Not exactly. You're really asking the wrong question. Try "Where did the Industrial Age come from?" The answer is, the various "ages" before it. From the time Man first began forming village-level associations (think Mesopotamia, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, all about 6,000 years ago) progress has in fact proceeded more-or-less at a steady pace. The "Industrial Age" began at a considerably earlier date than most people realize- think about the time the Roman Empire fell. (And that was just in Europe. It got started >way< earlier, eleswhere.) The primary impetus, in all parts of the world, was a combination of; 1. Organized agriculture and irrigation (most obviously in ancient Egypt and China); 2. The working and smelting of metals, notably copper, tin (add them together, you get bronze), and iron (the basis of all steel alloys), plus gold and silver (as monetary metals). Initially found in surface deposits, mining for all of the above began less than a thousand years after the birth of the initial "watershed" civilizations. And the two come together in 3. Water power. It is impossible to overestimate the effect the harnessing of the power of rivers and streams had on the growth of our world's civilizations. Without waterwheels (the stream-velocity undershot wheel, the partly gravity-assisted breast wheel, and most powerful of all, the great overshot wheel), our civilization simply would not exist. And you'd be amazed how much of modern industry had its beginnings in waterwheel-powered machinery going back to before the birth of Christ. And technological developments tend to snowball. They build on each other. And once they start combining, they tend to build up one H**l of a head of steam. At which point anyone seeing them without knowing their history and context would swear that they couldn't possibly have developed that fast- without outside help. This was the fundamental error made in the 1960s and early 1970s by the adherents of the so-called "Ancient Astronaut" hypothesis. Their theory was that man had progressed much faster >in ancient times< than he could have without help from a more advanced civilization. The same basic argument was adduced seventy years earlier, by scholars (mostly of a mystical bent) seeking to prove the same thing. The only difference was, they were trying to prove the existence, not of aliens, but of the lost continent of Atlantis. And in each case, the scholars trying to cherry-pick their data to prove their theories were wrong. Because none of it was, or is, necessary. That's just how technolgical development works. One discovery leads to another, and another, and so on. The relationship isn't always easy to see, because the developments may not necessarily be in the same field. (For instance, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone accidentally while developing a device to help deaf children learn to properly make the sounds of vowels and consonants, to help them learn to speak.) And unfortunately, our schools do an absolutely pathetic job of teaching how the progression went, and is still ongoing. (And modern-day "dumbing-down" in the name of raising students' self-esteem isn't the only culprit; I can remember my frustration with the textbooks I had to contend with when I was in public school, three decades ago.) The problem is that most historians and teachers know little or nothing of how science and technology work- and often confuse the two into the bargain. (They are >not< the same thing.) And I have yet to meet a politician, academic (outside of the "hard sciences"- physical, etc.), or teacher (again, other than those concerned with the nuts and bolts of science) who understood this. I have >never< met a UFOlogist, ecologist, theologist, or "political scientist" (an oxymoron if there ever was one!) who understood it at all. Fortunately, there are a few books that >do< explain it well. They are also simply good, relaxing reading if you are at all curious about how we got where we are- and where we may be going next. For suggested reading; Burke, James. CONNECTIONS. Boston; Little, Brown & Co., 1978. ISBN 0-316-11681-5. (It is, I believe, still in print.) A history of nine pivotal innovations in our technological progress, and the somewhat unique way they happened. Companion book to the PBS series. Burke, James. THE DAY THE UNIVERSE CHANGED. Boston; Little, Brown, & Co., 1985. Also still in print. Describes how Man's scientific knowledge and learning has evolved. It did >not< happen the way you were taught it in World History class, trust me. It was nowhere nearly that simple. Also companion to the second PBS series by Burke. Wells, H.G. THE OUTLINE OF HISTORY. Numerous editions. Although Wells had an irritating tendency to view all history in terms of Socialist class struggle, he at least understood science and technology, and how they evolve. Tunis, Edwin. WEAPONS. Houghton-Mifflin, 1954. (Still availabl

That is how the human race has progressed. Imperial/Social/economic stability is necessary to foster and nuture discovery. The early developments of the ancient Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks etc. have been preserved more or less through the ages, but occasional disruptions in the geopolitical scene have prevented further development of important elements in the sciences (the same egyptian official who originally developed the basic blueprints for the pyramids also proved the earth was round by using the shadow of a stick...which eventually led to the invention of the sundial...pretty advanced math even for today's high school students. The Greeks were able to solve derivatives without calculators, the Phoenecians sailed to south america and china had learned to artificially raise and breed silkworms). Where would the world be if all of those civilizations had stayed intact? Probably locked in a very high tech cold war both on the earth and in space.

There's any number of reasons for the apparent increase in technological development since the 19th century without involving the Saucer People. Changes in agriculture, increase in population and an established industrial base have allowed for rapid progression. If anything, the saucer people would prefer to slow progress, as it makes it easier for them to exert control.

Geraldo Rivera is the chief insurgent.

Area 51 is certainly real, but it's used for fairly mundane testing of aircraft and electronic warfare equipment. For instance, most of the "black" aircraft such as the U-2, F-117, and SR-71/A12 were tested at this facility. The claims of reverse-engineered alien technology and massive underground bases have been pretty thoroughly debunked, at http://www.serve.com/mahood/finis.htm as well as anywhere else. As for the question of scientific advances, the first response covers it all. I'd just add that the more you learn, the more your *able* to learn (consider the history of physics or medicine for instance) and this contributes to the near-asymtotic rate of scientific progress over the last 100 years.

Thanks for the compliment, TBV. I'd just like to add that the single greatest factor in the ever-accelerating rate of development since the Renaissance is, quite simply, literacy. In Europe prior to the 15th Century, only about one out of thirty people could read or write. Then several innovators, notably one Johannes Gansfleisch (better known to history as Johann Gutenberg) developed a system of movable, interchangeable type based on Chinese principles. (It was more practical in Europe than in China, simply because the European/Latin alphabet has only 26 letters, plus punctuation; the various Chinese dialects have over 40,000 ideographs >in common use<, making printing a serious problem). By the end of the 16th Century, literacy had spread to over a fourth of Europe's population, and with it the ability for more people to examine, critique, and make improvements on existing scientific theories, sociological assumptions- and even such things as the best way to build a seed drill for planting. This was a major factor in the later Renaissance, aka the "Age of Enlightenment". (Burke goes into this in greater detail in his books.) By the 19th Century, most European countries had literacy rates over 50%. And the new United States of America had already attained 70%. And the more people who could read and write, the farther and faster ideas could spread. An the faster they could be analysed, improved upon- or discarded if they did not measure up to reality. (It was widespread literacy that killed the phlogiston theory of heat propagation, courtesy of James Clerke Maxwell, which is why we now have the Second Law of Thermodynamics- which is very handy when you're tryinmg to build rockets for spaceflight, trust me.) Simply put, the more people who can read, the smarter a society is. And the more it can innovate, and the faster it can do so. If you want to do a little thought-experiment, look up a list of the richest and poorest coutries on Earth today. Then look up a list of the literacy rates in those same countries. Prosperity tracks almost exactly with literacy. So, for that matter, does invention. And i'm not going to say "it's not rocket science", because, actually, it >is< rocket science. And every other kind as well. Cheers. eon

One of the leaps in human technology that inspires the "contact" theorists is mankind's leap into "energy" technologies. In a very short time, right after Hiroshima and the supposed Roswell crash, we had microwaves, portable x-rays, satellite technology, magnetic levitation and advanced quantum theory. That could be attributed to research of crashed UFOs. If I had to pick another technological milestone related to energy that gave us so many advances in energy I would pick the USS Eldridge experiment. Aliens that want to conquer us with soft methods may help us advance our technology so we can hang ourselves with our own rope, then they just walk in and knock of the survivors.

1. The microwave oven was the result of an accident; a tech at RCA left his Hershey bar in the line-of-fire of a laboratory microwave emitter, and it melted when the MW unit was turned on during a test. This is why the Amana Radar range appeared so quickly- RCA, of course, owned Amana. 2. Portable X-Ray units were developed by the Army Research Laboratory at Camp Devens in 1943, in response to an urgent request from the Medical Corps for units that could be sent up to the new Mobile Army Surgical Hospital Units (yes, M*A*S*H units), notably in the Far East where, unlike the Pacific campaign, Naval hospital ships were not available. 3. Satellite technology was no different from the aviation electronics of the day. The >concept< of the satellite, as we know it, was created by (Sir) Arthur C. Clarke, then an RAF radar technician, in an article he wrote for "Wireless World" in 1946. 4. "Magnetic levitation" was first demonstrated at Bell Labs in 1934. It has never worked as well as advertised. 5. Advanced quantum theory was created by physicists and mathemeticians in Europe in the 1920s, notably Ernest Mach, Max Planck, and Werner Heisenberg. All of whom were working from the failure of the late-1890s/early 1900s Fitzgerald-Lorentz and Michelson-Morley experiments to detect the "ether" that was the creation of the Newtonian physicists in the pre-existing model dating the the early 1800s. And it was the failure of these experiments that Albert Einstein used as the starting point for his General and Special Theories of Relativity in 1905-07. All of this, known as the "Thirty Years That Shook Physics", occurred before the start of World War Two. 6. The so-called "Philadelphia Experiment" is one of the recurring myths of the UFOlogist fringe. There was, in fact, a project code-named "Rainbow" run from ONR in 1942-43, that was carried out at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. It was a program to develop active jamming systems to defeat the radars being used but German U-Boats to track convoys. It was highly successful, as the jamming units were in use by mid-1943. The destroyer-escort U.S.S. Eldridge was, in fact, one of about half-a-dozen ships used to develop the jamming units- and when it was sold to the Turkish Navy postwar, the jamming units were removed because they were still highly classified, and not available for export. As for the supposed presence of Prof. Einstein at PNY, often cited as evidence of something fishy going on, some early research for the Manhattan Project was done at PDY. Why? Because cyclotrons of the era required high-voltage and amperage DC current for their electromagnet rings (AC current caused fluctuations in the gauss load). Since all U.S. power grids operate on AC, the nearest place where heavy-load-cycle DC powerplants could be found was... a Navy yard, since of course U.S. Navy ships of the era used DC electric power, and so did the compatible shore installations. This was why there was high security around PNY at the time, and why Einstein was there. (Briefly.) For more myth-demolishment, check out this book; Schultz, Ted (ed.) THE FRINGES OF REASON; A Whole Earth Catalog. New York; Harmony Books, 1989. ISBN 0-517-571665-X. Subtitled, "A Field Guide To New Age Frontiers, Unusual Beliefs & Eccentric Sciences". A collection of essays previously published in "The Whole Earth Catalog" and elsewhere, by such skeptical inquirers as Joe Nickell, Robert Anton Wilson, and John A. Keel. An indispensible roadmap to the kook fringe. (Also a hilarious read in a lot of places.) It thoroughly debunks the "Phildelphia Experiment", including the infamous "Allende Letters" affair. Cheers. eon

The inventions I mentioned were generalizations, but before WW2 quantum physics was primarily paper, not product. Certainly it took alot of those on paper theories to create those experiments, and like alot of secret military experiments the resuls eventually produced civilian world products.

Yes. They are based on their behavior. The military, and Gvt in general are so paranoid about discussing alien, UFO, etc. it makes me believe there must be something going on. However, notice how the UFO events seem to be dropping off now that every one and his/her cousin carry cell phones with video? As for technology expanding so rapidly think of the parabolic curve. If you put tech on a chart (if you could numerically somehow evaluate it) you would see a parabolic curve...it is expotential in nature. The more it advances the more it advances. It is a kind of doubling effect. also, ancinets, before scinece was developed, learned and built by examples that actually worked or failed. So, proven technology was seldom changed in any way. Also, science is not monolithic. Each branch of science is dependant on others to support it. For example, steam engines could not be built until metallurgy and machineing technology advanced to a point of precision allowing complex parts to move together. Machining tech was inter-dependant...that is; no precision machine could be built until a precision machine could be made to build one...so that little problem took quite some time to work out.