Theoretical and Empirical Research
What—and who—might the “nonhuman intelligences” be that we associate with UAP? Until recently, that question was deemed too fringe to be asked in serious academic and scientific settings, but growing public awareness that some unidentified aerial or anomalous phenomena (UAP) are “nonanthropogenic technologies” leads the Sol Foundation to raise and address it.
Since at least the 1890s, witnesses to the aerial and undersea vehicles once known as UFOs have reported the presence on or near them of humanlike beings that scientists and investigators eventually dubbed “occupants” and “humanoids.” Improbably akin to and even sometimes almost identical to human beings, such reports of UAP occupants have been something of a third rail in scientific and even amateur investigations of UAP, data so inconvenient and apparently absurd that it embarrassed even the most committed researchers. At the same time, perhaps no other aspect of the UAP phenomenon has engendered more fascination than these “aliens,” which could be, after all, our extraterrestrial counterparts, or beings of even weirder origins.
Yet do the occupants exist, and, if so, in what way, and how would we know? Some investigators altogether doubt that these entities are what they seem, preferring the hypothesis that they are simply artificial representations of (or even illusions projected by) intelligences so weird that we might otherwise be unable to fathom them. Other scholars doubt even this, arguing that “extraterrestrial” and “nonhuman” intelligences are more akin to the myriad kinds of supernatural beings experienced by practitioners of various religious traditions, nonphysical beings that may be far more familiar and proximate to us than they at first seem. Still others postulate that the nonhuman intelligences of UAP are effectively an artificial superintelligence come from elsewhere to interact with and perhaps manipulate human beings, and that not only the occupants but the ships too are its mere means of interreacting with us. Finally, some researchers posit instead that UAP are the proverbial glitch in the matrix, an anomaly in human perception indicating that “reality” is a simulation.
To give serious scientific and academic consideration to these and other hypotheses, Sol is undertaking a multiyear research seminar led by our cofounder and executive director, Dr. Peter Skafish. Composed of researchers in the humanities, social sciences, and clinical psychology, the NHI project is a forum in which they collaborate, share analysis and findings, and produce publications and public reports.
To support this project, please contact us through gifts@thesolfoundation.org, and check back here for updates.