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Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon Paperback – March 2, 2019

by Dr. Michael P Masters (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 268 ratings
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Could “UFOs” and “Aliens” simply be us, but from the future?
This provocative new book cautiously examines the premise that extraterrestrials may instead be our distant human descendants, using the anthropological tool of time travel to visit and study us in their own hominin evolutionary past. Dr. Michael P. Masters, a professor of biological anthropology specializing in human evolutionary anatomy, archaeology, and biomedicine, explores how the persistence of long-term biological and cultural trends in human evolution may ultimately result in us becoming the ones piloting these disc-shaped craft, which are likely the very devices that allow our future progeny to venture backward across the landscape of time. Moreover, these extratempestrials are ubiquitously described as bipedal, large-brained, hairless, human-like beings, who communicate with us in our own languages, and who possess technology advanced beyond, but clearly built upon, our own.
These accounts, coupled with a thorough understanding of the past and modern human condition, point to the continuation of established biological and cultural trends here on Earth, long into the distant human future.
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  1. Print length
    319 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    March 2, 2019
  4. Dimensions
    6 x 0.72 x 9 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    1733634061
  6. ISBN-13
    978-1733634069
  7. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Masters Creative LLC (March 2, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 319 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1733634061
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1733634069
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.07 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.72 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 268 ratings

About the author

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Dr. Michael P Masters

Dr. Michael P Masters

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Dr. Michael P. Masters is a professor of biological anthropology at Montana Technological University in Butte, Montana. He received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from The Ohio State University in 2009, where he specialized in hominin evolutionary anatomy, archaeology, and biomedicine.

Recent research examines the premise that UFOs and ‘Aliens’ could be our future-human descendants, returning to visit and study their own evolutionary past. In 2019, he published 'Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon,' which is a broad-based scientific examination of this idea.

His second book, 'The Extratempestrial Model,' published June 1, 2022, further scrutinizes this time-travel theory, with a focus on abductee and contactee accounts in the context of this and other theories put forth to explain this complex and mysterious phenomenon.

And his most recent book, 'Revelation: The Future Human Past,' published June 1, 2023, digs deeper into this intertemporal hominin descendants question, but in the context of a satirical time travel science fiction novel.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
268 global ratings
Excellent Book...A Crown Jewel in the UFO Field.
5 Stars
Excellent Book...A Crown Jewel in the UFO Field.
Having "read them all" over the past 40 years in the pursuit of answers to my own questions, Dr. Masters' book, IDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS, is truly top-tier in its approach and insight into to subject of the origin of UFOs and their accompanying personnel. A clean, clear and satisfying read for the novice as well as those experienced in the genre.Thank you and congratulations Dr. Masters on a job well done.- Wm. K. Daw
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Top reviews from the United States

Jeanna A.
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!
Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2024
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Great insight and knowledge. I'm a believer!
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Michael E. Zimmerman
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent answer to the question: Are ETs our own descendants visiting us from the distant future?
Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2021
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Identified Flying Objects, by biological anthropologist Michael P. Masters, is a remarkable, in-depth examination of the possibility that the Greys associated with alien abduction are not from other stars or galaxies, but instead are our descendants who use time-travel to examine what their ancestors were like thousands of years ago. This hypothesis is not new—a number of writers have proposed this way of making sense of so-called “alien” visitors. But Masters takes the analysis of this possibility to a whole new level, by bringing to bear a host of disciplines—including astrophysics, anthropology, biology, philosophy, time-studies, biocultural hominim evolution—to make the case that aliens are not extraterrestrial, but rather extratempestrial. Masters carefully and persuasively invites skeptics, including many academics, to take a look at the widespread reports of human encounters with technology far in advance of anything we possess, and telephathic beings who resemble us as we might look thousands of years hence. Anyone with a shred of interest in this topic—and who cannot have such an interest in UFOs or UAP or IFO (Identified Flying Objects, as Masters calls them) in light of recent disclosures by the Department of Defense?—will learn a great from this learned book. It is not always easy reading, but those who persevere will be richly rewarded.
Perhaps wisely focusing on only one or two kinds of ETs (extratempestrials), namely, alien Greys, Masters pays little attention to the panoply of other bizarre beings encountered in association with flying saucers. He briefly mentions reptilian and insectoid beings, but suggests without argument that they too might have something to do with future human evolution. So far as I recall, he does not mention the tall blond Nordic type of alien, nor any of the dozens of other creatures identified with flying saucers and other hyper-advanced means of transportation. It is possible that the Greys are in fact our temporally far-flung descendants, but it is also possible that many of the other reported creatures are somehow trans-dimensional, capable of manifesting on the physical plane, although such a capacity has yet to be defined in a satisfactory manner. Efforts to do so are motivated by the high strangeness of paranormal phenomena, including Bigfoot, appearances often occur in connection with UFO sightings. Masters wants to make UFOs/IFOs a legitimate object of inquiry for academics and other interested parties, so he has to draw the line somewhere. He doesn’t want to muddy the water by bringing up paranormal phenomena even stranger and more challenging than visits by our time-traveling descendants. Rather, he invites his colleagues first to step into the shallows before venturing into deeper waters.
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Eric A Wojciechowski
4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent theoretical look at the phenomenon
Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2021
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What if some, and I mean some, (as Stanton T. Friedman used to emphasize during his lectures, pointing his finger in the air, making underlining motions), some UFOs turn out to be real aircraft piloted by an intelligence that isn’t human? It’s the question that gets all of us UFO fans into this subject. And while aliens from outer space is the go-to answer for many, us skeptics of that theory think there are more prosaic answers to most cases.

But what if, just what if, some UFOs really are amazing wonderous machines with pilots? What if we got conclusive proof of just this much? We’d have to explain that and that’s what this book sets out to do.

Unlike most UFO books where a preferred hypothesis is declared up front with data shoehorned in to fit, Masters doesn’t claim his hypothesis is the answer. He appears to still be on the fence as to whether or not this is real, taking a scientific approach of letting the data speak for itself and we’ll see. And based on the data so far, here’s what Masters hypothesizes.

Masters makes a case that if some UFOs turn out to be real aircraft with real pilots, the best answer for them is not aliens from outer space but future humans returning to the past for study.

Masters brings to the table his education and expertise in several fields. According to his bio at Montana Tech University, he’s a professor of anthropology. He earned a Ph.D. in the subject from Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio in 2009. He’s taught, “…biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, archaeology, economic anthropology and globalization, sociology, and cultural diversity…”. There’s more but let this suffice to say his take on the matter is an educated one.

Masters’ seems most qualified in his discussion of the creatures people claim to have encountered. His education in the matter of human evolution and evidence based conclusions on what humans could look like in the future is impressive and he provides a lot of information that suggests we really could grow into the alien greys that have come to dominate the UFO literature and witness accounts. When discussing UFOs, most people will use the generic term aliens but Masters calls them Extratempestrials, meaning humans who have traveled back in time.

There was one caveat I considered while reading this and it was that the alien greys are only one of so many different creatures people claim to have encountered. Just look at the Alien Timeline prepared by Joe Nickell (first published in the September/October 1997 Skeptical Inquirer).

Masters does, however, at least address the numerous differences and notes we could be dealing with human evolution from many different times. Perhaps there’s travelers from twenty-thousand years in the future to millions of years. And looking at this timeline it’s clear the majority are anthropomorphic. Who knows what humans will eventually evolve into (through natural and artificial selection) in the future.

Speaking of anthropomorphic, Masters spends a lot of time showing that the extraterrestrial hypothesis fails on numerous levels, a lot having to do with these aliens looking very much like humans. The chances of extraterrestrials evolving on a different planet in a different star system with different factors influencing the organism is simply impossible to have created two (let alone more) creatures that are bipedal, anthropomorphic. Even if you come away from this book unconvinced of the time traveler hypothesis, I believe Masters has annihilated an extraterrestrial hypothesis.

And that would leave either Masters’ time traveler hypothesis or a purely human generated, psychological hypothesis to explain the UFO phenomenon.

Masters also spends a lot of time showing that time travel is theoretically possible. And while the arguments here are impressive, I must admit physics is where I’m seriously lacking in expertise, or even basic concepts. I’m simply not qualified to determine if the arguments presented are correct, impractical or needing serious revision. This area is where smarter people than I will have to comment on. But at the very least I’m aware that we can never say never because experts have done so in the past regarding other matters only to be proven wrong. Who knows? Maybe time travel will be possible in the future.

Masters discusses some cases in UFO lore that could show proof of his time traveler hypothesis. These were not entirely convincing to me. Some of them have other more logical and less extraordinary explanations. But I’m a skeptic on most UFO cases because each case someone decides to take a deep dive on either either ends up with a quality mundane explanation or doesn’t have enough information to be solved. I’m partial to the work of Robert Sheaffer here and consider it mandatory reading of his book, Bad UFOs, if you want to be well rounded in studying this phenomenon.

But this doesn’t damage Masters’ time traveler hypothesis. It’s very possible time travelers will one day arrive even if there were no such things as UFOs. And his analysis on what these future human travelers could look like is a really good educated guess. It’s a fun back of the envelope, hobby, research project to see if we can find any really good evidence this has happened. This is what Masters sets out to do in this book and who knows, maybe some cases are time travelers. The problem to date is that no cases show conclusive proof of amazing machines with amazing pilots. So as of now, this is a good theoretical hypothesis needing more proofs.

What would be ideal is a crashed saucer with bodies to examine and Masters brings up Roswell often as a possibility. If we had in hand evidence like this, then we could spend a lot of time and speculation on where they came from and who they are. But until then, we’ll have to deal with only an assumption some UFOs are real craft with real pilots. And I think if it turns out this is true, Masters is probably more right than wrong. As I said above, I think at the very least, an extraterrestrial hypothesis can be ruled out.

So why does Masters use the term IFO instead of the more commonly understood, UFO? The purpose is to remove the baggage the term UFO carries. Also, his hypothesis suggests an explanation to the UFO phenomenon; therefore, Identified Flying Objects.

This is a worthy contribution to the subject matter of UFOs. It’s a good scientific, theoretical analysis that if some really are real fantastic machines with odd looking creatures, it could really have an earth-based explanations, not one from outer space.
4 people found this helpful
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Jerry131
5.0 out of 5 stars The best broad science book I have read in decades
Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2022
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Masters offers a fresh take on what we have come to think of as the UFO phenomenon. His alternative hypothesis is that we are actually seeing, and sometimes interacting with, our future selves, primarily the equivalent of scientists and anthropologists, traveling back in time. Others have played with this notion, of course, but what sets this book apart, and what moves us from the realm of speculation to the realm of science, is the careful and taxonomic way in which he integrates existing knowledge and leading theories from a host of disciplines to raise and consider the matter in all of its dimensions. Some will look at the topic and dismiss this as not science. But they would do well to suspend disbelief at least long enough to give this very serious book a very serious read.
3 people found this helpful
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Fred Fanning
5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Book
Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2022
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Identified Flying Objects is an entirely different take than I have ever heard about UFOs. I was not expecting to read as much science as the book contains. Some of it is over my head, but it was interesting. The author answered the most common questions about UFOs in light of his theory of the sightings of Identified Flying Objects. I don't want to spoil the book, so that I will leave it there. I learned a lot from the book, and I enjoyed it a great deal.
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Lucio Santin
5.0 out of 5 stars Theoretical, scientific, thorough in depth-analysis of the "extratempestrial" model
Reviewed in Italy on July 10, 2022
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In his first book, Dr. M. P. Masters outlines the theory behind his extratempestrial model, i.e. the hypothesis that the "visitors" are just us from the future. It is an incredible endeavour, superbly researched and scientific. If you take this matter seriously, you will be rewarded: the book takes an academic approach (footnotes, my dears) even though it is sometimes a little bit heavy to read - the parts about the factual possibility of time travel are not that easy but, hey, we are dealing with general relativity. Absolutely loved it
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Client Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Des ovnis en provenance de notre propre futur ?
Reviewed in France on July 15, 2023
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Le Dr Michaël P. Masters est professeur en anthropologie biologique spécialisé en anatomie évolutionnaire, archéologie et biomédecine. Pour cet auteur, les ovnis sont très probablement la manifestation d'une technologie humaine ou de descendants de l'humanité provenant de notre futur. Michaël P. Masters utilise le terme « extratempestrials » (du terme tempus, le temps en latin) pour désigner ces possibles voyageurs temporels.

L'auteur considère d'abord que l’hypothèse extraterrestre n’est pas complètement satisfaisante : vitesse de la lumière et distance colossale dans l’univers rendant les communications et les voyages difficiles, êtres fréquemment décrits par les témoignages comme bipèdes trop similaires aux êtres humains alors que l’évolution du vivant est dépendante du hasard et d’un nombre incalculable de facteurs locaux qui ne peuvent donner naissance à des espèces similaires si la vie se développe sur d’autres planètes.

Michaël P. Masters aborde un certain nombre de théories scientifiques comme les études touchant à la relativité générale, les courbes fermées de type temps (appelées aussi courbes temporelles fermées) ou plus spécifiquement les études relatives au Cylindre de Tipler. Par exemple, certains ovnis sont décrits comme des disques en rotation, procédé qui pourrait mettre en avant une technologie basée sur la déformation gravitationnelle avec la rotation rapide de corps très denses et massifs pouvant réorienter ce qu’on appelle en physique les « cônes de lumière » vers le passé. La possibilité du voyage dans le temps pourrait aussi s'envisager dans le cadre de la théorie dite de l'Univers-bloc dans lequel le passé, le présent et le futur existeraient simultanément.

Michaël P. Masters examine aussi les caractéristiques des hominidés depuis plusieurs millions d’années et leur évolution (conséquence du passage vers la bipédie, migration du trou occipital, aplatissement de la face du visage, croissance du haut et de l’arrière du crâne) pour tenter d’en déduire l’apparence des êtres humains dans le futur (taille du crâne, stature, couleur de peau, etc.). Ces voyageurs temporels pourraient être originaires de différentes époques dans le futur et donc d’apparences différentes des uns des autres marquant en effet soit différentes étapes dans l’évolution de l'humanité, soit l'apparition de descendants naturels ou artificiels d'êtres humains ou d'autres espèces.

Une théorie fascinante qui peut paraître de prime abord encore plus extravagante que la théorie « extraterrestre ». Cette hypothèse des voyageurs temporels pourrait même être la première à devoir envisager. En effet, le raisonnement est simple : si le voyage dans le temps est possible (ce qui ne paraît pas complètement improbable d'un point de vue scientifique) nous devrions logiquement avoir les traces de la visite de ces voyageurs temporels de nos jours ou dans le passé. A première vue nous n'en avons visiblement aucune et le voyage dans le temps ne parait donc pas possible. Mais, s'il s'agissait justement de ces fameux "ovnis" observés a priori depuis très longtemps dans notre histoire ?
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Hannah Kia
5.0 out of 5 stars Very compelling and interesting contribution
Reviewed in Canada on September 2, 2020
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As both a health care provider and an academic, I've always been skeptical of reductive interpretations of alien abductions. How the narratives of 'abductees' have consistently and collectively been presented has always seemed, to me, at odds with how we understand disorganized perception/sensation/cognition and other features of psychosis and other related forms of psychopathology. As somebody who has specifically worked with trauma survivors, while some accounts of encounters have appeared indicative of the kind of dissociation we often see in people with traumatic experience, many others have not. Regardless, as a lay person in the area of evolutionary science, I've also always been puzzled by and skeptical of the humanoid descriptions of so called 'extraterrestrials' commonly featuring in the stories of 'abductees,' because it never made sense to me how evolution would independently produce humanoid beings somewhere else in the universe. Although the issue of 'abductions' has really been more an area of personal curiosity for me, and I have not seriously spent any time thinking about this as an academic problem, I have always imagined that maybe the humanoid 'aliens' commonly figuring in the stories of abductees might be our distant evolutionary descendants.

I was very excited to have stumbled on this book, and reading it very much exceeded my expectations. Probably because my own research has nothing to do with this topic, I have never arrived at such an empirically compelling analysis of so called 'alien' encounters. As somebody who consumes science fairly cautiously and skeptically (I think), I was really intrigued by the text. As I'm a practitioner/researcher whose work is mostly in the social sciences, the book has led me to think about the kinds of social science questions we may be investigating in our distant futures and, if extratempestrial encounters do in fact exist, what kinds of specific social science questions these beings may be studying using us as subjects, if any. I'm also curious about what insights we can glean about the structure/organization of our future societies through the observations that so called 'abductees' make about the hierarchies/relationships that appear salient to them in their encounters.

Unfortunately, the study of this topic, however rigorous and/or conservative, is still largely taboo in higher education. Nonetheless, I do feel confident in appraising this work as unique, interesting, and substantiated very well considering limitations in available empirical evidence on 'ET-related' phenomena. Outside of interpretations of these phenomena as being exclusively the products of psychosis and/or dissociation, which I still have trouble wholly accepting in some instances, the argument presented by Masters is at least worth considering.
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mikep
5.0 out of 5 stars Un libro fantástico!!!
Reviewed in Spain on October 24, 2021
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¡Este es un muy buen libro! Está bien escrito con muchas ideas científicas interesantes e importantes que son fáciles de entender.
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Gueorgui
5.0 out of 5 stars A highly recommendable book
Reviewed in Sweden on September 29, 2021
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The book written by Dr. Michael Masters deserves all the attention of any readers interested in time travel and in the broader aspects of time and human race evolution in the context of time, besides, obviously, of those attracted by the UFO/IFO subject. Extremely well researched and referenced, this book is written with scientific rigor and at the same time employing language, terminology and concepts that are accessible to the average reader. I am a scientist myself, in fact a theoretical physicist, but I am also a person who always has been interested in the theory and the implications for our lives as humans of the topics of time travel, multiverses, and contact with other intelligent beings. I cannot adhere to all concepts and opinions transmitted in the book, but nonetheless, I enjoyed immensely the book, I think it is a hugely important contribution to the mentioned topics and I recommend it 100% to everyone - from the general public to scientists with such interests.
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