Today's article-for-discussion came from an individual who wishes to remain completely Anonymous, not even any initials; so, thank you, you know who you are.

Now, when I first read this article, I was rather mystified as to why it was sent. This is not to say that it was not interesting. It was, but it was the kind of "interesting" that newspapers used to call "fillers": you'd get a call from an editor saying "I need six column inches of sports or human interest filler", and so on. So I read the column filler with a modicum of interest, until I reached a statement that made me sit up and take notice, for that statement revealed why Anonymous sent the article, because it's a statement with huge implications. Here's the article:

‘Of course we are not alone’: Russian scientist says we’re using wrong tools to hunt for aliens

Note the usual statements about the need for "interdisciplinary approaches", creative thinking, and so on. Maybe to "find ET", says the scientist, we need 24 hour-per-day, 7 days a week global signals scanning to find that "WOW" signal that SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence has been searching for, in vain, for so long.

But ...

...then...

...a bombshell:

He suggests that it’s entirely possible that a number of advanced civilizations have created a quarantine zone around us, complete with a radio blackout, so as not to interfere with our independent development. Panov says astroarchaeology is hugely important to determine whether extraterrestrial life has visited us over the past tens of millions of years. He suggests that highly detailed photography of the surface of the moon is critical to our investigations of our possible extraterrestrial past. (Emphasis added)

Now, as far as I know, Mr. Panov's statement about a "quarantine zone" around the Earth is the first time to my knowledge that an academic has raised this point in connection with the search of extra-terrestrial life. Back inn 2015, I raised the idea in connection with the manuscript of Enoch, and with what I've been calling the "Versailles Template" of a "post-cosmic-war Earth." In Mr. Panov's equally credible speculation, perhaps such a zone exists as a kind of "prime directive" way to embargo information from reaching the earth.

Either way, I find the mention of the quarantine zone in connection to the search for ET to be intriguing from any number of points of view, but let's consider just one, that of my "Versailles Template." IN that model, I assumed that at the end of an ancient interplanetary war the "victors" imposed a kind of enforced "demilitarization" zone around the Earth, and prohibited certain types of "things" in outer space (like weapons). Following this template, a system of monitoring and espionage would be imposed. But one of the things I did not talk about in that model, and that Mr. Panov clearly implies, is that the quarantine also included the notion of no technological or information transmission to the defeated (Germany) that would allow a rearmament.

So if the quarantine model is true, it is as much about keeping information from us, as to keep us from "out there."

Mr. Panov's suggestion here carries a huge epistemological implication, namely, that if there is such a quarantine, then there are active measures both to prevent information from reaching us, or to obfuscate what information as does do so. How might one find out if it's so? I suspect this might be behind his suggestion of a global signals intercept program, scanning frequencies to see which may be "jammed," and so on. Are there anomalous patterns of interference that could only be detected by comparing global patterns of signals disruption, and so on?

And if I can think of these questions as implications of his remarks, rest assured he, and the Russians, already have.

See you on the flip side...