By James Moore
I sat at the foot of the bed and listened. We were in an artist’s loft in Manhattan and the woman lying there was crying, shivering in great fear. She was being hypnotically regressed by Budd Hopkins, a man who had become involved in a cultural phenomenon referred to as UFO abductions.
“Oh, I don’t want them to do this,” the woman, diminutive, and shivering, was almost shrieking. “They’re taking my baby. What are they going to do with it? Oh, please, stop, it hurts.”
Hopkins, an artist who was not trained in psychiatry, urged her to remember she was in a state of recall and what she was experiencing was not real.
“Tell me if you want to stop,” he said. “You can come back any time, but you wanted to understand your lost pregnancy. Let’s allow this to go a bit further.”
I was producing a series of reports on the UFO phenomenon, trying to apply unbiased scrutiny to an overworked subject. Hopkins, who had written a successful book on abductions in Indiana, sensed my constrained skepticism and suggested I speak with a Harvard psychiatrist who was seriously researching claims of abductions of humans by aliens, Non-Human Intelligences (NHIs).
John Mack, PhD, was vilified by the academic and intellectual communities of Harvard, but he persisted with his studying and meeting people who claimed to have absurd experiences. Mack had founded Harvard’s school of psychiatry and had won a Pulitzer for his book about T.E. “Lawrence” of Arabia. We recorded one of his patients he was hypnotically regressing and the woman’s reactions to what she was remembering under his guidance was disturbing, even as an observer.
“Do you think she was actually taken aboard a UFO and probed with needles by these little gray creatures she described?” I asked him during a subsequent interview.
“I don’t know,” he said. “The experience is real to her. I can’t say there are aliens abducting humans. But I have no way to account for what she is experiencing or thinks she is experiencing.”
Mack’s work under the imprimatur of Harvard University only deepened the mystery of UFOs, now referred to with a more technical acronym of UAP, unidentified aerial phenomena. His research, often dismissed as anecdotal, came to the broader public in the form of a bestselling book, and seemed to prove nothing to skeptics. They are having a much more difficult time, however, dismissing what happened in the Colombian town of Buga in March of this year.
A metallic sphere, cool to the touch like an object fresh from a refrigerator, was recovered by locals after eyewitnesses reported it executing impossible, zigzagging maneuvers in the sky, before losing altitude and landing. Immediately dubbed the Buga Sphere, the artifact weighed approximately 4.5 pounds. Inexplicably, however, it increased in mass over time and its weight more than doubled, and its mere existence began to spread a few cracks into the foundations of human certainty.
Researchers at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM) got access to the object and their research revealed a baffling internal architecture of complex, fiber-optic-like wiring, a central “nucleus” surrounded by microspheres, and a complete lack of visible seams or joints. A perfect, seamless sphere of metal is considered a feat beyond current terrestrial manufacturing capabilities. There was also a confounding anomaly of its environmental footprint. The location of recovery was found with a perfectly circular patch of scorched, die-off grass and soil where the sphere had landed, though there was no detectable radiation or chemical residue. Engineer Rodolfo Garrido, who examined the site, described a “strong, decaying ionized field” as the possible culprit, hinting at an unknown physics at work.
Not everyone, of course, remains baffled, even though the sphere exhibited a “negative mass effect,” reducing its inertia by over 80 percent. Nonetheless, where one cohort of researchers saw the signature of Non-Human Intelligence, another saw the hallmarks of a sophisticated human deception. Cognitive neuroscientist and UAP researcher Dr. Julia Mossbridge, a skeptic of extraterrestrial origins for many UAPs, indicated that she thought the sphere “seems kind of like an art project,” pointing to the enigmatic surface symbols as a “classic trick in hoax design,” a mash-up of cuneiform, runes, and circuit board aesthetics designed to provoke intense, global speculation.
If the sphere is an art project, or fraudulent, it’s a very good scam. Should it be confirmed as technologically beyond human capabilities, the world would face an existential tsunami of unprecedented scope with probable catastrophic impacts and even a redefinition of our own species. The first material shockwave would ripple through the global economy. Widespread reverse-engineering of technology from discovered craft could suggest a technology that exhibits a mastery over gravity manipulation and access to limitless, clean energy. The resulting collapse of the multi-trillion-dollar fossil fuel industry would be instantaneous and traumatic. Economies built on oil as an engine, from sovereign petro-states to major energy corporations, would be summarily wiped away. This would not be a gradual market transition; it would be an overnight obliteration of wealth and power, a sudden, forced pivot into a post-scarcity energy future for which our current economic structures are entirely unprepared. The trauma of that shift, the loss of geopolitical leverage and capital, would likely trigger global instability far more profound than any mere recession.
The implications for human authority, too, are terrifyingly profound. What becomes of governance when beings with superior power and intelligence are demonstrably operating within our world? The political theorist Dr. Peter Skafish, co-founder of the Sol Foundation, points out that classified accounts describe not just advanced craft, but also the existence of biological Non-Human Entities (NHEs). This fact, if that’s what it is, might be, according to Skafish, the “single most sensitive data point that is deliberately being withheld from the public due to its world-altering implications.” The government’s claim to ultimate sovereign power, its monopoly on legitimate force, would crumble beneath the shadow of a higher authority. National boundaries and human conflicts would seem absurdly parochial, even farcical, in the face of a shared cosmic context.
Then there is the great question of faith. The world’s dominant religions, Christianity, Islam, and others, offer comprehensive, anthropocentric narratives of creation, purpose, and salvation. What happens to dogma when it is forced to confront a reality not imagined in religious doctrine? The existence of non-human rational beings might be compatible with Christian theology given the historical analogue of medieval debates over humans on the other side of the globe. Nobody knew then if they existed. However, for those whose “core commitment to Christianity is about the exclusivity of Jesus’ action,” the discovery of NHI could be “very threatening to their faith.”
The cynic’s view is that contact would be the death knell for earthly religions, particularly the more anthropocentric ones. Religions are, however, also how humans make meaning, and history shows a remarkable ability for retrofitting and weaving the new, even the cosmic, into the sacred texts. To save a belief system, new arrivals might be interpreted as a form of divinity. The resulting schisms and the formation of new cults, however, would represent a major societal destabilization, a crisis of collective meaning that police forces and governments likely cannot comprehend.
Governments withholding the truth about NHIs and UAPs aren’t just trying to maintain power and economies, though. All humanity would experience what sociologists have described as “past shock.” Histories would need to be reinterpreted and rewritten and religions would lose much of the premises upon which they were founded. The discussion over NHI and UAPs, in fact, has decisively shifted from the realm of fringe enthusiasm to a global policy crisis. When the U.S. Department of Defense began to seriously investigate the phenomenon, scientific stigma was reduced and a more open consideration and research began to be undertaken. The Pentagon may have denied any verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial activity, but the drumbeat of “whistleblower” claims and the high-level attention from legislative bodies, including open Congressional hearings, have validated the external reality of the phenomenon. Legitimate witnesses and even scientists believe something is operating in our skies that defies conventional explanation.
Carl Sagan once famously said that the critical inquiry should not be, ‘Do you believe in UFOs?’ but rather, ‘How good is the evidence that UFOs are alien spaceships?’ The Buga Sphere, whether an authentic artifact of a vastly old and powerful civilization, or an elegant piece of modern performance art designed to expose humanity’s cognitive dissonance, has already fulfilled a purpose. The world has engaged with the question of NHI and the latest global conversations are no longer focused on if something is happening, but on how to prepare for a “catastrophic disclosure.” There are AI simulations that suggest disclosure could occur accidentally within the next two decades. Certain researchers believe we are on the verge of overt contact with off-planet intelligences. Regardless, there seems to be no denying that humanity is slowly awakening to the possibility of its own existential loneliness ending. We might be facing the monumental, and perhaps terrifying, truth that the future of our species could depend on how we choose to treat our new, cosmic neighbors.
Let’s hope it’s better than we’ve treated each other.
This article was originally published on Texas to the world.
James Moore is the New York Times bestselling author of “Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential,” three other books on Bush and former Texas Governor Rick Perry, as well as two novels, and a biography entitled, “Give Back the Light,” on a famed eye surgeon and inventor. Mr. Moore has been honored with an Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for his documentary work and is a former TV news correspondent who has traveled extensively on every presidential campaign since 1976.
He has been a retained on-air political analyst for MSNBC and has appeared on Morning Edition on National Public Radio, NBC Nightly News, Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, CBS Evening News, CNN, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Hardball with Chris Matthews, among numerous other programs. Mr. Moore’s written political and media analyses have been published at CNN, Boston Globe, L.A. Times, Guardian of London, Sunday Independent of London, Salon, Financial Times of London, Huffington Post, and numerous other outlets. He also appeared as an expert on presidential politics in the highest-grossing documentary film of all time, Fahrenheit 911, (not related to the film’s producer Michael Moore).
His other honors include the Dartmouth College National Media Award for Economic Understanding, the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television News Directors’ Association, the Individual Broadcast Achievement Award from the Texas Headliners Foundation, and a Gold Medal for Script Writing from the Houston International Film Festival. He was frequently named best reporter in Texas by the AP, UPI, and the Houston Press Club. The film produced from his book “Bush’s Brain” premiered at The Cannes Film Festival prior to a successful 30-city theater run in the U.S.
Mr. Moore has reported on the major stories and historical events of our time, which have ranged from Iran-Contra to the Waco standoff, the Oklahoma City bombing, the border immigration crisis, and other headlining events. His journalism has put him in Cuba, Central America, Mexico, Australia, Canada, the UK, and most of Europe, interviewing figures as diverse as Fidel Castro and Willie Nelson. He has been writing about Texas politics, culture, and history since 1975, and continues with political opinion pieces for CNN and regularly at his Substack newsletter: “Texas to the World.”
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A convenient distraction from the things that really matter.
Things that really matter are a function of personal preferences, likes & dislikes, desires & aversions, views and opinions, certainties, biases, etc.
Safe to assume that the Buga Sphere, if real, would be an object of deep interest for those whose proclivities tend in such directions; the questions of UFOs, UAPs, extraterrestrials, alien entities et al, has been a hot topic for a long time.
John Mack, Harvard psychiatrist, travelled to Ruwa in Zimbabwe in November 1994 to interview children at the Ariel school who had witnessed the landing of UAP craft and the emergence from the craft of non-human beings. The stories told by the 62 children as to what they had witnessed were closely correlated, tending to reinforce the veracity of their verbal evidence. More than twenty years later, a number of those children were re-interviewed. All described the incident as unique, extraordinary, profound, and life-changing.
Mack is shown interviewing children in the 2022 documentary Ariel Phenomenon. He comes across as a deeply humane and interested person. He duly reported on this and other extraordinary occurences relation to extraterrestrial phenomena in the spirit of scientific enquiry, yet he was, as James Mooore notes, vilified, criticised, disparaged and ridiculed. Ignorance and bias, as noted elsewhere in these pages, serve as a significant brake on the forward progress of mans’ understandings.
leefe, this matters to a lot of people. Please don’t dismiss it if it doesn’t matter to you.
Canguro, the evidence behind the Ariel incident is rock solid.
At the age of 16, living in the Juvenate of a monastic order, I announced, at the dining room table, the conclusion I had come to about what aliens must be like if they exist: not little green men but beings indistinguishable from humans because, if it were otherwise, Jesus could not be the saviour of the Universe. Needless to say I was laughed out of court, and told by my Superiors, when I tried to raise the issue with them, that I’d better start thinking about stuff that matters. No one noticed the irony of being told to focus on matter rather than spirit in a monastery. When I protested that our very creed says “through whom all things were made” someone started taking me seriously and suggested I take a close look at the Prologue of the Gospel According to John. The Logos, it seems, is that through whom all things were made, and Jesus is the human manifestation thereof. So little green men (and women) are back. Catholics expect to learn more about what it means to be human when little green men make themselves know to us, just like we learned more about what it means to be Christian when, as a result of the decree on ecumenism at the Second Vatican Council, we joyfully embraced our Protestant sisters and brothers and fellow humans of other than Christian belief and practice. Inclusivity, that’s the name of the game. Each generation, they play it better and better.
Now it has to extend to Jews and Muslims, The lack of knowledge in the West on foundational beleifs has showed upmin the last few years, both in (Orthodox) Ukaine and Russia and more starkly, Palestine.