50 Things Science Cannot Explain, Part 3

In part 1 and part 2 of this 4-part series of blog posts, I listed 25 things that science can't explain. Below is a discussion of some more things that science cannot explain.

#26 Human memory

We know exactly how the memory of our computers and digital devices work. On the lowest level, all information is stored as binary bits, sequences such as 01100111010101; and such bits are stored magnetically on surfaces such as hard drives. But we have no such understanding at all of how our own memory works. Try looking up human memory on the Internet. You will get a lot of discussion that makes quite a few points that don't add up to a substantive answer. We have no idea whether memory is stored chemically, electrically, through neuron connections, through some combination of the three, or through some entirely different means. Nor do we have the slightest idea about what kind of code or alphabet the brain might use to store memory. A modern neuroscientist can say quite a few things about memory, but he can't really explain it.

#27 The reincarnation research of Stevenson

Dr. Ian Stevenson was an University of Virginia professor and MD who was once the head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia. He spent decades gathering evidence for reincarnation, and published a 2268-page two-volume work Reincarnation and Biology, providing a huge amount of evidence. Stevenson's main technique was to investigate reports of children who claimed to have memories of past lives. He produced countless cases in which the details of the claims of the past life were verified. In very many cases the children making these claims seemed to have had birthmarks corresponding to the facts of the claimed previous life. For example, a child claiming to be the reincarnation of someone killed by a head blow might have a scar on his head.

For us to have an explanation of such research, we would need either a parapsychological explanation involving actual reincarnation, or some naturalistic explanation of why children might incorrectly make such claims. Science offers us neither.

#28 The mental abilities of crows and homing pigeons

According to the standard materialistic thinking that intelligence is purely a function of the brain, we would not expect that any small birds would have much intelligence. But scientific studies involving crows show that they have astonishing mental powers. One scientific study found that crows are as clever as children between the age of five and seven. Homing pigeons are pigeons that can find their way home over very large distances, sometimes more than 1000 miles. Science offers no good explanation for either of these capabilities.

#29 The existence of man's higher mental capabilities

Humans have some capabilities that we can explain from an evolutionary standpoint, such as vision, the ability to run, the ability to grasp, and the ability to detect distant predators. We can explain the growth of such things by saying that the more humans developed such capabilities, the more likely they were to survive – so natural selection caused such capabilities to grow. But there are quite a few refined characteristics of humanity that cannot be explained in terms of evolution and natural selection. They include man's spiritual capacity, aesthetic appreciation, compassion, mathematical abilities, language abilities, and the ability to perform philosophical thinking. None of these things made a primitive caveman more likely to survive until reproduction, so none of them can be explained by referring to natural selection or evolution. How did man get such capabilities? Science has no real answer.

#30 Charge conservation

Above the subatomic level, it is true in nature that the smaller or less massive a thing is, the more common it is. But when we come to the subatomic level, such a principle is abandoned. Protons are 1836 times more massive than electrons, but as far as we can tell, protons are about as common as electrons. This is a very convenient state of affairs, as atoms require an equal number of protons and electrons. Life would probably be incredibly difficult or impossible if electrons were about a thousand times more common than protons, as there would be so many excess electrical charges lying around that people would probably kill themselves whenever they touched a rock.

A scientist might claim to explain the electrical balance of the universe by evoking the law of the conservation of charge, the law that when something like a high-speed particle collision occurs, the number of stable positive charges that result must be the same as the number of stable negative charges that result. But scientists have no explanation for why such a law should exist. When we consider that we have no understanding of why there should not be a universe with zero electrical charges, or a universe with nothing but positive electrical charges, or a universe with nothing but negative electrical charges, it seems all the more inexplicable that nature should have some built-in “book balancing” system that guarantees that the total number of positive charges always balances the total number of negative charges.

#31 Nina Kulagina

Nina Kulagina was a Soviet woman who seemed to have astonishing psychokinetic powers. She was studied at length by scientists who saw evidence of highly paranormal abilities, and who could find no evidence of trickery.

In the video below we see Kulagina apparently moving small objects such as match sticks in some paranormal way, even if the objects are enclosed in a transparent container (which should have prevented any possibility of fraud). Science has no explanation for this anomaly. 

 

#32 The tether incident on STS-75

On the 75^th space shuttle mission (STS-75), astronauts deployed into space an object with a thin tether that was supposed to stretch to a length of 12 miles. The tether broke, and astronauts filmed its appearance in space. The video showed an extremely strange event in which what looked like a swarm of objects floated around the tether. Although later dismissed as mere dust particles near the camera, most people watching the video get an impression of something totally different. The objects floating around the tether wiggle around like microbes seen under a microscope. Moreover, many of the objects look very similar, appearing to have some kind of hole in the middle. Some of the objects are seen moving behind the far end of the very distant tether, something completely incompatible with an explanation of nearby dust particles.

Science offers no good explanation for this amazing event, which seems to point towards some reality entirely beyond our understanding. The objects photographed could be some kind of objects of alien manufacture, or perhaps some totally different paranormal phenomenon having nothing to do with extraterrestrials.

#33 The improbable smoothness of the Big Bang

We know that the early universe was incredibly smooth. About 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe was uniform to 1 part in 100,000. We know that from the cosmic background radiation, which has no lumps greater than 1 part in 100,000. You may get the wrong idea by looking at one of those maps of the cosmic background radiation that show different colors. Those maps are amplifying differences of only 1 part in 100,000. A map of the cosmic background radiation that does not use such an amplification would consist of a single color. 

But such almost perfect smoothness, physicist Sean Carroll has pointed out, would not occur in more than the tiniest fraction of the trajectories that the universe might have had after an event such as the Big Bang. How small is that fraction? On page 21 of a scientific paper Carroll estimates that “the total fraction of the trajectories that are smooth at early times” is very roughly 1 in 10 to the 66 millionth power. That's a fraction equal to 1 in x, where x is 10 followed by 66 million zeroes.

How come nature landed this “hole in one”? How did nature's arrow hit this very distant bullseye? Science has no explanation. As Carroll points out in his paper, a theory of cosmic inflation does not solve the problem:

Inflation, therefore, cannot solve this problem all by itself. Indeed, the measure reinforces the argument made by Penrose, that the initial conditions necessary for getting inflation to start are extremely fine-tuned, more so than those of the conventional Big Bang model it was meant to help fix.

#34 The careers of Leonora Piper and Gladys Osborne Leonard

Mediums often seem to have knowledge acquired by paranormal means. The standard skeptical explanation for such mediums is that they either engage in fraud, or engage in an information-fishing technique called cold reading. But such explanations fail to explain the cases of Leonora Piper and Gladys Osborne Leonard.

Leonora Piper was a medium investigated for years by scientists and skeptics. She was investigated by an extreme skeptic named Richard Hodgson, who set out with the goal of debunking her, and even had her trailed by detectives. After a long study of her, Hodgson became convinced she was obtaining information by paranormal means. The same conclusion was reached by the eminent psychologist William James, who also investigated her. Piper was never found cheating.

A similar case was that of Gladys Obsborne Leonard, who was the subject of more than 35 articles and papers published in the Society for Psychical Research and the American Society for Psychical Research. Leonard excelled in what are known as book and newspaper tests, a type of test that would seem to offer no possibility of fraud, and in which there is no possibility of success through cold reading. Like Piper, Leonard was never found guilty of cheating or fraud.

#35 Atomic quantization

The subatomic level does not allow a continuous range of values. Instead only certain values are allowed. Electrons are not allowed to have any old energy level within an atom (and if this were allowed, electrons would fall into the nucleus, and atoms would not be stable). Instead electrons can have only a certain relatively small number of possible energy levels within an atom. It's rather like a school that only allows students who weigh 70 pounds, 85 pounds or 93 pounds. Why does this restriction exist? Science cannot tell us. The restriction seems all the more remarkable when we consider that outside of an atom, electrons can have any degree of energy.

#36 Dreams

Dreams seem to serve no purpose, so why should we have them? Science has no real answer.

50 Things Science Cannot Explain, Part 2

In part 1 of this 4-part series of blog posts, I listed 13 things that science can't explain. Below is a discussion of 12 more things that science cannot explain.

#14 The alignment of quasar polarization vectors

Quasars are very energetic astronomical objects associated with the cores of very distant galaxies. Quasars shoot out jets of gas in a particular direction. Scientists know of no reason why these jets of gas should not be pointing in random directions.

But surprisingly, what are called the polarization vectors of quasars tend to be aligned in the same direction in particular regions of space. In one gigantic area of space, they may be aligned in one direction, and in another huge region of space, they may be aligned in some different direction. This is an unexplained cosmic anomaly that leaves astrophysicists scratching their heads in bewilderment, as discussed here.

#15 The career of Daniel Dunglas Home

Daniel Dunglas Home (1833-1886) was a 19^th century man with a seemingly unparalleled career as a worker of paranormal wonders. He traveled around for many years working wonders in many different houses of the upper class. Many very distinguished witnesses reported that he could do an astonishing array of marvels. These included feats such as elongation (making his body longer); making an entire room shake; playing musical instruments without touching them; picking up hot coals and holding them for some time without damaging his hands; and also the levitation of heavy tables and his own body. In one famous incident, it was reported by 3 distinguished witnesses (including the earl of Dunraven, Lord Adare) that Home had levitated, floated out of a window, and floated back in another window. A very distinguished scientist (Sir William Crookes) investigated Home and reported that several of his paranormal wonders were genuine. Home was never found guilty of fraud. No explanation is offered by scientists to account for these facts.

#16 The large-scale existence of homosexuality

From an evolutionary standpoint, the existence of homosexuality is a great puzzle. It is believed that homosexuality is something inherent, not a choice. So from a Darwinian standpoint, homosexuality must be due to some genetic factors. But if such genetic factors existed, they should have become less and less prevalent as time passed. This is because evolution tends to work very efficiently to increase the prevalence of anything that causes additional reproduction, and it also tends to work very efficiently to decrease the prevalence of anything that causes less reproduction. So from a Darwinian standpoint, the large-scale existence of homosexuality is basically inexplicable. Scientists have made  some attempts to explain the existence of homosexuality, but  none of them are convincing.

#17 Acupuncture

Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese medical technique involving sticking needles in the body. It has a long history of being medically successful in relieving pain and alleviating symptoms, but scientists have basically no idea as to why it should work.

#18 Quantum entanglement

Quantum entanglement is a baffling phenomenon in which a change in the state of one set of particles seems, in effect, to instantly produce a similar (or opposite) effect in another set of particles, even though the two sets of particles may be very far away. Quantum entanglement is sometimes called “spooky action at a distance.” Scientists have no explanation as to why particles should act in such a coordinated way.

#19 The vacuum's low density

Scientists say that the vacuum of empty space should be seething with energy, as what are called virtual particles pop into existence and pop out of existence. Calculations based on quantum field theory lead to the conclusion that ordinary space should have an energy density so great that each cubic centimeter of space should have many times more mass-energy than the mass-energy in a cubic centimeter of solid steel. But for some reason the vacuum of empty space is many, many trillions of times less dense than predicted by quantum field theory. Scientists have no explanation for this, which is one of the great outstanding puzzles of modern physics, as discussed here.

#20 The faint young sun paradox

Models of solar evolution lead scientists to conclude that the sun should have given off much less heat billions of years ago. In fact, a straightforward calculation leads to the conclusion that our planet should have been entirely frozen until about 1.7 billion years ago. But scientists think that life is more than a billion years older than that. How could life have begun if the planet was apparently too cold for that to have happened? Scientists have no good explanation, as discussed here.

#21 Remote viewing

For more than a decade the United States government funded research on remote viewing, which is allegedly the ability of some people to be able to kind of “send out their minds” to get information about remote locations. Despite many successful trials, the program was finally canceled. To explain remote viewing, we would need either an explanation of why it exists, or an explanation of why positive results might have so often been reported if it does not exist. Science offers neither of these explanations.

#22 The fine-tuning of the Higgs field

In modern physics there is a “naturalness” problem regarding the Higgs field, a very important all-pervasive field that helps determine the mass of fundamental particles. The problem is discussed here. The problem is basically that we should not at all expect the Higgs field to have the low value that it has, but some other value more than a billion times larger. Science currently has no good explanation for this anomaly. There is an incredibly ornate attempt to explain it away through a theory called supersymmetry, but recent experimental results at the Large Hadron Collider have almost ruled out that theory.

#23 The exact matching of the proton charge and the electron charge

Our existence depends on an exact numerical coincidence in nature: the coincidence that all protons have a particular electrical charge of 1.6021765 X 10^-19 coulomb, which is exactly and precisely the opposite of the electrical charge of each electron (-1.6021765 X 10^-19 coulomb). If this coincidence did not happen to exist, stars and planets would not be able to hold together, and we wouldn't be here. Now this coincidence would not be too surprising if all protons had the same mass as each electron. Then we could simply say, “Protons and electrons have the same mass, so it's not too surprising that their charges are the same.” But in reality, each proton is 1836 times more massive than each electron. So the fact that the charge of the proton is the exact opposite of the charge of the electron is something in need of explanation. But modern physics offers no explanation for this coincidence.

#24 The “global consciousness effect” as shown in random number generators

The Global Consciousness Project is a long-running project that uses a worldwide network of continually running random number generators. The project correlates the output from these random number generators with notable world events. The project concludes that there is a very significant deviation between the results of the random number generators (during notable world events) and the output that would be expected by chance. The cumulative deviation from chance is growing larger and larger as time passes. The project estimates the likelihood of the total deviation from chance is about 1 in 3,000,000,000,000. Science has no explanation for this anomaly.

 #25 Brain function anomalies

According to the standard scientific story, your consciousness is produced entirely by your brain. But there are some strange anomalies that seem hard to explain if that is the case. As discussed here, there are documented cases of people who functioned very well even though they had lost half or more of their brains. Science has no explanation for such anomalies, other than the vague word “plasticity,” which doesn't really explain anything.

50 Things Science Cannot Explain, Part 1

Science is a good and great thing, and it is very good at explaining quite a few things, such as the production of energy by the sun, the appearance of volcanoes and tsunamis, and the details of biological reproduction. Some like to think that science has an explanation for almost everything. But this is far from the truth. In reality, there are many things that science has no credible explanation for. In this four-part series of blog posts, I will list 50 such things.

#1 The origin of the universe (the Big Bang)

Scientists say the universe began in an incredibly hot and dense state (supposedly an infinitely dense singularity). But they have no explanation at all for what may have caused this event. The only attempts to explain this event have been purely speculative.

#2 The existence of matter rather than just energy

Scientists say the Big Bang should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter. When a matter particle comes into contact with an antimatter particle, both are converted into pure energy (photons). Scientists say that given the incredible density at the Big Bang, all of the universe's matter particles should have combined with antimatter particles, leaving a universe with nothing but energy. But instead we have a universe in which there is lots of matter, but no detectable antimatter. Scientists call this puzzle the mystery of matter/antimatter asymmetry. Scientists have been scratching their heads over this issue for decades, but don't seem to be getting anywhere in solving it.

#3 Extrasensory perception

As discussed in this post, very strong evidence has been gathered over more than 80 years for the existence of extrasensory perception. Much of this evidence has been gathered under carefully controlled scientific conditions that meet all the standards of modern experimental science. Science offers no explanation for why the human mind should have such an ability. Many a modern scientist prefers to simply deny that there is any evidence for the phenomenon, despite the accumulation of a mountain of evidence for its existence, both laboratory evidence and quite common anecdotal evidence.

#4 The origin of life from chemicals

Scientists say that the first life consisted of self-replicating molecules simpler than cells. But scientists have no explanation for the origin of the first self-replicating molecules. Scientists have been trying for decades to figure out how simpler chemical compounds could have developed into self-replicating molecules, but have made little progress on this matter. Part of the problem is that the main way of explaining the development of complexity is biological evolution. But before there were self-replicating molecules, there could have been no biological evolution. So biological evolution can't explain the origin of the first self-replicating molecules.

#5 The origin of the genetic code

In order for life to begin, you need not merely self-replicating molecules, but the genetic code, which is kind of a simple language used in the production of proteins. The origin of this genetic code is an unexplained mystery.

#6 Apparitions

Although skeptics may say that ghost sightings are a relic of the past, all available evidence is that apparition sightings are not any less frequent now than in the past. There is evidence that a significant fraction of humanity may have experienced an apparition sighting or a similar experience. What does modern science have to say about this phenomenon? Virtually nothing. There is no prevailing theory to explain away such sightings. The simplest natural explanation – hallucinations – is not credible, because apparitions seem to be experienced by such a significant fraction of the population, most of whom have no psychiatric symptoms. Nor can one plausibly explain apparitions as hallucinations caused by fear, as there is no evidence that fear produces hallucinations; and apparitions often are reported as sudden appearances by people who are not afraid.

#7 The existence of consciousness

The origin of consciousness is the problem of how it is that consciousness could have originated long ago from mere protoplasm. To a person who is a reductionist, and who believes that all human consciousness is merely a chemical and electrical by-product of the brain, this problem may not seem like much of a mystery. But the origin of consciousness has seemed like quite a mystery to those who have considered how different Mind is from matter. To some, the idea of mind arising from mere matter seems as hard to explain as the inverse (the idea of matter arising from mere mind, as might happen if you thought into existence an apple).

Here is another way to consider the mystery of the origin of consciousness. Let us define a philosophical zombie (for lack of a better term) as a person who acts like a human but has no real inner consciousness or self or private thoughts or inner emotions. We can imagine a race of such beings existing on our planet rather than human beings. Biologically, such a race seems every bit as plausible to exist as the human race (or even more so, since less is required from the brain). So why doesn't such a race exist rather than our race? Science has no answer.

#8 Why there is something rather than nothing

The mystery of existence is simply the mystery of why anything exists at all. In other words, why is there something rather than nothing? The simplest possible state of existence is eternal absolute nonexistence: a state in which nothing exists (no God, no universe, nothing). So why did not this elegantly simple state of existence (the state of absolute nothingness) prevail, rather than our messy, complicated universe? You can't answer the question by imagining (in a quantum mechanical way) that a vacuum is unstable, because an unstable quantum mechanical vacuum is something, rather than nothing, and the question is why something exists rather than nothing.

It would seem that we cannot have the slightest hope that science will ever be able to solve this problem. We cannot hope that science might discover something such as some natural law that guarantees the existence of something, because such a natural law would itself be something in need of explanation; and we could always ask why was there not any such natural law, and not anything else?

#9 Near death experiences

For decades people who came close to death have been reporting amazing experiences involving things such as seeming to float out of their bodies, traveling through some mysterious tunnel, encountering a Being of light, and encountering dead relatives. Quite a few examples can be found here.  Science has no good explanation for this phenomenon. We cannot plausibly explain near-death experiences by assuming oxygen deprivation, because we have plenty of accounts of pilots and mountain climbers who experienced oxygen deprivation, and the effects reported do not strongly resemble those of near death experiences. We also cannot explain near-death experiences as being the result of drugs, as no known drug given to dying people produces similar accounts, and the accounts often occur when people have not recently been given drugs.

#10 The fine-tuning of nuclear physics

This article yesterday gave a good overview of the work of a scientist who has done computer simulations to help answer the question: how big a change in some fundamental physical constants (the quark masses and what is called the fine structure constant) would mess things up so that the universe wouldn't have abundant amounts of carbon and oxygen (both requirements for living things)? The scientist came up with an answer of about 2 percent. It seems that our universe is fine-tuned so that it has two of the prerequisites of living things, abundant amounts of carbon and oxygen.

Scientists have no explanation for this example of cosmic fine-tuning. I am not counting the idea of a multiverse (the possibility of some huge collection of universes) as an explanation. Since we have no verified example of anything ever being explained by the assumption of a huge collection of universes, a multiverse explanation is disreputable. Because it is unverifiable, the idea of a vast set of other universes is not really a scientific explanation, but a metaphysical type of claim. Also, we wouldn't explain fine-tuning in this universe by assuming the existence of many other universes, because the existence of such other universes would not make it any more likely that this particular universe would have the characteristics needed for life.

#11 The more dramatic cases of table tipping

Table tipping was hugely popular during some years in the nineteenth century. A group of people would often get together, lay their hands gently on a table, and find after a while that the table would start moving about or tilting. Spiritualists said this was evidence of intervention by spirits of the dead, although an alternate paranormal explanation is that somehow a group of people acting together can produce a small psychokinetic “mind over matter” effect. Skeptics may say that table tipping is no longer observed, but that's not correct. On www.youtube.com if you search for “table tipping” you can find 17,000 videos, some of which are very spectacular.

Science has no real explanation for the more dramatic cases of table tipping. There is a theory that something called the “ideomoter effect” causes people to subconsciously move tables while having their finger tips on top of them. But while such a theory might account for a little bit of movement of a very light table, such a theory cannot explain the more dramatic cases of table tipping shown on www.youtube.com, which show tables (sometimes heavy ones) dramatically moving about when people simply lightly lay their finger tips on top of them.

#12 The existence and persistence of spiral galaxies

There are two great marvels to appreciate in the fact that we look out and see so many spiral galaxies in the universe. The first marvel is that any spiral galaxies should even have formed after the Big Bang. One would expect that an inconceivably violent explosive event such as the Big Bang should have produced only the wreckage of a universe, not a universe in which beautiful and orderly spiral galaxies are abundant. Scientists know that certain parameters such as the gravitational constant had to be just right for galaxies to have formed. 

Spiral galaxy M101 (Credit: NASA)

The other great marvel involving these spiral galaxies is that they have continued to exist for billions of years. There is an unsolved problem called the winding problem, which is that the rotation of spiral galaxies should cause them to lose their spiral shape after only a few rotations, which would occur in about 600 million years. But somehow spiral galaxies have persisted for a period more than 10 times longer, for more than 10 billion years. There is currently no adequate scientific explanation for this.

#13 The more dramatic cases of unidentified flying objects

Reports of astonishing UFOs in the sky have continued for more than 50 years, and there are many dramatic photos and videos to substantiate the phenomenon. Does science offer any natural explanation? It can only explain the less dramatic cases. Explanations such as “seeing Venus” or “swamp gas” or “reflections in the windshield” cannot explain very bright UFOs seen outside of a car far away from a swamp.

But what about the simple explanation that UFOs really are alien spacecraft from another planet? Isn't that a good scientific explanation for UFO's? But the problem is that it is often reported that UFOs accelerated at enormous speeds that would kill any life forms in them. Also, if UFOs are from some other planet, how come astronomers cannot seem to detect any extraterrestrial “mother ship” out in outer space?

So we must also put down UFO's as something science cannot currently explain.

In my next post on this blog, I will describe 12 or 13 additional things science cannot explain; and by the time the 4-part series is over, 50 such items will be listed.

A Preternatural Plume on Mars

In March 2012 a vast plume was observed in the high upper atmosphere of Mars. A scientific paper on the phenomenon was just published in the leading scientific journal Nature. The Washington Post has an article on the plume entitled “The massive plume on the surface of Mars no one can explain.”

The plume had a diameter of 600 miles, and reached a height of 120 miles. It persisted for about 10 days. Below is a photo from the Nature paper.  The chart shows the height, in hundreds of kilometers.

There are three natural possibilities scientists have considered to explain the amazing phenomenon, but none of them are satisfactory. The possibilities are listed below:

An “ice cloud.” In the Nature paper, scientists calculated whether the plume can be explained as an ice cloud. They concluded that the temperature in the Martian atmosphere would need to be more than 100 degrees colder than expected for such a cloud to have formed. Also, ice crystals have never been observed to rise more than 60 miles in the Martian atmosphere, only half the height of the mysterious plume.

A dust cloud. Summarizing the findings of the Nature paper, Time magazine says “the reflectivity was all wrong” for a dust cloud explanation. Furthermore, in order for such a huge plume to have arisen, there would have had to have been a huge dust storm on the surface of Mars in March 2012, and no such storm was observed. Previously observed dust clouds never rose higher than 37 miles – less than a third of the height of the gigantic Martian plume.

An aurora. An aurora is a cloud of charged particles from the sun, one that interacts near a planet because of the planet's magnetic field. But the magnetic field of Mars is much less than Earth's, meaning auroras are smaller and less frequent. To explain the dramatic plume as an aurora, there would need to have been some huge surge in the solar wind that produces the particles in an aurora. Such surges sometimes occur, but as the Nature paper points out, no such surge in solar activity occurred in March of 2012. The Nature paper also says an aurora model “falls short of the reported plume brightness by orders of magnitude.” The phrase “orders of magnitude” means a factor of at least 100. In short, the Mars plume seems to have been way too bright to have been an aurora.

In short, scientists have no suitable explanation for the mysterious Mars plume. We can therefore call the plume “preternatural,” which is a neutral term meaning “resembling something paranormal or supernatural.” We may therefore allow ourselves to consider some unusual possible explanations entirely different from the ones previously listed. I do not claim that any of these is likely to be true, but they are at least interesting to consider.

Possibility 1: Evidence of aliens tinkering around Mars. Whenever you raise the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial activity on Mars, skeptics say something along the lines of: “Don't be ridiculous –conditions on Mars are too harsh for intelligent life to have evolved there.” But this argument is not convincing. Extraterrestrials may have come to Mars from some other solar system. It could be that the Mars plume is somehow the result of activity by visitors from some other solar system. Perhaps they were building some underground base, and raised a huge cloud of dust during construction. Or perhaps they are testing out some huge cloud to be used in a gaseous attack on our planet – similar to the gas attacks imagined by H.G. Wells in The War of the Worlds.

Possibility 2: Vaporous life-forms hanging around Mars. Whenever we think of extraterrestrial life, we tend to think of either beings that are flesh-and-blood like us, or beings that are robotic. But some extraterrestrials might be neither of these. They might be cloud-like entities that drift around like the gas clouds that drift through deep space. To read more about such a possibility, read my previous blog post Mind Mist: The Possibility of Gaseous Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It could be that the strange plume on Mars was either a single huge gaseous intelligence or perhaps a kind of gaseous intelligence that is a “group mind” made of a swarm of smaller entities.

Possibility 3: A sign from some mysterious superhuman intelligence, extraterrestrial, spiritual, or “other dimensional.” There is substantial evidence to suggest that some non-human intelligence may be signaling its existence to mankind, through manifestations that include a series of strange phenomena. Such phenomena may include crop circles, strange objects on the surface of Mars, UFO's and orbs. (See this site for some very dramatic newly released orb photographs that are extremely difficult to explain away.) Perhaps the gigantic Mars plume is just another sign of this type – a manifestation left by some unknown superhuman intelligence that is trying to attract our attention through various "signs and wonders."