Xenoarchaeology: Reality and Fantasy

Cultural Xenoarchaeology For reasons I can’t immediately explain, (the recent rash of technical publications addressing the concept of “xenoarchaeology” or “non-terrestrial artifacts” nonwithstanding,) there is a tantalizing idea cropping up in a number of recent and upcoming films and television programs. (See: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Prometheus, Ancient Aliens.) This concept, simply, involves the […]

Xenoarchaeology imagined: Lovecraft vs. von Däniken

Clashing Pioneers of Xenoarchaeological Thought The idea of alien archaeology, or more appropriately, “Xenoarchaeology,” is a mainstay of current science-fiction. Hopefully, it may soon graduate to the realm of science-fact. In this light, it is fruitful to consider a couple of prime examples of cultural influences and to discuss which amongst them leans more toward fiction or […]

Xenoarchaeology Critical Mass

Xenoarchaeology Rising 2011 has been a good year for the nascent pursuit of xenoarchaeology as serious science. After beginning a conversation with a 2010 Viewpoint article I authored in the journal Space Policy, which was intended as a broad, conceptual justification for the further development of xenoarchaeology as a field, I was rewarded with a generally favorable review […]

Research supports possibility of non-terrestrial artifacts in Solar System

In a professionally-risky but scientifically-admirable move that came as a bit of a shock to me, two Penn State University researchers recently authored a study that claimed, statistically-speaking, that not enough of the planetary surface areas (at sufficient resolution) and volume of the Solar System has yet been surveyed to rule out the presence of what they term “non-terrestrial” […]

New ideas on the altar of science

How are ideas that had once been considered speculative best adopted into the practice of serious scientific investigation? How are speculative ideas most effectively graduated from the realm of science fiction and introduced into scientific discourse? By what benchmarks of conceptual “distance” are speculative concepts evaluated before being considered too fringe for serious consideration? These are questions with which I find myself […]

Resurrecting Astro-paleontology

A quick note today pointing to an interview with astro-paleontology pioneer John Armitage that was recently published on the Space Archaeology blog. In short, Armitage pioneered research (see: Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, vol. 30, pp. 466-9, 1976) that was quite nearly lost to the sands of time until rescued by Steve Wilson and posted […]

Xenoarchaeology Online

I am excited to report that my article, “A call for proactive xenoarchaeological guidelines – Scientific, policy and socio-political considerations,” has been published online by the journal Space Policy as an in-press corrected proof as it awaits publication in an upcoming issue. (I mentioned working on it previously in a post here.) The thrust of […]

Differences between SETI, Astrobiology, UFOlogy

Based on some recent feedback, I’m tempted to pose a question to the cyberverse: What differences do you see, if any, between SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), Astrobiology (study of locations and potential biochemistry of extraterrestrial life), and UFOlogy (study of UFOs)? I ask this as a general point of discussion because some have […]

Alien archeology – now a real science?

Well, I’ve done it. Making good on a promise I made to myself while presenting a poster at the Society of American Archaeology conference in 2008, I recently submitted an article to the journal Space Policy outlining a framework for a science that doesn’t quite exist yet: Xenoarchaeology. “Xeno” is Greek/Latin for “foreign” or “stranger.” […]