[imagesource: James Webb Space Telescope]

A recent paper from researchers at Harvard University has added an interesting spin to one of humanity’s biggest questions; are we alone in the universe?

The United States has ramped up vigilance since a resurgent interest in UFOs, known officially as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena or UAPs by the government. At the moment, the country is tracking more than 650 potential UFOs, a Pentagon official said last year.

In response to this, Harvard researchers – Tim Lomas, Brendan Case and Montana Technological University professor Michael Masters –  put forward a “cryptoterrestrial hypothesis” in their new research paper (which is not affiliated with the university), theorising that there’s a “concealed earthly explanation” for all these sightings, per CBS News.

The trio says that the cryptoterrestrial hypothesis suggests that the intelligent beings behind UFOs might be hiding in stealth mode on Earth or nearby. This could mean they’re underground, on the far side of the moon, or even walking among us and blending in as humans.

“We’re not saying this is right, we’re not saying that this is absolutely 100% the case, we’re saying these are some potentialities, these are some possibilities to help explain the origin of these beings,” Masters said.

Masters is a biological anthropologist who said he was asked to help research potential explanations for UFOs. He said “aliens” may actually just be humans from far in the future who have figured out how to time travel.

Masters argues that the beings in reported alien encounters are “ubiquitously described as looking just like us”, which “may simply be that they’re us” and not something that looks like it’s from another planet.

“We may go on to look like them,” Masters said, referring to typical depictions of “little green men.” “Based on our evolutionary characteristics over the last 6 to 8 million years, we are arguably going to have bigger heads, smaller faces, more advanced technology and a lot of these traits are described in association with these beings.”

He speculates that these other-worldly beings may have “gone underground until we’re ready for contact”, noting that, “[w]e must seem extremely primitive to them based on what we see flying around in the skies.” If I were an alien I wouldn’t want to chat to us.

While the researchers acknowledge that their paper is “a speculative thought piece,” they say it still deserves serious consideration. They reckon scientists should really look into this, along with the idea that pilots might be seeing human-made tech or something from an advanced civilization in another part of space.

A Pentagon report released this year says there’s no evidence that any UAP sighting “represented extraterrestrial technology” but Masters says “It is something that we should all be talking about”.

“What if we all just opened our minds to the fact that there’s this thing much bigger than us right now, and what could we learn from it?” he said.

Yeah, we need new ideas, and why not from intergalactic species?

[source:cbsnews]