By KEN KORCZAK
Is there a singular “UFO Theory of Everything” that can explain every aspect of the UFO phenomenon?
What are UFOs?
The origin of these exotic flying objects seen by millions in our sky across every continent has bedeviled (and fascinated) humankind for literally thousands of years.
Today, I will present nine theories that have been suggested and vociferously debated for countless centuries. The entries I present here range from the simplistic to mind-numbingly complex. This article will also include a “Special Bonus Theory” tacked on to “The Nine.”
So, let’s just dig in. I’ll start with the most simplistic and probably the most absurd UFO theory:
1. UFOs DO NOT EXIST AT ALL
That’s right! Many say the best answer is simply that there are no UFOs. Amazingly, this is arguably the favored theory of the majority of people on Earth, but most passionately held by “The Skeptics.” Note that skeptics still dominate the public agenda because they control mainstream science and academia with an iron grip.
Skeptics are anchored in what they consider to be “science,” as long as that science never strays from the realm of “absolute materialism” as measured objectively by empirical methods and tools. Anything subjective is considered “not real.” That includes imagination, which is ironic because imagination is where all accepted mainstream scientific laws and theories originate.
Materialistic believers are comfortable dismissing the entire UFO scenario as poorly educated people mistaking natural phenomena, such as astronomical objects (especially Venus), clouds, plasma formations, optical illusions, military or commercial aircraft, or weather balloons. Today, drones have displaced weather balloons as the go-to option to write off UFO sightings. Drones are like the “weather balloons of the 1950s.”
The skeptics also bolster their UFO Theory with attributions to hoaxers, people who are drunk or high, or mentally ill people who are delusional or just stupid. Any UFO incident they can’t explain away scientifically is placed in the hoaxer, et. al., box.
2. UFOs ARE THE ANCIENT GODS OR SPIRITS
This idea is perhaps “the first UFO theory.” Ancient texts are replete with references to mysterious crafts in the sky. Examples are the “throne-chariots” and “wheels within wheels,” described in the book of Ezekiel. Another example is the “Vimanas,” flying saucer-like vehicles described in various Hindu texts, such as the Ramayana. The authors of these texts attributed the exotic Vimanas to be vehicles used by deities. This notion became a cultural icon after Erich von Däniken published his book Chariots of the Gods in 1968.
Ancient oral traditions also reference UFO sightings, attributing them to spirits or gods. Many Native American narratives report both anomalous objects in the sky and alien-like beings. An example of the latter is the Ant People, as described by the Hopi Tribe of the American Southwest.
Another great example is the ancient legends of Siberian peoples, who have described “shining spirits” and “water lords” that inhabit the sky and emerge from beneath the water, respectively. Siberia’s Lake Baikal lore is a specific example of possibly the earliest description of the USO, or Unidentified Submerged Object
Note: I consider “The Demonic Theory of UFOs” (which many people in our current government hold, according to Lou Elizondo) to be a subcategory of the Ancient Gods or Spirits category. I originally thought to make it a stand-alone theory, but since “demons” are an artifact of religion, I roll it into my Ancient Gods and Spirits submission.
3. UFOS ARE EXTRATERRESTRIAL CRAFT PILOTED BY BEINGS FROM OTHER PLANETS IN OUR PHYSICAL UNIVERSE
This theory emerged at the advent of the modern UFO era, which kicked off in 1947 after three significant events:
· Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of a fleet of UFOs flying in the skies over Washington state near Mt. Rainier in July 1947.
· The crash of a UFO near Roswell, NM, also in July ’47.
· The Maury Island Incident, also in Washington state, in June of ’47.
The scenario suggests that UFOs are technological, “nuts-and-bolts” spacecraft and the vehicles of biological creatures who evolved on their own planets, developed vast and superior technologies, solved the speed-of-light limit problem, and eventually made their way to our planet.
Note that Theory №3 is heavily modeled or framed in terms of the current understanding of our technology, our motivations, our science, our desires, goals, methods, culture, epistemology and so on. Just as ancient people formulated their UFO theory from their prevailing notions of gods, nature, culture, spirits and theological beliefs, we have leveraged our theory from what anchors our worldview.
4. UFOs ARE EVOLVED/ADVANCED HUMAN BEINGS FROM THE FUTURE
This is one of the most referenced and popular UFO theories. Today, perhaps the most prominent champion of the “time-traveling-from-the-future-UFO” scenario is Dr. Michael P. Masters. He is a biological anthropologist at Montana Tech.
He published a book called The Extratempestrial Model, which takes a deep dive into how and why the Future UFO scenario is the best fit to explain most aspects of the phenomena as it is observed. His approach is multidisciplinary and considers multiple factors, from the evolution of the human species to recent quantum theory on time travel. His hypothesis includes the possible motivations of highly evolved future people to return to the past to interact with their human ancestors.
Of course, Dr. Masters is, by far, not the first to posit the Future UFO scenario. This concept has been bandied about for decades by many in the UFO community.
5. BREAKAWAY CIVILIZATION THEORY
This is an intriguing theory to explain UFOs.
Google AI offers a definition for Breakaway Civilization that is as good as any:
The breakaway civilization theory suggests that an elite group, operating in secret, has developed advanced technology beyond public knowledge, possibly from reverse-engineered or suppressed sources. This “breakaway” group is said to be separate from mainstream society, utilizing its own industrial and economic bases, and is often linked to secret space programs and UFO phenomena.
The scholar, Dr. Jason Reza Jorjani, a Ph.D. philosopher, provides one of the most fascinating and well-described scenarios to link UFOs with a Breakaway Civilization. In his 2021 book, Close Encounters, Dr. Jorjani begins his argument by building an elaborate framework that starts with the famous sightings of “Airships” — a phenomenon that occurred roughly starting in 1890 and persisted through the 1920s.
The Airships were zeppelin-like craft with a Jules Verne, or steampunk sort of vibe. They were widely reported in major newspapers across the United States. Many thousands of on-the-ground witnesses also reported seeing these magnificent crafts.
Airships were manned by ordinary human beings who sometimes landed, climbed down from their crafts and strolled over to chat briefly with astounded people on the ground. Airship passengers or crew sometimes asked for water. In some instances. Airship occupants told witnesses where they were headed.
Jorjani refers to Airships as “ZPE Airships,” with the ZPE standing for “Zero Point Energy.” Already in the mid-1800s, Jorjani believes ZPE technology was being hotly pursued by certain elite Northern Europeans, mostly Germans, beginning in the mid-to-late 19th Century. These enigmatic, European gentry worked closely with key figures in the United States, especially American millionaire industrialists, bankers, financiers, and a selection of brilliant, rogue scientists.
The fabulous Airships were the first fruits of labor produced by this privileged class of strategically connected scientists and engineers. These people also belonged to secret societies, including groups such as the Nazi-connected Thule Society. Jorjani suggests a direct line of evolution of the Airships to UFO-like technology — including the so-called “Nazi Bell” (Die Glocke) — engineered by Third Reich rocket scientists.
Another scholar, the well-known UFO-adjacent historian Richard Dolan, popularized the concept of a breakaway civilization when he released an 80-page booklet titled The Secret Space Program and Breakaway Civilization in 2016, taken from his lecture series. Dolan’s take is somewhat different from Jorjani’s, but his booklet is worth reading to learn his angle on the breakaway civilization concept.
Others have published books on Breakaway Civilizations, such as Dr. Joseph P. Ferrell (see my review of one of his books HERE) and Chris Jack, who wrote Breakaway Civilization: The Canvas Nomad Files.
But now let’s move on to the next UFO Theory:
6. THE ULTRATERRESTRIAL OR CRYPTOTERRESTRIAL THEORY
This UFO concept suggests that humanity is not the only highly intelligent species to have evolved on Earth. There might have been one or more other species — not from another planet, but indigenous to Earth. These other beings of higher intelligence emerged along with all other species of the planet.
The theory posits that these Ultraterrestrial kept themselves apart and hidden from the human race for mysterious reasons of their own. A frequent suggestion is that Ultraterrestrials live beneath the Earth’s surface, inside remote mountain caverns and so on. An additional Ultraterrestrial race may also exist underwater, maybe even beneath the ocean floor.
Some in the UFO community believe that reptilian humanoids evolved during the age of the dinosaurs. They became highly intellectually and technologically advanced. They may have relocated to subterranean locations to cope with the catastrophic asteroid event that destroyed the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago. A leading advocate of Earth-evolved reptoids (rather than alien reptoids) is John Rhodes. See his lecture here on YouTube: REPTOIDS
A close cousin of the Ultraterrestrial idea is Cryptoterrestrials, which would include beings such as Bigfoot, Dogmen, the Hopi Ant People, and many others, including more “conventional” aliens, if you get my drift. Bigfoot is often linked to UFO activity, although in an ancillary or perhaps even subservient sort of way. It might even be said that well-defined folklore beings — elves, fairies, gnomes, leprechauns — can fit into this category of entities. They have sometimes been associated with UFOs.
7. UFOs ARE PROJECTIONS OF THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS
The biggest name attached to this theory is probably the great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. In 1959, he published a book titled Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky. In it, he suggests that “UFOs are powerful, symbolic images emerging from the subconscious.”
Further, Jung theorized that millions of people were seeing UFOs because they were searching for “meaning, wholeness, and salvation during times of crisis, such as the Cold War.” He called UFOs “archetypal projections of inner psychic forces, representing hope, fear, or unknown aspects of the Self,” while rejecting the idea of nuts-and-bolts crafts visiting Earth from other planets.
Jung pointed out the similarity of the shape of flying saucers to mandalas, linking them to history, culture and religion. His theory also encompassed an explanation for the appearance of alien beings. He compared “aliens” to mythical creatures reported by people for thousands of years.
Ideas that are similar to Jung’s “unconscious projections” are many, and some of them have origins independent of Jung’s influential ideas. A very good example of this is the concept of the “egregore,” most likely first proposed by the Rosicrucians in the 17th Century.
Here is the Google AI definition of the egregor
An occult concept for a non-physical, psychic entity or “thoughtform” created and sustained by the collective thoughts, beliefs, and emotions of a group of people sharing a common purpose, like a family, club, or nation, gaining its own life and influence over its members. It’s like a group’s shared consciousness given form, strengthened by rituals and focus, and can be positive or negative, influencing behavior or acting as a symbolic presence, similar to a corporation or meme.
Like all of the UFO theories I have presented so far, the UFO collective unconscious hypothesis and its various adjacent concepts are highly complex and could easily fill many pages and whole books. So, keep in mind, I am only touching upon each of these theories as I move along. Each theory is rich in possibilities and is of enormous depth.
8. COMPUTER SIMULATION THEORY OF UFOs.
Gak! Another complex hypothesis! Anyway, this UFO theory posits that we are living in a virtual reality, similar to a computer simulation, and famously dramatized by a Hollywood film, The Matrix, starring Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne. Other science fiction writers produced computer simulation novels and short stories long before The Matrix, however.
A VR universe scenario has gained significant backing from some corners of mainstream science in recent years. One of the most high-profile champions of the virtual reality universe theory is physicist Tom Campbell. He wrote a three-volume series that describes his VR theory in enormous detail. His books are titled My Big TOE, with “TOE” standing for “Theory of Everything.”
Anyway, in this scenario, UFOs are attributed to avatars created by whoever the “Overlords” or creators of the simulation are. UFOs could also be some other powerful intelligent force or entity that has learned to “hack” our simulation, making them able to defy the fundamental rule sets of the program. In computer terms, a rule set is a structured set of individual rules that work together to automate decision-making processes, enforce logic and define all behavior within this closed system.
That our VR rule set is being hacked by outside agents — and/or manipulated by the original creators of the simulation — explains why UFOs appear to defy the laws of physics that are encoded into the program. Our physics describe our VR ruleset.
9. UFOs ARE OF INTERDIMENSIONAL ORIGIN
This theory is probably equally as popular as the extraterrestrial origin theory. The suggestion is that we live in a universe that is better described as a “Multiverse” composed of an infinite number of alternate or parallel universes, or a hierarchy of dimensions.
In this scenario, UFOs and aliens in alternate dimensions have figured out a way to “break through” from their own dimension into ours. Many in the UFO community readily intertwine them and say a combination of ET origin and alternate dimensional origin goes a long way toward explaining everything
This theory is bolstered by a significant level of mainstream science acceptance of parallel, alternate universe, or multi-dimensional theory. Physicist Hugh Everett III’s Many Worlds Interpretation is a good example. Many other models have been proposed as well.
10. UFOs ARE AN ARTIFACT OF THE SINGULARITY
Originally, I intended to make this article about the “Nine Theories of UFOs,” and the last on my list would have been “ALL OF THE ABOVE.” That is, the UFO phenomenon incorporates all of the popular theories, from future time travelers to ETs from other planets, dimensions and all the rest.
But a better way to look at this is the reason why the best solution to the UFO mystery is an “All of the Above” scenario. It’s the Singularity.
I will define the Singularity as:
A point in the future when AI surpasses human intelligence, which will unleash runaway technological advancement. This, in turn, will generate enormously profound societal change, rendering the future that our current level of intelligence cannot comprehend. The Singularity will result in a new species of man-machine, which we can call Transhuman.
Now I’ll return to the ideas of Dr. Jason Jorjani again. In his book, Close Encounters, he says of The Singularity:
“… technological development over the course of human history cannot be accurately represented as an upward-trending line on a graph. Instead, it is a curve that eventually bends very sharply and turns into a spike. The compression toward the end of this curve is on account of the exponential rate of increasingly convergent technological development, where breakthroughs in one area become more and more connected to advances in other domains.”
Once the Singularity point is reached, Jorjani said:
“The ability to manipulate space-time would, by controlling an artificial singularity akin to a black hole, will be the single most defining technology of the singularity because those who invent it could access the future and all subsequent technological developments.”
In other words, the … um … I’ll just call them “The Lords of the Singularity” will have supreme command of everything from unimaginable, mind-blowing technology, including the biology of all species, and, indeed, over time itself.
We can think of the Singularity as the end of history as we have known it. It is the end of a prosaic application of time itself, as we currently use it to model our reality and lives. The Singularity will be the proverbial “Present Moment” around which past, present and future will orbit. All reality will emanate from this point. All reality will bend around it.
Many of our top thinkers, scientist and philosophers believe we are just a few short years away from The Singularity. One of the most potent signs that this is true is the astonishing rise of our current AI technology, how rapidly it is evolving, displacing human jobs and activities and generating profound breakthroughs across all forms of science, art, culture and more.
It’s a deep subject, but the bottom line for my article today is that The Singularity is — in my view — by far — the best “total and complete explanation” of what UFOs are, why they are here, what they are doing, “who” they are — and on and on.
Again, the Singularity enfolds the “All of the Above” into a fantastic package of infinite complexity while also putting meat on the bones to account for every aspect of the UFO phenomenon as we observe it today and as we have experienced it through history.
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NOTE: For more in-depth analysis of the UFO Phenomenon, please see: KEN-ON-MEDIUM
I wrote about these various theories in my six-volume textbook series: ”A CITIZEN’S DISCLOSURE ON UFOS AND ETI” (especially in Vol. One – Global Evidence of the UFO and ETI Presence
In your post, l would onnly agree with you to no.# 3, 5 and 9., the rest is wild speculation and conjecture without proof, evidence or substance!
I have had ETI close encounters for the past 70 plus years and l have photos of actual ETl and they are not all the Grey/Gray type ETs.
Good luck with your research!!
Thank you for your excellent comment, Terry. I’ll just add that I do not necessarily “agree or disagree” with any of these theories. My goal was to simply list every suggestion that has been put out there over the past 75 years, or so. Anyway, I will look up your 6-Volume series on UFO. You must have put an enormous amount of work into your project. Thanks again, and good luck!