We have all wondered if we are alone in the cosmos; if beings born under the light of another star embark on fabulous voyages between the stars to reach us – their cosmic cousins.
Those who believe the Earth has been visited by aliens must think all their dreams are coming true. The recent rumors are that Donald Trump will break the “truth embargo” and make an alien disclosure speech on May 1. Then there is Steven Spielberg’s film about aliens, Disclosure Day, due out in the summer. This is surely no coincidence.
The UFO community is a money-making juggernaut that cannot change direction
YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen recently interviewed Barack Obama and asked what many people want to know from a US President, current or former: are aliens real? All presidents are asked this. Most have their jokey answers ready. Obama said: “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them. And they’re not being kept in – what is it? – Area 51. There’s no underground facility unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.” The news spread at warp speed, especially in the UFO community, which is primed for any chink in the armor of what they see as a government cover-up.
Are we are being prepared for the biggest news in history? Are we, perhaps, not alone?
Realizing he had been misinterpreted, Obama clarified in an Instagram post that his remarks weren’t to be taken seriously, saying that statistically it’s likely that extraterrestrial life exists, “but the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”
You would have thought that was the end of that – but no. It was, apparently, proof of the cover-up. Obama had been forced to recant and so many experts on aliens posted on X to explain what he really meant. The UFO community is a money-making juggernaut that cannot change direction. Guided by fantastic stories and rumors, it is propelled by poor scientific understanding and a lack of rigorous investigation.
It satisfies many needs and its devotees aren’t interested in what anyone else thinks. It has its gurus, who are universally unimpressive; has-been broadcasters, ex-military “whistleblowers,” contactees (those who have been “abused by aliens”), aggrandizing minor government officials, eccentric billionaires, self-described “investigative journalists” and even those who claim to have fought interstellar wars and saved the galaxy. There are those who will teach you how to telepathically contact aliens, for a price. They all want your attention, which is often monetized. They all have two things in common: absolute certainty and zero evidence.
US presidents are no strangers to aliens. In November 1985, Ronald Reagan met Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Geneva for the first time. The Star Wars missile defense program increased the tension between the two. They sat down alone, except for translators, in a villa on the shore of Lake Geneva. To help break the ice, Reagan asked Gorbachev whether, if the US was being attacked by aliens, the USSR would come to its aid? Gorbachev smiled and said: “No doubt about it.”
A few years later, Reagan told the UN: “I’ve often wondered, what if all of us in the world discovered that we were threatened by a power from outer space, from another planet? Wouldn’t we all of a sudden find that we didn’t have any differences between us at all, we were all human beings, citizens of the world, and wouldn’t we come together to fight that particular threat?”
So, what is the threat some believe we face? Either from the globe-eyed reptilian aliens or the fair-haired so-called Nordics from Zeta Reticuli that are said to be in charge. These creatures are stereotypes. They have more in common with incubi and succubae than beings from space. Aliens will not look so much like humans. We are descended from lobe-finned fish that have bequeathed us two arms, two legs, five fingers, knees and elbows and teeth which were once scales. They were bottom feeders, which is why we have horizontal mouths positioned below our noses and eyes.
Aliens will be different, although bilateral symmetry and jointed limbs are probable features. They certainly won’t look like humanized reptiles or insects, and their biochemistry will be different to ours. Nowhere in all of space will there be creatures like us. There may be wisdom and cosmic princes of peace, there may be terrible power – but nothing like us.
Reagan was right, however. We do not take this potential threat from space seriously. This UFO nonsense has misled us. Out there could be danger from the rampant and the shattering, those that, hurricane-like, ravage planets. Could it be that in the dark lurks the sinister, that there is life that will tear to shreds any other and for whom regret and hope are themselves alien? No human knows the answer to this.
Even if we never find aliens, their contemplation forces us to examine ourselves and our place in the cosmos
We may never understand aliens and their strange emotions and motivations. Will they shatter illusions about love and human “goodness?” Is it fear and survival rather than altruism that is spread across the cosmos? We should prepare for contact but until we find them we won’t be ready, and when we do it will be too late. We need to talk about aliens, sensibly.
No spaceships have arrived on Earth, and we scan the sky for their signals from a safe distance. If we received them, what would they be like? They could be disturbances of photons, ripples in space-time, perhaps patterns written in quantum-entangled particles, superimposed on top of one another. All hoping to be detected. Faint traces of individual voices, cries and calls, like distant sounds in a night-time jungle, together forming a cosmic palimpsest. Each message a civilization’s mark on the cosmos, a reflection of strange lives and experiences beyond any single entity’s comprehension. Artificial intelligence programs moving between star clusters, holographic art forms passing between species. Souls moving at lightspeed. The obvious and the unfathomable.
These are great stories and themes written on a cosmic scale that we may someday read. Even if we never find aliens, their contemplation forces us to examine ourselves and our place in the cosmos.
But to those who believe that, having crossed the vast tracts of space and time, aliens hang around nuclear missile silos, buzz aircraft, abduct ordinary people and “probe them” before going on to mutilate cows and then incompetently crash in the desert, I say: ditch the fantasies and wishful thinking. Open your minds and look up to the stars.
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