A CONTROVERSIAL ACADEMIC PAPER recently shook up the study of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), previously known as UFOs, by looking beyond the most common explanations for flying saucers in the skies: aliens, robots, or drones. In their new work, three researchers from Harvard University and the University of Montana expand the possibilities of what UAPs could be—and whom or what they might contain.

Published in June 2024 in the journal Philosophy and Cosmology, the article generated plenty of attention with a title as lengthy as it was shocking: The Cryptoterrestrial Hypothesis: A Case for Scientific Openness to a Concealed Earthly Explanation for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena. The theories within the document’s 42 pages reject common pop culture explanations for UAPs in favor of new ideas ranging from the existential to the spiritual.

In their work, the team ponders if the strange objects and craft spotted in our skies could contain a form of ancient, highly advanced human civilization, predating ours, that has stuck around to observe us. They wonder if we’re seeing vessels containing an intelligent species that evolved on Earth apart from humans—such as possible intelligent dinosaurs who hide away from direct contact. Such ancient or non-human Earthly beings could reside somewhere inside the Earth or under the oceans, they say.

The authors openly wonder if UAPs hold humans from the future, looking to study their own history and avoiding identification for fear of damaging timelines. Finally, and perhaps most daringly, their writing takes time to incorporate the theological, wondering if our proposed “aliens” are really a breed of “earthbound angels.”
While co-author and psychology researcher Tim Lomas, Ph.D., of Harvard didn’t respond to a request for comment on the paper’s reception, co-author Brendan Case, who has a Doctor of Theology degree and is associate director for research at Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program, refused outright.

“I’ve sworn off any further media engagement related to it,” Case states, without offering a detailed explanation. “It was pretty overwhelming for a while.”

Fortunately, co-author and anthropologist Michael Paul Masters, Ph.D., of Montana Technological University in Butte, Montana, was willing to discuss the work. He insisted the effort—which some critics thought was irresponsible and fantastical—is instead essential.

“The main point with any theoretical [UAP] work like this is to make the case for scientific openness,” Masters says. “We wanted to initiate a discussion between our scientific colleagues, and to get the topic discussed more in the media. It certainly did the latter as the paper went viral internationally and was picked up by a number of mainstream media outlets.”

TO MASTERS AND HIS PARTNERS, mid-2024 seemed to be a good time to expand the playing field of UAP theory. A year earlier, what was once unthinkable—the possibility of aliens visiting Earth—had entered the domain of legitimate UFO research. The topic now teetered on becoming publicly accepted on an official level, and maybe even commonplace knowledge.

As 2023 summer hearings opened on Capitol Hill, the mainstream news buzzed with the released cockpit video of U.S. Navy pilots chasing small, white objects they couldn’t catch and, at times, lost from their elite radar scopes entirely. The nation and its elected leaders listened as those combat flyers laughed in shock, bewildered by craft their onboard technology reported as moving at speeds that defied physics.

“The fact that we offered four different possible explanations beyond just aliens ... I think helped some people see it as a discussion of potentialities.”

For the first time in American history, it seemed the Pentagon and military intelligence sources were admitting UAPs were routinely acknowledged at the highest reaches of government. There was no talk of alien visitation or any other confirmed explanation for such sightings and encounters, but the days of endless denials were over.
Washington announced the formation of AARO (All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office) in July 2022 to organize, research, and report on UAPs.

Anyone paying close attention bought into the mystery’s three main pillars:

UAPs are real (if vaguely defined);

No one has any real clue as to what UAPs are;

The U.S. Government, the Department of Defense, and the six branches of the American military can do very little beyond investigating UAPs further.

Yet, as official voices—from the U.S. Navy to congressional witnesses—admitted there were strange craft in the sky, Americans shrugged with a brand of collective acceptance.

Masters and his partners saw a society more open to considering potential aspects of UAP existence. The authors took a risk by composing a paper that looked beyond “Tic-Tac” UFOs and rumors of recovered alien technology, and leaped headlong into talk of angels, dinosaur descendants, and time travel.

Rather than dismiss the work as frivolous science fiction and ignore the paper, readers came along in surprising numbers—to the tune of more than 175,000 downloads on ResearchGate.net.

“The paper came out in June of this year and dominated our lives for a month, but in a good way,” Masters says. “It got people talking again about the UFO subject. I was really pleased to see how many people took it seriously. It was good to see the entire topic handled without the giggle factor.”

DAVID KYLE JOHNSON, PH.D., is very comfortable with that giggle factor. The professor of philosophy at King’s College in Pennsylvania teaches classes in critical thinking and works to disprove UAP sightings—even those presented before U.S. Senators.

“When I teach critical thinking, we look at science and pseudoscience,” Johnson says. “When the UAP stuff came up in Congress, a lot of people thought that meant the government was saying aliens are real. That’s obviously not the case.”

When attacking UAP academic work such as the paper written by Lomas, Case, and Masters, Johnson cited political motivations for his efforts as a dedicated and sincere skeptic.

“The more able people are to believe in UAPs and the like, the more apt they are to believe all kinds of things,” he explains. “There’s a pretty big overlap between people who believe claims about UAPs and people who will believe claims of election interference or lies about birtherism.”

If some skeptical readers came to the Lomas, Case, and Masters paper because of its more outlandish propositions, Masters puts some of that perception at the media’s door.

“The paper went viral because some of the media outlets set it up for extreme context,” he says. “The fact that we offered four different possible explanations beyond just aliens, and the fact that we did so in a grounded way, I think helped some people see it as a discussion of potentialities.”

Back at King’s College, Johnson remains open to the efforts of researchers into theoretical topics and papers like the aggressive effort by Masters and friends, if not for the reasons those authors might prefer.

“That kind of paper is okay because part of science is hypothesizing,” Johnson explains. “As long as they’re not saying, ‘These things are true,’ but rather, ‘These are possible explanations of what’s going on,’ in principle, I don’t have any problem with that work. But, if those explanations turn out to be way out there, I would argue [the paper] is probably unnecessary.”

Masters looks at devoted, active skeptics like Johnson and tags them as “nihilist debunkers,” men and women “compensating for some ego issues by trying to come out and debunk everything.” Insisting the pool of UAP skeptics is getting more shallow, Masters and his fellow theorists plan to continue with a series of further papers examining UAP questions.

“There might be people beating down our doors telling us we’re doing what we shouldn’t be doing,” he says. “I would tell them this is instead exactly what we should be doing. This is science. We’re supposed to be asking these questions—especially about things like UFOs that don’t have a clear explanation. It’s our job to find those explanations.”

Next, the three authors plan to double down on a possibility that UAPs are far removed from aliens and instead carry beings very terrestrial in origin.

“We’re working now on a new paper looking at the main focus of my own research,” Masters says. “We’ll be examining the possibility that UAPs are operated by future humans. We’re moving forward because our last work really caught people’s attention, and there are more scientists out there like us who realize works like these looking at UFOs are important and have to be taken seriously.”