MY TAKE ON EXTRATERRESTRIALS UFOs, or Unidentified Flying Objects have been a cultural phenomenon since Kenneth Arnold had his sighting in June of 1947. At that time, they became known as ‘flying saucers’, and in the following month, the incident at the Foster Ranch in Roswell, New Mexico put UFOs on the front page of almost every American newspaper. Since that time, people have reported all manner of spacecraft in our skies, all over the world. There are also claims that humans have been abducted, experimented on, taken to alien worlds, and other incredible stories, further fanning the flames of the UFO experience. Believers in UFOs are among the most diligent of folks. Like Bigfoot enthusiasts, Illuminati buffs, and religious folks, no one can change their minds, no matter how many UFO stories are clarified, debunked, or otherwise explained, they remain steadfast in their belief that earth is constantly being visited by intelligences beyond earth. Everyone has read the stories, so I won’t go into them, but using critical thought and reason, I would like to toss my two cents in here. First of all, I DO believe in life on other planets. I also believe that it’s a good possibility that beings exist who have been traveling in space far longer than us. When you take into account we have only been what could be called ‘space-faring’ since Yuri Gagarin became the first human to go into earth’s orbit in 1961. The universe began its formation 13.7 billion years ago (give or take), and we can only speculate as to how long it took the first species to enter their own ‘space age’. It’s even possible other species could be tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years ahead of us. This is provided, of course, they lasted that long. Planets throughout the universe suffer extinction events all the time (earth has gone through at least five of these), and there’s no reason to believe that other worlds do not lay under these same risks. Asteroids, novae, gamma-ray bursts and a myriad of other events can lay waste to a planet in moments. Nature doesn’t care how advanced a species is. But if we assume a world has been able to escape utter destruction from space, there are other considerations. War, disease, even the discovery and accidental misuse of their own discovery of E=mc2! So, if they’ve come out of all this unscathed, we have the last consideration: Faster-than-light travel. Now, we’ve all seen the science fiction programs that talk about wormholes in space that allow a ship to travel unfathomable distances in no time at all. These are only theories (and no, I don’t mean like evolution is a theory), with nothing substantial to verify their existence. If an alien race is to come to earth, they’re going to have to break the universal speed limit of 669,600,000 mph. Plenty of things have to be considered when we talk about a vessel going that fast. First and foremost, when you approach light-speed, hydrogen atoms would eradiate everyone on board the ship. Even if there weren’t any biological being on board, such high levels of energy would most certainly destroy any electronics. I’ve been told that shielding (such as the deflector on Star Trek) would take care of that. However, the ship would be traveling faster than the shield. And forget solid shielding. Applying that much mass to the ship just makes it MORE impossible. Lastly, there is the time issue. If you were able to travel faster than light, time would slow down dramatically on the ship, while passing normally here. If you traveled from the earth at light-speed for 15 years, then made the return trip in the same way, no one you knew on earth would be alive. Over 100 years will have passed here. I think it’s safe to assume that any interstellar travel will be done. And it will be done by humans! However, it will be nothing like Star Trek. It’s quite possible that we may one day build vessels that can even go half the speed of light, and we may visit our closest neighbors, such as Alpha Centauri (This is a trip that will take decades at best), but we will always be confined to our local group. Other species are going to have these same confines. So, yes, I do believe in extraterrestrial life, and no, I don’t think we’ve been visited. In my humble opinion, our closest neighbors are probably just now getting news of WW2 via radio signals. Of course, they’re going to have no idea what they’re listening to, but they will know we’re here. And that’s where it will most likely remain. I look at life in the Milky Way like different animals in a pet store, and none of our cages face another cage. Even if we find they’re out there, we’ll have to be satisfied with just that. Knowing.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 18:19:14 +0000
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