Explanations for the totally weird

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I was thinking about various ways to explain the "terminating line" that was discovered in Maryland in the winter of 1977-78. That event is but one example of this phenomena -- I know of several others, and might have witnessed one myself a couple of years ago in the woods near Culpeper, Virginia (if that track wasn't hoaxed, which it probably was). Most of us would believe that, outside of a hoax, there isn't any rational explanation possible for such a thing. But with modern science, there actually already are several candidate theories of the universe which could help to explain it.

I hinted at one possibility in that previous post I mentioned, but I won't flesh that out right now. Who wants to hear the speculations of an amateur when we can have actual scientific theorizing? Let me make a short list of some of the possibilities here. Maybe I'll come back and go into more depth for each on at some point, but anyway, my quick thumbnail sketch is:

1. Many worlds and wormholes
2. Extra dimensional space
3. Simulated universe

That certainly doesn't cover all possibilities, but those are the ones that strike me as both capable of explaining the data that we find, and having some support among scientists or philosophers.


I'm continuing to read Michio Kaku's Parallel Worlds, and I have come across a concise explanation of the "extra dimension" theory and it's implications. I think I've pointed you toward a book that speaks entirely on the subject, John R. LaViolette's Extra Dimensional Universe, and I still recommend that book as an excellent way to explore the topic, but I think Kaku's quick sketch will work quite well in a blogging context. Remember that the current form of string theory, called "M Theory" posits that reality must have 10 or 11 dimensions, not just the 3 plus time that we experience right now. And, if you can, recall also the video I posted six months or so ago, called Flatland (you have to scroll down to the 2nd video), which was based on a book of that name by a 19th century science writer. With that, we should be ready, so here we go.

Kaku begins his discussion by recalling the famous HG Wells novel, The Invisible Man. In it, Wells shows that having access to the 4th dimension would allow one to become invisible. And Kaku goes on to say (bolding is mine):

As with the best science fiction novels, there is a germ of science in many of H.G. Wells' tales. Anyone who can tap into the fourth spacial dimension (or what today is called the fifth dimension, with time being the fourth dimension) can indeed become invisible, and can even assume powers normally ascribed to ghosts and gods. Imagine, for the moment, that a race of mythical beings can inhabit the two-dimensional world of a tabletop, as in Edwin Abbot's 1884 novel Flatland. They conduct their affairs unaware that an entire universe, the third dimension, surrounds them.

But if a Flatland scientist could perform an experiment that allows him to hover inches off the table, he would become invisible, because the light would pass below him as if he didn't exist. Floating just above Flatland, he could see events unfolding below on the tabletop. Hovering in hyperspace has decided advantages, for anyone looking down from hyperspace would have the powers of a god.

Not only would light pass beneath him, making him invisible, he could also pass over objects. In other words, he could disappear at will and walk through walls. By simply leaping into the third dimension, he would vanish from the universe of Flatland. And if he jumped back onto the tabletop, he would suddenly rematerialize out of nowhere. He could therefore escape from any jail. A prison in Flatland would consist of a circle drawn around a prisoner, so it would be easy to simply jump into the third dimension and be outside.

It would be impossible to keep secrets away from a hyperbeing. Gold that is locked in a vault could be easily seen from the vantage point of the third dimension, since the vault is just an open rectangle. It would be child's play to reach into the rectangle and lift the gold out without ever breaking into the vault. Surgery would be possible without cutting the skin.

Similarly, H.G. Wells wanted to convey the idea that in a four dimensional world, we are the Flatlanders, oblivious of the fact that higher planes of existence might hover right above ours. We believe that our world consists of all that we can see, unaware that there may be entire universes right above our noses. Although another universe might be hovering just inches above us, floating in the fourth dimension, it would appear to be invisible.

As you can see, the presence of higher dimensions explains much more than how a creature's footprints might suddenly stop out in the middle of nowhere. It explains everything that has ever mystified us. And that is what makes it so powerfully attractive to me as a theory. But if life continues to unfold as it always has, it will ultimately prove that, if it has any application at all, extra dimensions would only be part of the answer.

LATE UPDATE: You may know of my affection for Cracked magazine. I don't buy it anymore, of course. How 1980s.. But I do check out their website occasionally. And when I did this morning, I had a total "What the @#$%!" moment because of this article, which said (remember, Cracked wants to make you laugh, so you have to read to the end to get the point):

Neuroscientists at Arizona State University have recently been experimenting with the effects of ultrasound on human beings. Specifically, they wanted to see how ultrasound could remotely stimulate different types of brain circuit activity. And, in a completely unforeseen twist, they found out that ultrasound has absolutely no effect on the human brain, because nothing is capable of manipulating your thoughts. Free will is as invincible as it is awesome!

J/K!

They learned how to remote control human beings.

That is seriously messed up. But what if our large hairy cousins had the ability to manufacture and direct ultrasound? I've already mentioned that one way to get self-luminating eyes is via the use of ultrasound and salt water (which eyes have in abundance). If it now turns out that ultrasound can make you feel and do things.. That would be another mystery potentially solved, wouldn't it?

Here's a proper scientific article on the subject.

EVEN LATER UPDATER: It's raining science today. Via The Anomalist, here's an article in support of the creature in the Patterson/Gimlin film being non-human. Good times, good times.

A quick quote:

My conclusion, after analysing the film footage countless times, employing a degree of expertise in human and primate anatomy, and examining critically the analyses of forensics expert J. Glickman of NASI, among others, is that the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film does not and cannot depict a human being in a costume. It is a real, as-yet uncatalogued animal, most likely a primate of either pongid (ape-like) or hominid (human-like) taxonomic classification, that resides, or once resided, somewhere in the millions of square miles of human-uninhabited forests of the Pacific Northwestern United States and Canada.

EXTREME LATE UPDATE: I have just come across a quote that shows the theory advanced at the top is actually Jon-Erik Beckjord's theory. I always found Beckjord's various sites impossible to decipher, so I don't think it's shocking that I didn't know this. But here's what the writer at VisWiki said about Beckjord's theory:

Beckjord himself characterized his theories as being "no more bizarre than those of Einstein, Dr. Michio Kaku or Dr. Fred Alan Wolf," and considers many to be continuations or expansions upon Einstein's work.

Beckjord believed that Bigfoot and similar cryptids may be "inter-dimensional" beings that can occasionally take physical form for brief periods of time, but that, like the famed Cheshire cat, can "fade out" and pass through "wormholes", possibly to other dimensions or parallel universes. He reported to have had one of the creatures speak to him using telepathy, communicating the words "We're here, but we're not real, like what you think is real". Beckjord claimed that such entities may be able to actually disappear into thin air, or even shapeshift. "He disappeared right in front of me", he replied to one poster on his message board. He noted that other persons have had this also happen to them (see The Locals by Thom Powell, 2004).

Beckjord maintained that the interdimensional hypothesis may possibly, if proven, explain why there are thousands of alleged Bigfoot creature sightings each year, yet no dead zoological physical body is ever found.

That Beckjord believed this should not, in itself, discredit the idea. If science does prove extra dimensions exist, we will have to take a good hard look at this theory, and there are some experiments coming soon that have the potential to speak to this.

What *I* don't understand is how bigfoot could make use of extra dimensions without technology. Folks who think bigfoot and UFOs have the same source overleap this problem.

As Arthur C. Clarke postulated -- any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic..