Panoramic view of Chichen Itza at sunset. (Credit: Ben McGee)
“UFOs” and Natural Phenomena
Mexican culture, like what we encountered in Brazil during last week’s episode, seems to me to harbor a significantly different view on the possibility of life beyond Earth and sojourns of such life to our world than is commonly held in the United States. In fact, UFOs are frequently associated in Mexico with (and sometimes claimed to precede or foretell) natural events and disasters, such as volcanic eruptions, tsunami, and earthquakes.
This prevalent belief that extraterrestrials are interested in or related to natural terrestrial phenomena provides necessary context for the claims of ET interest in military aircraft, ancient temples, and of “hybrid” organisms featured in this episode. To the point, witnesses to several of the sightings in Mexico alleged (for the first time to my ears) that the unusual objects they observed in the sky themselves seemed to be “alive.”
A plume erupting from volcano Popocatépetl on the outskirts of Mexico City. (Credit: NGT/Dave West)
Popocatépetl and Extraterrestrial Surveys
In what to me as a geologist was an interesting turn, there is a significant amount of interest from regional villagers in the possible relationship between the active volcano on the outskirts of Mexico City, Popocatépetl, and sightings of what locals believed to be extraterrestrial spacecraft. While during our investigation there was no evidence of anything extraordinary in the skies around Popocatépetl or in its volcanic deposits, the conversation did provide an opportunity to talk about where and why we ourselves use spacecraft to investigate other worlds.
As fate would have it, volcanoes are structures of particular interest to planetary geologists, as they allow scientists the ability to access material beneath a world’s surface without actually having to sample, drill, or dig. Many are not aware that Earth is by no means the only volcanic world in the Solar System, nor is it even the most volcanically-active. Planets and moons with either past or present volcanic activity include Mars (see the Tharsis region), home to Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in the Solar System; Jupiter’s moon Io, the most volcanically-active body in the Solar System; and Saturn’s moon Enceladus, home of an array of recently-discovered cryovolcanoes at the world’s south pole.
So, our own space exploration activities demonstrate that there is at least some merit to the concept that volcanoes might serve as targets of extraterrestrial surveillance – a far more logical proposition than, say, aliens fiddling with cows or snatching people from their beds unawares. However, demonstrating that such surveillance is or has occurred is a different matter entirely and something I have found no evidence to support. In all likelihood, strange lights observed near or around a volcano (particularly when it is active) are related to so-called “dirty thunderstorms,” or volcanic lighting, that are induced as a result of the build-up of static charge from colliding ash particles.
Comparison of the "alien baby" specimen and skeleton of a modern marmoset. Skull is to scale. (Credit: Ben McGee/NGT)
The “Alien Baby” and Lessons from Paleontology
As a brief recap, while it was mentioned that multiple DNA tests were performed on the so-called “Alien Baby” that remained inconclusive, there are other, simpler, less expensive and more direct methods to identify an organism. While decidedly less flashy than a DNA test, a good ol’ bone comparison, also known as comparative anatomy, is an excellent place to start.
It occurred to me that the captured creature, which was also reported to have been bathed in tanning acid to kill it, was more skeletal in nature than not. In this light, the skin-and-bones version of the animal, lacking any fur, would be much more identifiable when compared to skeletons of similarly-sized and shaped (i.e., possessing similar morphology) organisms in the region as opposed to trying to identify its appearance as a living creature. I had some experience with this in the context of paleontology, where all that remains to be studied are skeletal relics of animals long-extinct.
This line of thought quickly led to the marmoset, a species of small monkey native to northern South America and often sold as pets, whose living appearance looks little like the “alien baby” but whose underlying skeleton is a dead match. The conclusiveness of the comparison includes unique features like missing molar teeth, a clawed index finger, and the shape and proportion of the skull.
In short, if a marmoset had essentially been burned alive by acid, dissolving its fur and leaving only withered flesh, it would look exactly like the specimen presented in this episode.
View over my own leg out of the plane at 2,000 feet during the infrared oil complex survey. (Credit: Ben McGee)
Unidentified Aircraft or the Oil Complex?
Despite the fact that our own airborne test to see if plumes from burning oil stacks could have been mistaken as UFOs came up with negative results, (adrenaline from the thrill of being strapped to the floor of an airplane with no door at 10,000 feet nonwithstanding), two points prevented me from ruling out the oil field as a culprit: 1) The Mexican military’s FLIR camera was likely much more sophisticated with a higher magnification than our own, and 2) The Canatrell oil stacks may not have even been burning while we were performing our survey.
With this in mind, I decided to perform a strictly geometric analysis on the position of the stacks in the Canatrell oil complex. I had no predisposition toward the oil complex explanation prior to beginning the investigation; However, presuming for the sake of argument that the military could see the oil complex towers, I wanted to know if the pattern of lights would match the video observations. Would the pattern be completely different?
The results, as featured briefly in the episode, were shockingly coincident:
Sight-lines projected through the positions of oil platform stacks at the Canatrell oil complex as compared to the sequence of lights in the military FLIR footage featured in this episode. (Credit: Ben McGee)
Plotting what the oil complex stacks against a horizon nearly 100 miles away would have looked like produces a series of eleven lights in precisely the same pattern as observed by the camera operator in the military footage – at the exact same viewing angle (northwest) and elevation (~zero degrees at the horizon), to boot. Further, what clinched the solution for me was something that is an important concept in science: Prediction. The hypothesis that the “UFO” lights were a result of stack plumes actually predicts that one of the lights in the video, which was actually two overlapping light sources, would appear to become two light sources as the military aircraft traveled from west-to-east.
Excitingly enough, the prediction is borne out by the footage:
Illustration of how the change in viewing angle from west-to-east as the military aircraft moved predicts that one of the UFOs (blue line/arrow) would appear to become two (red lines/arrows), which the footage supports. (Credit: Ben McGee)
So, with the above points taken together, below is a slide summarizing the findings of the geometric analysis:
Summary illustration of the agreement between the lights from the Canatrell oil complex and the Mexican military FLIR footage. (Credit: Ben McGee)
This exercise to me drives home an essential point: that the data must lead an investigation instead of relying on witness testimony, which is susceptible to suggestion and emotion. Certainly, the military crew featured in the episode was alarmed by what they were seeing, (I imagine due to the fact that they themselves were not aware that their camera’s optics could resolve objects as far away as the oil complex,) and their emotional reactions contributed to an escalating scenario aboard the aircraft where the lights appeared persistent and inescapable. Some may point to the fact that the on-board RADAR detected objects in the sky as evidence that these objects were true UFOs, yet the fact that only two or three out of eleven or twelve were “seen” on RADAR immediately indicates a critical problem with the interpretation – likely, the RADAR was picking up much fainter objects in-between their location and that of the oil field some 100 miles away, and the camera was in fact looking far beyond whatever the radar was detecting (civilian aircraft, etc.).
To me, due to the quality of the position and viewing angle data that was provided with the footage, and considering the fact that the angle of view and sequence of lights in the Canatrell oil complex precisely matches the UFO footage along with the predictive power of the oil field hypothesis (accounting for one specific light becoming two), this mystery is considered solved.
Sunset behind the "El Castillo" temple at Chichen Itza, Yucatán. (Credit: Ben McGee)
Wrapping up Mexico and this Season of Chasing UFOs
Whereas in this episode it was presented that we visited the ancient Mayan complex of Chichen Itza to look for some sort of alien organisms, we originally visited the site at night to explore claims of strange beams of light and UFO activity around the temple itself. While we did not witness any of this reported activity, it was here, amidst one of the oldest and most enduring astronomical devices ever constructed (e.g., El Caracol), that the Chasing UFOs project came full circle for me.
Atop the resilient stone, in an ancient cultural environment apparently informed by the same curiosity and drive to understand our place in the cosmos as that which fuels current UFO speculation, it seemed more clear to me than ever that we are not dissimilar when compared with our ancestors. In a very visceral way, it felt obvious that in order to truly honor the legacy of those who in our distant past looked up at the sky and wondered at the celestial sphere‘s mysteries, we must (in the words of the great astronautics pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky) leave the “cradle.”
With all of the places we visited during the project and considering all of the individuals with whom we interacted from around the world that expressed belief in extraterrestrial life, perhaps it is true that we are approaching a time where our cultures manifest a curiosity “critical mass” about our place in the universe and the mysteries beyond Earth. It occurred to me atop the Mayan ruins that one day soon we might rally the support necessary to actually get out there and seek the answers to our questions about the cosmos with our own eyes and hands.
Until then, Semper Exploro – “Always Explore!”
Ben McGee
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Ben McGee is a member of the Chasing UFOs team. A true skeptic by nature, Ben is Chasing UFOs’ resident scientist.
