Most Interesting Alien Theories

Mankind has been interested about extraterrestrial existence for the longest time now. Long before talks of time machines and blueprints of high-power telescopes were to happen, people were discussing the possibility of other planets having a man-like existence.

Back in the 3rd century BC, Alexander the Great makes mention of 'two huge silver shields in the sky that were spitting fire around'. Edmond Halley, who discovered the Halley's comet, has also recorded the spotting of a 'vast body, apparently bigger than moon', in the year 1676.

While on the deck of Santa Maria, Christopher Columbus spotted a shiny glimmering light in the sky that moved up and down. After a while it vanished, only to reappear several times in the night.

While all these written or folk records had little or virtually no scientific basis, interest in extraterrestrial objects and lifeforms was developing on a minute level around the 1900s, when aliens and spaceships entered public life through novels and comic books.

All this though, remained limited to those who were interested in such subjects. It was going to take a conspiracy-theory-worthy incident to put aliens and spaceships on every single soul's lips.

• Roswell UFO Crash (How it all started)
• Time Travel Theory
• Computer Simulation Theory
• Lunar Alien Base Theory

The interest in aliens truly surged, post the Roswell UFO incident. On July 7, 1947, an unidentified flying object crashed near Roswell, New Mexico. While the official statement mentions the crash of a surveillance balloon, conspiracy theorists and alien-enthusiasts have had a field day ever since, claiming the crashed object was an alien spaceship.

The Roswell incident can really be considered the beginning of alien fascination slipping into public mind. Post Roswell, the term Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) became popular. Novels were written, films were made, and people could be seen discussing aliens with friends and family in their free time.

In 1995, unverified footage of autopsy being conducted on dead alien bodies recovered from the Roswell crash site went viral and caused a sensation. While most have dismissed the footage as inconsequential, conspiracy theorists had another pillar to support their claims.

The time frame starting from the Roswell crash to a few years after the release of the autopsy footage, spawned an entire cult of UFO enthusiasts, who studied every reported UFO sighting, and dug through confidential documents for hard evidence to support their purported conspiracy claims.

Over the years, these conspiracy theorists have put forward numerous alien-related theories, and still continue to do so.

While some of the most popular alien theories related to Reptilian Humanoids and Area 51 are now deep entrenched in popular conscience, some others were so ridiculous they never held fort, even with hardcore believers of the subject. We, at Buzzle, skid away from the routine theories, and try to document some of the most interesting theories about aliens.

THEORY: Our planet is hollow, and beneath the surface exists another world, which is warmer, lush green with vegetation, has its own sun, and houses a much more superior civilization than ours.

Mythological and folkloric stories around the world have always talked of subterranean worlds. Most of these refer to the world under, as either pre-birth societies from where humans originated, or as afterlife concepts where humans went after death.

Greek, Hindu, and Nordic ancient text, all talk of an underground world, supposedly much more beautiful than the upper crust realms of civilization.

A tangent away from these, a Tibetan Buddhist belief talks of the existence of an ancient city inside the Earth, called 'Shambhala'. In Buddhism, Shambhala is thought of as a land that is pure, peaceful, and very spiritual.

Other modern documentations such as Edmund Halley's theory of concentric circles (1692), talk of a hollow Earth. Halley suggested that about 500 miles under the Earth lie two more concentric circles, smaller, and further smaller in size.

Just like the Earth's atmosphere, they too have their own atmosphere, and this is what separates the three worlds from each other. He also envisioned the inner worlds being luminous and living upon by some form of life.

According to Halley, at the center of these concentric worlds lay the Earth's core, that had the gravitational pull effectuated on all the three above cores.

While theories on paper and folk stories circulated abound, the first proper evidence of the possibility of an inner world came when American Marine office Admiral Richard E. Byrd's diary about his North Pole expedition became public.

According to many sources, Byrd had told people close to him, that beyond the polar ice caps existed a deep hollow vortex of unusually warm temperature. Conspiracy theorists believe the fact that the American government and/or related officials never made these findings public or bothered to verify such claims, is evident enough of fishy business.

Some others believe that the underworld has indeed been discovered and explored by certain governments. This information has been locked away by governments due to the existence of a more powerful and sophisticated civilization residing beneath.

Conspiracy theorists argue that both, the North pole and the south pole are not actual points, but vacuum vortexes that lead to a world inside. This world possesses an inner sun. This sun, many believe, is the source of light for the world inside.

Other theories discuss ascended masters (spiritually enlightened individuals) being at the center of the Earth, to look upon the spiritual welfare and merits of human beings residing 'on' the Earth. Many other accounts note UFOs flying in or out of Antarctica's opening.

Other occult practitioners have also written/talked of out-of-body experiences, where they traveled inside the Earth and met strange individuals (some make specific note of the term 'aliens').

Walter Siegmeister, writing under the pseudo name Dr. Raymond Bernard, talks of current inhabitants of the inner Earth being Earthlings before calamity (possibly natural) struck the planet. According to Bernard, the devastated Earthlings sought refuge inside the Earth to escape this calamity.

They used flying machines to fly inside the Earth. Ancient civilizations were known to have airplane-like flying machines - for example, Indian vimanas. These machines are still in use, and folks from this civilization still fly out to the Earth's surface, to be termed as spaceships and aliens respectively, by modern inhabitants of the planet.

While none of the theories have any scientific base, satellite images and expeditionary camera captures have shown the presence of a sinkhole on the North pole. Whether these holes/vortexes inhabit any life, is yet to be proven.

THEORY: Visiting aliens are visitors from the future, traveling back in time using their time-travel machines.

One part of this theory involves the evolutionary angle, which is highly wishful rather than practical in its thinking. Another part talks of possible violation of set physical rules - inter-dimensional hypothesis.

According to ufologists, instead of (or similar to) multiple galaxies and constellations existing together, the universe is actually a plethora of multiple worlds existing together. Each of these worlds is inhabited and has progressed to differing degrees.

Of those who have made rapid advancements in science and technology, have also cracked how to travel across parallel dimensions.

Jacques Fabrice Vallée, ufologist and former astronaut, believes aliens are visitors from another world that coexists alongside ours. These people belong to a society just like mankind, but which has made tremendous technological progression... so much so that they can fly across dimensions.

According to hitherto known laws of physics, dimensions are fixed and in proportion to each other. They cannot be transgressed. But according to some conspiracy theorists, these visitors have developed technology that can breach physical boundaries - manipulate time and space - something which we on Earth haven't managed as yet.

This hypothesis is advocated by a lot of believers on the basis of what they consider 'a-solid-platform' - since other planets and stars are many light years away from the Earth.

Going by conventional inter-space travel methods, such a journey seems impossible, unless 'traveling-faster-than-light' phenomena is induced, which in itself is a seemingly impossible concept. What further adds to this theory is the reported UFO sightings across the world to date.

Almost all documented versions talk of spaceships appearing and disappearing in random flashes. Believers of the inter-dimensional hypothesis say, this is due to the UFO entering and leaving the Earth's dimensions.

Going back to the first part, time-traveling aliens too have their share of advocates. The most important one among them being Dr. Bruce Goldberg. According to Goldberg, humans will successfully manage to travel across timelines by 3050.

Prior to this, humans will manage to send images to the past. This explains why many philosophers and orators of the yore had 'visions' of the future.

This theory too, in a way, banks on inter-dimensional travel. Here, 'chrononauts' exist in the fifth dimension, and are hence invisible to us. But they are observing us, and are even pulling off tricks like genetic manipulation.

This is to ensure our evolution - as we grow, so do they; since they are our future. To put it in simple language, our future generations are traveling back in time to ease and help our spiritual, personal, and scientific growth, to make sure their lives (the ones they are 'presently' living) are better.

According to Goldberg, chrononauts can trace their lives to many previous births, and we in our current version are one of them. Many believe, the other reason the Earth's future inhabitants are traveling back in time, is to change the course of what happened in the past, so they could have a more peaceful existence.

As to why they look different than us, theorists point to the evolution of homo sapiens to us, and suggest our eventual evolution too to look something else (with possibly alien-looking features).

One of the important reasons why many ufologists believe in these theories, is that it negates the impractical 'distance-traveling' concept. Instead of flying faster than time yourself, projecting a telepathic image of yourself faster than time to the past or future, seems a much more believable and practical explanation of aliens visiting us.

THEORY: We are living in virtual reality, simulated by some other advanced civilization.

One of the more mind-boggling and hard-to-prove theory, is that human civilization is a computer-simulated world operated by aliens. Says, Nick Bostrom, from the Faculty of Philosophy, Oxford University, "the probability that you are living in a matrix is quite high".

Imagine how hooked on you are while controlling a virtual version of yourself in the Sims video game. It is fun going around buying grocery, going to work and sucking up to the boss, and even finding that special someone.

What if... you are a virtual imagery created by some guy in some advanced alien world (super-civilization) sitting on the couch with soda and popcorn by his side, 'playing' the game of simulating your activities?

In Dr. Bostrom's notion of reality, your body of flesh and blood does not even matter. What matters is your brain - a network of computer circuits. Your brain is mapped virtually on a super-computer, that allows someone else to control your activities, sense of timing, feelings, emotions, and everything... right down to even your basic motor skills.

Although Dr. Bostrom's theory does have scientific and philosophical basis, a falsified conspiracy theory of this very concept involves super humans created by us. This theory refers to aliens as super humans.

The advancing human technology at some point reached a stage where it could create biologically unconventional super humans with highly sophisticated artificial intelligence. After a point, there were so many of these, that they took over control of the human race.

Since they were not conventionally biological humans, they could survive anywhere else in the universe and under any conditions. This made it possible for them to shift base to another planet (or another galaxy or even constellation altogether), and 'operate' the slave civilization who gave them birth in the first place.

Many theorists also believe in the notion that this incident occurred many a billion years ago, when a civilization as or more advanced than us existed. Super humans let us evolve and grow in every possible way for their own benefit, but feel threatened when humans reach the stage where they can create super humans just like them.

This is when our master super humans reboot the entire civilization, and the world has to start afresh.

The problem with this theory is, that unlike many other alien theories, the existence of computer simulation on our lives cannot be verified. There is no way to know if we are actually a slave civilization of some super civilization.

The guy in Grand Theft Auto who runs over pedestrians and neglects red lights at will, never knows you are controlling him, does he?

THEORY: The Lunar surface is actually a research base for aliens.

Let us discuss a little geophysics before getting to the actual theory. Tidal lock, also known as captured or synchronous rotation, occurs when tidal force makes one side of any body in space face any other body in the same direction.

Thus, only one hemisphere of either of the two bodies is visible from the other, at any given point of time. In geophysical terms, the Earth and the Moon are tidally locked. Thus, only one side of the moon is visible from the Earth the one we can naturally see. The other side is called the dark side or the far side of the moon by astronomers and scientists.

Many theorists believe this side of the moon houses an entire alien colony - who have settled there for research and resource-exploration purposes. Mining is one of the primary activities that goes on, on the dark side of the moon.

Those residing and working on the far side of the moon, do occasionally visit the side facing the Earth, and have even been spotted doing so!

According to Milton Cooper, a U.S. Naval Intelligence Officer, there almost certainly exists an alien settlement on the Moon, and the U.S. Naval Intelligence Community refers to it as 'Luna'. According to unconfirmed reports, Apollo 11, that carried Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the Moon, did in fact encounter aliens.

Both legendary astronauts saw UFOs almost immediately after Apollo 11's landing. Timothy Good, author of Above Top Secret, states in his book that either Armstrong or Aldrin reported seeing a light in the crater.

Maurice Chatelain, former chief of NASA Communications Systems, confirmed that Armstrong had reported seeing two spaceships shortly after landing on the Moon. According to Chatelain, radio transmissions from the historic journey were interrupted on several occasions, so as to keep away certain information from the public viz.

"These 'Babies' are huge, Sir! Enormous! Oh my God! You wouldn't believe it! I'm telling you there are other spacecrafts out there, lined up on the far side of the crater edge! They're on the Moon watching us!"

According to some theorists, some confessions Armstrong made to his near and dear ones in his later years included the spotting. Theorists argue that Armstrong maintained that their spacecrafts were larger and better than us, and they, in no uncertain means, warned us to stay off the lunar surface.

NASA continued sending manned missions to the Moon until 1972 (since they were committed to a systematic lunar landing program scheme), and then stopped. Despite the rapid advancements in technology, why did NASA never send a manned vehicle to the moon post-1972, is indeed baffling.

In addition to conspiracy stories, many cite video recordings and photographs brought back by the manned Apollo landings. Many of these depict what seem to be destroyed and ruined cities - all of them in a rectangular or square grid-like structure. Numerous geologists maintain natural formations cannot have such precision, and these seem to be more like planned settlements.

Others argue that aliens do not actually belong to the Moon, and have just set up base there for mining of resources and other research purposes. To counter this, NASA apparently sent two spacecrafts to bomb alien bases in 2009. This was done under the pretext of finding water on the Moon!

Many believe alien bases have recently been deserted by the aliens, and NASA wanted to destroy any traces of these alien bases so that the Chinese, Russians, or Indians (who sooner or later are planning manned moon landings) would not know about them.

It is hard to argue whether aliens exist or not. There have been reported sightings, and half of them have been hoaxes. The issue apart from not having any consequential proof, is that humans have created a fixed image of possible extra-terrestrial existence in their minds; and it springs more or less from the ones seen and witnessed in books and movies. Astronomy and exogenesis stand miles beyond that make-believe stuff.

Aliens have existed in public conscience for a long time now, and will continue to intrigue us in the future too. But unless and until we find constructive evidence of their existence, theories is what we will have to hang on to.