Encounters, page 3
FIRST CONTACT WITH IYA
Dr. Iya Whiteley contacted me through a series of emails in 2020. The subject line of the emails caught my attention right away: “Space Psychologist—researcher at a university in London. Developing communication means with unknown phenomena.” What?! Who was this?! I thought as I quickly searched her name on the internet. I read her university biography: Dr. Iya Whiteley, a space psychologist exploring the human mind to develop our abilities and to realize our potential while we explore outer space. I thought it was bold and even brave for an established space scientist and academic to reach out to me in her own name about a means of communication with unknown phenomena. The unknown phenomena I had been known to research were UFOs. What’s the catch? I thought. Perhaps there was none, but years of doing research into UFOs and the beliefs of scientists—most of who want to remain anonymous regarding the topic—had accustomed me to preserve, or at least expect, the anonymity of scientific UFO researchers. I responded enthusiastically to her first email, and then I didn’t hear from her for weeks. I thought she had reconsidered reaching out. Then one day I received another note. I opened it to find that she had been in South America in February and March of 2020. “I was there doing research into our common interest,” she later said.
The COVID-19 pandemic had caused the shutdown of the borders in the countries in which she was traveling, and she was trying to get back to England, where she lived and worked. Each subsequent email arrived from a different country. She was flying from country to country with borders closing behind her one by one with no knowledge of when or if the borders would open again. Her situation, which I observed with horror through my computer in the safe environment of my home, was extreme. She later explained that relative to many experiences from her life, hopping from country to country as the pandemic was spreading was not so difficult.
“I’m a pilot; I jump from flying airplanes (I am a champion skydiver); I scuba dive and research in extreme environments, so I can understand what goes through the minds of people working and making split-second decisions. I support the needs of people in these environments, and I need to have had these experiences myself so I can best help them,” she said.
Iya studied psychology and computer science, the novel field of study called cognitive engineering, putting together complex information onto electronic displays for modern aircrafts. Among her other tasks using voice-analysis technology that she coinvented is to provide early detection of fatigue and to monitor the well-being of astronauts in extreme environments.
She explained that as astronauts would get farther and farther from the Earth, they would form their own rules, beliefs, and behaviors and, at times without any discussion, would form an understanding of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. These rules and behaviors could drastically differ from those of the society they left behind. Mission control and people on the ground might find these new rules and behaviors shocking and unacceptable, but given the surrounding circumstances, it would be natural to transition to these new rules.
It was through Iya that I learned about the psychology of space travel and new forms of consciousness that appear to develop within these new environments. Documented psychological states that are specific to space travel include the Overview Effect, which has received the most publicity, and the less glamorous state described by William Shatner, which appears to be an encounter with the numinous.
The Overview Effect was described by space theorist and author Frank White in the 1980s. At that time there were enough astronauts who reported similar feelings about being in space and seeing Earth from space to identify an initial pattern. White observed, “The Overview Effect is the experience of seeing the Earth from a distance, especially from orbit or the Moon, and realizing the inherent unity and oneness of everything on the planet. The Effect represents a shift in perception wherein the viewer moves from identification with parts of the Earth to identification with the whole system.”3 Astronaut Russell Schweickart described his experience as if he were part of Earth as a type of sensing instrument: “When you go around the Earth in an hour and a half, you begin to recognize that your identity is with that whole thing. And that makes a change.… [I]t comes through to you so powerfully that you’re the sensing element for man.”4
After White described the effect, he and public intellectuals like Carl Sagan thought that the testimonies of astronauts about the effect, as well as the photographs taken from the Moon of the Earth, might replicate in a small way the same experience for people on Earth. White and others conjectured that if people felt this effect they might identify with their planet, like the astronauts did, and choose to take care of it and maybe even each other. This hopeful interpretation has continued to inspire contemporary movements and organizations, such as the Overview Institute, which funds educational programs about the positive effects of space travel as well as the creation of immersive virtual environments intended to replicate the effect. The institute hopes that it can bring this shift in consciousness, which so far has only been identified in some astronauts, to “Earth-bound millions.”5 Immersive environments have not been able to accurately replicate the effect, however. Many astronauts said that the feeling was visceral and that “photographs do not accurately convey the actual experience.”6
A more complicated mental state that can afflict astronauts is the feeling Iya described as nonconforming and which increases the farther away they travel from Earth in their space capsules. Again, this may appear to us who remain on Earth as irrational, but Iya noted it was completely acceptable given the circumstances the crew might experience. The training astronauts undergo is famously rigorous and intense and ideally would include situations wherein crew may see their mates go through changes in their belief systems. Additionally, astronauts are chosen because they fit specific personality profiles. Along with stringent physical and mental training, they also take a barrage of personality tests. Scientist-psychologists like Iya are trained to identify candidates who can flourish in extreme environments. Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that astronauts are impeccable at self-control, especially with respect to their emotions. Feelings like dread, fear, and panic would go undetected by their team, and even by themselves. Additionally, space equipment, including capsules and habitats, are worth billions of dollars, so a fatigued or irrational astronaut who might act unpredictably is a very real concern for space institutions. The consequences of this (so far) unnamed mental state are very real and potentially dangerous. In the United States Space Station, Skylab 4, the astronauts on board at one point just stopped working. They reported that they were unable to maintain their scheduled tests and duties as they were so confused by the new “baffling, fascinating, unprecedented experiences” of floating around in space.7
Iya led the European Space Agency study that systematically defined how best to prepare, monitor, and prevent psychological issues that arise during exploration missions to the Moon and Mars. She defined technologies and techniques to address the identified psychological needs of the astronauts in order to sustain their mental health and stamina. In extreme environments and exploration missions, prevention is key. With a colleague, she developed technology to detect what astronauts themselves and mission control are unable to detect, such as onset of fatigue and the effects of extended sleep deprivation that can play tricks on the mind and perception. These devices decipher hints of fatigue in the voices of astronauts. Safety is the priority, and identifying changes in the crew that may compromise safety and put a mission in jeopardy is vital. The aim is to prevent any situation that could cost crews’ lives and endanger very expensive equipment. Iya led projects to develop EPSILON (Embedded Psychological Support Integrated for LONg-duration missions), a tool set for exploration expeditions to the Moon and Mars, and she designed tools to help crews resolve challenges that emerge in new alien environments, particularly those where there is no live communication with Earth. Iya’s work contributed to a change in the culture of pilots reporting automation anomalies and is instrumental in identifying many forms of consciousness that are produced in space environments. She is our best interpreter of the global shift in perspective, which had been mere thoughts and speculations in the minds of philosophers and futurists who saw these developments years and years before she was born.
THE TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY INTERFACE WITH HYPEROBJECTS: MIND SHIFT
In 1917, the German-Jewish intellectual Walter Benjamin wrote a short essay on the consequences for humanity of a shift in perspective toward celestial objects. He wrote that the sight of celestial objects, like the billions of stars in the Milky Way, had always occurred from the perspective of a community, like a tribe or a family. He wrote that now the sight of the “heavens” would become increasingly singular as human beings increase their abilities to see celestial objects through technologies like telescopes. In the brief two-page essay, “To the Planetarium,” Benjamin made several predictions and observations. First, he mourned the loss of a communal experience of seeing the stars with family and friends. This, he said, had been a shared ecstatic experience. He predicted that technology would bring humanity a new view, one that never existed before. In that sense, he described technology as a physis, which is something organic, bound to happen, and in development. Physis describes an inevitable process, like the development of an apple seed into an apple. Benjamin identified this historic shift, but as all things that uncannily forecast a future reality, it wasn’t completely right. As astronauts leave Earth and view space, many do experience ecstasy, and people on Earth have a taste of it too. It is still a communal experience, but it is also something that Benjamin couldn’t have predicted. It is an interface with the truly alien.8
Astronauts who leave Earth often describe something like Otto’s idea of the numinous. These emotions include fear, trembling, and respect. The consciousness of space travel is so new that researchers have just begun to make headway into understanding what is happening to spacefarers and what it could possibly mean for billions of earthbound people. What does it mean that many astronauts describe experiences that resemble those described by mystics of past religious and spiritual traditions?
Anthropologist Deana Weibel analyzes the reports of astronauts’ experiences in space and how they impact their cosmologies or views of the universe. She addresses the Overview Effect but also identifies another state, which she coined the Ultraview Effect. The Ultraview Effect incorporates the more perplexing and disturbing aspects of these new experiences. She explores the ways in which encountering the Earth and other celestial objects in ways never before experienced by human beings has influenced some astronauts’ cosmological understandings.
Weibel recognized that there was considerable overlap between astronauts’ descriptions and those described by scholar Timothy Morton with respect to “hyperobjects.” Morton wrote that hyperobjects are objects that exist yet are almost unfathomable to comprehend. They include objects found in other dimensions, such as Platonic solids, but also objects that are so large that they are a shock to human comprehension:
There exists a reality to certain huge objects or systems that is separate from humanity’s ability to perceive them. While human beings throughout the ages have had a slow but increasing awareness of large objects (like the globe or the ocean, for example), Morton specifically used hyperobject to refer to “massively distributed entities that can be thought or computered, but not directly touched or seen,” meaning our main awareness of them is achieved through the use of technology.9
Weibel credits Morton for recognizing that “human ‘contact’ with these objects is transformative in a very disruptive way.” She notes, “Hyperobjects are normally phased, meaning we only see parts of them at any given time, so they seem to come and go. In this view, the reality of a thing exists apart from our piecemeal impressions of the reality of things, and at this point in time we are starting, slowly, to comprehend them in their entirety.”10
The cognition of hyperobjects through technology—both at the micro level enabled by the use of computers, which can model objects in other dimensions, and at the macro level with the use of telescopes and space capsules to view massive objects in space, which are encountered within the seemingly infinite substrate of space—constitutes the historic moment in which we live now. “This is the historical moment at which hyperobjects become visible by humans. This visibility changes everything.”11 Although Benjamin did not include hyperobjects—objects which are almost incomprehensible to human cognition—within his description of this shift, he certainly captured the spirit of the epoch just as it began. Significantly, Plato identified hyperobjects with the use of math. Math, and the technologies and computer languages that create them, is the bridge to this new shift in perspective.
Morton characterizes the emotions aroused by encountering these objects as pain and disgust. Weibel’s analysis reveals an experience more in line with Otto’s idea of the numinous. She notes, “Our familiar illusions are replaced with a frightening perception of something truly alien.” This new sight, in other words, initiates a shift in worldview. This consciousness of what is truly “alien” reorients those who encounter it. Russell Schweickart described himself as a literal instrument, a “sensing element for man.” Edgar Mitchell felt a “palpable” experience of divinity and connection in space that led to a life-long exploration of the noetic transmission of knowledge.12 The new consciousness, powerfully felt and embodied by Schweickart and Mitchell, suggests that the human body and mind, confronted with hyperobjects in space, undergo a process of reception of consciousness that they are compelled to transmit to others. Researchers who study the psychological states of astronauts observe that, just as Otto remarked about the encounter with the numinous, “awe can transform people and reorient their lives, goals, and values. Given the stability of personality and values … awe-inducing events may be one of the fastest and most powerful methods of personal change and growth.”13
Among those who experienced these alien mental states, some were struck with a feeling that extraterrestrial life is inevitable. Weibel’s sensitive elaboration of an Apollo astronaut’s experience illustrates this shift in worldview:
Looking at the universe out there from my vantage point, I began to realize that we don’t know crap about anything, we really don’t.… [A]t some points in my orbit around the moon, I was sheltered from both the earth and the sun, so I was in complete darkness. And all of a sudden, the star patterns out there became something that I was not ready for.… So many stars I couldn’t see one. Just a sheet of light. I don’t know whether you’d call it spiritual or not, but when I saw the starfield out there in a way that nobody else has ever seen … I had some pretty profound thoughts.… We are not unique in the universe. When I came back from my flight, we were all totally exhausted.… I’d sit in my living room and all these thoughts would come flowing through, so I began writing them down.… They flowed from my mind through a pen onto a piece of paper. It was like I was being guided by something.14
As with people who have had UFO experiences, Zack, a pseudonym, reviewed and then revised his own religious tradition, which was Protestant. What he had thought of as angels before, he now understood as cosmic entities. This interpretative move is called the sacred text–UFO hermeneutic and is common among religious UFO experiencers. After the shock of either seeing a UFO or having an experience that opens one to the possibility that extraterrestrial life exists, a person from a religious background will often review their tradition and identify contact events between people and divinities as extraterrestrial. Even atheists and agnostics undergo a similar process. After his trip to space, William Shatner, who is not religious, shared his belief that we are not alone:
“It’s impossible for [this] to be the only world,” Shatner explained. “There are other intelligent entities out there, probably since life is so ardent. There’s such passion in life that … it’s everywhere.… And everything in life has a passion to live. So, you think that’s only on this little rocky planet?”15
In the population of people who are not astronauts, these experiences often produce two data sets.16 Academics and ufologists who hear the testimonies of people who have extreme experiences, such as being a witness to a UFO event, relate that there were often two types of reports by the very people who reported. “People tended to report different things depending on to whom they were speaking.” People often report empirical evidence—things seen and heard—to authorities and academics, and then report what they experienced subjectively to their families. They do this because of the fear of being ridiculed, which is very real. When the astronauts heard what they called eerie space music on the Apollo 10 mission, they decided not to report it, as they said, “Who’s going to believe it?” They thought it was absurd. Space-type music in space! This fear of ridicule impacts the data needed to assess space environments.
What’s unique and potentially innovative about studies on astronauts is the sheer amount of data that astronauts provide and the techniques used to extract it. Astronauts are data mines for the aerospace industry, so all information, from physiological data to emotional and psychological data, is expected from them and extracted by experts.
A psychologist with specializations like Iya’s is aware when people are hiding information. Iya knows that astronauts are rational, so if they expose a newfound belief in alien life, she receives it as data. This neutral observation, apparently so simple, is, in actuality, a radical innovation in method with transformative potential. Most academics, if they do study the topic of UFOs, couch reports of beliefs in extraterrestrial life with references to the credibility of the person who reports the event. In Weibel’s assessment of Zack’s newfound worldview, she writes that he is “a rational person, a successful author and businessman, but his unconventional religious beliefs were absolutely influenced by his time in space, which he said changed his idea of infinity and his whole outlook.” The unconventional religious belief is his idea that “we are not unique in the universe.” Weibel is not alone in her citation of the credibility of the witness; I have done this with all my writings about the topic of UFOs. It is a natural reaction to a culture of silence and ridicule. With respect to the culture of ridicule, the potential benefit of Iya’s method for the culture that surrounds UFOs should not be underestimated. If applied, it will be revolutionary.
