Who is trying to wake us up? Thomas Campbell on unusual encounters

Why would an encounter change us?

Thomas Campbell proposes that some reported UFO encounters are intended to change the experiencer's view of reality. This is an interpretation within his consciousness model, rather than a finding identifying who or what caused a particular encounter.

In his books, My Big TOE, Campbell presents consciousness as the foundation of reality. In his model, bodies, space and time are experiences produced through information and rules. TOE stands for Theory of Everything. He attempts to account for both the physical world and personal experiences that people struggle to explain.

He also applies this idea to UFOs and other unusual experiences. If consciousness allows us to experience a physical world, he suggests, an explanation for an encounter might involve how that experience is generated.

What did he do for NASA?

According to his biography, Campbell completed a master’s degree in physics at Purdue University in 1968. He began doctoral research in experimental nuclear physics at the University of Virginia but did not complete the degree. He later worked in technical intelligence, missile defense and risk analysis.

At NASA he served as a consultant on the Ares I program. His work assessed risks to the system, crew and mission, including survivability following damage. His website and an author biography accompanying his paper describe the role. His ideas about consciousness are his own and do not represent NASA’s position.

Alongside his professional work, Campbell says he began working with Robert Monroe on altered states of consciousness in the 1970s. He describes helping design experiments and taking part in them. His 2003 trilogy attempted to explain those experiences through a common model. The account of that work and his personal experiences rests here on his own testimony.

Consciousness, the body and the game

Campbell calls this the Larger Consciousness System. In his model, each person’s consciousness is part of it. Life in a body lets us act, experience the consequences of our choices and learn from them.

A computer game offers an analogy. The character on the screen has a body and follows the rules of the game; the player experiences events through it. In Campbell’s account, consciousness takes the role of the player. This illustrates the idea rather than claiming someone has found a computer running the universe.

What are we supposed to learn? Campbell emphasizes cooperation, care for others and behavior less driven by fear and selfishness. For him, an unusual experience matters through what follows it: how people treat others and the choices they make in daily life.

How do UFOs and crop circles fit in?

The description of the second part of his interview with Mayim Bialik mentions UFOs, crop circles and near death experiences. It discusses them as experiences that might relate to a system encouraging human development.

In this interpretation, an unexplained encounter can prompt someone to question assumptions they previously took for granted. An experience that does not fit their existing view of the world leaves them looking for an explanation.

This differs from the familiar account of visitors arriving from another planet. Campbell considers the origin of the experience and the consciousness having it. In his model, an apparently physical object belongs to the same experienced reality as our bodies. Its material and the distance it traveled are therefore only some of the questions he asks.

The model offers an interpretation of encounters. It does not establish what happened in a particular sighting or who made a particular crop circle. Those questions require the documentation and testimony from each case.

Can the model be tested?

In 2017 Campbell, Houman Owhadi, Joe Sauvageau and David Watkinson published On Testing the Simulation Theory. They proposed experiments based on the assumption that a simulation has limited computing resources and that those limits might be detectable in how information appears in an experiment.

His research website describes experiments intended to test aspects of the hypothesis. The sources reviewed for this article do not provide an independent result establishing the model. Even an unusual experimental finding would need separate investigation before it could be connected to UFOs or an intention behind an encounter.

The linked paper On Testing the Simulation Theory shows how Campbell proposes moving from his idea to an experiment. Which result would distinguish his model from the physical predictions on which the test is based?