On
October 25 2003, scholars, theologians and scientists came together at the
Notes on the DVDs:
The conference featured the following contributors:
Richard
C. Hoagland: The Gods of Cydonia: the Case for Ancient Artificial Structures in the
Solar System
Dave
Flynn: The Mars/Earth Connection: Cydonia in Ancient Science and Mythology
Flynn is “the watcher”
Dr.
Michael S. Heiser: No room at the
Intelligent ET Reality?
Dr.
Hugh Ross: Does ET Have a Home? The
Probability for life's Existence Elsewhere in the Universe
Dr.
Paul Nelson: If ET Called, How Would We
Know It?
Disk 1) Richard C. Hoagland: The Gods of Cydonia:
the Case for Ancient Artificial Structures in the
Solar System
Hoagland firmly believes the Cydonia “face” is an artificial structure representing a humanoid face.
Stanley McDaniel agreed with those who saw a “face” in the Cydonia images, and wrote a scathing condemnation of NASA., the 1993 McDaniel Report.
http://books.google.com/books?id=hjDgX29NWTQC&dq=Stanley+McDaniel&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Hoagland suggests a link between the planet Mars and the
ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean, especially
Notes that on
He notes additional images were taken of the original Cydonia face taken by Viking, for a total of four images.
(Mars Surveyor, Odyssey)
Mark Carlotto, an imaging expert, wrote the book The Martian Enigmas: A Closer Look. He adapted satellite imaging technology used to distinguish artificial from natural objects. This technology, called photoclinometry, makes use of the fact that natural objects are composed of fractal patterns; those that are artificial can be made to stand out. The Cydonia “face” stood out.
In the history of the NASA probes to Mars, the region of Cydonia was the most photographed by the NASA analysts Malon and Christianson (?) who publicly claimed the Cydonia “face” was just a natural feature,
Hoagland: “To me, the NASA experience has
for-shadowed my experience with the entire
Oddessy image: shows “face” from top at sunrise; it is 99% reflective, much more reflective than surrounding objects.
Hoagland suggests the brightness is because the surface is mirror like.
Notes colors in bright image; notes blueness [could this be related to chromatic aberration?]
Some of the nearby “mesas” show same brightness features.
Has approached Mars Express people on German camera on European probe going to Mars: Dr Gerhard Neukum, who is the principal investigator of the German camera, has assured several members of Hoagland’s group (enterprise) that they intend to use the two meter color camera to attempt to resolve the Cydonia question, including pre-dawn and post sunset images.
Disk 2) Dave Flynn aka
“The Watcher”: The Mars/Earth
Connection: Cydonia in Ancient Science and Mythology
Great thinkers believed that planets communicated in some way
Neo pythagorans and neoplatonists of 4th cen ad (pronounces neoplatonist wrong)
Empleocleese? Porphory, nemonios saccus?? “As above so below”
Heavens impart knowledge to earth; platonic emanations
5 sided D&M pyramid in cydonia area near “face” pentagram was most sacred shape of pathagorean school
From burial chamber of tuthmosis 3rd 5 pronged stars like stick figures; “anthropomorphic
(remember Leonardo: human in pentagram) theme repeated often pentagram stars and men 5 pointed star assoc with sirius star
Sirius Dog star known in ancient
“And it came to pass, when the sons of men had increased, that in those days there were born to them fair and beautiful daughters, and the angles, the sons of heaven, saw them and desired them” and they were in all 200 and they came down on Ardis, which is the summit of Mount Herman.
- Pseudepigraphic “book of Enoch”
The off spring of the sons of heaven and the daughters of man were called nephelin “the fallen ones”
First city built in antiquity according to strabo was
Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, 40, 430-435
“from the beginning of time, people lived here, apeople of divine progeny; there age is that of the universe”
Name sidonia turns up in many
ancient myths, as foundation of knowledge and religious system that came intact
from heaven. Invariably leads to this idea that Mars has something to do with
it. The Europa
that Zeus raped was sidonian. The name
Zeus took Europa to
Cadmus, brother of europa, gave alphabet to greeks. Says greek alphabet, traditionally attributed to “phenocians” real source was sidonia. “Phenocian” just means red.
Greeks called siodonians “phonecian”s
“Emerald tablets of toth or hermes” copies made by Albert Magnus and Issac Newton.
According to Magnus, this is an ancient text written in pheonocan, found by Alexander the ggreat; one page 14 statements that no alchemist or hermeticist should be without. Vaguely reminicinat of lords prayer; references heaven coming to earth.
Egyptian god dog anubis
Colin Andrews: 90% of all crop circles in the world occur in England 90% of those occur in the province of Wiltshire, home of the major megalithic sites silberry hill avery circle and stone henge.
The fruit eve holds in a number of artistic depictions of the fall is not an apple but a quince, which has a botanical name pyra sidonoia cross section of quince shows 5 fold symmetry.
Disc 3) Dr. Hugh Ross/ Dr. Paul Nelson
Dr. Hugh Ross: Does ET Have a Home? The Probability for life's Existence Elsewhere in
the Universe
Dr.
Ross is introduced as a leader in the “Intelligent Design movement.” According
to Wikipedia, Intelligent design is the assertion that "certain features of
the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause,
not an undirected process such as natural selection. It is a modern form of the traditional teleological
argument for the existence of God, but one which avoids specifying the nature
or identity of the designer. The idea was developed by a group of American creationists
who reformulated their argument in the creation-evolution controversy to
circumvent court rulings that prohibit the teaching of creationism as science.
Intelligent design's leading proponents – all of whom are associated with the Discovery
Institute, a politically conservative think tank – believe the designer to be
the God of Christianity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
Dr Ross appears to be a very “closed
system” guy; wanting to put boxes around things .
Still, the presentation contains lots of good scientific information and
analysis, but the conclusion is not necessary; ie
causality by a Christian god. The supernatural has been described
as that which we do not yet understand rationally. Based on our current discoveries, we have
been able to comprehend “natural” phenomena our predecessors would have
considered supernatural. Even if we are never able to fully understand it
rationally does not mean it is not “rational”; it just means it is beyond our
comprehension. If this is what is meant by the “supernatural”, maybe it is. But
this is not to belittle “rationality” or “supernatural”.
Dr. Ross states he is collecting
scientific evidence which proves that a supernatural God is responsible for the
existence of humanity on our planet Earth www.reasons.org. He provides four arguments why he believes ET
has not visited our solar system:
The Heavenly Body Problem, The Origin of Life Problem, Intelligent Life Problems, and
Space Travel Problems.
The heavenly body problem: Points
out the very special circumstances which have made life on earth possible,
including the structure of galaxies, super Nova, existence of Jupiter and the
fine tuning of the Moon. Says moon torn out from early earth by a Mars sized
planet, which allowed
the development of just the right atmospheric properties. Further, heavy
elements were transferred to the earth, and lighter elements formed a debris
field which coalesced into the moon. Sun brightens every year. The earth system
perfectly compensates for this by reducing the effiency
of green house gasses.
Basically says
everything is fine tuned for
life on earth and life on earth is unique.
Origin of life
problem:
brief time scale,
no soups or
substrates,
oxygen UV paradox,
oxidants paradox,
non bioactive
contaminants.
Homochirality
problem
Phosphorus
problem: need to account for the abundance of phosphorus
Rarity of
building blocks
Destruction vs construction
Hostile
environments
51 characteristics of the universe
must be fine tuned to make life possible. The entire universe must be there to allow
the existence of life on earth.
Scientists have commented on the
fact that it took only 14 billion years to prepare home for humanity;
calculation tell us it should take
much longer, but four outstanding miraculous interventions made it possible; ie type 1 and type 2 supernova; white dwarf binary, just
right collisions at the just right time.
Max time human civilization can
exist under this optimization is 41 k years. British cosmologist Brandon Carter
said there must be an extremely high purpose and value, given our longevity is
so short but preparation so long.
SETI doing a lot of research; so
far they have concluded no intelligent life as civilized as ours within 155
light years; that there is no super ETI within 1000 light years.
Maximum travel speed is .1 c. the faster you go,
the more damage you will sustain. Minimum travel time would be 25 k years to
reach earth, but window of existence for an intelligent species is shorter than
that.
“Scientists have commented on the
fact that it took only 14 billion years to prepare home for humanity;
calculation tell us it should take
much longer, but four outstanding miraculous interventions made it possible; ie type 1 and type 2 supernova; white dwarf binary, just
right collisions at the just right time.”
The issue of time in this context seems
neither here nor there. From our perspective it would make no difference wether it took 14 billion or 140 billion
years to prepare our home. The only way that could make a difference is if
there were some kind of vast time schedule that was
being met.
Dr. Paul Nelson: If
ET Called, How Would We Know It?
fellow for science and culture discovery institute seattle; another intelligent design guy. discovery
institute: how would we detect intelligent causation in nature? SETI
assumption: if ET is trying to send a message, we should be able to detect it.
looks at issue from philosophical perspectrive:
Epistemology: how would we know
when a mind like our own has acted in the universe?
Def of science? Can we use “intelligent causes” in scientific explanation?
Some influential or widely held
definitions of science may be hindering our ability to detect the action of
intelligence other than human in the universe.
From the
Elliott Sober: philosopher of
science.
There are natural causes and
intelligent causes in your daily life. Examples: fraud; “mint jelly’ Ridge.
Explanatory filter: logic
developed by Bill Dembski to explain how we detect
the action of intelligence.
We observe events. Did it have to
happen? If so it was necessary. If there is a small probability of the event
happening, and it occurs in a pattern, you can infer design.
Design inferences are essential to many areas of
human inquiry:
Forensics
Patent and intellectual property
law
Cryptography: codemakers
and code breakers
Fraud in science
Archeology paleontology
SETI
SETI: looks for narrow band radio
transmission as a sign of intelligence.
SETI researchers make a “causal
impotence” claim: “there is no natural cause to explain the origin of narrow
band radio transmissions.”
Maybe we are just not clever enough
to determine the natural cause
What’s wrong with these causal
impotence claims in science?
Sober: because of the problem of
induction, it is possible to err when inferring an intelligent cause for what
might actually be a naturally caused pattern. So, we want to exhaust all
possible natural causes before moving to intelligent design. Nelson says you
can never exhaust the possible natural causes, and this is a problem.
“you will
be an absolutely miserable scientist or simply human being if you stay at the
first node of the explanatory filter.”
Even people who consider
themselves religious, as scientists keep to The Rule of Methodological Naturalism.
Kepler and
Nelson considers the origin of
life as possibly an example of intelligent design. By excluding “supernatural”,
“intelligent” also
gets excluded. This limits the tools of science.
“In the end, science would be more
free and honest without a rule it does not need. “
On the issue of a yeast protein of
exceedingly high complexity bordering on randomness: you can extend this to the
world as a whole: the world may be full of patterns which we have lost the key
to detect or do not yet have the knowledge to detect but they are out there.
Nelson puts Hoagland’s suggestion of intelligent design of artifacts on Mars through the explanatory filter. He is not sure where he would place it.
Dr. Michael S. Heiser:
No room at the
Intelligent ET Reality?
Heiser has had a life long interest in the paranormal, especially UFOlogy and ET life. Lectures frequently on the topics of divine beings and angels. Does translation work in a dozen ancient languages. At the time of the presentation he was working on a response to Sitchin’s ancient astronaut theory.
Proposes evaluation of the ideas presented in this series of lectures:
In some way there appears to be a correspondence between Mars in mythology that runs through ancient history.
Whose right? If Hoagland is correct that these are artificial structures, that infers intelligence, not necessarily ET. Then Dave’s topic is more important. If Richard is wrong, Dave’s topic, the patterns in history is still valid. If there is “intelligence” on Mars, Richard would say it is ET; Dave (Michael checked with Dave) believes it is a higher intelligence; supernatural, but not alien. In this view, a body of knowledge has been handed down, not from biological ETs, but by spiritual beings. Dave is drawing from an ol tradition that believes spiritual beings inhabit the planets. (if you are spiritual, you don’t need to inhabit anything?) this is the Pythagorean tradition.
Nelson: Intelligent or supernatural; opposes supernatural; Dave’s thesis is that it is supernatural.
Can the Judeo-Christian Worldview
Accommodate an Intelligent ET Reality?
Fundamentalist
and conservative Christians or Jews fear of ET reality. Do not need to fear.
Don’t have to give up belief in face of possibility of reality of ET. In 1277,
bishop of
”Somehow we have gotten into our minds that if
you believe in ET you also believe in
In summary, Heiser is a devout Christian who argues for and with the Christian bible, and who believes the existence of ET should not cause people to question their Christian faith.
Ends with a question: If evidence of ET never surfaces, if the problem of matter creating itself is never scientifically demonstrated and made philosophically coherent, if the evidence of intelligent design on earth cannot be attributed to ET designers, then will the scientific materialists who look for the blessed hope of ET be able to sustain their belief system?