Jacques Vallée on the Phenomenon’s Purpose, the Stakes for Humanity, and the System Behind It
In a rare, wide-ranging Sol Forum conversation, internet pioneer, legendary researcher and Sol Emeritus Advisor Jacques Vallée revisited six decades of investigation—and made several statements which, when interpreted with context, carry profound implications for future of science, policy, and humanity generally.
From classified research for the Defense Intelligence Agency to personal experiments designed to provoke “the phenomenon,” Vallée has developed a view that UAP are neither random anomalies nor simply visiting spacecraft, but elements of a control system—a larger, adaptive network that interacts with humanity over time.
1. UAP as a Control System—Not Just Craft
Vallée’s core hypothesis, refined since the 1980s, is that UAP function as part of a meta-system of communication—one that appears in different symbolic forms across history, adapts to human culture, and can subtly influence our development.
The key question, he says, is whether this system is open or closed:
If closed, humanity may be “prisoners” in an environment curated or constrained by a superior intelligence.
If open, it may be possible to communicate with and influence the system—if we can first understand its symbolic “language.”
He warns that no one is currently doing the organized, cross-disciplinary research needed to test this hypothesis, despite DIA-funded infrastructure once being in place to do so.
2. Direct but Elusive Interaction
Vallée describes the data on the phenomenon as paradoxically public and elusive: landing in front of cars, circling fighter jets, and even displaying a sense of humor—yet resisting sustained observation.
In his own attempt to provoke interaction, building an observatory deep in the Northern California redwoods, nothing happened for years—until the final night before selling the property, when an intense ultraviolet-tinged light bathed the forest. For Vallée, this timing was deliberate, almost playful—a “wink” from the system.
His conclusion: to understand the phenomenon, we must stop only observing and start perturbing it, designing experiments that can elicit a response.
3. High-Strangeness and Hidden Incidents
In his latest Forbidden Science volume, Vallée documents cases never before publicized—some involving deaths, injuries, and intelligence-community operations.
One Mojave Desert incident involved large, propellerless discs exchanging laser-like beams; when struck, a disc would vanish and reappear elsewhere. Another involved a Hollywood special effects expert recruited by the NSA to photograph unknown orbital events—until a similar mission ended with the deaths of two agents.
Such cases, he notes, often remain unreported due to stigma, professional risk, or their occurrence in sensitive aerospace testing areas.
4. The Stakes: Human Survival
Perhaps Vallée’s most consequential claim: the phenomenon’s increased intensity may relate to humanity’s approach to a civilizational tipping point.
Citing astronomy’s concept of a “discontinuity” in planetary life—when a species develops technology capable of destroying its own environment—Vallée suggests we may be under heightened observation or influence because of our current trajectory.
The stakes are not about “saving the planet”—Earth will endure—but about our own survival. The phenomenon’s purpose, he speculates, may involve preparing or conditioning humanity for a transition necessary to avoid self-extinction.
5. A Call for Cross-Disciplinary Research
Vallée is blunt: waiting for Congress to “do science” is a mistake. While legislative oversight is essential, breakthroughs will come from labs, fieldwork, and collaboration across disciplines—including physics, information science, biology, and even the arts, which can help capture and interpret experiences that resist verbal description.
Bottom line:
Vallée is not offering answers so much as reframing the questions. His view of UAP as part of a dynamic control system, potentially tied to humanity’s survival, places the phenomenon in a far larger context than the current focus on military encounters or crash retrievals. If he’s right, disclosure is not just about revealing what is known—it’s about learning how to talk back.
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