In the last couple months, there has been a rash of UFO sightings in China, not only in rural areas, but also over the metropolises, including the capital. An alien abduction of a Beijing resident has even been reported.
Coming as they did at the turn of the millennium, these events have many wondering: what can they mean? Should we be concerned?
In fact, there is a very logical explanation for the sudden recent increase in UFO activity in China. The answers can be deduced from an examination of the historical record of UFO visits to our planet.
Although no one doubts that UFOs must have visited the Earth many times in the past, the evidence for pre-modern periods is scattered and circumstantial.
That all changed in the late 1940s, when the first major wave of modern UFO sightings began. At that time, the focus of alien activity was the US. Numerous alien abductions occurred throughout the country, and sightings were frequent. Perhaps the most famous was the 1952 and 1965 events, when multiple UFOs flew in patterns -- deemed by experts to be impossible for human-manufactured aircraft -- over Washington D.C., witnessed by hundreds of people.
After that wave, there was something of a lull, although incidents there were periodic. The recent wave of sightings in China represents the second such concentrated wave in modern history.
It is this pattern that provides us with a clue to the explanation. If we think about what aliens would be trying to achieve by their visits, we can see that, in the 1950s, they sought out the US, which was the nation that was set to dominate world affairs. Sure enough, the wave of UFO visits marked a period of unprecedented global hegemony by the US. Thereafter, as we see, the visits tailed off, probably as a result of the cracks in US leadership that appeared in the 1970s, the Vietnam War, the oil shocks, etc.
But the aliens continued to visit the US, albeit less frequently, because they did not have another candidate for world leadership -- until now. This new wave is a clear sign that the aliens have decided that China is set to succeed the US as the most powerful country in the world.
There is another logical support for this conclusion. When the first wave of UFO sightings occurred, the aliens undoubtedly relied on electronic signals to determine their initial choice of country. Since the US was far ahead of the rest of the world in the amount and variety of broadcast signals of all types, they would naturally have been led to the preliminary conclusion that the US was the world leader. Of course, they were correct, but only in simplistic technological terms.
Coming from an unimaginably advanced civilization, we can further presume that, as their understanding of the human race deepened, they must have begun to search for a superior culture as the focus of their investigations -- what else could they select but China, with its 5,000 years of history? The reasoning is almost inescapable.
We can now understand why the Chinese government has been careful not to condemn the sightings. On the contrary, it is a matter of national pride to have been chosen by our alien counterparts as the leaders of Earth. The state has, needless to say, a responsibility to sort out the genuine evidence of contact from the inevitable hoaxes that the Chinese populace are likely to report, in their eagerness to help promote the glory of the nation. And so the Chinese government has wisely given its imprimatur to UFO studies as a legitimate field of scientific inquiry, not a superstitious fantasy like the teachings of the Falun Gong.
Back here in Taiwan, those people in Taiwan still clinging to that old dream of independence can only view these events with dread. In the first place, the fact of impending Chinese hegemony effectively rules out any hope that Taiwan can defend itself. Even worse, one well-reported sighting in the current wave occurred over the north of Taiwan on Dec. 8. This can only mean that, like so many Earthlings before them, the aliens have gotten confused by the name "Republic of China" or, even worse, have actually begun to internalize the "one China" principle!
It was bad enough when Bill Clinton came out in favor of China, but now the aliens, too? Taiwan should probably just give up....
Bo Tedards is a researcher at the Institute for National Policy Research.
It is a good time to be in the air-conditioning business. As my colleagues at Bloomberg News write, an additional 1 billion cooling units are expected to be installed by the end of the decade. It is one of the main ways in which humans are adapting to more frequent and intense heatwaves. With a potentially strong El Nino on the horizon — a climate pattern that increases global temperatures — and greenhouse gas emissions still higher than ever, the world is facing another record-breaking summer, and another one, and another and so on. For many, owning an air conditioner has become a
Election seasons expose societal divisions and contrasting visions about the future of Taiwan. They also offer opportunities for leaders to forge unity around practical ideas for strengthening Taiwan’s resilience. Beijing has in the past sought to exacerbate divisions within Taiwan. For Beijing, a divided Taiwan is less likely to pursue permanent separation. It also is more manipulatable than a united Taiwan. A divided polity has lower trust in government institutions and diminished capacity to solve societal challenges. As my co-authors Richard Bush, Bonnie Glaser, and I recently wrote in our book US-Taiwan Relations: Will China’s Challenge Lead to a Crisis?, “Beijing wants
Taiwanese students spend thousands of hours studying English. Yet after three to five class-hours of English as a foreign language every week for more than nine years, most students can barely utter a sentence of English. The government’s “Bilingual Nation 2030” policy would do little to change this. As artificial intelligence (AI) technologies would soon be able to translate in real time, why should students squander so much of their youth and potential on learning a foreign language? AI might save students time, but it should not replace language learning. Instead, the technology could amplify learning, and it might also enhance
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has nominated New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) as its candidate for next year’s presidential election. The selection process was replete with controversy, mainly because the KMT has never stipulated a set of protocols for its presidential nominations. Yet, viewed from a historical perspective, the KMT has improved to some extent. There are two fundamental differences between the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP): First, the DPP believes that the Republic of China on Taiwan is a sovereign country with independent autonomy, meaning that Taiwan and China are two different entities. The KMT, on the
RSS