UFOs: Since Their Motives Are Illogical, They Don’t Exist: Part Two

An alien by definition would have to have an alien mind, and alien psychology, and alien motives. We can’t hold them to our standards, our motives, our behavior patterns. Half the time I can’t figure out why my cats do what they do! So, can we pass judgment on whether or not UFOs, if defined as being alien ships (the ETH - extraterrestrial hypothesis), are acting in what we would call a logical way? UFO skeptics would argue that UFOs if extraterrestrial behave illogically and therefore aren’t extraterrestrial - maybe yes – maybe no.

There are various motivations why E.T. might be interested in our little patch of real estate – Planet Earth. Scientists interested in that issue, not to mention vastly more sci-fi authors and Hollywood producers, have given quite some considerable though to the question.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

We Are Property - The Alien Abduction Scenario: Since the UFOs agenda is apparently neither an invasion nor a take-me-to-your-leader scenario, and since we haven’t found any extraterrestrial R&R resorts on our planet (we have explored Mount Olympus – no extraterrestrials to be had), that leaves rather more a scenario of scientific study but embellished including the concept inherent in the ‘Zoo Hypothesis’. We are ‘animals’ – they are the zoo keepers.

A slightly stronger alternative scenario has us as being actually owned by E.T. – at least as far as E.T. is concerned. They bought the property rights to Planet Earth eons ago, so we are their ‘slaves’; we are their property; they are the masters and the owners. But perhaps that’s too ‘invasion’ like, even though plausible.

So another argument against the UFO ETH is the absolute absurdity of UFO-related alleged abductions by alien beings.

Okay, we have this subset of the UFO phenomena called alien abductions – extraterrestrials (often called the ‘Greys’) have their wicked ways with their human property. Skeptics suggest that the question ‘what can it all mean?’ is none other than so-called UFO abductees are a bit touched in the head.

Apart from that, the sixty-four cent question is ‘why’. Why would aliens abduct humans? Certainly not for chit-chat or wild parties! And why have so many humans been taken for so long? Well, how long have humans studied rats, and how many hundreds of thousands have had to run the maze? That’s my answer. We’re just lab rats to the aliens. We’re not to be conquered, but we’re not going to be given the cure for cancer, the road to universal peace, and certainly not the “Encyclopaedia Galactica”. There will be no trade – their tribbles for our opals say. 

What was it that the compiler of all things anomalous, the late Charles Fort said? “I think we’re property”. But is that such a strange idea really? We own land and by extension the plants and animals on it. Does a colony of wild turkeys comprehend that they are owned because they live on something called private property? They could be left in the main quite alone and undisturbed, except for the occasional one which might be harvested (abducted) around Christmas time!

The UFO abduction phenomena makes sense in that it mirrors what wildlife biologists often do in the field – capture, study, tag and release. The UFO abduction ‘Greys’ seem to be interested in humans mainly with respect to areas or aspects surrounding reproduction and genetics. These are the same sorts of areas required for our creator ‘gods’ (ancient astronauts by another name) to have ‘created’ humans in the first place, so maybe their grand plan is still unfolding!

There’s an obvious parallel with aliens abducting humans. If humans are anything to be judged by, we abduct animals for all sorts of reasons, from the illegal trade in wildlife, to animals for zoos and safari parks, for medical research and biological research. With respect to the latter, wildlife biologists will often abduct, tag and release animals. Sound familiar? If animals communicate among themselves, their verbal history must be chockfull of abduction tales with humans the abductors.  

We might ask what right extraterrestrials have to own Planet Earth and by extension us. Our colony of wild turkeys could ask the same about us (or our domestic livestock or companion animals for that matter). Maybe it boils down to the Golden Rule – they who have the gold (or are the top of the food chain or have the biggest gun or the most advanced technology) make the rules. It does appear that, given the abduction (and perhaps the livestock/animal mutilation phenomena), Planet Earth and its contents are indeed alien property. Of course, as hinted above, it might have been the case that Planet Earth, as prime real estate, was obtained by extraterrestrials a billion years ago, way before the evolution of multi-cellular plants and animals, and of course humans.

Okay, we’re the property of the UFO ‘Greys’ and they feel they have every moral, ethical and legal right to have their wicked way with us.

The ‘we are property’ (whether in a zoo or as lab rats) hypothesis explains the Fermi Paradox (“where is everybody?” – they’re here); it explains the observations that UFOs are no threat to national security; it explains the lack of any alien invasion; it explains the lack of any alien’s “take me to your leader” scenario; it explains the general UFO abduction phenomena; it probably accounts for the overall animal mutilation phenomena. It doesn’t explain crop circles - unless one would equate them with the sort of diversions, toys, monkey bars, bird swings and other associated furniture you can find in any pet store that we give to amuse our own owned animals. Or, alternatively, perhaps crop circles are akin to the sort of symbols (pictograms) behavioural scientists have used in experiments in communicating with apes and monkeys – lab rats, albeit higher IQ lab rats.

The upshot is that UFOs, if extraterrestrial, have motives that UFO ETH skeptics find a bit suspect, therefore UFOs aren’t extraterrestrial. However, going beyond the obvious diplomatic, trade relations, invasion, and R&R scenarios which apparently aren’t, one can still find parallels between what our alleged aliens do, and what humans do. That alone makes the UFO ETH a plausible one IMHO.  

UFOs: Since Their Motives Are Illogical, They Don’t Exist: Part One

An alien by definition would have to have an alien mind, and alien psychology, and alien motives. We can’t hold them to our standards, our motives, our behavior patterns. Half the time I can’t figure out why my cats do what they do! So, can we pass judgment on whether or not UFOs, if defined as being alien ships (the ETH - extraterrestrial hypothesis), are acting in what we would call a logical way? UFO skeptics would argue that UFOs if extraterrestrial behave illogically and therefore aren’t extraterrestrial - maybe yes – maybe no.

There are various motivations why E.T. might be interested in our little patch of real estate – Planet Earth. Scientists interested in that issue, not to mention vastly more sci-fi authors and Hollywood producers, have given quite some considerable though to the question.

Diplomatic - The “Take Me to Your Leader” Scenario: If the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) is correct then obviously the ‘land on the White House lawn with a take-me-to-your-leader’ scenario would be the obvious course of action for E.T. Translated, E.T. wants to not only establish diplomatic relations, but probably engage in interstellar trade as well. That hasn’t happened over six decades on; therefore the UFO ETH is ridiculous.

An obvious answer to that is we humans don’t come up to a flock of crows (rather intelligent birds by the way) or introduce ourselves to an octopus (invertebrate intelligences in their own right) with a wave and a handshake (wing-shake; tentacle-shake) along with a hi-ho “take me to your leader” or “let’s establish diplomatic and trade relations”.

By the way, why is the obvious landing site the White House lawn? Why not outside the walls of the Kremlin, or within the Forbidden City, or for that matter on Easter Island, the lawns outside of Australia’s Parliament House, or in nice sunny Bermuda?

Conquest – The ‘War of the Worlds’ Scenario: According to hundreds (probably thousands) of sci-fi writers and of course Hollywood (and Hollywood equivalents around the world), alien invasion is even a more viable and realistic scenario – as entertainment anyway. But that hasn’t happened either, but that’s no argument to suggest that because there’s been no alien invasion that UFOs can’t be alien technology. The U.S.A. hasn’t invaded Canada anytime lately and America has appropriate technology to do so if it wanted. Still, UFO skeptics who believe in the ‘Mars Wants Women’ scenario, say E.T. isn’t here because E.T. isn’t today our Imperial Leader Most High – our Global Head of State (Universal President, Master-of-the-World, Prime Minister Supreme for Life, or our Lord-on-High World Dictator; whatever).

The obvious answer to the lack of any invasion scenario is that E.T. could find whatever it wanted in terms of resources closer and far cheaper to home base. What can Earth offer that couldn’t be had closer to home at far less time and expense? - Certainly not water, or minerals or energy or real estate. If there is one end-of-the-world scenario that we don’t have to lose sleep over, it’s invasion and conquest by extraterrestrials. That’s unless one should suggest that E.T. will invade and conquer; rape and pillage just for the sake of invasion and conquest; rape and pillage. Maybe, but after six plus decades, E.T. is either rather unsure of itself or undecided about the merits of doing so. So, my guess is that if it hasn’t happened by now, it’s not likely to.

That leaves other motives – scientific, economic, etc. Let’s examine human equivalents. Humans have explored ever since we had the ability to explore. We’ve boldly gone, in person or via machine surrogates, to the depths of the ocean, to Antarctica, to the Moon, and to all of the planets (actual, or in the case of Pluto, on route). All this exploration for all practical purposes has been for the sake of just science, pure science, and nothing but the science.

Of course there’s usually an ulterior motive in the back of the mind – exploration leads to exploitation. We explore, we like what we see, we colonize, we exploit, we build resorts for R&R, we migrate to escape various forms of environmental/political pressures, we mine for resources, and we farm for food and do more besides. Today the Moon is for science; tomorrow we may exploit its resources. Why should the E.T.-Earth relationship be any different?  Well I’ve already noted that when it comes to resources and exploitation of those commodities, Earth has relatively little to offer when looked at from the point of view of cost effectiveness. I mean you don’t go clear across country to pick up a loaf of bread you can find at your local supermarket several blocks down the road. But, when it comes to holidays, humans don’t always take the cheapest option. When planning that round-the-world trip, cost effectiveness isn’t an issue, otherwise you could just surf the world via the Internet as virtual reality from the comfort of your living room.

Tourism – The R&R Scenario: Being a rather nice sort of planet, perhaps one or more of our cosmic visitors from the distant past decided to set up shop on Earth, either as a place for a brief R&R (maybe they thought Mount Olympus, Mount Meru or the high Andes might make a nice resort location) or a ‘permanent’ home-away-from-home. Perhaps Planet Earth was colonized by extraterrestrials long before humans were dreamt of in anyone’s philosophy.

Going with that flow, E.T. would have had no moral or ethical qualms about using Planet Earth as an R&R resort and/or base of operations way back then. There was no intelligent life and indigenous civilization already present – the Prime Directive (assuming such a concept is real as opposed to the fictional “Star Trek” concept) would not apply.

So our advanced extraterrestrials set up shop on Planet Earth as an R&R home-away-from-home, sort of taking dominion over this paradise / nature reserve / national park, perhaps with a view towards eventual long-term colonization.  Fast forward to today; once an R&R spot, always an R&R spot. And Mount Olympus certainly beats L.A. or Tokyo or Calcutta as a resort if your one of those extraterrestrial ‘gods’.

Science – The Curiosity Scenario: Visitations to Planet Earth whether they be 4.5 billion years ago; 450 million years ago, 45 million years ago, or 4.5 million years ago, probably were scientific expeditions – aliens exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life forms and new civilizations. We’re cosmically interesting real estate because we have a biosphere, and presumably planets with biospheres are relative rare in cosmic real estate terms. So, alien biologists will be rubbing their tentacles in glee when they get to explore a new biosphere. So once they have explored our strange new world and our new (if still primitive) life forms, then what? I suggest that initial random visits (as calculated by professional astronomers and physicists within the ballpark of one per 10,000 to 100,000 years) will translate into ongoing and ever more frequent and routine examinations. Perhaps science eventually translates into more commercial areas. Science finds the resources; business exploits them. Perhaps we (Planet Earth) are exploitable, not in terms of commodities like minerals, but as biological commodities. Those won’t be closer to their home since terrestrial biology is presumably only found terrestrially. Terrestrial life might be purely interesting in the way an ant colony is to an entomologist; it might be practically interesting in that, as we have found, biological organisms contain all sorts of valuable pharmacological chemicals. Presumably if E.T. biochemistry is akin to ours, perhaps some drug obtained from one of our magic mushrooms might cure their cancer.

I’d like to think that their agenda, the alien’s motive for being here is science, at least in the first instance. As noted above, Planet Earth is really interesting real estate in the cosmos since we have a biosphere. And like our wildlife biologists and anthropologists, etc. go out of their way so as not to disturb the objects of their study in their natural environment, so too might any extraterrestrial intelligence associated with UFOs try to keep to a minimum disturbing the natives. The aliens are harmless by deliberate design. Of course even wildlife biologists have to occasionally capture, study (maybe dissect), tag and release their subject – perhaps a parallel with the abduction phenomena?

To be continued…

UFOs: The Lucky Generation? Part Two

There are some pro-UFO ETH (extraterrestrial hypothesis) believers who state that aliens have only recently arrived on Earth in response to modern human activities, like our nuclear weapons detonations. Sceptics counter that it’s unlikely in the extreme that 1) aliens could have gotten from there to here that quickly, and 2) the odds that we current humans would just happen by chance be the lucky generation, after four and a half billion years have passed Earth by in cosmic isolation, to now experience for the very first time on-site cosmic company are astronomically against. So, are we the lucky generation to be the first graced by E.T., or not?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

The 1947 Scenario Gives Way To - The Once Upon A Time Scenario:

If bona-fide UFOs are extraterrestrial visitations, then it’s highly improbable that our generation would be the generation to be privy to said visitations. In all probability, such visitations should have and would have extended back into historical times, ancient times, and pre-historical times; in fact they could extend right back to when Planet Earth was just a lifeless ball of solidifying molten rock.  They – the extraterrestrials - could have taken an active role in shaping terrestrial evolution from nearly the year dot, all the while considering themselves stewards of Planet Earth.

If one accepts the idea that UFOs are extraterrestrial spaceships, and one accepts the idea that extraterrestrials have been around for quite some considerable time (‘ancient astronauts’ anyone), then one can and should extrapolate back in our planet’s history even further and postulate that they might have been around for most, if not all of our geological history. How so?

Once upon a time, nearly fourteen billion years ago, our Universe began – exact how and why is not relevant to the scenario that follows.

Shortly thereafter, in cosmic terms, now some ten billion years ago, natural physical processes like gravity produced our Milky Way Galaxy (and lots of others besides, but they don’t feature in this scenario).

Within our galaxy, in fairly short order, lots of super-massive first generation stars blew up as supernovae creating and spreading the heavy elements required for biology – oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, etc. - through interstellar space. Those heavy elements became incorporated in second generation stars, some of which in turn became supernovae, further enriching what became third generation stars, of which our Sun (Sol) is but one of many.

By the time our own third generation star, Sol, formed with accompanying solar system and it’s third rock from the star (Planet Earth), four and a half billion years ago, our Milky Way Galaxy was already five and a half billion years old, yielding more than enough time to have generated extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrial intelligence, and extraterrestrial intelligences with advanced technologies capable of subluminal interstellar space travel.  

My basic premise therefore is that at least one, probably many, extraterrestrial civilizations have boldly gone and voyaged out into interstellar space even before our own star, solar system, and home planet ever existed, and that trend continues.

The time it takes to explore all our galaxy’s nooks-and-crannies would be a tiny fraction of the age of our galaxy. Translated, Planet Earth would have been charted billions of years ago.

That being the case, it’s logical to assume that there is at least one advanced and adventurous interstellar venturing extraterrestrial civilization currently in our here and now; probably one or more from in we include our historical past and probably hundreds extending throughout our prehistory; even more throughout the lengthy eons of our geological history,  four and a half billion years worth - translated, no matter how you slice and dice it, we (i.e. – Planet Earth) have received multi-thousands of visitations over our four and a half billion years of existence.

Based on speculative calculations by scientists interested in extraterrestrial life, ballpark numbers suggest that Sol, our solar system and Planet Earth should have received or expected, on average, a random visitation by advanced boldly going extraterrestrials every one hundred thousand years (so suggests astronomer Carl Sagan) to an even greater once in every ten thousand years (according to physicist Edward Condon).

Even varying the random frequency visitations downwards by even one or two orders of magnitude still translates into a lot of visits by an E.T. over our four and a half billion years. This not only satisfies the Fermi Paradox (“where is everybody?”),  but all those critics that point out that our first alien visitation was unlikely in the extreme to be in 1947, the start of the modern UFO era.

It doesn’t take much imagination – and many have imagined it – that E.T. has been flitting around Earth’s neighborhood on a nearly ongoing basis since the year dot. The key point is once that initial chance discovery happened, and that could have been billions of years ago, we were noted and logged as biological real estate. We’re now a colored pin in the galactic map, say green for simple biosphere; yellow for complex life, orange for intelligence and red for here be a civilization. Within one hundred thousand years of that first contact discovery (even if it were just E.T. greeting our microbial ancestors), radio communications at light speed would have informed all potentially receptive (and future receptive) extraterrestrial civilizations that here was one of those rare abodes, a planet with a biosphere, and thus one worthy of ongoing (not random) investigations – to satisfy their alien scientific curiosity if nothing else.

Our own terrestrial parallels are obvious. Once we discovered Antarctica it quickly became common knowledge. We went back, again, and again, finally setting up quasi- permanent quarters despite the obvious costs to the taxpayer and hardships to those undertaking the journey, and all in the name of science. We’ll go back to the Moon too one day – maybe not anytime real soon, but sometime. Your great grandkids will see lunar settlements or outposts like we see in Antarctica today. E.T. and Earth may have had the same ongoing relationship as humans and Antarctica. We might find we have E.T. for company on the Moon like we’ve had E.T. as sticky-beaks hovering around Earth in their UFOs.

Now recall from our mythologies around the world from all races, all cultures, all geographical settlements the tales of the sky ‘gods’ and other deities or beings associated with various constellations and stellar addresses.  Those same ‘gods’ (or ‘ancient astronauts’), who often get around in aerial or fiery ‘chariots’, gave the gifts of culture and knowledge and rudimentary technologies to primitive (hunter-gatherer) mankind. They of course stick around to monitor their experiments on their subjects.

So why don’t we have a clearer picture of these ‘ancient astronauts’ instead of having to try to come to terms with vague mythologies which is anything but crystal clear on that subject. That’s because our oral traditions (language) has existed vastly longer than our written record. Thus, there’s a long oral tradition of the ancient astronaut ‘gods’ and their relationships with humans and with each other before it all started to be written down, since language proper first came to the fore less than one hundred thousand years ago (probably less – more like fifty thousand years ago with the development of full behavioural modernity) but writing can only be traced back to roughly 6000 BC. That’s a lot of in-between time for a lot of the details to have been embellished or lost and lost too in the retellings over some two thousand human generations! Still, mythologies provide a lot of evidence that the extraterrestrial and the terrestrial have interacted.

Now fast-forward to 1947 and through to the present early 21^st Century. The ‘gods’ or the ‘ancient astronauts’ have become the aliens or the grays or E.T., and they are going to keep close tabs on us, since they know that one day, even if thousands of years down the track, we’ll boldly go too like they have boldly gone. We have our intelligence gathering agencies keeping tabs on those we need to keep tabs on; E.T. has theirs as well, keeping tabs on us.

Thus, we note that random, hence ongoing, visitations by E.T. have had absolutely nothing to do with the existence of humans and human technology, like our nuclear weapons detonations as well as our radio and radar and TV signals that are expanding throughout (to date very nearby) interstellar space that could be in theory detected by aliens at home. They didn’t need to detect them at home; they were here all along and well before humans were thought of as a fun thing to create in their philosophy.

UFOs: Sorry, Interstellar Space Travel Is Bunk!

Where is everybody? “Everybody” in this case are those extraterrestrial aliens. UFO believers say they are here, but UFO non-believers say surely they (the aliens) can’t get from there (wherever there is) to here – interstellar space is the ultimate no-fly quarantine zone and since superluminal velocities (i.e. – Star Trek’s warp drive comes to mind here) are a violation of Einstein’s special theory of relativity, that takes care of that. E.T. exists but can’t get here; therefore UFOs can’t be the products of E.T. Want to bet?

According to many scientists, especially when it comes to the exploration, migration and colonization throughout the cosmos by extraterrestrial intelligences, outer space is your ultimate no-man’s-land and quarantine zone. No exploration; no migration; no colonization. Any intelligent life is pretty much going to be confined to their very own planetary abode or solar system.

That’s probably true if contemplating intergalactic (between galaxies) space where distances to your nearest galactic neighbour are measured in millions of light years; that’s certainly not true for interplanetary (between planets) space where distances to your nearest neighbour are measured in light minutes to light hours; now that’s leaving a question mark over the middle ground – interstellar (between stars) where distances to your neighbour are measured in several light years.

But while interplanetary travel is plausible in terms of reasonable travel times as witnessed by our own unmanned space probes to the planets and many moons within our solar system, exploration, tourism, or migration where we’re on the receiving end isn’t likely. We can’t expect any interplanetary visitors, those locals within our solar system, with itchy tentacles desiring to explore the local neighbourhood of which we’re a part of, to come calling. The era of the advanced Martian civilization, canals and all, not to mention “The War of the Worlds” scenario, are now long gone, confined to a ‘what if’ history that never eventuated.

Visitors from other galaxies are out of the running as well because as noted above the distances needed to be crossed are many orders of magnitude greater relative to short-hop interplanetary trips. It is one thing to swim several dozen lengths of the pool; quite another to swim across the Atlantic.

With no existing intelligent non-terrestrials of the local kind that can visit us, and extraterrestrials from other galaxies confined to those galaxies, well that still leaves several billion of stars in our own galaxy which E.T. might phone if away from home.

Of course phoning home is going to be a function of where you are within our star-stuttered galaxy. Towards the inner regions of our galaxy (like the inner regions, the CBD, of our cities), stars aren’t as far apart as where we (humans) are out in the suburbs, even perhaps out in the boondocks. It’s cheaper to phone home at local (CBD) distance rates; more expensive when dealing with those boondocks long distance charges.

Regardless, whether you are in our galactic CBD or out in the suburbs or even in the boondocks, I maintain it doesn’t take all that long to get from one (say the CBD) to the other (the boondocks).

I can now hear screams of ‘objection, objection’ to that. Galactic CBD to galactic boondocks; well it’s all obviously way too far and takes way too long to get from there (wherever that is, say the galactic CBD) to here (Planet Earth; location: galactic suburbs if not the boondocks). Well, life wasn’t meant to be easy! Seriously, if you think about it a while, any serious objections fade away. If you don’t want to think about it for yourself, then see below!

Unfortunately for the sceptics, fact number one is that E.T. doesn’t need any wormhole or theoretical ‘warp drive’ or other ‘Star Trek’ type superluminal velocity techno-babble to explore the galaxy and boldly go where no alien has gone before.  Sure, space is really BIG but it is also very old. There’s lots of time available to explore and colonize starting a few light years outward at a time. Consolidate, and then expand some more. Repeat as often as required. The time it would take to explore and colonize the Milky Way Galaxy (that is, via interstellar travel) is but a small fraction of the age of that galaxy even if a race of E.T.’s never travelled at more that say 1% to 10% the speed of light. Such velocities, while pretty fast by our current abilities, shouldn’t be beyond the means of a technologically advanced race. I mean to cross 100,000 light years of interstellar space, at 1% the speed of light, requires but 10 million years. Our galaxy is ten billion years old. If you doubt this, consult any elementary astronomy text for the relevant distances and volumes and ages and do the calculations for yourself if you like.

Regardless of that bit of mathematics, UFO sceptics would still have you believe that interstellar space travel is at best highly improbable, and at worst impossible. Therefore, UFOs cannot represent the technology of a space-faring race of extraterrestrials. Hogwash! I can not believe this old and totally outdated chestnut is still bandied about since there are terrestrial equivalents and even a human parallel.

Okay, space is really BIG. Planet Earth was really BIG to human society too many centuries ago, but that didn’t stop our planet being explored from pole to pole, even if individual journeys took many years. And bacteria, insects, birds, and other terrestrial life forms preceded us in exploring and colonizing Planet Earth all in pretty quick-smart order.

While it’s proved relatively easy for humans to colonize Planet Earth, humans cannot travel to the stars because we can’t travel fast enough within our short life-spans to make the journey from start to finish, and I assume here that if you start the journey you want to be around to finish the journey.

Now there is no law in biological science that says an intelligent flesh-and-blood entity must kick-the-bucket after roughly three score and ten years. If you recall from mythology, the cosmic and sky ‘gods’ were (at least from a human perspective) as close to immortal as makes no odds. Quasi-immortality makes interstellar travel quite feasible.

Aliens could have a very long natural lifespan relative to us carbon-based terrestrial bipeds. Again, the point must be emphasised that there’s no natural law that confines intelligent life forms to an existence of just three score and ten terrestrial years.

What if you have an alien race with life-spans way, way surpassing ours?  The idiotic assumption by the anti-UFO boldly going skeptics is, in a very anthropological way, that E.T. of necessity must have a lifespan equal to that of humans, or is confined to technologies equivalent to our own 21^st Century technologies. E.T. could have, and probably did have, a multi-billion year head start on us since our galaxy was already some 5.5 billion years old before Planet Earth (plus Sun and associated solar system) even formed out of interstellar gas, dust and associated debris.

That 21^st Century technological equivalency that aliens must have relative to us is more hogwash: any alien intelligence that can visit us will have technologies far beyond our own. There’s a possible likely alternative to a naturally longer life span relative to humans: what of a bit of the old fashion genetic engineering to increase life expectancy? Or there’s the likelihood of enhanced bioengineering (part flesh; part machine) to accomplish the same goal. What if an exploring race were to adopt those old stand-by sci-fi concepts of suspended animation or a multi-generation interstellar spaceship? Let’s have a look at those in turn.

Genetic or other forms of bioengineering could artificially extend life-spans by many orders of magnitude. Perhaps flesh-and-blood has morphed into nearly all silicon-and-steel; turning an organic body into something that’s more machine than flesh-and-blood, perhaps akin to the Daleks as featured in “Doctor Who”. Given advances in artificial body parts for humans, albeit it hip replacements or dentures or even mundane tooth fillings, that’s certainly a valid possibility if one extrapolates ahead from today to mere decades to centuries ahead.

But why stop there? Send 100% machines – artificial intelligences (AI) in the form of cybernetic ‘organisms’ or robots or androids or tiny nanotechnology machines. One obviously thinks of Data from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, or something akin to the original TV’s “Battlestar Galactica” Cylons. Think of the savings in not having to provide life support and other life essentials for biological organisms. We’ve made a start already down this path. There’s nothing different in principle between a Cylon and our Pioneer 10 & 11; our Voyager 1 & 2 space probes. It’s just that a Cylon is a lot more sophisticated. The day will come when our Pioneers and Voyagers will morph into something approaching a Cylon, or any one of multi-dozens of similar ‘beings’ in the sci-fi literature. Since AI is nearly immortal (relative to flesh-and-blood), that takes care of travel time arguments, and the possible environments fit for relative easy exploration (colonization?) are expanded greatly. Artificial intelligence can boldly go where no man (flesh-and-blood) has gone, or could go.  

There’s the standard sci-fi scenarios of the multi-generation starship or hibernation that passes the time away without much additional aging. Even if E.T. has a biological lifespan roughly equivalent to our own, advanced extraterrestrials may have perfected various hibernation techniques. Put your spaceship on autopilot and sleep the long journey away.  That sort of scenario has been a staple of science fiction for generations, for example think of the movies “Alien” or “2001: A Space Odyssey” or the original “Star Trek” TV episode that featured Khan.

There’s another sci-fi staple that could get E.T. from there to here. That way is via the old sci-fi chestnut, the multi-generation interstellar spaceship. While I feel that’s an unlikely concept, especially for exploration, it might not be quite so far out if the objective is interstellar colonization.

Then too perhaps a super-civilization of the extraterrestrial type has been able to approach luminal velocities; perhaps they have knowledge of physics and engineering that can even go superluminal. Maybe, just maybe, a sort of warp drive, faster-than-light spaceship is possible. Aliens whose technological science is thousands, tens of thousands, and even beyond that in years more advanced than ours just might have gotten around Einstein’s faster-than-light speed limit. I wouldn’t want to wager any money on it, but I’d be less than open minded not to admit the possibility, however remote.  Add to that theoretical but allowable ‘gateways’ between distant points of our Universe, maybe even to other universes – wormholes and Black Holes. Maybe, just maybe, an advanced alien civilization has the ways and means to manipulate such objects and forces to facilitate easy travel in space (and time travel too maybe).  An excellent hardcore science-based sci-fi work that doesn’t rely on pseudo techno-babble that illustrates this is the novel by Carl Sagan, “Contact”.

But one doesn’t need such extreme possibilities. All it takes is the first initial journey. It’s like migrating from New York City to Sydney, Australia. Once in Sydney, it’s all local commuting. So once here, our quasi-immortal, technologically advanced E.T. (yesteryear the ‘gods’ of mythology; today UFOs) sets up shop, say some sort of artificial space colony out in the asteroid belt, maybe even a lunar outpost. No further interstellar journeys required.  So in a roundabout way, one interstellar journey by E.T. from somewhere else in our galaxy, morphs into just short-hop interplanetary journeys from that point on. There may not be intelligent Martians that come a-calling, but that doesn’t mean our solar system doesn’t play host to another alien intelligence – they’re just not originally an indigenous native, but rather an interstellar migrant.   

Mission Impossible (Or Highly Improbable): Part Three

In Alice in Wonderland (or was that Through the Looking-Glass – I can never remember which one of the two it was*) it’s stated that it’s possible to believe many (as in six) impossible things before breakfast. Science and associated philosophies have had to deal with impossibilities and wildly improbable things, some of which are straight forward, and some of which aren’t – perhaps to the point where something possible is in fact impossible and fundamentally wrong. Conversely, something considered impossible might in fact be possible and fundamentally right. 

A cautionary note: when it comes to what’s possible or impossible; plausible or implausible; probable or improbable, majority doesn’t rule. This isn’t a democracy. If a billion people believe nonsense, it’s still nonsense. This however is in contrast to what has been proven beyond a reasonable scientific doubt. If a billion people continue to disbelieve something that has been proved, then it’s those billion people who are nonsense, not the idea.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

FOURTHLY, let’s look at the reverse, some commonly accepted notions by scientists that they consider impossible or wildly improbable, but which, in IMHO are ultimately flawed concepts they have – flawed to the point where I suggest these scientist’s ‘impossibilities or implausibility’s’ range from an actual near certainty to only somewhat implausible.

One category that immediately comes to mind is ‘sea serpents’. We know from the fossil record that large marine reptiles like plesiosaurus and the mosasaur once existed. There’s no obvious reason why these creatures went extinct as their marine environment is fairly resilient against environmental change such as salinity, temperature, etc.

There’s the eye witness evidence of sightings of creatures very similar to these apparently extinct beasties both from ship, and from shore. 

There are  examples of other thought-to-have-been-extinct animals, and I mean extinct for many, many, many millions of years, that have turned up alive and well (such as the coelacanth), thank you very much!

Another item that comes to mind is one of the great mysteries of ancient history – what happened to the Minoan civilization 3,500 years ago on the island of Crete? They just vanished as a unique culture. Was it invaders or natural disaster? Modern archaeological and geological evidence all point to a massive order of magnitude greater volcanic eruption than happened at Krakatoa on the island Thera immediately to the north of Crete, yet still too far away to totally account for the mystery. By now, you’ve probably guessed the answer. The eruption generated a massive series of tsunamis some 30 meters high which destroyed the villages and towns, all of which were on the coast. The one-two punch, a mega-volcano plus mega-tsunamis and you had the total destruction of the Minoan civilization. That, in turn gave rise to the origin of the Atlantis tale. The legend and mythology surrounding Atlantis has long been consigned to the pseudoscience dust bin. Yet while there’s no proof positive and probably never will be, it is quite plausible that legends and mythology derived from the above Thera (or Santorini) eruption plus associated tsunami wiping out the Minoan civilization on Crete, did indeed, form the foundation for the legend of Atlantis.

The UFO ETH (extraterrestrial hypothesis) also immediately comes to mind, as well as her closely related sister, ‘ancient astronauts’ (the UFO ETH and associated closely related topic of ‘ancient astronauts’ are really two peas in a pod). Why? The answer is twofold. Firstly, there is the theoretical underpinning the two. Secondly, there is the observational evidence supporting the two. Considering those two in turn…

Theoretical Underpinnings: I’d like to think that Planet Earth would be among the cosmic real estate of some interest to any advanced technological species of extraterrestrial being, especially since the Cambrian Explosion over 500 million years ago when complex (multi-cellular) life forms became noticeable. Like the Star Trek mantra says, ‘to seek out new life…’.

Now in terms of cosmic real estate, comets and asteroids are pretty common, ditto airless rocky worlds; gas giants seem to be worth a dime-a-dozen, but real estate that has an atmosphere, and a hydrosphere, and a lithosphere, and a biosphere aren’t dime-a-dozen bodies. So, when one appears on an extraterrestrial’s ‘radar’, either through personally or robotically ‘boldly going’, or via remote sensing (our oxygen rich atmosphere is an obvious giveaway that just screams out as something that should be singled out for extra attention. That’s us! We have a biosphere. We have life. Well, that’s interesting.

Of course for most of our biosphere’s existence, we’ve been interesting in the same way as an ant hill is interesting to an entomologist or a bacterium is interesting to a microbiologist. Just like it doesn’t take all that much effort for an entomologist to seek out an ant hill or a microbiologist to find a bacterium, so, in the cosmic scheme of things, it doesn’t take all that much effort for an alien technological civilization to reach us. Many might dispute that statement, but the fact is, going from point A in our galaxy, to point B in our galaxy, violates no known laws or principles of physics. Once they have the desire and the ways and means of ‘boldly going’, the rest are details. And Planet Earth can no more hide from exploring alien eyes than an ant hill can hide from an inquisitive entomologist! Now you take local A, somewhere in our galaxy, home to an alien civilization. Now take place B – Planet Earth. What’s the distance between the two? It doesn’t matter. If the civilization can achieve 1% to 10% light speed interstellar travel – no violation of physics in that – calculate how long it would take them to get from A to B. Now, compare that with the overall age of our galaxy! You’ll find the ratio is somewhere in the same ballpark as how long it took humans to migrate and explore and colonize Planet Earth!

Observational Evidence: Well, for starters, regarding UFOs (as extraterrestrial vehicles), how about over six decades on, hundreds of thousands of sightings in all countries of the globe, by all walks of life - male & female; rich & poor; professional & illiterate; the young and the elderly, all religions; all races; all nationalities; no category has been left out. Then how about witnesses, passing lie detector exams all the while insisting “I know what I saw”? Then how about the fact that there are those experts in aerial phenomena who should be able to, but can’t explain all the sightings – the usual unexplained residue being between 5% and 10% - the hard core, bona-fide UFOs. Now throw in multiple and independent witness accounts! You don’t care for eyewitness testimony? Too unreliable you say? Well, chuck in a pot full of unexplained photographic and motion pictures, lots of unexplainable radar returns, ground traces, and all manner of other bits and pieces that instrumentation has detected or can do analysis on – no human brain entered into, just iron and silicon.  Also, you have the undisputed fact that many countries have undertaken official investigations into the UFO issue – that in itself suggests that the issue has been taken seriously at the highest levels, unlike say, ghosts or stigmata!

Ancient astronauts are a slightly murkier kettle of fish because of the time separation between then and now. It’s easier to come to terms with what happened 20 years ago vis-à-vis 2000 years ago. Still, I’d maintain that there exists a reasonable amount of artistic and literary remnants from those long ago and far away places that are suggestive of otherworldly influences. As but one example, nearly every culture has legends, a mythology if you wish, of ‘sky beings’ who obviously, in most cases at least, were considered some sort of gods. Since of course nobody actually believes they were supernatural gods, that still leaves the pigeonhole of ‘sky beings’. 

Now, is all of that proof? No! Is all of that evidence? Yes! It’s the sort of evidence that’s lacking in most of the other paranormal/supernatural bits and pieces that the sceptics love to collectively debunk and rubbish. But, that evidence makes my assertion that some paranormal claims are more equal than other paranormal claims more credible.

To be continued…

* Having since looked it up, I’ve confirmed it as the White Queen’s statement from Through the Looking-Glass.