QUESTIONS WITHOUT EASY ANSWERS

No.

Unfortunately, that's an answer to a question you didn't ask.

You asked what I believe. That's easy. The more interesting question is what the available evidence allows us to conclude.

The universe is extraordinarily large. It seems reasonable to consider life elsewhere possible and perhaps even likely. But “life exists somewhere” and “extraterrestrial beings have visited Earth” are very different propositions.

The first requires life.

The second requires life, intelligence, technology, interstellar travel and arrival here.

So do I believe we're alone?

No.

Can I prove we're not?

Also no.

Welcome to philosophy.

Could he have been?

Certainly.

He could also have been a time traveler, an exceptionally healthy 130-year-old man, three different people who looked remarkably alike, or the victim of some very creative photographic labeling.

“Could” is an extremely generous word.

The better question is: What evidence would distinguish one explanation from the others?

Show me that evidence and then we'll have something interesting to discuss.

Absolutely.

Now we merely have to agree on what a monster is.

If you mean large, frightening creatures capable of killing human beings, we've already cataloged quite a few.

If you mean creatures unknown to science, that's different.

And if you mean something impossible according to our present understanding of nature, that's different again.

Before investigating whether something exists, it's helpful to know what we're looking for.

Otherwise T.J. Clayton is going to spend another week wandering around the desert.

Excellent.

Then you still have a mystery.

Who created it?

When?

Why?

How many people participated?

Why preserve photographs, documents, maps, recordings and film across different periods?

A sufficiently complicated fabrication eventually becomes an interesting historical object in its own right.

Sometimes proving that something is false doesn't end an investigation.

It simply changes the question.

That's a much easier question to ask than it is to answer.

If you're asking me whether The Mesilla Files seems to be moving in that direction, then yes. I understand why someone following the investigation might reach that conclusion.

We have the repeated references to an older world. We have Ortega's descriptions. We have Voss. We have the unusual time questions raised by Dr. Malone. We have environmental comparisons reaching back roughly 50,000 years. And now Mara has found a 1963 document referring to certain “A” people and an “original visitation many thousands of years ago.”

Put all of that on a table and I understand the question.

But your question wasn't whether TMF suggests it.

You asked whether I think it could be true.

Those are two very different questions.

As a philosopher, I wouldn't say that's impossible.

We know there are an enormous number of planets in the universe. Scientists actively search for life beyond Earth. So the proposition that life might exist somewhere else is hardly an absurd one.

But we have to make an important distinction.

Possible is not the same as demonstrated.

NASA says it has found no credible evidence of extraterrestrial life and no evidence that extraterrestrial life has visited Earth. (NASA Astrobiology)

So if you ask me:

“Is there scientific evidence that aliens came to Earth 50,000 years ago?”

My answer is no.

If you ask:

“Can we prove that nothing of the kind could possibly have happened?”

That's a much more difficult statement to defend.

This is where the question becomes more intriguing without becoming evidence for aliens.

Human history 50,000 years ago was considerably more complicated than people once understood.

Homo sapiens shared the world with other human populations, including Neanderthals and Denisovans. We now know through genetics that these populations interbred. Some modern populations retain measurable Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry. (Human Origins)

There is even evidence of ancestry from ancient hominin populations we have not yet clearly identified—the so-called “ghost” populations inferred from genetics. That is an active area of research, not evidence of extraterrestrials. (Smithsonian Magazine)

And that's where I would urge everyone following The Mesilla Files to be careful.

Imagine discovering an unexplained genetic signature in modern humans.

One person says:

“Unknown ancient human population.”

Another says:

“People who came from somewhere else.”

A third says:

“Aliens.”

Those are not three descriptions of the same evidence.

They are three interpretations of it.

Suppose the document is authentic.

Suppose it really dates from 1963.

Suppose “Oppenheimer,” “Pauling” and “Conant” really are the famous men we think of when we hear those names—which Mara has correctly emphasized has not been established.

And suppose six highly respected people really did meet to discuss tracing the heritage of certain “A” people back to an “original visitation.”

Even then, what would we have proven?

Not that aliens visited Earth.

We would have proven that six people in 1963 were discussing the possibility of an ancient visitation.

That's fascinating.

But it's not the same thing.

This distinction is extremely important.

Documents can prove that people believed something without proving that what they believed was true.

Not visitation.

Original.

If the wording Mara found is accurate, why would someone write “the original visitation”?

“Original” ordinarily implies either that there was more than one visitation or that the people in that room already shared some understanding of what the phrase meant.

Maybe it's meaningless.

Maybe we're reading too much into one word.

Or maybe another document explains it.

That's why I wouldn't start with aliens.

I'd start with the document.

Who wrote it?

Who attended?

What are the missing names?

What does “A” mean?

Why was it redacted?

What exactly was Conant—whoever Conant was—calling “playing with fire”?

And perhaps most importantly:

What evidence did those six people have in front of them?

Because if we find that, then we'll have something worth arguing about.

Until then, the proposition that extraterrestrial visitors came to Earth 50,000 years ago remains exactly that:

A proposition.

An extraordinary one.

But The Mesilla Files has taught me something I didn't expect when I first became involved with all of this.

Sometimes the most interesting question isn't:

“Do I believe this?”

It's:

“What would we have to find before I should?”