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New Book Claims Carl Sagan Was an Ancient Astronaut Theorist Badgered by Government into Silence

10/6/2016

53 Comments

 
Yesterday a man named Donald L. Zygutis contacted me to try to interest me in his upcoming book The Sagan Conspiracy from New Page Books. The title, to be published in November, argues that Carl Sagan was secretly a believer in the ancient astronaut theory and that the Pentagon and NASA conspired to suppress Sagan’s ancient astronaut research and use him as an anti-ancient-astronaut propagandist. Here is part of the book description:
But how many Carl Sagan fans know that while the renowned scientist was at Stanford University, he produced a controversial paper, funded by a NASA research grant, that concludes ancient alien intervention may have sparked human civilization? Author Donald Zygutis lays out a compelling case that points to a cover-up by the Pentagon and NASA, who may have buried it soon after it was written. How significant is the Stanford Paper? The answer may lie in another question: How would a science-backed theory and search strategy to guide the discovery of alien artifacts among our own ancient civilizations impact the worldwide institutions of government, religion, and culture?

Recently rediscovered by the author, Sagan’s lost Stanford paper is the central theme of The Sagan Conspiracy. Groundbreaking research and paradigm-changing material challenges conventional thinking about the People’s Scientist—and maybe even the origins of human society. Sagan even conceived of the likelihood that the ancient Sumerian civilization had been visited and influenced by beings from other worlds as evidenced by ancient manuscripts, among other artifacts.
I asked the author to have the publisher send me a review copy, and we will see whether they do. However, I am skeptical that the author can make a case for a government cover-up since the evidence in the public record argues quite forcefully against the claim.
 
Let’s start with the background. In 1962, Carl Sagan was working at Stanford University, and at the time he produced a paper called “Direct Contact Among Galactic Civilizations by Relativistic Interstellar Spaceflight.” The paper was unexceptional for its era, relying on the Drake Equation to calculate the probability that life existed on other planets. From this, Sagan speculates on the number of advanced civilizations and the likelihood that one might have contacted Earth in the distant past, writing that “there is the statistical likelihood that Earth was visited by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization at least once during historical times.” He speculated that the story the Babylonian priest Berosus told about the fish-man Oannes was actually the story of space aliens landing on Earth.
 
Sagan presented the paper to the American Rocket Society in November 1962, and a version was published in Planetary and Space Science in 1963. Sagan’s handwritten copy of the paper is accessible through the Library of Congress as part of the (yes, seriously) Seth MacFarlane Collection.  
 
For his part, Frank Drake, the inventor of the Drake equation, considered Sagan’s views to be “brash.” Nevertheless, Sagan’s argument would appear wholesale in Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods (1968), but probably not directly from this paper.
 
You see, in the 1960s, Sagan had met Ukrainian scientist I. S. Shklovskii, who believed that cosmic rays had microwaved the dinosaurs to death. He sent Shklovskii his “Direct Contact” article, and Shklovskii loved it. Sagan invited Shklovskii to publish an American edition of his 1962 book Universe, Life, Intelligence, and Shklovskii agreed, with the stipulation that Sagan become coauthor and edit and expand the book as he saw fit. The fruit of that collaboration was Intelligent Life in the Universe (1966), in which Sagan added fully 50% of the book’s content, including the section on Berosus and Oannes from his 1962 paper: “Stories like the Oannes legend, and representations especially of the earliest civilizations on Earth, deserve much more critical studies than have been performed heretofore, with the possibility of direct contact with an extraterrestrial civilization as one of many possible alternative explanations.” He also added speculation on whether the moons of Mars were built by aliens.
 
So, not only was Sagan’s 1962 paper not suppressed, it was published in an academic journal (a copy of which is held in NASA’s archives), included in a popular book, and displayed (for free) on the website of the Library of Congress.
 
But it gets better.
 
Intelligent Life in the Universe helped provide some of the intellectual underpinnings for Chariots of the Gods (such as they were)—the book was cited explicitly in Chariots, as was Sagan’s paper. Here is how von Däniken describes Sagan’s work in Chariots: “The American astrobiologist Dr. Sagan assures us that according to statistical calculations alone the possibility exists that our earth may have been visited by representatives of an extra-terrestrial civilisation at least once in the course of its history.” Indeed, Erich von Däniken considered Sagan’s presentation of the 1961 paper to be part of a “secret conference” of scientists to determine how many alien species existed in the universe. Intelligent Life was also the direct inspiration for Robert Temple to make Oannes the centerpiece of The Sirius Mystery.
 
Does this sound like NASA and the Pentagon suppressed Sagan’s work?
 
If anything, it was the Soviet government that suppressed work on aliens. After the Soviet government turned against the ancient astronaut theory in 1968 (having supported it in the 1950s and early 1960s), the Soviets refused to let Shklovskii leave the country. Sagan had tried to meet in person with him, having written their collaborative book by mail (!), and the two were only able to meet in 1971, in Soviet Armenia, as part of an international conference on the search for space aliens.
 
In 1968, Sagan testified before Congress about space aliens, and in his testimony he repeated many of the same claims, but in decidedly more sober fashion, downplaying the probability that space aliens visited the ancient earth. “So, to conclude what I understand is the main reason why this committee has asked me to testify, it is not beyond any question of doubt that we can be visited. There are great difficulties from our present point of view. They are not insuperable.” It is in the Congressional Record that Carl Sagan told Congress (including then-congressman Donald Rumsfeld, later Secretary of Defense) that it was perfectly possible that space aliens visited Earth.
 
I ask again: Does this sound like NASA and the Pentagon suppressed this information?
 
The question, though, is why Sagan changed his mind. His Congressional testimony gives some clues. Sagan had gradually come to realize the improbable mathematics behind space aliens making it to Earth even once, let alone repeatedly throughout history. He also seems to have been chastened by the rebuke he received in being denied tenure at Harvard. Speculation at the time was that Harvard’s professors considered Sagan a self-promoter, and that many disliked his “alien” research.
 
But in the Congressional testimony we also see that Sagan had expanded beyond a superficial understanding of sociology to gradually realize that the alien question was less about nuts and bolts and math than it is about social processes. He told Congress that “There are individuals who very strongly want to believe that UFO's are of intelligent extraterrestrial origin. Essentially to my view, for religious motives; that is, things are so bad down here, maybe somebody from up there will come and save us from ourselves.” Consider his rebuke to Erich von Däniken in the 1977 BBC/PBS Horizon/NOVA special “The Case of the Ancient Astronauts”: “The idea that we are being visited or were once visited by powerful benign beings who live in the sky is after a religious idea, the terminology is slightly different, we don't talk about angels, we talk about extra-terrestrials but the emotional significance is identical.”
 
Oh, and Sagan also decided to actually learn something about the myth of Oannes beyond the superficial research into ancient history he had done in the 1960s. After doing so, he categorically rejected the idea that Oannes represented a space alien in 1973 in his book Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective.
 
Sagan never changed his original conclusion that visitation by aliens was possible, but he did change his conclusions about whether such as a thing was probable and whether there was any evidence for it.
 
I will look forward to learning what the Pentagon-NASA conspiracy is, but whatever it was, it seems not to have been very effective. Arguably, Chariots of the Gods and The Sirius Mystery wouldn’t have come together without Sagan.
53 Comments
Time Machine
10/6/2016 11:12:53 am

When going back to the book he co-wrote with Shklovskiii Sagan stated he was receptive to the idea Earth had been visited by Aliens, but not without proof.

Reply
Time Machine
10/6/2016 11:22:42 am

Carl Sagan
Direct Contact Among Galactic Civilizations by Relativistic Interstellar Spaceflight

http://epizodsspace.no-ip.org/bibl/inostr-yazyki/planetary-and-space-science/1963/sagan_direct.pdf

Reply
Mark L
10/6/2016 12:18:51 pm

Do you even bother reading the articles?

Reply
Time Machine
10/6/2016 04:37:28 pm

How boring are you

Uncle Ron
10/6/2016 11:52:37 am

My guess is that if the author or publisher reads this blog you won't be getting a review copy any time soon. :)

Reply
Jason Colavito link
10/6/2016 12:08:33 pm

New Page stopped sending me books years ago, so I didn't hold out hope anyway.

Reply
Gunn
10/6/2016 12:15:07 pm

Sagan: “The idea that we are being visited or were once visited by powerful benign beings who live in the sky is after a religious idea, the terminology is slightly different, we don't talk about angels, we talk about extra-terrestrials but the emotional significance is identical.”

I notice Sagan didn't mind deviating from other accepted versions of reality in assigning emotional significance of equal measure to extra-terrestrials and angels...when it comes to "alien" or "religious" viewpoints for comparison.

How would he know? I think his views and conclusions about this were premature. What were his own "emotions"...or a lack thereof?

Here's my take: Are aliens real? No, they are misnamed and illusionary.

Are angels real? Yes, as real as the Creator made humans, too, all as individual spirit-beings. According to God's Word, we all presently coexist as unseen warfare goes on around us.

So, spiritual warfare exists around us, even as angels (demons) are sometimes misnamed and illusionary, becoming "imposter-aliens," if you will. Apparently, all angels, good and bad, were at one time alien to Earth before God involved them.

I didn't know Sagan could compare human emotions so accurately, when comparing religious and alien beliefs. Actually, I question his approach as being completely non-scientific, and likely based on bias against established religion. Of course, I could be wrong.

Reply
A buddhist
10/6/2016 04:26:43 pm

Why do you believe there to be a Word of God?

There are god-demons, and aliens, also, but they are easily confused; the mind, upon contact with such a being, thinks "this is an alien/ghost/demon/god" in accordance with its worldview. But they are all, from Mahabrahma to the worst in Avici, with YHVH among them, all beings in samsara, driven by the same issues as drive us. Does not YHVH admit to jealousy?

Gods and men are equally bound
within Samsara's wheel.

And if we heed not the teachings of all Buddhas
we will circle through many worlds ever more.

Reply
Time Machine
10/6/2016 04:39:10 pm

The word of God is just a metaphor for understanding and perception.

Primitive Man just had to personify mind-expansion

A Buddhist
10/6/2016 05:25:54 pm

Actually, timemachine, there is no Word of God because there is no God. God-demons, yes, but not God.

Time Machine
10/6/2016 07:05:15 pm

Buddhist,

If you accept that "God" is a mere personification of primitive homo sapiens cognition, there is no God.

That's what I said.

Time Machine
10/6/2016 07:17:13 pm

Just found a reference to the following book

Justin L. Barrett, Why Would Anyone Believe in God? (AltaMira Press, 2004)

Clint Knapp
10/6/2016 06:19:50 pm

Gunn, I think you're misunderstanding Sagan's comment a bit by taking it as a personal slight on your own beliefs, so I'll try to elucidate a bit.

Sagan wasn't necessarily critiquing any one religion with his comment, but rather drawing a parallel between the belief in aliens - and alien visitation - and the belief in angels or any other form of divine spiritual life.

What he was saying is that those who believe wholeheartedly in alien visitation accept the word of whoever they choose to believe is right in the same manner as the traditionally-religious believe that their sacred text is a definitive statement of fact. Neither can be proven by scientific means, and so ufology and ancient alien belief become a like a religious belief.

The Bible does not prove the existence of angels, it merely states that they exist. For proof to be made evident one would have to find an angel and show it to have an existence outside of the imagination of the believer.

So too does the existence of alien visitation require corporeal proof of an alien on earth. Believers in this phenomenon are as willing to take the word of others as proof enough, be it in the form of a Chariots of the Gods, Whitley Strieber's Communion, or the collective writings of Richard C. Hoaglund. None of these provide anything but the writer's own views, but many of their readers take their word for it just as you and millions of others take the Bible to be a literal Word of God because those who wrote it down said it was.

In short, believing in one text or another as literal truth does not prove that the things held within that text are in fact provable. It only proves that the belief in that text as fact exists. Thus, religions of any flavor and belief in alien visitation are alike in that respect.

As to A Buddist's comments, these statements only reinforce that one's belief system is no more provable than anyone else's. From his world-view gods, angels, demons, aliens and any number of incorporeal entities have an existence that is simply cloaked by one's perceptions - it does not allow for these entities to have no existence at all and that they could simply be literary in origin.

Reply
A Buddhist
10/6/2016 07:01:21 pm

I agree that many so-called demons are products of the mind. Tame the mind, tame the demons.

Time Machine
10/6/2016 07:07:16 pm

Buddhist,

That was 387 words of nothing from Clint Knapp.
He's very good at that.

A Buddhist
10/6/2016 08:40:16 pm

Time Machine: I disagree. those words were very good and I enjoyed reading them and responding to them.

Clint Knapp
10/7/2016 01:13:54 am

And I appreciate the response, Buddhist. Intelligent commentary and debate on any matter is always welcome.

If others have a problem with that, or don't have the attention spans necessary to actually read context, that's on them.

Gunn posed a very legitimate viewpoint that gets at the core of a lot of anti-science sentiment floating around these days. He's quite good at providing the reactionary point of view that says any attempt by a scientist to mention religion in the same breath as any other "fringe" belief is a direct affront to his own religion, and I felt he deserved a glimpse of the other side of the conversation.

In the end, Sagan didn't really denigrate Christianity with his comment so much as he held both aliens and angels to the same burden of proof. Which, regardless of your belief system, we must agree is exactly what science is supposed to be about.

Time Machine
10/7/2016 04:40:51 am

Clint Knapp has the highest praise and the most superficial understanding of The Bible - a book that is based on psychedelics.

Time Machine
10/7/2016 04:43:50 am

Here's a good example of Clint's stuff,

>>>The Bible does not prove the existence of angels, it merely states that they exist. For proof to be made evident one would have to find an angel and show it to have an existence outside of the imagination of the believer<<<

An Over-Educated Grunt
10/7/2016 09:20:19 am

This pains me to say, but I agree with Time Machine here. My personal understanding of "God" is as a shorthand for the collection of rules that govern the physical universe. Anything beyond that by definition cannot be fully understood and therefore any study of it must be speculation. In that sense, the Word of God is a furthering of the understanding of how the machine works, which he'd describe as enlightenment.

On the other hand, calling Clint's elaboration of what it would take to prove either angels or aliens "nothing" is... shall we say, short-sighted.

Gunn
10/7/2016 11:25:24 am

Nice response, Clint. I was trying to point out that Sagan did, in fact, assign emotional exactitude, that being a sameness, to people believing in religion and aliens. And again, how would he know?

As concerning the Word of God, A Buddhist, this is getting to the meat of the debate. Actually, I believe there is a measurable degree of power associated with certain spoken words, even as power was exhibited when the universe was created through spoken words.

God said, God said, God said, in relationship to the creation of Earth and its inhabitants. But, as an aside, power being exhibited through spirit beings (us) has much to do with seemingly invisible "faith" associated with power and spoken words. The meaning of faith is elusive, because it is spiritual in nature. It can be like an actual substance hoped for, or seem as real as evidence not yet seen.

Perhaps the most powerful of all spoken words today might be the name of "Jesus."

There is this belief in Jesus; but then there is this belief in the power associated with the spoken word, "Jesus." So, there is in my belief system a recognition of the power of spoken words, especially when uttered by God Almighty--but also by humans. For instance, we can be snared by the words of our mouths. We can get into trouble by blaspheming God.

To Christian living, everything is in the name of Jesus, who paid the ultimate price so that we humans believing in Him can be reconciled to God...who is not an impersonal circle.

A circle will not judge humanity, but rather God will judge individual spirits, whom He created. Some will live, some will be destroyed. Anyone believing in Jesus and in the power of His name will live to see a new Heaven and a new Earth...after the much-awaited Millennium Reign. Will this be a restored Earth, or a succession of earth-like planets stretching towards or into that place where time as we know it stands still?

(This is not to say in any way at all that power does not move in circles, as I wouldn't want to butt heads with a Black Elk.)

Time Machine
10/8/2016 01:32:16 am

>>>God said, God said<<<

This is only the same as saying "I know, I know"

People really need to personify stuff as "God said"

Day Late and Dollar Short
10/6/2016 12:55:03 pm

I don't understand. True believers in UFOlogy and the ancient astronaut theory seem just as emotionally invested and faithful in their new age religion as believers of traditional religions.



Reply
Time Machine
10/6/2016 07:09:01 pm

You never knew there was no difference between Aliens and Angels ? God riding on his cloud and ETs in their flying saucers ?

You "never" knew that ??

Reply
Day Late and Dollar Short
10/7/2016 02:05:35 pm

Sorry, that was supposed to be in response to Gunn waaaaay above it.

Gunn
10/7/2016 06:49:22 pm

Day Late and Dollar Short:

The only thing to understand is that belief in aliens is misplaced, while belief in angels (including bad angels and Satan, too) is not misplaced belief. You don't want to be a day late and dollar short on this one. Emotions aside, one belief is in something real, and the other belief is in something not real...that is the understanding to have.

And who without experiencing the same experience can say a religious experience is "emotional" or real, or not real...and then have the nerve to compare it to the emotions of someone believing in UFO's and aliens? There is the denigration of the concept of a personal relationship with God buried in all this nonsensical comparing by Sagan.

Here is a question to think about: Should an imaginary relationship with an imaginary alien, or even a real relationship with an "imposter-alien" (demon) be compared to the enlightened relationship one can have with his Creator? No, of course not.

Kal
10/6/2016 01:25:54 pm

SETI and its formation would discount the notion that Drake, or later Sagan, were suppressed at all, and Cosmos the original show from the 70s touched on these ideas.

"It would be profoundly arrogant for us as humankind to think we are the only life on the cosmos, as there are billions of stars in the galaxy, and around them, billions upon them of worlds. If any one of them has life, in the billions of years since creation, then surely some are far beyond us, and some are not, but that means we are not unique, and not alone. This is both fascinating and troubling to our ego."

Reply
Kathleen
10/6/2016 03:41:43 pm

It is arrogant to think that aliens are bipedal, bilateral, or even carbon-based

Reply
Ken
10/6/2016 04:13:59 pm

I suspect that aliens, should they ever have visited us, would have first researched earth to determine that it was similar to their own. Just as we search for 'earth-like planets' to perhaps someday visit.

It would then follow, that they would be similar to humans in at least a few respects, since they presumably evolved in a similar environment.

Kathleen
10/6/2016 04:43:09 pm

Searching for planets similar to their own would certainly be expected. But we are assuming that their planet has been just like ours for 4 billion years and developed life with nearly identical results. Leads us back Sagan and to what is possible and what is probable.

Time Machine
10/6/2016 04:45:52 pm

Why should there be metal ships ?
Why should there be humanoid aliens ?

If aliens travel to our planet, it will be for evangelical reasons - to make earthlings worship THEIR GOD.

Carl Sagan speculated about that.

Kathleen
10/6/2016 04:51:50 pm

No big deal, people convert to other religions all the time

Time Machine
10/6/2016 05:01:14 pm

Not all people

V
10/6/2016 07:34:22 pm

I agree with everything but the last part--it's not arrogant to think that there is a high likelihood that aliens would be carbon-based life forms because of the chemical properties of carbon that make it so extremely versatile, combined with the relative abundance of carbon in the universe as compared to other elements with similar chemical properties. It's arrogant to completely rule out the possibility of life that is not carbon-based, but not arrogant to suppose that it is very likely to be.

Time Machine
10/6/2016 07:41:24 pm

God is not a carbon-based form
Aliens need not be carbon-based

V
10/6/2016 07:44:56 pm

Also, Ken I posit: technologically-advanced cephalopods. Carbon-based, probably, but neither bipedal nor bilateral, and yet one could make the case that our world, 71% covered as it is by water, would likely be "very similar" to their own world, and yet, one really cannot say that tentacled water-breathing creatures are much like humans at all, or even that they evolved in a similar environment.

Time Machine:

1. Why metal ships? Because metal is readily available in various forms and is very malleable and easy to form into desired shapes. However, given that our own spacecraft these days are not entirely metal--generally they are ceramic over a metal skeleton--no one is really asking a question that belongs in the 1960s.
2. Why shouldn't there be humanoid aliens? By the same token that Ken should not expect there to BE humanoid aliens because of "a similar environment," you should also not expect there to NOT be humanoid aliens, because "humanoid" has already evolved several different species on this planet alone, and "bipedal" is not particularly uncommon across the phyla even outside the hominid lines, which means it obviously has some level of efficiency.

As for aliens coming as Interstellar Jehova's WItnesses, thanks. I'm stealing that for my next sci fi story. I've tended more to believe that they'll come to trade for entertainment and art, since most BASIC necessities (such as water) would be far easier mined from farther out in Sol's gravity well, and the likelihood that Earth-evolved foods would sustain alien species is....not exactly firm. (Could be Best Food Ever, could be Worst Poisons Ever.)

Ken
10/6/2016 08:36:01 pm

I probably should should not have said "similar to humans...". rather similar in some respects to other known earth lifeforms... Whatever that lifeform was, it would probably have a relatively large brain.

Also, I would never say any of this is very probable, only possible. Inherent in any statement that something is 'possible' though, is the implied caveat - 'based on what we know today...". This is something I find most hard-core skeptics - particularly in scientific fields, often forget.

Now its time to watch football.

Ph
10/6/2016 01:26:54 pm

Surpressing has become the new word for "has an opposing opinion and is voicing it".
If your view is not actively acknowledged, you will start to feel surpressed if you are in a habit of constant reinforcement seeking/getting.

Reply
dpbrokaw
10/7/2016 09:47:47 pm

Ph:
Sounds just like two of our favorite internet disinformation personalities (GoXplrr)

Reply
Tom
10/6/2016 01:59:30 pm

Mr Zygutis seems to think that there are very few survivors from the 1960's and can therefore get away with scribbling a pseudo history about a prominent science writer.
Well staggering as it may seem, his views on aliens etc were widely known in the Age of Aquarius and many of us geriatrics still remember him speaking about them on the TV............or was it a magic lantern show?...time for my cocoa I think....

Reply
Graham
10/7/2016 02:43:22 am

He would not be the first. Shortly after Sagans death the short lived TV series 'Dark Skies' included an episode in which Sagan is recruited by a government conspiracy specifically to cover up the existence of extraterrestrials.

Reply
orang
10/6/2016 02:48:01 pm

I dote on this blog to steer me away from crazy beliefs. When Jason writes about UFOs and aliens, what he's really addressing is mankind's reactions to those. As a result, it appears as though he is disparaging, debunking, denigrating --can't find the right word--the phenomena themselves when in reality it is our stupid reaction to these two things --UFOs and alien existence and visitation--that should be criticized. I kind of wonder if the gov't chose Carl Sagan to be the heir apparent to Donald Menzel.

Reply
Ken
10/6/2016 04:30:17 pm

"... considered Sagan a self-promoter..." .

I think this is most likely the key to Sagan's
behavior. I think he could not pass up any opportunity to get his name out there, no matter what the controversy.

Note the "hit job" conference he arranged for Velikovsky, which did not investigate V's (sometimes harebrained ideas) scientifically, but turned out to be a personal crucifixion where very few if any participants actually read V.

Or, his immediate jump onto the "debunking bandwagon" of 'cold fusion' without understanding either the claims or the arguments. Note that there is in fact an ''excess heat' phenomenon and robust research projects are pursued all over the world (although not in the US).

In my opinion, Sagan was a pompous asshole posing as a respectable scientific skeptic.

Reply
An Over-Educated Grunt
10/7/2016 09:13:57 am

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Reply
crainey
10/6/2016 07:35:36 pm

Not a document I would expect to find in the Seth MacFarlane Collection!?

Reply
Clint Knapp
10/6/2016 11:39:46 pm

According to a Washington Post article dated November 12, 2013, the collection was named for Seth because he donated the money that allowed the Library of Congress to purchase a staggering 798 boxes worth of papers Sagan kept throughout his life from Carl's widow, Ann Druyan.

Seth's a bit of a science fan, and especially a Sagan one. He also served as an Executive Producer on the updated Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson and invested heavily in it financially as well.

Reply
Mike Jones
10/7/2016 07:55:03 am

Plus, as I forgot but my wife reminded me, MacFarlane had a TV show featuring an alien living with an American family. He's obviously interested in the subject.

Reply
Kal
10/8/2016 08:37:47 pm

Futurama the cartoon did a hilarious episode about aliens coming to Earth of their century, 3010 or so, to evangelize and then convert Earth humans to their religion.

I met Whitley Strieber at one of his convention book signings. He was a very, very odd man.

The quote was a paraphrase about the arrogance of humanity from the original 1970s Cosmos, reiterated by the update in 2014.

Or to quote Jurassic Park's rock star, 'Life...fins a way.' so there most likely are aliens, but we're too primitive to be interesting to them, certainly if we think they will probe us.

'Believe and then you will see, seek and you will find, knock and the door will open." from the Bible, or "I want to believe" from X Files tell that humans have a need to understand things.

Also in science and physics there are some things you cannot test in a lab, like flying up to a black hole, and that does not mean black holes aren't there.

Just because we haven't actually seen angels, ghosts or demons or aliens, and caught said things on film and interviewed them, does not mean they are imagined.

I suspect with the current presidential primary we are actually looking at alien intervention. Ha.

Reply
Harte
10/11/2016 02:20:30 pm

I can't say for sure, but I have always thought that Sagan wouldn't have said such a silly thing about Oannes if he had known that Berossus got the story, which was actually the Adapa myth, completely wrong.

Reply
Donald L. Zygutis link
10/14/2016 04:11:55 pm

It's interesting to hear Mr. Colavito opine so extensively and in such detail on a book he hasn't yet read - must be clairvoyant. Nevertheless, I appreciate his challenges, and I assure him that they will all be addressed in the book: The Sagan Conspiracy, due to be released Nov. 21, 2016.

Reply
expat link
12/14/2016 10:37:36 am

A commenter to my blog has pointed out that the full text of Sagan 1962, printed, is freely available at this link:

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19630011050.pdf&ved=0ahUKEwiMxNjV-PLQAhXCLyYKHe-9AoUQFggfMAI&usg=AFQjCNGKlLFRgWGhCZ93Kcsnh20lmfLUnQ&sig2=QG_6WIFvwuCB7S86Gyshzg

On the blog I discuss Zygutis's claims in light of the actual text.

Reply
john
4/17/2018 12:01:51 pm

if it can happen it probably will happen quote quantum physis

Reply
gleaner63
7/4/2019 10:21:41 pm

..the real point here is not a conspiracy theory about whether someone urged Sagan to retract/alter his views on AA; rather it's that Sagan's idea on Ancient Astronauts came prior to Von Daniken's, the latter now universally reviled by the anti-ancient astronaut establishment. Sagan didn't need to be nudged by anyone; he merely gave into mob rule, he was human after all...

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          • Ancient Alphabets Explained
          • Prologue to Ibn Umayl's Silvery Water
          • Book of the 24 Philosophers
          • Aurora of the Philosophers
        • Hesiod's Theogony
        • Periplus of Hanno
        • Zoroastrian Fatal Winter
        • Ctesias' Indica
        • Sanchuniathon
        • Sima Qian
        • Syncellus's Enoch Fragments
        • The Book of Enoch
        • Slavonic Enoch
        • Sepher Yetzirah
        • Fragments of Artapanus
        • Tacitus' Germania
        • De Dea Syria
        • Aelian's Various Histories
        • Julius Africanus' Chronography
        • Fragments of Bruttius
        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Byzantine World Chronicle
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Chronicle to 724
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Pseudo-Diocles Fragmentum
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • Popol Vuh
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Atlantis as Biblical History
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Atlantis and Nimrod
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and Hanno's Periplus
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
          • Amazing New Light (Hoax)
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • History of Paleontology
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • Arabic Names of Egyptian Kings
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • America Known to the Ancients
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Remarkable Discoveries Within the Sphinx (Hoax)
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • The Shaver Mystery >
          • Lovecraft and the Deros
          • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • CIA Search for the Ark of the Covenant
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • The Fall of the Sky
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Poltergeist UFOs
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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