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Review of "The Sagan Conspiracy" by Donald L. Zygutis (Part 2)

11/8/2016

17 Comments

 
​Yesterday I began reviewing Donald L. Zygutis’s new book The Sagan Conspiracy, which alleges that NASA and the Pentagon conspired to suppress what Zygutis believes to be Carl Sagan’s “model” for proving that ancient astronauts visited the Earth in historical times. For a variety of reasons that I laid out yesterday, I found the author’s evidence to be lacking and his conclusions to be faulty. Nevertheless, I am moving forward with the remainder of the book to evaluate the evidence that Sagan operated under suppression from the government and was preparing to defy their diktats when he died.
​The third chapter of the book is a bizarre rant against Frank Drake, whom the author believes to be the mastermind behind the anti-Sagan conspiracy. He alleges that Drake is the only person left in the scientific community who doubts that interstellar space travel is probable, and that Drake is “almost-fanatical” in his belief that aliens would only communicate by electromagnetic signals, and therefore rejected “Sagan’s” idea that space aliens would send spaceships to Earth and record their doings in myths and legends. The chapter segues seamlessly into a prolonged attack on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, which Zygutis believes has engaged in a Pentagon-backed propaganda effort to spread lies about the capability of space aliens to reach the Earth in physical spaceships. For Zygutis, science froze in time in 1962, and any evaluation thereafter of the likelihood that space travelers could (a) find and (b) reach the Earth (or would want to) must be a conspiracy, not an advancement. Pointedly, he offers no evidence for his conspiracy beyond his own preference for Sagan’s 1962 paper over other scientists’ views.
 
As I mentioned in the first half of my review, the National Security Agency and other government bodies commissioned reports discussing the ancient astronaut theory, so it seems rather unlikely that the government was dogmatically opposed to it.
 
The fourth chapter looks into the Fermi Paradox (which asks, if aliens are everywhere in the universe, why haven’t they contacted us?) and the Drake Equation in order to try to prove that Sagan’s 1962 paper remains correct today, which is to say that given the age of the universe, if there are aliens who can travel between stars, mathematically speaking we should have been visited by them. Here, though, Zygutis (and, to an extent, Sagan in 1962) look at this through a human-centered lens. If we agree that the numbers are correct, why would we assume that the aliens would have reached Earth in the 10,000 years (to be generous) of historical human civilization and not the 4.5 billion years that preceded it, or even, if we are being “scientific” the hundreds of millions of years in which we might propose spacefaring civilizations have been actively sweeping the galaxy? Mathematically speaking, if aliens came, humans wouldn’t have statistically be around to see them. But this is beside the point; Zygutis in this chapter becomes so wrapped up in using the Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation to argue that it is mathematically probable that space aliens have visited Earth that the book’s narrative thread breaks down entirely, and Sagan is reduced to a side-note, a kind of cudgel that Zygutis can use to badger celebrity scientists like Neil DeGrasse Tyson for advocating the feasibility of human colonization of other star systems while denying that space aliens have done the same here.
 
Elsewhere in the chapter, Zygutis alleges that NASA considered Sagan’s speculative 1962 paper to be a “disaster” because it “would require NASA to hire archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, and other academics who had no connection to space” and to expand NASA’s mission beyond space. This, he says, they would never do because of budget constraints and Congressional oversight. Oh, really? Never? Is Zygutis aware that Sagan himself and Frank Drake were involved in the NASA-funded 1960s dolphin experiments of Margaret Howe Lovatt that involved pseudoscience and human-dolphin sex? And that this zany research occurred after Zygutis believes that a conspiracy to protect NASA’s budget and integrity from embarrassment began? With Lovatt’s encouragement, Drake and Sagan had dolphins try to teach them their language. Surely, NASA wouldn’t have had a problem hiring an archaeologist or a Classicist to find aliens if they were willing to fund research into learning dolphin language to study how to speak to aliens.
 
The remainder of the fourth chapter restates all of the claims from the first four chapters and then admits that the entire argument is circumstantial at best.
 
The fifth chapter starts a new topic entirely, which is a sustained attack on popular ancient astronaut theorists as well as professional skeptics. This section is quite different from the earlier chapters in tone and topic, but it emerges out of two circumstantial arguments that are now boldly and baldly stated as fact: First, that Sagan seriously believed that space aliens gave civilization to the Sumerians specifically and, second, that NASA “suppressed” his efforts to evangelize on the subject. “For ancient alien enthusiasts, there is now a choice to be made: to stay with conventional advocates like Erich von Däniken, or to follow Carl Sagan,” he writes. He claims that there is a difference between what he calls the “Sagan Model” of ancient aliens and the “von Däniken Model,” blithely unaware or unwilling to admit that the very claim that he praises Sagan for suggesting—that statistics prove that aliens visited Earth—is exactly the claim from Sagan that von Däniken uses as the underpinning of his own book! (Zygutis never cites Chariots and seems unaware that its author cited Sagan.) Sagan’s other (pseudo-)claim about Oannes being a space alien is quoted verbatim by Robert Temple in the Sirius Mystery (1976) from Intelligent Life in the Universe and is literally the basis for the book heralded as the most “scholarly” ancient astronaut book of the 1970s. Zygutis is tilting at windmills of his own construction due to his lack of awareness of the broader history of the topics he seeks to explicate.
 
Zygutis claims that the difference between the two “models” is that von Däniken’s is based on looking for “evidence” and drawing conclusions, while Sagan’s is based on proposing a theory and then hunting for proof based on accepting the theory’s mathematical probabilities as facts. This misrepresentation isn’t science in any real sense, and it leads to the absurd conclusion that we must assume the existence of aliens in order to interpret ambiguous evidence in light of the assumption. Zygutis’s elaboration of Sagan’s speculation collapse under the weight of its own illogic.
 
In the first part of my review, I criticized Zygutis for not providing more evidence that Sagan believed in ancient astronauts in a literal way. To his credit, in this chapter he offers some (ambiguous) proof, which really should have come earlier in the book. His nonlinear style makes it troublesome to keep his timeline straight. Quoting William Poundstone’s biography of Sagan, he recounts that Sagan told his friend, the late Seymour Abrahamson, that Moses and Jesus were space aliens, and shouted it in a Bloomington, Indiana restaurant, shocking patrons. It’s a great story, but Zygutis leaves out the fact that the story occurred when Abrahamson was engaged to his wife-to-be, Shirley. They were married in August 1953, and Sagan had met Abrahamson around Christmas 1951. That means that Sagan’s conviction in Moses’s alien origins occurred when Sagan was either 17 or 18 years old. In all likelihood, he got the idea from science fiction stories of the era, of which there are plenty of examples. At any rate, Abrahamson, speaking decades later, wasn’t sure whether Sagan was joking at the time. I hope no one holds against me things I said at 17, or considers them lifelong beliefs.
 
Zygutis reports that in 2012 he attempted to ask professional skeptic Michael Shermer via email for comment on Sagan’s 1962 paper, and he said that in response he received an invective-laced email that “personally attacked me by suggesting that I had to be some kind of religious nut or New Age fanatic.” This is unfortunate if true, and Zygutis is undoubtedly correct that many professional skeptics confuse evaluating evidence for ancient astronauts (for which there is no convincing proof) with simply denying that ancient astronauts are possible. They are possible, if exceedingly remote, and one could form a scientific hypothesis to search for evidence of them. Phlogiston was a scientific hypothesis, too, and duly tested. Sagan entertained ancient astronaut ideas (and UFO ideas, too!) and, after evaluating them, eventually came to reject the specific formulations given by advocates of the ideas. He never, so far as I can tell, took any steps to actively investigate whether the remote possibility of ancient astronauts was more than that.
 
Zygutis wonders why skeptics do not speak of Carl Sagan’s arguments about ancient astronauts, and he says that whether from ignorance or suppression, “it smacks of a cover-up.”
 
Uh-huh. Tom Head published a book called Conversations with Carl Sagan in 2006, and it includes a 1973 Rolling Stone magazine discussion that Sagan had with Timothy Ferris—the same science writer and NASA consultant who deflated the von Däniken bubble with his famously skeptical 1974 Playboy interview with von Däniken in which he got the charlatan to admit to lying. He asked Sagan point blank whether Sagan believed that space aliens gave the Sumerians civilization. I hate to quote at such length, but since Sagan’s words directly refute Zygutis’s claims, here is what Sagan said:
Yes, I pursue that one [in Intelligent Life] because one, it’s a logical possibility, and two, it seems silly to spend a lot of money looking for life elsewhere if we have the evidence right here on earth. The conclusion I came to is that you'll never prove anything by legend alone. There are just too many possibilities. Even with very similar legends, there are two classic possible explanations. One is that they in fact had contact among themselves. There was a huge amount of cultural diffusion in primitive time; even though it took a long time to traverse from Europe to Asia, those traverses were being made.
 
Secondly, there's a possibility that some kinds of things are wired into us. After all, birds have wired into them how to build nests, fly south for the winter and so on. There may be certain images that are wired into human beings, in our genetic material. Therefore human beings in very different places may have similarities in their thinking. I don't consider that a bizarre idea at all.
 
The only situation in which such a legend would be believable would be if it was remarkably detailed: The gods gave us information, and we didn't understand what they were talking about, but in the 13th century Irish monks copied it down, and in the 16th century somebody cataloged it and noted what was in there but he didn't understand what it was about either; and now it turns out to be details for the construction of a transistor radio. Well, such a legend I'd be willing to consider extremely seriously. But it's never anything like that. It's, "They came down and taught us how to write, do agriculture and regulate our behavior." That seems to me to have many other possible explanations.
 
The other possibility of course is to find the artifact; to find a sample of extraterrestrial technology that could not have been created by human beings because we weren't technologically up to snuff at that time. Those two cases I would certainly consider worth paying a lot of attention to. But the usual sort of legends about beings that lived in the sky and were not human beings — there are just too many other ways of understanding that for me to think they are serious clues to extraterrestrial intelligence.
​This is, almost word for word, what Sagan said in 1962 and 1966, and Zygutis knows nothing of it. This information was not only not suppressed but was published by a NASA consultant and science writer in a magazine read heavily by young, counterculture types—exactly the audience for ancient astronaut theories. It seems ridiculous to argue that NASA and skeptics were conspiring to suppress Sagan’s beliefs while he was actively sharing his views with the help of a man who served as one of NASA’s own consultants!
 
Zygutis claims that after Sagan became an anti-war activist and a collaborator with Soviet scientists the government started spying on him, and he speculates that NASA and the Pentagon had him assassinated in 1996 through exposure to radioactive substances, though he admits to having no evidence, direct or circumstantial, for such a claim. He finishes the book with a long diatribe on the importance of ancient astronaut theories with a “scientific” basis, and he speculates wildly from the eight-word title of Sagan’s last, unfinished paper, “On the Rarity of Long-Lived, Non-Spacefaring Galactic Civilizations,” that Sagan was returning to his 1962 paper in order to blow the lid off the ancient alien cover-up. However, Joel Achenbach’s Captured by Aliens (1999) suggested that the paper was actually about the need to colonize space in order to establish outposts to help mitigate against extinction-level collisions with meteors, asteroids, and other space objects on the home planet. The manuscript of the paper is held in the Library of Congress, but so far as I can tell, Zygutis never consulted it to find out. He simply speculated based on the title.
 
In the end, Zygutis’s book is long on opinion and short on facts, and it lacks the basic research into its subject that would allow the author to make a convincing case. At every step, the author is out of his depth, and his ignorance (or omission) of evidence from contemporary records, published books and papers, and later testimony by participants undercuts the attempt to offer anything resembling proof.
17 Comments
Epiméthée
11/8/2016 10:55:06 am

http://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/archaeology_anthropology_and_interstellar_communication.html

You could download for free on the NASA website this great discussion about extraterrestrial life, and the possibility of communication with alien. This is clearly a speculative book, with meaningful imput from arcaeologist about the possibility of communication without contact, ancient civilisations are an apt metaphor of the problems we face for translating an alien message, but also etnographic references around the meeting of two societies of different technological and sociological background, hypothesis from ethologists around their experiences with the description of aniaml intelligence and more. I enjoyed reading it, some great scientist wo try bold hypothesis.

So much for the big cover-up by the way...

Reply
Tom
11/9/2016 01:41:25 am

Agreed, unfortunately, the people who believe conspiracy literature are not the types who read websites dealing with fact and evidence.

Reply
DaveR
11/9/2016 09:11:49 am

I don't think conspiracy people read anything dealing with facts and evidence.

E.P. Grondine
11/8/2016 11:14:22 am

Carl Sagan and Steve Ostro were convinced that any advanced intelligent species would build l an extremely large radar for asteroid and comet impact detection:

http://astrogeo.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/4/4.22.full.pdf

IF their hypothesis was correct, then it may be possible for China's new FAST radio telescope to detect those radar systems' signals as persistent fast radio bursts.

The debate over the use of large radar or lidar systems for impactor detection continues.

In the meantime, optical systems continue to be improved.

This being election day, I once again offer -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04Ch9t6puAk
so you can enjoy a good laugh.

Aside from that, any pictures of Carl Sagan with cats?

Reply
Shane Sullivan
11/8/2016 01:36:36 pm

A quick Google search revealed this:

http://abstract-scientist.deviantart.com/art/Dats-my-world-Internet-space-and-Carl-Sagan-xD-394398399

Reply
E.P. Grondine
11/9/2016 09:42:00 am

Hi Shame-

I did a google image search first thing, and long ago.

While we have multiple "pictures" of Einstein with cats, I have yet to find a "picture" of Sagan with a cat.

Not artwork, but "pictures"..

Shane Sullivan
11/8/2016 01:47:11 pm

1996 was also the year Robin Hanson wrote the article, "The Great Filter - Are We Almost Past It?"

I guess there was something in the air at that time.

Reply
Kal
11/8/2016 03:01:06 pm

Carl Sagan wrote Contact which hypothesized what might happen if we actually got an alien message and we were given plans to visit their planet via their technology in an instant of time, but for them that instant was hours. It became a rather cheesy 1990s movie.

He was not suppressed. He was given a lot of credit for his ideas on aliens, and even was one of the SETI people, so it is more likely if he found aliens, they'd been all over it.

Part of the drake equation is coming true in proof, with this discovery of extrasolar planets around other stars, within their habitable zones, and there are hundreds of them within line of sight. They've found thousands of such stars. Eventually we're bound to find one that has planets with something living on them.

Now whether or not they are able to communicate or beyond that, travel to meet us, is another thing.

I would like to think that we're already well known to some local galactic race, and that they are amused and annoyed for our cute primitive broadcasts, and that for some reason they think aliens like to steal gold and probe us in our sleep, and decimate cattle, and all that rub.They don't do that.

Reply
DaveR
11/9/2016 09:41:24 am

The difficulty is in the distances between stars. We've been sending out VHF radio waves since the 1940s and even traveling at the speed of light those signals have barely gone over 100 light years. If there is life on a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri then they would have received these transmission, being that star is about 4 light years away, but we would have also been receiving signals from them, which we have not. Although 4 light years seems close in galactic terms, with current technology it would take around 80,000 years to get there.

Reply
terry the censor link
11/11/2016 07:35:30 pm

> Zygutis’s book is long on opinion and short on facts, and it lacks the basic research into its subject

That is the problem with most of the work of UFO and conspiracy proponents. The lack of engagement with the relevant literature is appalling. The incomprehension or wilful misrepresentation of cited documents is maddening -- and disqualifying.

Most of these "researchers" peddle the legend of their subject without scrutinising the underlying data and documents. As Sagan said above, "The conclusion I came to is that you'll never prove anything by legend alone."

Reply
Donald L. Zygutis
11/13/2016 02:25:34 am

In evaluating Mr. Colavito's critique, which I greatly appreciate, I wish that he had addressed two central features of the my book: (1) the matter of interstellar spaceflight and why, for four decades, NASA's denial of it being possible, either for humans or aliens, was a cornerstone doctrine, and, (2), the God/alien equivalency principle, also known as (Michael) Shermer's Last Law. Cherry-picking which parts of a book to try to debunk while leaving other parts unmentioned and unaddressed is somewhat disingenuous. Am I wrong?

Reply
Americanegro
11/13/2016 06:59:06 pm

Haven't read the book but my take is you are an Assburger's riddled freak who should not be allowed out in society. At least that's what my orders from NASA say.

Reply
terry the censor link
11/14/2016 12:01:50 pm

> Am I wrong?

You are wrong.

A review can't treat every single issue raised by a book. But Jason engaged at length your central premise -- and showed it to be totally without merit. In general, he found your research and analysis to be shoddy in the extreme. For him to address every issue in such a worthless book is asking much too much. To characterise his review as "cherry picking" and "disingenuous" demonstrates your complete lack of judgement.

Reply
Donald L. Zygutis link
11/17/2016 01:50:10 pm

You can find my comprehensive response to Mr. Colavito's review on my website: thesaganconspiracy.com. I think it may change a few minds, including that of Mr. Colavito.

Reply
terry the censor
11/17/2016 03:03:00 pm

From your site:

"Recently rediscovered by the author, Sagan’s lost Stanford paper is the central theme of The Sagan Conspiracy."

After reading part one of Jason's review, I was able to get this paper online from the original journal in two minutes. I don't know what you mean by "rediscovered" when this paper seems not to have been lost.

Your site: "scientific paper...that the United States government has gone to extreme lengths to suppress."

I sat at my keyboard in Toronto and got the paper. Your statement seems to make no sense.

> MY RESPONSE TO PROFESSIONAL SKEPTIC JASON COLAVITO’S REVIEW

Donald, what do you mean by "professional skeptic"? Most fringe proponents use this phrase to suggest the opinion of the skeptic is bought and paid for, that the opinion of the skeptic is not their genuine opinion. What do you mean by it? Do you think someone is paying Jason to assess your work? Is Jason part of this government project to "suppress" Sagan's 1962 paper?

Reply
Donald L. Zygutis
11/17/2016 07:44:55 pm

You make a fair inquiry. By professional skeptic I am not exclusively referring to someone who debunks bad ideas for a living, like a Michael Shermer, but those like Mr. Colavito, who are educated, articulate, and motivated, who have taken it upon themselves to inform the public by engaging new and controversial ideas, or new iterations of questionable ideas that have been around for a long time. Honestly, I don't know whether Mr. Colavito does this for a living or not.

tracy rainwater link
1/23/2019 03:22:07 pm

Carl Sagan had a pair, he also had bills to pay. " Contact" the book was anything but cheesy. Where are they? You do not yell fire in a theatre. Billions believe there are spirits trapped in living creations , who ever said they were all smart, just different. I meet a female once who had a third eye, it did not open, yea! Laos, land of elephants, and more than a few cobras. Western academia has a lot acumen to learn. ltr


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