Note to Substack readers: I would like to start publishing my findings about a document package I have received — description following — even though I have barely begun to sift through, much less fully understand most of the material therein. Successive chapters might therefore arrive here quite slowly, so please be patient. The following first installment was written over a year ago and I have learned much since then. Stay tuned.
Some time ago, what at first seemed to be a standard (.rar) archive file was forwarded to me by — as far as I can tell — an insider working for an amateur SETI1 research group. Loaded into my best archive decompression software, the rather large file instantly produced on the screen only the PsiPhi logo at the top of this page. Clicking the logo, however, produced something resembling a web-page, with a numbered document list presented as clickable links. A search bar was also presented, as well as a shutdown button. I had never seen a .rar file behave this way, as normally the unpacking of such a file requires several seconds or more, if it is a large file. And the "home page" produced by clicking the logo was like no other. It seemed to have a mind of its own.
Every time I opened the main page, (I discovered that merely clicking the .rar file was sufficient to produce the PsiPhi logo), it had "evolved" to show modified or additional links, seemingly based on previous ones I had accessed. For instance, a tree of additional links would appear attached to a link I had just read previously. The search bar was also like none ever seen: an initial query for something like PsiPhi Horizon (see below) gave only one or two results on a first try. Subsequently, the links produced multiplied, and organized themselves in a way that led me through what otherwise would have been a practically impenetrable maze of results.
I suspected that my computer was continuing to access some site on the internet, but no, I disconnected the machine from the internet and isolated it from my local area network as well, since some of the antics the documents were performing seemed like what a computer virus might do. So far, my other machines continue to operate normally, most importantly, the one I use for internet communications such as the present post.
An even stranger phenomenon was soon discovered. I had wondered from the very start how come all the documents were in English, and were even using many of my favorite phrases, and even literary mannerisms. Not only that! After awhile I began to realize that the text of some documents was being altered, automatically, so to speak, as if the document knew something about my previous reading, and was trying to clarify a point or two by changing some wordings, or stressing a given line or paragraph. Clearly, the original .rar file was not a mere static archive file, but an interactive program, perhaps even a complete Operating System. I wondered then whether it might be using the laptop's camera to watch my reactions as I read, but I decided not to test that hypothesis by blocking the camera, thinking that the document-program-OS might "think" I distrusted it... The whole affair was becoming very spooky indeed, but enticing to the point of monopolizing much of my time.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Now to the documents themselves: At the top of the list was a brief cover-note from the sender of the archive file, and then an "open letter" entitled "Letter to the Galaxy", followed by a large collection of what turned out to be technical papers and other documents on various subjects from economics to evolution, philosophy, astrophysics... I decided to start my examination with the letter, which quickly revealed that its author claimed to be an extraterrestrial being who lived on a planet that from his descriptions showed it to be much like our own. As mentioned, at first the list of documents had titles of sometimes rather-long numbers. But as I explored the various documents, each one that I had looked at would then appear in the list not as a mere number, but with a title that I might well have chosen myself. So it was with "Letter to the Galaxy", originally at the top of the list of numbered items with the title "1".
The sender-attached note hinted that the open letter and document collection had been hacked from a government computer, and cautioned me to securely delete the actual source communication that had delivered to me the attached file archive. Seeing that I had been entrusted with these documents, whatever they might finally turn out to be, I immediately acceded to the request in order to protect the sources, so there can be no further examination of the email headers or other indications of the identity of its sender. I apologize to those who would want to extract all possible information about this communication even at the risk that it might entail for those involved. We clearly have a believe-it-or-don't situation as a result, but as I reveal what is written in the documents, it should become clear that I am not toying with the credulity of my readers, and that the document bundle is not only genuine but may well provide us with much information we would not soon discover through our own scientific and philosophical capabilities. My ongoing examination of the documents, still in its early stages as I write these first pages, convinces me that this is in fact the case.
Note also that I have taken extreme precautions to prevent anyone but myself having access to the documents, I will not even mention any of the methods I have used to do so, but rest assured, if you were to raid my home and/or computer network, you would not find copies nor originals of any of the items. And you will have to trust to my discretion as to which documents I believe should be made public, and in what order. Even my first readings of a few of them indicated that there was revolutionary material therein, information that might cause confusion or even public turmoil were it to be released without the necessary introductions. I received no explicit instructions concerning what to do with the documents, but it seems that much, if not most of what I received merits publication if done with careful forethought. And I have to assume the leaker / sender of the file did not supply these items to me merely for my own amusement!
No explanation was given in the cover note about how the documents had been translated, since obviously they were not originally in English. But my discovery about the automatically-changing texts recounted above shows that some sort of universal interactive translation mechanism was an integral part of the original package. I thought that perhaps if I showed one of the documents to my wife, whose native language is French... But no, English prevailed. Perhaps when the logo is clicked for the first time, the native language of the first reader becomes the inalterable default translation. I am not overly concerned with this, and have ruled out any such testing that might interfere with the trust the document-program seemingly exhibits for me, wanting to ensure its recognition of my own trust as well.
In my first readings of the letter the auto-translations were straight-forward and unambiguous, and did not change much at all over time. This would be expected since the letter was dealing with everyday observations and descriptions. But looking at just the first few of the technical papers chosen at random, it became obvious that they were quite beyond the scientific and technical abilities of our own world's institutions. So it will be a challenge to deduce even whether the auto-translations are adequate to convey original meanings, above and beyond the attempt to fully understand the technical matters themselves. I am hoping I am well-grounded enough in the sciences so that the auto-translation mechanisms will lead me through the certain difficulties that will arise.
The tale recounted by this ET individual in his "Letter to the Galaxy" is quite astonishing, so much so that one must banish doubt about its authenticity, fiction always falling short of the strangeness of reality. "No one could make this up" as the saying goes. And ET's tale becomes stranger and stranger the more one thinks about it. The parallels to our own planet and its history and prehistory are quite astonishing, and I hope this is not to some degree an artifact of the auto-translation capabilities of this strange and wonderful operating system. Do my own limitations preclude a faithful rendering of what the "original" documents have to say? I trust that the intelligence that designed it surely took account of such possible pitfalls. Assuming that it is not communicating with someone of minimal scientific understanding, or someone plagued with convictions, contradictions, beliefs... ok, I do not want to brag here, but merely make the reader aware of the problems involved in evaluating this most interesting collection, a veritable library.
It almost seems as if somehow the documents "know" about all sorts of things that I know or have known, but have either forgotten, or perhaps that I am simply not putting the necessary two-and-two together in my attempts to understand the matter at hand. I seem to be "learning" not only from the conscious reading process, but because the documents themselves are (consciously?) guiding me in what I must assume is the correct direction. I have even toyed with the idea, since there seemed to be no reason for me to be the recipient of this document collection, that the act of being forwarded to me was a "decision" of the document-program-OS itself, and probably not because someone at the SETI research group knew that I personally might be a suitable individual to view, and choose what to do with this collection.
Most mysterious: Several of the documents, especially the last few as chronologically sorted, make repeated references to a PsiPhi Boundary, or perhaps PsiPhi Horizon, and I have been hard-pressed to understand the caution and warnings expressed about the phenomenon. Among other readings and summary-writing, I am trying to piece together the several references to this PsiPhi Horizon, since the matter seems crucial to deciphering the fate of that far-away planet and its inhabitants. A few highly complex mathematical analyses in two or three of the documents refer to the phenomenon, and I shall have to explore these further, for they all refer to it using the PsiPhi symbol at the beginning of this page. Why the original document titles are auto-translated to result in the use of the PsiPhi superposed Greek letters remains a complete mystery, but I must assume there is a good reason. I would guess there must be some tie-in with how those symbols are used in our own science and philosophy.
Sadly, ET's story can never be checked since the planet in question is (was) on the other side of the Milky Way galaxy, about sixty thousand light years from us. As mentioned in the cover note, maps of star relationships within the galaxy, included in the collection, allowed an anonymous astronomer in the SETI group to determine the most probable location of the Grey Planet, in the Sagittarius Arm "not far" from NGC5634.
So even if time and distance could be overcome somehow, according to our own scientific understanding an impossibility, the civilization that the individual describes has by now, according to the end of the open letter, extinguished itself through some of the same stupidities we now see here on Earth. And there remains the possible but not-yet understood role of the PsiPhi Horizon, was it some sort of final destructive catalyst involved with the Grey Planet's demise, or were the dismayingly familiar ongoing destructive processes described in the open letter quite sufficient on their own?
Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.
A letter from an alien source. Interesting. Obviously, this alien or alien source would have to be far more advanced than any human could conceive. Whatever life saving info or advice imparted upon us by this mysterious being or source would be akin to giving Aristotle a computer and a smart phone.
Humanity, in its current cave-monic backward evolution will not be capable of making any great leaps. Humanity is ruled by extreme arrogance and there is no room for that in a peaceful and prosperous environment. We are still fighting over who will get to Mars first and claim it with their flag.
Now if this source recommends that we abolish all forms of government and tyranny, I am all antenna.