners with "big eyes".
This is frequently stated to be a neotenic feature.
But the reality is, there isn't much variation in adult human eye size, across age, sex and ethnicity (meaning, the average woman has proportionately larger eyes than a man). See "Variations in eyeball diameters of the healthy adults" [Sic], Bekerman, I., Gottlieb, P., Vaiman, M., 2014, Journal of Opthalmology, available from PubMed, National Center for Biotechnology Information
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25431659/#:~:text=The size of a human adult eye is,may vary from 21 mm to 27 mm.
Perceived eye size depends a lot on the eyelids and proportions of other facial features.

The very large eyes of some "Grey" descriptions are difficult to understand in terms of mammalian anatomy.
Eyes are not spherical, but their dimensions in each axis are similar,

approximately 24.2 mm (transverse) × 23.7 mm (sagittal) × 22.0-24.8 mm (axial)

(axial=visual axis, front to back of eye), source as above.
This means that a "Grey's" eye, if following the pattern of homo sapiens (and our ancestors, and most other mammals) would extend back into the head at least as far as its maximum visible "length" on the face, reducing volume available for other structures-such as the brain.

This is just to illustrate my point in a simplified way (eyes and cranial vaults aren't really spherical).
The sagittal CT at right is a 41 year-old woman. A mid-section CT would show a larger brain, but wouldn't show the eye.
I have cherry-picked "Greys" with big eyes, not all illustrations show eyes this large-
-but strangely enough, I couldn't find a photo of a real one!

Neanderthals probably had larger eyes than us,

we first show, using orbit size as a proxy [13,15], that Neanderthals had larger visual systems than contemporary AMHs.

New insights into differences in brain organization between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans, Pearce, Stringer and Dunbar 2013, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Biological Sciences, via National Library of Medicine https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3619466/
and could interbreed with us, but their large eyes don't seem to have been preferentially selected for- they're not around anymore.

The tarsier is a primate with proportionately large eyes,

each eyeball is approximately 16 millimetres (0.63 in) in diameter and is as large as, or in some cases larger than, its entire brain

(Wikipedia, "Tarsier", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarsier)

But unless the Greys are dependent on catching insects at night, it's hard to think of a mechanism which would drive such an expensive investment in eye expansion.

The Greys for example may not need to be explained with evolution and the future, if they are more likely a cultural phenomenon.

I think NorCal Dave is spot on here.

There's ongoing argument about to what extent humans are evolving or not. But we are unusual as a large(-ish) sized animal that most of us who want to reproduce do, and (I'm generalising) we can be fairly confident that our children will outlive us.

Most of us die after the peak ages of reproduction and child-rearing, so it is arguable that we're not subject to natural selection in the same way (or at least at the same rate) as "wild" species.

More generalising, but for our species it probably holds true: Most very young men find young women with prominent secondary sexual characteristics attractive; most very young women have crushes on young men in an analogous, although perhaps more multi-factorial, way. There are many cultural nuances to this, of course.
While trying to avoid breaking out into a rendition of Janis Ian's "At Seventeen", there's not much evidence that young adults' idealised partner preference is motivated by a respect for intelligence per se (although perceived status, personality traits and material success might feature).
There doesn't appear to be a sociobiological drive for young adults to preferentially seek out lovers and/or spouses with disproportionately large heads in the hope that their children might be more intelligent!
As a biological anthropologist, Dr. Michael P. Masters should know this.

And in the unlikely event that human nature changes dramatically, it's not clear that "growing" bigger heads will make us more intelligent. Head size (like many of our other physical characteristics) is to some degree heritable

...parental HC and prenatal nutritional indicators are the most important independent variables that determine HC

(Where HC= head circumference), from Ivanovic, D.M., Leiva, B.P. et al, 2004, Head size and intelligence, learning, nutritional status and brain development: Head, IQ, learning, nutrition and brain, Neuropsychologia 42, 8; Science Direct, Elsevier https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002839320400003X?via=ihub (Not a well-written paper IMHO)

The relationship, in humans, between brain size and intelligence is more problematic, there appears to be a correlation in some studies, but not all-if the relationship exists, it isn't strong

A very small correlation was found between cranial capacity and intelligence; but this was shown to be the result of the confounding effects of height.

from Passingham, R.E., 1979, Brain size and intelligence in man, Brain Behavior and Evolution 16, 4; PubMed (National Center for Biotechnology Information [USA] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/526851/

Some factors which can reduce both brain size and intelligence (poor maternal nutrition, Pb/ Hg exposure, foetal alcohol exposure) are difficult to control for (and are more prevalent in disadvantaged groups); the mother is unlikely to know that the child has been affected and indications might be sub-clinical.
It's likely some brain size: intelligence studies have been confounded by the inclusion of subjects mildly affected in these ways.

And us males here shouldn't forget... women.

There is also an apparent paradox that there are substantial sex differences in total brain volume... ...but little-to-no sex differences in mean intelligence

Structural brain imaging correlates of general intelligence in UK Biobank, Cox, S.R., Ritchie, S.J. et al, 2019, Intelligence vol. 76 September-October, viewable here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289619300789?via=ihub#bi0005

Our evolutionary cousins (and part-ancestors) the Neanderthals had brains averaging 1640 cc for males, larger than us
(Hideki, Takeo et al, 2015, found 1736 cc in their specimen, Virtual reconstruction of the Neanderthal Amud 1 cranium,
University of Zurich, PDF here https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/120401/6/AmudPaper.pdf)
-but their Levallois/ Mousterian stone technology shows little development over 260,000 years (approx. 300,000-40,000 yrs BP).
(Wikipedia, Mousterian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mousterian).

Balzeau, Grimaud-Hervé et al found an average volume of 1514 cc for early anatomically modern humans (190,000 to 25,000 years before present) in First description of the Cro-Magnon 1 endocast and study of brain variation and evolution in anatomically modern Homo sapiens, 2013, Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d anthropologie de Paris, 25, 1-2, paper here
AMH brain variation (Research Gate)

Modern humans have a brain volume of approximately 1400 cc.

It would seem that in our species as a whole, intelligence (or at least the sophistication of our technology) is not dependent on brain size alone, and (from an evolutionary perspective) the brain has reduced in size while almost certainly increasing in complexity and efficiency.

With an absence of selective pressures to favour genes for physically larger heads, and evolutionary evidence that there hasn't been a trend towards larger brains, it's hard to see how Dr Masters can conclude that "Greys" match a foreseeable or likely human future.

I won't get into my doubts about the time it would take for signals to cross the long axons required in a typical Grey head, or the massive oxygen and glucose (or ketone) demands that a brain filling most of that head would require.
(Their respiratory rate must be very high, with that long, slender neck leading to a small chest- the lungs won't support a high tidal volume) .
Or the problems in delivering a baby Grey-

The size of the neonatal skull is large relative to the dimensions of the birth canal in the female pelvis. This is the reason why childbirth is slower and more difficult in humans than in most other primates

link "Large heads, narrow pelvises and difficult childbirth in humans: Adaptations in human morphology explain why", author not named but article references Barbara Fischer and Philipp Mitteroecker, 2015, University of Vienna.

Maybe they have gestation to term "in vitro"- in which case why are they obsessed with our reproductive systems?

Before I go, what about this for a Grey, well, Green candidate? Perhaps unlikely, I doubt if he was known in the USA-
-The Mekon AKA the Mekon of Mekonta, evil leader of the Treens of Venus' northern hemisphere,
who first appeared in The Eagle comic from issue 30 (November 1950) in the serial strip "Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mekon and resurrected several times since (notably in cult British comic 2000 AD in 1977)

A quick aside:
The same strip also gave us the Therons, the (mainly) peaceful, permatanned and highly cultured inhabitants of Venus' southern hemisphere. I don't know when they were introduced- I'd guess not long after The Mekon in 1950, as they share a planet...

...and on 20th November 1952, George Adamski claimed to have met Orthon, a peaceful messenger from Venus...

Adamski described Orthon as being a medium-height humanoid with long blond hair and tanned skin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Adamski

 

[Ann K]

This whole idea of expecting what our descendants should look like many millennia into the future sounds untenable. If it happens purely by natural selection, it's a blank page, and we don't know what to expect. (Currently our society is a global one, with almost all groups mixing genes in a way not readily possible before modern transport, so the isolation that facilitates evolution is uncommon. We don't know how long that will last in our future.)

If the previously mentioned "cultural factors" are in play, one has to consider that the author is expecting the same cultural desire for certain characteristics to continue for thousands-to-millions of years. That's as true with discretionary gene editing as it is with normal mate selection. Given how rapidly fashions change, that likelihood seems vanishingly small.

And @John J. had a timely reminder for Dr. Masters:

Evolution isn't Lamarckian. If we (for the sake of argument) use our brains more but lead less physically demanding lives than earlier generations, it doesn't cause our offspring to have larger brains and less robust bodies.

Our future earthlings may well be the ones that best survive the next pandemic, or the next, or the next, and physical appearance may not be a factor at all. I think Masters' version of predicted morphology is the stuff of his imagination, and is flimsy "evidence" indeed upon which to build his fanciful time travel story.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

What function do these Michael P. Masters books serve? They are aimed at an audience. So they serve the psychological needs of that audience. And reality ain't it.

I was an SF (Science Fiction) Fan in my youth. SF Fandom was a very small world at the time - the 70's. But I was in the S. Calif. area which was relatively well populated with other Fans and SF writers, one or two SF bookstores, local Cons, LASFS (Los Angeles Science Fiction Club), and so on. So the community was scattered but accessible in real life. All my life long friends came from my UCLA SF Club. So I know a thing or two about vintage SF Fans and Readers.

Mundane was our term for non-SF Fans - something like Muggle, I suppose, but far in advance of that neologism. At the time, a lot of Mundanes thought that SF Fans were eccentrics who probably believed in Leprechauns. After all, they read all that weird Science Fiction stuff. But in my experience SF Fans were very often Skeptics and there were a lot of atheists and agnostics among us. I don't remember anyone who believed in flying saucers, Spiritualism or Atlantis.

A completely different Demo was the people who consumed books on Lemuria, Ancient Astronauts, Flying Saucers, Edgar Cayce,, spooks... you get the idea. The stuff you would find at what was called a Psychic Bookstore up until the 80's, when such things became known as a New Age Bookstore. Now it's Metaphysical or Spiritual. Make up your mind.

The difference:

SF Fans love fantastical stories... but they don't need to believe they're real.

Psychic Bookstore types love fantastical stories, but for some reason they need to believe they're real.


Btw, Science Fiction stories are usually much better written, and usually have some reality based logic. Even pure fantasy has internal logic.

Stuff about Lemuria or Atlantis is usually poorly written and illogical.

The books in question were written for the type of person who loves fantastical stories, doesn't care about real world logic or quality writing... and needs to believe they're real. So judging whether these books have any relation to the real world is beside the point. Of course they don't.

As a matter of fact it's better if they don't. Their fans want to get away from reason, analytical thinking and logic, which they find aversive. The way Anakin Skywalker doesn't like sand.*


* A silly and poorly written way...