The Aliens Who Already Walk Among Us

What I am about to tell you is shocking.  If you have small children then you might want them to leave the room.  Of course, then you'd have to come back here to read the rest of the post, and that would leave the little tike unattended.  There's a good chance that they could hurt themselves or start crying because you left them alone.  That would be a big distraction.  To be on the safe side you should probably wrap them up in duct-tape and shut them up in a closet until you're done reading this.  I wouldn't want them to be traumatized.

If you've seen the show Ancient Aliens on the History Channel, then you probably know by now that aliens built the Egyptian pyramids.  If you haven't seen Ancient Aliens, it's basically a show made by people who think Occam's Razor is something you use to cut up lines of coke as you spin more outrageous alien theories for you next episode.  They use aliens as a ready explanation for all the mysteries of archeology, as though they had an unlimited tube of the stuff.  Primitive stones cut with amazing precision?  Must have been aliens.  Hieroglyphic carvings found in darkened chambers?  They must have had alien light bulbs.  Impressive feats of engineering?  Here, let me squeeze a little alien on that.  There you go.  It may at first glance seem like the stupidest show ever put on TV, but Giorgio Tsoukalos (pictured on the right) passes the History Channel's "fringe theory/crazyman beard" test, so there must be some credibility to what he says.  Yep, that's pretty sane looking facial hair he's got there.  Nothing weird looking about that guy.

Okay, so I think we've pretty much established that aliens built the pyramids to everyone's satisfaction.  I mean, we've established it to everyone's satisfaction, not that the aliens built the pyramids to everyone's satisfaction, although we do seem pretty happy with them.  Thank you, aliens.  Anyway, while the aliens were hanging around, overseeing the construction of these pyramids that were having built so that they could...ummm...well, uhhhhh...so that they could...ohhhh...  Anyway, they probably had camps set up on the site, and maybe they even had their families with them.  And maybe, just maybe, they even brought some of their household pets with them.

Now, we also know that the legendary Egyptian gods were actually aliens.  I think I heard that on Ancient Aliens too, or maybe it was that Stargate movie.  Anyway, that's not important.  The point is that if the Egyptians considered the aliens to be gods, then it figures that they would consider the aliens' pets to be gods as well, or at least highly superior beings, objects of reverence in their own right.  So what would happen if some of these alien pets got loose and ran away, as pets are known to do?  And what if some of these pets were left behind after the aliens had departed?  And what if the Egyptians found some of these strays, and because of their reverence for them, decided to keep them as pets themselves instead of cooking them over a barbeque?

So this is what an alien looks like, right?

Okay, you ready for it?

Ready!?

BOOM!  I rest my case.

              

Making Contact

More than once on this blog, I've mentioned the possibility of making contact with an alien race.  I've discussed the unlikelihood of them visiting us, and I've discussed the different methods by which we might cross the unimaginable distances of space to make contact with them.  Part of my fascination with this subject is the common idea of what life from another planet might be like, as well as confirmation that we're not alone in the universe.  Aside from these things, however, I also believe that real, verified contact with intelligent life beyond this planet would have a revolutionary impact on the human race.

We harbor a dream that some day we will put aside our differences with one another, end our senseless wars, and begin working together towards common goals.  Somehow, though, this dream keeps slipping away.  The practical purposes for war became obsolete a long time ago, but yet the fighting continues.  Wars were once fought for the expansion of territory and sometimes even for survival itself.  This is no longer necessary in the way that it once was, but we still find reasons to take up arms again each other.  It's as if we are compelled to keep fighting as an end unto itself and we need to fabricate excuses to perpetually sustain the conflict.  I guess we just like to kill each other.  I believe that contact with an alien race might be the one thing that could finally bring us together.

We seemed to have the concept of "us and them" hardwired into us.  We seem unable to conceive of an "us" without a "them" to contrast it to.  As long as we exist on our little blue island, isolated from the rest of the universe, we focus on the differences between each other.  We gather into a group on this side of the line by virtue of things that set us apart from the people on the other side of the line.  Yet, it's the existence of the line that enables the drawing together of the group.  Without the line, we remain scattered and disconnected, forming smaller groups and engaging in petty conflicts.  A clear, deep line drawn broad enough can bring focus and unity to smaller squabbling groups.

My fellow Americans will remember how September 11th seemed to briefly bring the country together.  Some people thought it was our common grief over the tragedy that united us.  I believe it was something a bit more basic.  That incident drew a deep line, and the terrorists who committed those atrocities were on one side of the line, and the rest of us were on the other.  The minor differences we had focused on between each other suddenly seemed small in the face of this larger divide.  We gathered together against a common enemy.  We nodded to one another.  We were "us"; they were "them."  It seems to be in our nature that we can't have one without the other.

Contact with intelligent extra-terrestrial life would draw a line across the cosmos itself; one deeper than we have ever known.  We wouldn't necessarily have to see them as an enemy, although quite honestly, it would help.  It might be enough just to see them as different.  Only by aliens occupying the role of "them" can there be an "us" that unites all of humanity.  Of course, it would nice to believe that we could reach a level of enlightenment where we could look past the differences of all beings.  One might suggest that such a dichotomy would only expand the same old problems to a higher level.  The yearning for world peace would be superseded by a yearning for galactic peace and then by universal peace.  I agree.  But what are you gonna do?          

The 20 Million-Year-Old Man

Several years ago the Voyager probes were launched into deep space.  On each of these probes was placed a gold record which contained information about humanity for the benefit of any intelligent life which might stumble across it.  I have often wondered what might happen if we went a step further.  What if rather than merely sending information, we send an actual DNA sample of a human being, say a strand of hair or something, with instructions on how to clone a human being from this sample.  I wasn't too surprised to find that this idea had been anticipated to some degree and that plans were already underway to send DNA into space, most notably Stephen Hawking's.  But the possibilities are at once amazing and horrifying at the same time, and I was surprised that there wasn't a little more controversy over this.  There's a certain moral grey area here.  Millions of years from now a human being created from such a sample could walk the surface of an alien planet and make contact with intelligent, extraterrestrial life, but it's hard to say whether this possibility would be worth some of the potential moral problems involved.  I want take a moment to consider some of these problems.    

First, of course, there's the whole issue of cloning itself.  At a quick glance, it might seem that the issue is irrelevant, since it would be the hypothetical aliens who would or would not do the cloning.  We're just talking about sending a tiny piece of ourselves into space.  But what is the real issue with cloning?  When you put aside people's suspicion and superstition on the subject, you're left with the basic matter of human rights.  There's the old argument of growing human beings solely to harvest their organs, and so on.  Many of these arguments are based on a gross ignorance of genetics, nevertheless the issue is a legitimate one.  If unlimited copies of a person could be created in a lab, at what point does their value as unique human beings become undermined?  And so, if we're talking about sending a sample of DNA into space with the potential that a human being could be cloned from that sample, don't we have to consider the implications of the life that we would be consigning such a person to.  I guarantee you, if we were talking about sending fertilized embryos into space that could somehow be preserved for millions of years, someone out there would be writing a letter.  And rightly so.  You might say that a strand of hair is miles apart from a frozen embryo,  but when the potential exists that a human being could be created from either one, is there really a fundamental difference in this case?

So that brings us to the next issue: What sort of life would we be consigning such a person to?  It's hard to fathom what it would be like being born on an alien world, having no idea who or what you are and finding out that the species you descend from most likely long since vanished into dust.  In some sense, I suppose, it would be like a cosmic variation on the old legend of the boy raised by wolves.  He would identify with the aliens that raised him.  He would learn their language and follow their ways and generally consider himself one of them.  But there would still be that loneliness that would come from being the only one of his kind.  Maybe we could send two samples, one male and one female.  We can only hope that they'd get along, and that there aren't any snakes or apple trees nearby.

But even that is really just considering the best possible scenario.  We really don't know what the hypothetical aliens would be like, or what kind of intergalactic foster parents they would be.  Maybe they would display their newly grown human in some sort of space zoo.  Or maybe they would use the sample to pump out hundreds of Stephen Hawkings, assembly line style, to be used as slave labor.  I just hope they realize that those don't come with a warranty agreement.  

From all of this it might sound like I'm against the idea of sending DNA into space, but really I'm just pointing out some things that ought to be considered.  I don't think that shooting our fingernail clippings out into space should be taken lightly.  I think we should be aware of the gravity of what we're doing.  However, I guess I support the idea.  I have some reservations about it, obviously, but the idea is just a little too compelling for me to completely dismiss it.  The possibility of preserving humanity for millions of years beyond its shelf life here on Earth is definitely a big argument in its favor.  Add to that the possibility of a human being standing face to face with intelligent life from another planet.  Sure it would be a human being that knew nothing of Earth or where it came from, but it would still be one of us with a toothbrush and an encyclopedia of human history packed for it as we send it off into the great unknown.                   

Welcome to Earth....Why Are You Here?

Many of the people who have speculated about the existence of extraterrestrials have always just assumed that if there were aliens, they would just naturally be visiting Earth.  The hubris and the subjective sense of self-importance behind this assumption is incredible.  It doesn't even seem to occur to these people that the question of whether there's sentient life somewhere out there in the galaxy and the question of whether that life has visited Earth are two separate matters entirely.  They treat them as if they're one in the same; if there are aliens, they must have visited Earth.  Really!?  How could we be sure they even know we exist?  Why would they even come here in the first place?  If there's life out there on at least one other planet, then you almost have to figure that there's life out there on millions more besides that one.  So out of all those millions, why would they pick Earth? 

"Uh, we were just in the neighborhood, and we figured we stop by for a visit."

Of course, as human beings, we think we're pretty special.  We occupy a central place in our view of the universe, and understandably we have a hard time stepping outside that view.  But if the matter is to be given any serious consideration, then that's what we have to do.  We have to look at it from the aliens point of view.  To them Earth is just another planet out of millions with life on it.  They would have to have a reason to cross the vast expanse of space to come here.  They would have to have an objective reason to think we're special.  I think the people involved in genuine extraterrestrial research projects like S.E.T.I. understand this.  I'm speaking more, of course, of some of the stranger conspiracy theorists out there as well as people in general that you find yourself having these kind of weird conversations with. 

"Ah Earthlings!  We've heard so much about you from the Klagnars.  You walk upright and eat with utensils?  Fascinating!"

I got into a conversation like this with a friend of mine once.  When I pointed that they would need a reason to bother coming here, he speculated that maybe they were interested in our researches in atomic energy and our creation of nuclear weapons.  At first this idea seemed to fit.  The whole "Roswell" siting seemed to coincide perfectly in time and place with the bomb testing at Los Alamos just a few years earlier.  However, in the end, I think the whole thing kind of falls apart.  It seems to me that nuclear technology would be an inevitable step on the road to developing the means of intergalactic travel.  You can't break the light barrier and miss fission entirely.  On the other hand, maybe they already know all about nuclear weapons, and they know how dangerous they are, and they're here to make sure we're not a threat or we don't annihilate ourselves.  Again, I seriously doubt this.  As awesomely powerful as our weapons seem, they're like firecrackers on a galactic scale.  As far as them being concerned with our safety...a nice idea, but I'm sure the universe is far too big a place and much too populated for these aliens to concern themselves over the beings of a tiny blue planet destroying themselves.

"You split the atom!?  Wow!!  Our ships are powered with noodle technology."

So am I making a definitive statement that the aliens have not been here?  Of course not.  Who knows?  Who even knows if there are any aliens out there?  I'm just saying that they wouldn't come here without a reason.  We've outgrown the literal notion that the universe revolves around us, but we still sometimes fall back into that frame of mind.  Maybe in all the universe we're the only other planet that the aliens have found with life on it.  Maybe it's just the two of us.  Unlikely.  Maybe they just planted life here, like some cosmic zoo, and they stop by to watch us swing on the rope and throw feces at each other.  Uhhhh.  Maybe they got lost and decided to stop and ask for directions.  Maybe we're like the hillbilly gas station of the galaxy.  Yeah, that sounds about right.