The Stanton Friedman Collection
Stanton Friedman was a renowned nuclear physicist and professional ufologist, celebrated for his extensive work and research on the subject of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Born on July 29, 1934, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Friedman devoted much of his career to the scientific investigation of UFO phenomena, earning a reputation as one of the leading figures in the field. He held degrees in physics from the University of Chicago and worked for several years as a nuclear physicist on projects for major corporations like General Electric, Westinghouse, and McDonnell Douglas. However, his profound interest in UFOs led him to leave his full-time career in 1970 to focus on ufology. Friedman was particularly famous for his work related to the Roswell UFO incident of 1947, advocating the hypothesis that it involved a crash of an extraterrestrial spacecraft. He authored several books and frequently appeared at conferences and on television to discuss UFOs. His steadfast commitment to applying scientific rigor to the study of UFOs helped gain the subject greater respectability. Stanton Friedman passed away on May 13, 2019, leaving behind a legacy as a pioneering and dedicated researcher in the field of ufology.
The following is a collection of articles written by Stanton Friedman, as archived from his now defunct website. They are preserved here for archival purposes, and were never put behind a paywall. Stanton distributed these for free, and this site aims to continue that.
Read More – The Stanton Friedman Collection
Scientists Challenge Air Force Regarding UFOs
The following was written by Stanton Friedman on Nov. 13, 1997. It is part of The Stanton Friedman Collection as archived here on The Black Vault.
Frankly I am sick and tired of the US Air Force lying to the public, the press, and members of Congress about UFOs,” said nuclear physicist Stanton T. Friedman at a public lecture “Flying Saucers ARE Real” in Albuquerque. “I have had a serious interest in UFOs for 39 years, lectured in a dozen countries, and visited seventeen document archives,” he continued. “For 50 years there has been massive misrepresentation about UFOs in general, and in recent years the Roswell Incident in particular. The Air Force has come up with four different answers for Roswell:
- A flying saucer
- A radar reflector and weather balloon
- A Mogul balloon train over 500 feet long with 23 balloons, sonobuoys, etc.
- And most recently, a Mogul balloon train plus crash test dummies dropped at least six years AFTER the 1947 crashes Southeast of Corona and West of Magdalena.”
Friedman, who spent fourteen years as an industrial nuclear physicist working on a wide variety of classified, highly advanced nuclear systems for major corporations, was the first civilian investigator of the Roswell Incident.
“I hereby challenge Colonel Richard Weaver, author of the outrageously misleading huge volume ‘The Roswell Report: Fact Vs Fiction in the New Mexico Desert’, and USAF Captain James McAndrew, author of the 1997 ‘The Roswell Report: Case Closed’, to a formal debate.
“These two officers have made a mockery out of serious investigation. They have used all the tools of the propagandist with selective choice of data, false reasoning, false claims, positive and negative name calling. These reports should be listed under fiction in the library.
“The Mogul explanation doesn’t fit. There are gross differences among the testimony of their witnesses, and they ignore the testimony they don’t want to consider while claiming falsely that they have talked to all the original witnesses still alive who handled material totally different from the Mogul explanation.
“They left out vital aspects of quotes from the FBI. They falsely tried to claim the Roswell story came to light because of a story in a tabloid in 1978. That story didn’t appear until 1980 after a colleague and I had talked to 60 people connected with the case. I was falsely portrayed as somebody who gets his UFO stories from tabloids.
“The fact is in 1978 I was the first to talk to a key witness, Major Jesse Marcel the intelligence officer for the only atomic bombing group in the world in 1947. I was referred to him by an old ham radio buddy of his who had seen the press stories in 1947. Jesse never sought publicity. I discussed many of these false charges in my book TOP SECRET MAJIC.
“One of the silliest official USAF stories is the crash test dummy nonsense. I spoke in person with Colonel Madson, whose picture is in the Case Closed volume and was heavily involved in the research program. He is adamant that the explanation doesn’t fit. Remember that the dummies had to be the same height and weight as air force pilots. None were dropped anywhere near the two crash sites and none were dropped earlier than 6 years AFTER the 1947 events.
“They used a crazy explanation for the red-headed officer observed independently at the Roswell Base Hospital, and in the Plains of San Augustin. World class pilot, Joseph Kittinger, was a redhead and was at the Roswell base hospital after a ballooning accident. But it was twelve years later! If the explanation doesn’t fit, one must acquit. As it happens, I was the first to hear the two independent stories about the nasty red haired officer and the black sergeant, an unusual combination for 1947. The Air Force says nothing about the black sergeant, or the two independent stories.
“There are many other examples of massive misrepresentation by the Air Force about UFOs. The USAF Office of Special Investigations even told its own units to ignore their own regulations if they received an FOIA request from me about UFOs. The USAF apparently even lied to the CIA recently, falsely claiming that half the UFO sightings after 1955 were the results of observations of super secret reconnaissance aircraft, the U-2 and later the SR-71. But there was no increase in the number of sightings after 1955. Why would anybody report a very high flying aircraft moving in a straight line and never making right angle turns, as stopping on a dime, instantly reversing direction, or silently landing and taking off in the middle of nowhere, like UFOs so often are observed to do???
Read More – Scientists Challenge Air Force Regarding UFOs
The UFO Challenge
The following was written by Stanton Friedman in December 1997. It is part of The Stanton Friedman Collection as archived here on The Black Vault.
As a nuclear physicist who has had a serious interest in flying saucers since 1958, I have reached four major conclusions:
- The evidence is overwhelming that Planet Earth is being visited by intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft. In other words, SOME UFOs are alien spacecraft. Most are not.
- The subject of flying saucers represents a kind of Cosmic Watergate, meaning that some few people in major governments have known since July, 1947, when two crashed saucers and several alien bodies were recovered in New Mexico, that indeed SOME UFOs are ET. As noted in 1950, it’s the most classified U.S. topic.
- None of the arguments made against conclusions One and Two by a small group of debunkers such as Carl Sagan, my University of Chicago classmate for three years, can stand up to careful scrutiny.
- The Flying Saucer story is the biggest story of the millennium: visits to Planet Earth by aliens and the U.S. government’s cover-up of the best data (the bodies and wreckage) for over fifty years.
Since 1967 I have lectured on the subject “Flying Saucers ARE Real” at more than 600 colleges and over 100 professional groups in all fifty US states, nine Canadian Provinces, twelve cities in England and nine in other countries, with only eleven hecklers. I have also appeared on hundreds of radio and TV shows. Overall, I have probably answered about 35,000 questions about UFOs and secrecy.
It’s clear that over 97% of the people have NOT read any of the five major scientific studies I discuss, and are unaware of the mountains of evidence that support my conclusions. They are also unaware of the scientific data, as opposed to tabloid nonsense. However, it is also clear from the Opinion Polls and from my own experience that indeed most people accept the notion that SOME UFOs are alien spacecraft. The greater the education, the MORE likely an individual is to accept this proposition. In an October 25, 1995, Oxford University Debate on the resolution “Planet Earth is being visited by intelligent extraterrestrial life,” the affirmative side, of which I was a part, garnered 60% of Debate Union Member votes on the question. Ninety-two percent of 100,000 people calling during a TV Debate in London on June 27, 1997, said Earth has been visited by aliens!
The problem is NOT that there is not enough evidence to justify my conclusions; but that most people, especially the noisy negativists, are unaware of the real, non-tabloid evidence.
Debunkers seem to employ four major rules:
- What the public doesn’t know, we certainly won’t tell them. The largest official USAF UFO study isn’t even mentioned in twelve anti-UFO books, though every one of those books’ authors was aware of it.
- Don’t bother me with the facts, my mind is made up.
- If one can’t attack the data, attack the people. It is easier.
- Do one’s research by proclamation rather than investigation. It is much easier, and nobody will know the difference anyway.
Many major media people will concede that if indeed aliens are visiting earth, that would be a major story. But because they take great pride in their KNOWLEDGE of major stories, if this were happening they would know about it. But they don’t. Therefore, anybody who says visits are real must be a crackpot.
I have noted four major reasons why the big names in science and journalism haven’t jumped on the pro-UFO bandwagon:
- Ignorance of the data. Scratch a debunker and one usually finds somebody who is putting down what he is not up on.
- Fear of ridicule in sponsoring a thesis (only about ten have been submitted relating to UFOs) if a professor, or sponsoring a detailed reportorial investigation if an editor. I check all my audiences and find that, while in agreement with polls, 10% have had a sighting but only 5-10% of these witnesses have been willing to report what they saw. Biggest reason? Fear of ridicule.
- Ego. If aliens were visiting Earth, they would call a press conference or ask to talk to the National Academy of Sciences. They haven’t, so aliens must not be visiting. Flying saucers finish the job Copernicus started in taking man out of the middle of the universe. Priests fought Copernicus’s ideas. Today guys in lab coats, rather than priestly robes, fight alien visitations.
- Failure to use our knowledge of technology to understand UFO behavior. They say “It is impossible,” rather than “I don’t know how.” Despite the absurd claims of certain ancient academics and fossilized physicists, it is clear on the basis of solid engineering studies that trips to nearby stars are feasible with round trip times shorter than the average person’s lifetime — using, for example, staged fission and fusion propulsion systems. I have worked on both. It’s clear that technological progress comes from doing things differently in an unpredictable way. The history of science is littered with challenges, leveled by people who know nothing about the job at hand, against traditionally “impossible” claims.
Flatwoods Monster UFO Event
The following was written by Stanton Friedman on December 15, 2002 and updated January 2011. It is part of The Stanton Friedman Collection as archived here on The Black Vault.
Frank Feschino’s telephone call came as a surprise this past summer. We had met at a conference in Florida a few years back when he had mentioned he was researching the Flatwoods Monster UFO event of Sept. 12, 1952. Our pictures were taken together and that was about the end of it. Now Frank, an artist who has done film school as well, was asking if I would help him out by attending the Flatwoods Monster 50th Anniversary event in Flatwoods, West Virginia, the weekend of September 12, 2002. There were more conversations and I agreed as long as they would cover expenses. I hadn’t been in West Virginia for years, though I had spoken at West Virginia University in Morgantown.
Frank wanted me to speak on two afternoons at the newly set up “museum” or event center and do some media interviews.
I did some homework reviewing what had been written about the case by Jerome Clark, Donald Keyhoe, Dr. Joe Nickell, and others. Some was impressive. The plan was to drive to Bangor, Maine, fly to Cincinnati and then to Charleston, West Virginia. Frank would pick me up with the mayor and drive the 60 miles on Interstate 79 to a motel in Sutton, next door to Flatwoods. That morning was jinxed. I got on the connecting flight in Cincinnati with a few other passengers. Then we were told to get off, just a small problem with the plane and they were bringing over another aircraft. While waiting there was a major Security Alert and we were all chased out of Terminal A. With all my travelling, this was my first such security adventure — and I hope my last.
I spent a few hours waiting in line then finally getting through security to find that the plane had left and I was booked on a much later flight and wait listed for a somewhat earlier flight. I tried calling Frank who was of course at the airport in Charleston. I was the last standby let on the flight. Frank was waiting with the Flatwoods Mayor. They hadn’t been able to get any useful info from the airline, but somebody who got off my supposed flight said things were a mess. Fortunately, we did arrive in time to take the tour leading a bunch of people who had come for the event to the actual site of the encounter with the monster. Frank led the tour as we walked past the big tree which the monster came from behind. We
walked up the hill to the top where the UFO had landed and the gully to which the UFO had migrated. We were there exactly 50 years to the minute after the event.
Knowing the geography was very useful. Since that place at the top was the highest flat area in the region, it was a natural place for a plane in trouble to land. In the gully the UFO was not exposed. These areas were well above the school yard where the youngsters had been playing football when they first spotted. the object. I helped Frank on the tour even noting that a month or two before, while on a radio show out of NY, a former USAF man then based at Andrews AFB, had called saying that not only were there jets scrambled over Washington, DC, during the famous July 1952 flap of sightings (even over the White House) but frequently for the following year, which would include the time of the Flatwoods case. The base was definitely but quietly concerned about UFOs. The airman noted that in one instance two jets had been sent up after a UFO and only one came back.
I spoke without slides both days in the small museum meeting room which had been decorated with Frank’s photos and drawings, did several interviews and met with several witnesses including Mrs. May, the key witness, and one of her sons who was there and had also been a witness. It turned out that the Mayor had also seen the object fly over.
Read More – Flatwoods Monster UFO Event
Petition, UFOs, White House and Lies
The following was written by Stanton Friedman on November 11, 2011. It is part of The Stanton Friedman Collection as archived here on The Black Vault.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall when personnel of the Office of Science and Technology Policy of the Executive Office of the President at the New Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., discussed how to respond to a petition about disclosing data on UFOs. I suspect that nobody brought up the enormous amount of information available indicating that not only are aliens visiting, but the US and other government have been withholding information for many decades. The response certainly indicates intentional lying and misrepresentation or total ignorance.
The petition, prepared and submitted by Steve Bassett’s Paradigm Research Group, went like this:
We, the undersigned strongly urge the President of the United States to formally acknowledge an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race and immediately release into the public domain all files from all agencies and military services relevant to this phenomenon. |
I, for one, was not one of more than 5000 persons signing the petition. My reason was straightforward. Having worked under security for 14 years and having researched the flying saucer phenomenon (certainly most UFOs are NOT alien flying saucers) for 53 years, I believe there is a very strong national security side to the question. I cannot see releasing technical data that could be of use to other countries also researching the phenomena and wanting to duplicate the extraordinary flying capabilities of the flying saucers… for military purposes.
The response was issued by research assistant Phil Larson. He stated “The US government has no evidence that (1) any life exists outside our planet or (2) that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race. In addition (3) there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.” No indication is provided as to just what sources, if any, were evaluated. Furthermore, a real red herring was provided: “There are a number of projects working toward the goal of understanding if life can or does exist off Earth.” He then discusses SETI, The Kepler Spacecraft, the Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity), soon to be launched to Mars. None of these have anything to do with the extraterrestrial presence here, the petition’s topic!! Why mention them?
Larson generously concedes that “The odds are pretty high that somewhere among the trillions and trillions of stars in the universe there is a planet other than ours that is home to life.” Odds cannot be determined when there is no data. He also foolishly states that “The odds of making contact with any of them — especially any intelligent ones — are extremely small given the distances involved.” To which distances is he referring, billions of light years to very distant galaxies?? Or 39.3 light years to Zeta Reticuli? Where is any data to support these totally baseless claims? Does he have travel schedules for civilizations outside Earth? Surely the astronomical community knows nothing about interstellar travel. More about evidence below, but let us first look at (3).
No credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public? Is he really unaware of the many TOP SECRET UMBRA CIA UFO documents that have been released so heavily redacted that many pages say “Deny in Toto” or that many others are blacked out except for fewer than eight words. Is he really unaware that because of a FOIA court case, the NSA has admitted finding 156 TOP SECRET UMBRA UFO documents. When finally released, one could read about one sentence per page with the rest being whited out. The excuse for redaction was that it is illegal to release sources and methods information. It is absurd to suggest that more than 95% of these UFO documents consisted of sources and methods information. Federal Court Judge Gerhard Gesell agreed the documents should not be released. “The Public interest in disclosure is far outweighed by the potential danger to the security of the United States should this information be released,” he wrote.
Is Larson really unaware of the following 1969 statement by USAF General Carroll Bolender asked to decide Project Blue Book’s future: “Reports of UFOs which could affect national security are made in accord with JANAP 146 or Air Force Manual 55-11 and are not part of the Blue Book system….Termination of Blue Book would leave no official federal office to receive reports of UFOs . However, as already stated, reports which could affect national security would continue to be handled through the standard Air Force procedures designed for this purpose.” When BB was closed as a result of Bolender’s memo and for more than 40 years since, the public has been falsely told there was no government concern with UFOs. This was a flat-out lie. As late as 2011 there were official regulations in place instructing military pilots how to reports UFOs. Where is all this data? No evidence being hidden???
Read More – Petition, UFOs, White House and Lies
Peter Jennings Program
The following was written by Stanton Friedman on March 3, 2005. It is part of The Stanton Friedman Collection as archived here on The Black Vault.
By the time you read this you will have read a ton of verbiage about the February 24 Peter Jennings’s ABC “UFOs: Seeing is Believing.” I think it is appropriate for me to comment since so many people sent me emails about it. Almost all were sympathetic about what they considered the unfair treatment that I and the Roswell incident received.
The producers in Roswell interviewed me for over an hour in July, 2004. Don Schmitt who has been active in Roswell research for many years was also interviewed. He and a film crew actually went out to the site, which was marked out for more archeological digging. I believe about 20 seconds of my interview was shown with none of Don’s nor of the scientific work site. I had been cautiously optimistic after hearing a few weeks before the showing that I had made the cut, but that 100 people had not. My optimism decreased when I heard that Seth Shostak, Frank Drake, and Jill Tartar, (SETI Specialists) and Michael Shermer, skeptic, were going to be on. Despite all their writing about SETI, it was clear that none knew anything about UFOs. Proclamation is not the same as investigation. I had jokingly told people that, after all, Peter Jennings and I were both dual citizens of the USA and Canada and, surprisingly, both had been born on July 29. How could I not trust him? I didn’t place enough emphasis on the fact that Benito Mussolini was also born on July 29.
I was favorably impressed with the first portion with interviews with aircraft crew members, comments about Blue Book’s focus on explaining away sightings and the interview with Major Friend whom I had met at Blue Book in the early 1960s. The second half of the show was like a horror film. The SETI people waxed poetic about their wonderful search for ET Signals. There was no indication of any knowledge of UFOs other than one of the sillier moments of the show when Jill Tartar described having a sighting of the moon partially obscured by clouds. This was worth recreating?? One can see why the SETI people don’t want to deal with eyewitness testimony. I think one could also see why I say that SETI stands for Silly Effort to Investigate and why I talk of the cult of SETI: Charismatic hand waving, very strong dogma (they must be out there, they can’t be coming here, we will make the most important discovery in Man’s history a signal from a distant civilization, and nobody could possibly come here — if they did, we would be out of a job) and strong irrational claims about the absence of evidence. Meaning “we don’t dare review it.” Dr. Tyson joined the crowd and proclaimed that eyewitness testimony may be OK in court, but not in science. Tell Jane Goodall that.
Several times PJ used the term “mainstream science” along with a proclamation about its non-acceptance of UFO reality. No evidence was presented. It appears that the only mainstream science he was talking about was astronomy. Think of chemists, biologists, geologists, us physicists, etc. Much of science today was based on eyewitness testimony of something unusual. Think Roentgen and X-rays. I believe that most mainstream scientists like me believe that the methodology has to suit the problem. Unpredictable, brief appearances of strange craft (not under the control of the observer or of Mother Nature) behaving in strange ways require eyewitness testimony as, of course, do airplane crashes, crimes, etc. Shostak proclaims when he finds a signal they will tell everybody else who will then verify it and anybody can use his own antenna. What happens if the transmission stops? How many can afford their own Hat Creek Telescope System? Does he think the signal will be “Testing 1, 2” repeated over and over again? That we can order the saucer to stop while we do measurements?
PJ claimed that mainstream science doesn’t accept the UFO evidence. This was yet another misrepresentation. Polls have consistently shown that the greater the education the more likely to accept UFO reality. Two polls of R and D people showed that about 2/3 of them who expressed an opinion said flying saucers were real. But then they live in the real world unlike the SETI cultists.
The program contained, as might be expected, based on past experience, a major putdown on star travel from people who know absolutely nothing about space travel. We were told that the Voyageur spacecraft, our fastest space craft launched 30 years ago, will take 73,000 years to reach the nearest star and that the fastest man made object goes only 11 miles per second compared to the speed of light at 186,000 miles per second. Wow! Sounds like we sure can’t get there from here. These are both totally misleading. The Voyager hasn’t been attached to a propulsion system since it left the vicinity of the earth!! It is coasting. This is like tossing a bottle into the ocean or a feather in the air as a basis for estimating crossing time for the Queen Mary 2 or the SST or the space station.
Read More – Peter Jennings Program
The UFO “WHY?” Questions
The following was written by Stanton Friedman in November 2006. It is part of The Stanton Friedman Collection as archived here on The Black Vault.
I have been fortunate enough to lecture (usually “Flying Saucers ARE Real”) over 700 times in 18 countries. My audiences, mostly college and professional groups, seem to have no problem accepting the detailed factual data that I present leading to my conclusions that SOME UFOs are alien spacecraft and that the subject of flying saucers represents a kind of Cosmic Watergate. But what seems to be of most concern, judging by the Question and Answer sessions, are the “WHY?” questions. Why would saucers crash? Why would aliens visit Earth? Why doesn’t the government tell us what it knows? Why would aliens not land on the White House lawn or at the United Nations? Why would people fake MJ-12 documents? Why do you say SETI stands for Silly Effort To Investigate? Why have you kept at it for 39 years? Why hasn’t the government taken you out? Perhaps my answers will help the reader answer his “WHY?” questions, or lead to more such questions.
THE UFO “WHY?” QUESTIONS
1. WHY have you concluded that the evidence is overwhelming that Earth is being visited by intelligently controlled Extraterrestrial Spacecraft?
The simplest answer is that it is the only conclusion merited by the enormous amount of evidence. In my lectures I review 5 large scale scientific studies and ask after each one how many have read it. Typically fewer than 2% have read any. I note the 5000-plus physical trace cases that Ted Phillips has collected from over 70 countries. In these people see a craft land and then take off leaving behind various markings on the soil such as burn circles, landing gear marks, small footprints, dried out rings of soil, etc. These are not crop circles where normally no saucer is seen. About 1/6 of these cases involve reports of small beings. I refer to the more than 1000 abduction cases that have been investigated by Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs, John Mack, and Raymond Fowler and the Betty and Barney Hill case as recorded by John G. Fuller. I review the outstanding work by Marjorie Fish clearly indicating that Betty’s star map makes sense and provides information not previously known to us. Furthermore, I have spent time at 20 archives, had a security clearance for 14 years, and find it perfectly obvious that crucial data has been withheld and many government people have lied with regard to UFOs. Saying some UFOs are of ET origin, of course, doesn’t answer other questions such as WHY are aliens coming here, WHY haven’t I seen one, where are they from, etc., etc.
2. WHY don’t the aliens, if they are real, just land on the White House lawn and say “Take me to your leader.”?
Obviously I don’t speak for any aliens. However, let us note three facts:
A. The White House is in a forbidden flying zone. Our response to intruders in such zones is to take immediate action to escort the intruders away or shoot them down. As far back as the summer of 1952 when, in July, UFOs did fly over the White House, orders were given to military interceptors to shoot down UFOs if they don’t land when instructed to do so. This is described in detail in Frank Feschino Jr.’s new book Shoot Them Down. Major General Roger Ramey proclaimed that interceptors had been scrambled hundreds of times without any luck. As an indication of the zeal of pilots, I have heard of at least 7 specific cases in which the UFOs zapped attacking earthling aircraft. Tim Good in his new book Need to Know recounts similar cases. I am working on a claim by a pilot that UFOs took out 20 of our planes in Europe in the early 1950s.
B. It may come as a surprise to many Americans, but the President of the USA doesn’t speak for Planet Earth. After all who elected him World President? Certainly not the billion people from India or the 1.3 billion people in China. Obviously the UN also does not speak for Planet Earth, either.
C. Normally, negotiations only take place between roughly equal parties. Surely it is not difficult to see that aliens have technology far in advance of earthling technology. Their vehicles are clearly faster, more maneuverable, and have access to huge space carriers (mother ships) with lord-knows-what capability. They have no reason to negotiate when they can already do what they please.
3. WHY in the world would aliens want to come here if, as you have claimed, we are a primitive society whose major activity is clearly tribal warfare?
Answers to this question depend very much on one’s picture of the local galactic neighborhood and of the situation on our planet. The SETI cultists seem to think we are the Crown of Creation and that there may be “as many” as 50,000 civilizations in our Milky Way Galaxy, which has a few hundred billion stars. It is almost 100,000 light years across which, according to Frank Drake, means there may be another civilization “only” 1000 light years away. This would, of course, make us very special as one of the elite civilizations. I think that there are probably many advanced civilizations within our local neighborhood on planets around some of the 2300 stars within 54 light years, especially the 46 that are very similar to the sun. The driving fact here is that we have only had fancy technology for perhaps 100 years. But the earth is about 4.5 billion years old and has been suitable for life for well over a billion years.
Just down the street, 39.4 light years away, we find a pair of sun-like stars, Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli. These are only an 1/8 of a light year apart from each other, but are a billion years older than the sun. In other words, there has been a great deal of time for other civilizations to establish themselves. Having an easily observable neighbor nearby would provide far more incentive for the development of interstellar travel than we have out here in the boondocks. My view is, per a fine analogy from physicist Beatriz Gabo Rivera, that we are like the gorillas in a nature preserve in Africa who know nothing about what is going on outside the preserve. I think aliens have been traipsing around the neighborhood for a very long time indeed. I think it is hilarious that Dr. Seth Shostak, one of the noisier SETI guys, says there is nobody at ZR 1 or ZR 2, because they were listened to by a Southern Radio Observatory 10 years ago. One would think he knows what equipment and frequency alien communicators way ahead of us would use, and that they are trying to attract our attention, which is totally absurd.