Quantum Science and Intuition | Introducing A New Scientific Model | Cosmos and Consciousness VI: New Scientific Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life in Our Living Universe | A Re-Evaluation for a New Generation | Global Warming and the Planetary Emergency

Saturday, September 20, 2008
10 a.m.— 5:30 p.m.

The Rangeley Inn
Main Street
Rangeley, Maine

Featuring

Dr. Bruce Maccabee
Optical Physicist, US Naval Service Warfare Center, Author

Carol Rainey
Documentary Filmmaker, Author

Dr. Rudy Schild
Astrophysicist and Cosmologist,
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Michael Mannion
Co-Founder of The Mindshift Institute, Author

Hosts, Trish Corbett and Michael Mannion
Co-Founders of The Mindshift Institute

General Admission: $85; Student $45
Call 212-721-6785 for information on income sensitive admission

A Silent Scientific Revolution 

Our conference this year will focus on the recent developments in science that provide us with a new way of looking at one of our oldest questions:  Are we alone?  The scientific answer to that question, increasingly, seems to be “No.” Check your preconceptions and assumptions at the door—you can always take them home with you on your way out—and participate in a truly open-minded exploration of what the latest scientific discoveries reveal about extraterrestrial life in our universe.

We have evidence since the inception of written records that humanity has long looked to the stars at night and felt an intimate connection with the heavens.  In writings from Sumer to cyberspace, we can read the many and varied speculations of human beings about the existence of other life forms beyond earth, including intelligent life.

At various times in the past, the view that life, including intelligent life, exists beyond earth has been widely championed.  At other times, the idea that mankind is the only intelligent creature in the cosmos has been the dominant belief.  Both religion and science have at one time or another asserted each of these views.

However, in the past few decades, science and technology have progressed enough so that speculative astrophysics and cosmology now can be subjected to scientific testing.  Humans have begun to determine what actually exists on other celestial bodies by collecting information from invaluable instruments such as the Hubble and Chandra Telescopes, as well as from robotic craft orbiting and landing on planets and moons in our solar system. 

The old era of pure speculation in cosmology and astrophysics has ended.  The new era of the confirmation of scientific cosmological and astrophysical hypotheses has begun. 

A silent scientific revolution has taken place in the past few decades, one that has advanced particularly rapidly since 1995 with the discovery of the first extra-solar planets.  The scientific belief—that life is a random accident which occurred only once in all of the cosmos—dominated thinking in the West for most of the 20th century.  It was unquestionably the belief of the majority of scientists.  However, new discoveries have eroded the foundations of that view.

Quietly, with very little acknowledgement, that belief has been superseded in science by an understanding that life is not an accident in the universe.  Rather, life is now seen by the majority of scientists as an inherent, emergent property of the cosmos.  This is a dramatic sea change in scientific opinion and it has occurred in an extraordinarily short period of time.  There are very few examples of this in the history of science.

The new discipline of astrobiology has come to the fore as humanity builds on its first small steps as a space-faring species.  Space science and planetary science are slowly accumulating the knowledge and developing the tools needed to move forward in human exploration of space.  New extra-solar planets are being discovered regularly.  Solar systems have been identified.  And even Earth-like planets are being found.

Oceanographic explorations, many of which receive funding from NASA, are preparing the way for the investigation of other worlds.  The biology of extremophores on our own planet reveals that our ideas about where life can exist and thrive are incorrect.  Life can establish itself in the harshest, most forbidding environments.

Our understanding of the nature of “outer space” has changed radically as well.  It is no longer seen as an empty vacuum.  It is now known to be a physical energy “ocean.”   It even seems that, in the not-too-distant future, the energy of space itself may be used to power human space craft at the speeds needed for interstellar travel.

If you looked at a physics textbook from 1900, you would soon understand that all of it was rendered obsolete by relativity theory and quantum science.  This is now happening with 20th century science textbooks as new knowledge advances.  In fact, this is precisely how science works: it changes its views with new knowledge.  However, the old science still wields great social power because the new knowledge has not yet penetrated deep enough into the consciousness of the public.

For most of the 20th century, especially in the last 60 years, both the old mechanistic science and the old patriarchal religions of Earth asserted that Mankind was the pinnacle of Creation, the only species with consciousness and self-awareness.  Those who suggested that the universe was far too vast for this to be true were scoffed at.  Those who said that there was life in the cosmos were dismissed. 

People who went even further and claimed that there was evidence that some form of intelligence from beyond Earth seemed to be investigating our planet were mocked and ridiculed.  The old science had determined that since there was no life beyond Earth, any reports of life from elsewhere were either conscious hoaxes or aberrant beliefs of the deluded.  Within the confines of the old worldview, such things made sense.  But in the new worldview that is emerging, these ideas are inadequate and outdated.

The Scientific Times Are A’Changing

Two scientists, neither of whom believes extraterrestrial life is evident on or around our planet, have published books recently and begun them in surprising ways.

Astrobiologist David Grinspoon, PhD opens his book Lonely Planets (which recently won the Carl Sagan Award from the AAS) with a story about a woman who would be described as an “experiencer,” that is, a person who has had contact with an intelligence from beyond Earth.  In addition, Dr. Grinspoon tells of his own recurring dreams in childhood of being taken aboard a familiar spaceship on many different occasions.

In Beyond UFOs—The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Its Astonishing Implications for Our Future, Dr. Jeffrey Bennett, an astronomer, starts his book with a preface titled “Alien Dreams.”  He describes his vivid memories of the “sounds and sights of my alien friends” who began visiting him around the age of 8 or 9.  And best-selling author Dr. Michio Kaku writes about UFOs and extraterrestrial civilizations in his book The Physics of the Impossible, recognizing the topics as worthy of scientific investigation.  Just a few years ago, respected scientists would not be writing about such things.

The more one reads of new scientific constructs such as string theory, multiverses, parallel worlds, M- branes, quantum teleportation, and zero-point energy, the more one recognizes that the new science of today is beginning to sound like some of the far-out reports of those once considered to be on the  “fringe.”  Increasingly, it appears that there is life in the cosmos—including intelligent life.  And we may be surprised to discover that, although we may not have found it, it seems to have found us!

Toward A New Worldview

“Discovery commences with awareness of anomaly…”
--Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

A scientifically rigorous, open-minded look at what science is now discovering about the nature of our living universe brings us face-to-face with the inadequacies of our current picture of reality.  New knowledge is inexorably leading to a new worldview.   When the four presentations being offered this year are put together, we can begin to see the outlines of this emerging worldview, one that may not be evident when the information in each talk is looked at separately.

In Dr. Bruce Maccabee’s presentation, we start with the “big picture” and move to an analysis of specific evidence.  He is the co-author of a scientific paper which asserts that “Inflation Theory”—a modification of the original Big Bang theory— reinforces the prediction that we are most likely part of a galaxy-sized civilization.  In addition, “Superstring Theory” and “M-brane Theory” allow for parallel universes in which advanced intelligent life is possible. 

New physics theories now make travel over vast distances in short periods of time plausible.  This means “they” can get here.  Dr. Maccabee has long been the person people turn to for expert analysis of still, motion picture, video and digital images of the anomalous phenomena we call “UFOs.”   His analysis of this phenomenon takes place within a newly emerging scientific context.  If his optical analysis is good enough for the Pentagon, it’s good enough to understand the images people have captured of strange objects in our atmosphere.

Carol Rainey, a writer and filmmaker, also applies her investigation of recent scientific advances to the examination of reported anomalies.  She believes that a mistaken notion has impeded this inquiry so far: our society has been too long deceived by the myth of objective, exact science.  A major error in our thinking has been to equate “Science” with “Scientists.”  While individual scientists, and scientific organizations, may be hostile to the study of anomalies, science as a way of knowing is not hostile to such inquiry.  In fact, the emerging new science is a supportive ally in the investigations of anomalies and of life beyond Earth. 

Ms. Rainey’s research clearly demonstrates that new discoveries in astronomy, astrophysics, astrobiology, biology, cosmology, physics, quantum science and many other disciplines are allowing human beings to develop technologies that achieve effects similar to the anomalies people have described for decades.  Ms. Rainey will link new scientific developments with reported anomalies and help us begin to see them in a new light.

Dr. Rudy Schild also uses science to explore extraordinary reports that have long been dismissed without a hearing.  He is willing to listen with an open mind to credible people who report incredible things.

Galileo wrote about the experts of his day who would not look into his telescope to see the moons of Jupiter.  What was their reasoning?  There can be no moons about Jupiter, they declared, so there is no reason to look through the telescope.  This attitude is pervasive in science today but, fortunately, Dr. Schild has shed it. Although he is widely recognized in his field, he is bravely risking criticism to explore a number of anomalous phenomena, including reports of the existence of intelligent life from elsewhere manifesting in our environment.

The knowledge provided to Dr. Schild poses a difficult dilemma for most of us: we know that this information did not come in any of the traditional ways we find acceptable and yet these people know things that a credible scientist can confirm.  What are we—and science—to make of accurate data that are acquired through ways of knowing that most of us consider dubious at best?

Michael Mannion will share with us what he has learned about the evolution and impact of worldviews by focusing on the subject of extraterrestrial life from antiquity to the present.  From the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, to the Founding Fathers, all the way to 20th century US Presidents, people have had definite opinions on the possibility of extraterrestrial life.  And all of these conflicting opinions were shaped by the worldview of the day.

He will examine in more detail our changing views about life beyond Earth in the past few decades.  It is easy to forget that our ideas about extraterrestrial life are not what they were 50, 40 or even 10 years ago.  He will explore the meaning of important patterns in the reports of credible people (e.g., military personnel, police officers, pilots, etc.) whose observations suggest the presence of intelligent life from elsewhere in our environment.

Mr. Mannion will also discuss Wilhelm Reich’s investigations of the primordial cosmic energy, which he called orgone.  This work is highly relevant to us today in our attempts to understand the nature of the physical universe and the phenomenon of life in the cosmos.  Reich “followed the energy” from his first psychoanalytic paper in 1923 on the nature of drives in the human being to his last book, published posthumously in 1957, Contact with Space, which brought him directly to the phenomenon of extraterrestrial life and a new view of the universe.

All of the talks at this year’s conference share something in common—they show that new scientific developments are helping us to understand phenomena whose comprehension has so far eluded us.  No one is claiming to have “the answer.”  What we are offering in this conference are new paths to evolving answers to our eternal questions about the universe we inhabit and our place in it.

Four Exciting Presentations

Where Are They?  A Scientist Answers
Enrico Fermi’s Question

Dr. Bruce Maccabee is a highly respected optical physicist who had a long and successful career at the US Naval Service Warfare Center. In addition, Dr. Maccabee is the co-author of a paper titled “Inflation Theory Implications for Extraterrestrial Life” which examines what our basic cosmological theory has to say about life in the universe, including intelligent life. He is the author of four nonfiction books, and one work of fiction, on the subject of extraterrestrial life and UFOs. Dr. Maccabee also has written scores of papers on the subject.

Over 50 years ago, another major scientist gave the idea of ET life serious consideration: Enrico Fermi. Fermi knew that there was a distinct possibility or probability that intelligent life could have arisen on planets in the older parts of our galaxy millions of years before intelligent life arose on earth. Further, he understood that these older civilizations could have explored and colonized the galaxy over the past millions of years, even traveling at much less than light speed. So Fermi famously asked, "Where are they?"

Ever since, this question has been considered a "paradox." Scientific theory says there should be some evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations, yet from the point of view of "orthodox" science, there is no such evidence. Because of such recent developments as the discovery of planets around other stars; theories of faster-than-light travel; and the possibility of wormholes in space, the paradox has gotten even stronger for conventional science.

However, for ufologists, the paradox was solved before Fermi even asked “Where are they?” The answer, according to Dr. Maccabee and many others, is “they are here.” He will share with us some of the best visual cases that demonstrate that there are craft flying in our atmosphere that are not man-made. He will explain why he has come to this conclusion and discuss its significance for mankind.

Allies, Not Adversaries: A New Relationship
Between Science and the Study of Anomalies

Carol Rainey is a writer and filmmaker who has directed documentaries on scientific and medical subjects for PBS, cable, and home distribution. She is the co-author, along with best-selling author Budd Hopkins, of Sight Unseen—Science, UFO Invisibility and Transgenic Beings (Atria, 2003.) In her view, our society has been too long deceived by the myth of objective science as the exact measurement of reality, the only way educated people can know the “truth.”

“One thing that becomes apparent as you read science across all disciplines,” Ms. Rainey says, “is that science itself is fluid.” The so-called “laws” of science are not absolute laws. They are working theories, based on the depth of scientists’ knowledge and understanding at the time. Nearly all the major concepts or theories on which we base our view of the world—the Big Bang, the constancy of the speed of light, gravity, etc.—are works-in-progress.

Science, as a way of knowing, should never be hostile to unconventional inquiries, such as those that Ms. Rainey filmed and wrote about over the 12 years she worked closely with Budd Hopkins. Ms. Rainey will share with us the insights that came from her work in this field, along with her realization that the emerging new science is a supportive ally in the investigations of anomalous human experiences and of the possibility of life beyond Earth.

With videotaped cases and photos of cutting-edge technologies, Carol Rainey will show us the ways in which new discoveries support the plausibility of reports about the UFO phenomenon and other anomalous experiences. She will make it clear that human beings can now stop light in its tracks, lift up material with beams of light, teleport matter and make large objects invisible; create living beings that never before existed by combining the DNA of two very different species; and practice “mind control” successfully.

A Scientific Corroboration
of Reported Extraordinary Experiences 

Dr. Rudy Schild is an astrophysicist and cosmologist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He is highly regarded professionally for his work on gravitational lensing, baryonic dark matter and the study of quasars and black holes. In this presentation, Dr. Schild will take us far beyond what most people in our culture would consider possible.

He has taken a bold step and interviewed men and women who feel that they have learned something about the phenomenon of intelligent life beyond Earth—not from books, articles, conferences, TV or the movies—but experientially. He will share with us what he has learned from them that he has been able to confirm scientifically.

Dr. Schild will focus on the details of an unusual scientific investigation he has completed involving a person who has a sense of a resonant or telepathic connection to a remote civilization on a planet orbiting a distant star in the constellation Orion. This person has no special science training and, in fact, has had no formal education beyond high school.

The descriptions of the remote civilization and the astronomical aspects of the remote sky that were provided to Dr. Schild have excellent coherence. He has been able to confirm the validity of the details reported in the astrophysical data base available to top scientists. It is astonishing that such knowledge should be available to us on Earth. It can safely be said that this talk will be unlike any other you have ever heard.

The Living Universe:
An Emerging New Cosmology and Worldview 

Michael Mannion, co-founder of The Mindshift Institute, is a writer with over 30 years of experience.  He is the author of a number of health books, two novels and Project Mindshift —The Re-Education of the American Public Concerning Extraterrestrial Life.  

Mr. Mannion will review the major worldviews that have shaped human culture for thousands of years, showing how they have both advanced and limited human development.  He will focus in particular on the ideas human beings have had over the millennia concerning life beyond earth.  In addition, he will examine how our current Western worldview impacts our understanding of the phenomenon of extraterrestrial life.  He will use the UFO experience in America as a model to study the evolution of our beliefs about life beyond earth over the past 60 years.  In addition, he will describe a number of intriguing patterns evident from UFO reports, patterns which suggest the presence of an intelligence from elsewhere in our environment.  

Finally, Mr. Mannion will share with us what he has learned from his study of the work of Wilhelm Reich—the science of orgonomy—that is relevant to the topics being explored in the conference.  Reich’s science is an excellent example of new knowledge that was outside the worldview of its day and, therefore, could not be understood.  But science has advanced since Reich’s death 50 years ago and a new generation may better understand his work.  Mr. Mannion will describe how the scientific comprehension of the cosmic primordial energy—the underlying unity in nature—can help us better understand our living universe and ourselves and become part of the foundation of a new cosmology and new worldview.