Understanding Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: Challenges and Insights

Today’s episode is an important one, because it’s going to lay the groundwork for a lot of the things that we’re going to be discussing moving forward. In the weeks and months to come, this is an episode that I’ll likely be referring back to often.

And that’s because today we’re diving into an article written by two heavyweights of ufology that serves not only as an essential framework to support our understanding of the complexities and nuances of the UFO phenomenon, but that also—in a very real way—helped to lay the foundation for the recent push for UFO disclosure. In short, it’s not only important that we take the time to really understand the ideas presented in this article—but to understand where it fits into the history of modern ufology.

The paper to which I’m referring is Incommensurability, Orthodoxy, and the Physics of High Strangeness: A 6-Layer Model for Anomalous Phenomena written by Jacques Vallée and Eric Davis. Most people will already be very familiar with those names, but just in case they are new to you, you can find links to their bios and other work in the episode brief.

What is so significant about this paper is that it seeks to create a framework by which we can begin to analyze and integrate the parts of UFO encounters that rarely make it into sci-fi media, and even more rarely make it into serious discussions about the phenomenon itself—which is the undeniable and pervasive occurrence of events and effects that are traditionally relegated to the realms of high strangeness and the paranormal.

If there’s nothing else that you take away from this episode it should be this—encounters with UFOs and non-human intelligence are much, much weirder than you've probably been led to believe.



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EPISODE BRIEF

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MUSIC
Theme: Cabinet of Curiosities by Shaun Frearson
Featured Song: Jacques Vallée by _ship

TIMESTAMPS

00:00:32 Introduction
00:06:53 Problems with the SETI and UAP Paradigms
00:07:25 —SETI & The Assumption of Mediocrity
00:12:19 —Anthropocentric Bias in SETI
00:14:54 —Anthropocentric Bias in Ufology
00:16:27 The Need For A Unified Approach To UAP Studies
00:20:01 The Six Layers of UAP Analysis
00:20:30 —Layer I: Physical
00:21:45 —Layer II: Anti-Physical
00:23:00 —Layer III: Psychological
00:29:53 —Layer IV: Physiological
00:32:19 —Layer V: Psychic
00:34:19 —Layer VI: Cultural
00:37:10 Possible Nature of UAP Technology
00:39:48 The Incommensurability Problem
00:45:42 Semiotics
00:51:35 High Strangeness & The Abduction Problem
00:54:12 Conclusions
00:56:23 Garry Nolan and Talking To Ants
01:00:26 Whitley Strieber and “The Visitors In the Trees”
01:12:42 Jacques Vallée by _ship

MUSIC
Theme: Cabinet of Curiosities by Shaun Frearson
Featured Song: Jacques Vallée by _ship

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