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Okay, let me try this paper review thing again. I have longer, more line-by-line notes at https://computer.rip/2024-06-14%20cryptoterrestrials.txt, but I'm going to post here with some higher-level takeaways about "The cryptoterrestrial hypothesis," a paper in "Philosophy and Cosmology" by two Harvard Human Flourishing authors and one Montana Tech author.
I decided to read the paper this morning because links to it came to my by way of several UFO mailing lists and communities. I thought it might contain something new or interesting.
It does not. It's actually really boring. If you have a general interest in UFOs, the paranormal, and Fortea in general, nothing in the paper will be unfamiliar.
I think that's actually the single largest problem with this paper, the reason I would have shot it down if I were a referee: there's just nothing to it.
While it presents itself as an argument that researchers should seriously consider the possibility of ancient, pre-human civilizations that still live among us today as an origin of UAP, it spends very little time actually making that argument. The strongest thing it has to say in support of its thesis is that some radical future discovery might lend it support. But you can say that about anything, it's just not really a conclusion or contribution to the art and science or anything at all really
The majority of the paper is sort of a "greatest hits" of Fortea, presenting a whirlwind tour from Reptilians to Lemurians under Mt. Shasta to the fae. The paper scrupulously notes that many of these stories lack credibility, but always gives a tantalizing caveat on the lines of "...has nevertheless
been taken seriously by some observers." Well, that's basically definitional to fringe theories, isn't it?
What most surprises me about the paper, given its Harvard authorship, is its poor quality. Quibbles like misspelling names of cited authors are sadly routine in academic writing today. But the citations... there are almost ten pages of references, but if they're not to other papers by the same authors, they're "first google result" quality. Mostly to paranormal blogs, but the highlight is when the paper cites British tabloids summarizing History Channel shows. Which it does more than once!
So, conclusion in the form of Q&A:
Q: Should we consider cryptoterrestrial civilization seriously as an explanation for UAP?
A: As seriously as you consider any of the possibilities in the fringes of even the UFO community.
Q: Is the Harvard Human Flourishing Program an interesting new venue for UAP research?
A: No, honestly, the quality of this work has me thinking that it's a paper mill.
Q: Does the paper have any new or novel contributions to the field?
A: Nope.
Next time, for UAP Literature Review Hour, I'll try to find something better. There's some good stuff in the open literature now about photogrammetric/kinematic analysis of the Navy videos! Sometimes it goes towards debunking (target object not actually moving in space) but in other cases it makes the case more interesting (lower bound of acceleration of object, assuming correct tracking, extremely high!)