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Throughout history, people have observed aerial events that appeared extraordinary and anomalous. In earlier eras, these were often interpreted through a lens that invoked special classes of divine beings, such as angels (who, compared with gods, are regarded as more likely to interact with humans). Today, in our ostensibly secular scientific age, there is a tendency to assume such observers were mistaken, and that with the benefit of modern knowledge, these events can be "debunked" and attributed to conventional naturalistic explanations. However, recent years have seen a burgeoning interest and even concern over the issue of unidentified aerial phenomena. Through the lens of our "space age," these are sometimes interpreted using notions such as extraterrestrial agents. Ultimately though, this article suggests that both categories of explanation, from angels to aliens, may be the perennial human quest to render comprehensible, through the prism of prevailing beliefs and traditions, an ongoing encounter with celestial phenomena that remain genuinely unknown but deeply significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen increasing public attention regarding unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). Hypotheses for such phenomena tend to fall into two classes: a conventional terrestrial explanation (e.g., human-made drones), or an extraterrestrial explanation (i.e., advanced civilizations from elsewhere in the cosmos). However, there is also a third minority class of hypothesis: an unconventional terrestrial explanation, outside the prevailing consensus view of life and the universe. This is the "ultraterrestrial" hypothesis, which includes - but is not limited to - the "interdimensional" hypothesis, namely the highly speculative notion that UAP may reflect activities of beings from other dimensions that coexist alongside our own. Such hypotheses may rightly be regarded with scepticism by most scientists. However, this article suggests they nevertheless should not be ruled out, and deserve serious consideration in a spirit of epistemic humility and openness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]