UFOs as a Structural Phenomenon

A civilization-level interpretation

For decades, reports of unidentified flying objects—now often reframed as UAPs—have occupied an uncomfortable space between science, folklore, and anxiety. They are persistent, inconsistent, difficult to verify, and resistant to decisive explanation. As a result, discussions about UFOs usually collapse into two extremes: either absolute dismissal, or total belief.

This essay proposes a third path.

Not a claim that “UFOs are aliens,” and not a debunking—but a structural interpretation:
If advanced civilizations exist, and if inter-civilizational contact ever occurs, then any observable traces would almost inevitably look like what we call “UFO phenomena.”

This is not because of secrecy or conspiracy, but because of structure.

The key premise: civilizations do not communicate like individuals

Human intuition about contact is deeply anthropocentric. We imagine messages, greetings, visits, or warnings—because that is how individuals interact. But civilizations are not individuals. They are causal systems operating across time, scale, and risk.

From a structural perspective, civilizations can be divided into stages:

• Embodied civilizations (L0): constrained by physical carriers, mortality, risk, and local meaning. Humanity belongs here.
• Agent civilizations (L1): capable of operating beyond a single carrier, tolerating loss, and acting over extreme scales of time and space. Their primary goal is not survival or expansion, but searching for other civilizations.
• Third causal systems (TCS): neutral environments jointly constructed by two civilizations, allowing meaning to emerge without prior shared language.

The critical point is this: civilizations cannot communicate directly. Not because they are hostile, but because meaning does not transfer across incompatible causal systems. Signals only make sense inside the system that produced them.

Read this for more: TCS: The Only Possible Way for Civilizations to Communicate

Why an advanced civilization would not “contact” us

If an L1 civilization were to encounter Earth, it would immediately face a structural constraint rather than a communicative opportunity.

Humanity, as an L0 civilization, does not yet possess the capacity to recognize another civilization as a civilization rather than as an anomalous phenomenon. Nor can it construct a shared causal environment or reliably interpret intent without projecting its own internal assumptions. From the perspective of an L1 civilization, these limitations make direct communication not merely difficult, but fundamentally destabilizing.

Any unambiguous signal carries disproportionate risk. It may be interpreted as a threat, trigger irreversible shifts in human social or technological development, or collapse the very conditions under which humanity could independently evolve toward L1-level agency. In this sense, clarity itself becomes hazardous.

As a result, humanity would not be the intended target of communication. At most, it could register as a transient ambiguity: a system briefly probed to determine whether it is approaching the threshold of agent-level civilization. Such probing would cease the moment it became clear that structural alignment was not yet possible.

Why “handshake” comes before communication

Between civilizations, communication cannot begin with information. It must begin with structure.

Before language, before symbols, and before mathematics, there is only a single question that matters: is the other system capable of mutual restraint, recognition, and adaptation? Until this question is answered, no exchange of meaning is possible.

This is where the notion of a minimal handshake arises.

A handshake is not a message and does not convey content. It establishes only the preconditions under which communication might later become possible. Through interaction alone, it tests whether another system can be observed, whether it responds coherently to external change, and whether that response remains non-hostile under uncertainty.

Such a process would unfold through repetition rather than declaration. Patterns would appear intentionally but without aggression. Behaviors might be mirrored, varied, or withdrawn in response to what is observed. Alignment would be tested incrementally, and failure would result in disengagement rather than escalation.

Crucially, this process must avoid semantics entirely. It cannot encode intent, rely on shared interpretation, or produce irreversible effects. Any action taken must remain safe under all possible interpretations.

As a result, such interactions would inevitably appear strange, ambiguous, or even pointless to observers who expect messages, signals, or machines. What appears meaningless at the surface is, in fact, structure doing the only thing it can do safely at the beginning.

Read more: Forms of TCS and the Handshake Protocol

Why UFO reports look the way they do

Now consider how UFO phenomena are typically described. They appear without a clearly identifiable purpose, exhibit no semantic or communicative content, emerge and vanish abruptly, maneuver in ways that seem extreme yet non-confrontational, repeat across time without escalation, and consistently resist confirmation or verification. Each individual characteristic appears puzzling in isolation, but together they form a remarkably coherent pattern.

From a structural standpoint, these traits are not anomalies or failures of observation. They are precisely what minimal interaction under maximal uncertainty would produce. Such behavior is not optimized to convey information, demonstrate power, or assert presence. It is optimized to test responsiveness while minimizing risk.

This is not reconnaissance, invasion, or surveillance. It is verification without interference.

If such phenomena were associated with an L1 agent civilization, their behavior would not be designed for human comprehension or recognition. It would be designed to avoid destabilizing an embodied civilization that lacks the structural capacity to interpret intent safely. The priority would not be to be understood, but to ensure that nothing is broken in the process.

Read more: When Theory Meets the Real World: Some Necessary Clarifications

Why ambiguity is not accidental—but required

A common frustration in discussions about UFOs is the persistent lack of clear, decisive evidence. Yet from a structural standpoint, clarity itself is precisely what would be most dangerous.

For an emerging civilization like ours, definitive proof would not be neutral information. It would almost certainly trigger extreme responses: panic, rapid militarization, ideological collapse, or forms of worship that short-circuit independent inquiry. On the other hand, outright denial would freeze investigation, while partial misinterpretation could provoke self-destructive reactions driven by fear rather than understanding.

Under these conditions, ambiguity is not a failure mode. It is the safest achievable equilibrium. Not because some agent is deliberately concealing the truth, but because the truth cannot yet be introduced without causing irreversible disruption. Ambiguity preserves developmental freedom.

This is not proof—and it is not fear

Nothing in this framework demonstrates that UFOs are non-human in origin, nor that advanced civilizations have visited Earth. Such claims remain unproven and should be treated as such.

What this perspective offers is more limited, and more structurally grounded. It shows that if advanced civilizations exist, and if any form of indirect interaction were ever to occur, then only a very narrow class of interaction would be stable. It would have to be non-semantic rather than communicative, limited rather than expansive, unverifiable rather than demonstrative, and easy to dismiss rather than impossible to ignore.

In other words, the only admissible form of interaction would resemble exactly the kind of ambiguous phenomena that generate endless debate while resisting definitive conclusion.

The part that feels disturbing and the part that reassures

What may feel disturbing at first is the possibility that humanity is not yet a full participant in any larger, inter-civilizational exchange.

What is reassuring is the reason why.

It would not be because we are insignificant, threatened, or being judged. It would be because participation itself requires a certain level of stability, restraint, and self-understanding. Just as individuals do not enter meaningful dialogue the moment they exist, civilizations also need time to mature into conversation.

At a civilizational scale, dialogue does not begin with messages, symbols, or declarations. It begins with the ability to hold back—to observe without reacting, to encounter without escalating, and to remain coherent in the presence of uncertainty.

If the universe appears quiet, this need not mean it is empty. It may simply mean that no one speaks first.

And if something ever appears briefly at the edge of our understanding—silent, ambiguous, and gone before it can be explained: this need not signal threat or indifference.

It may instead signal patience.

Further Reading

This essay presents a structural perspective rather than a formal theory. Readers interested in precise definitions and causal arguments may refer to:

• CCT Overview: a compact structural summary
• CCT Papers: formalized arguments and extensions
• Notes: a non-technical record of how the theory emerged