Philosophy 1050 (?) 1994
This was written in my first semester of college and after re-reading it's actually not the worst freshman writing I've read. It's not great though and I wouldn't pick this topic today with a gun to my head and yet I'm proud of my incredibly skeptical conclusions. Also, the X Files, wow I remember obsessing over that show and man can you tell! The assignment was an end of term paper on something typically contentious of a topic, abortion, capital punishment, etc. Because I was a gigantic dork I picked alien abductions because why the hell not? I still pick weird topics in my writing these days...
Are We Alone?
"I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of
our solar system, into the universe seeking only peaceful contact." In
1977, Kurt Waldheim, past president of the United Nations sent this message out
into space. It was sent in 55 languages on the Voyager 1 and 2 probes, and also
on Pioneer
10 and 1 -each one on its way out of our solar system.
Along with this message
was sent over a hundred pictures that
would not only show a sort of map to Earth,
but also give a tour along the way. Whether or not this message was ever
received
is still a mystery. There are a lot of people that believe the mystery
has
been solved. They range from fanatics to tabloid newspapers, to legitimate
scientists.
They have been dedicated to proving that extra-terrestrials have
been
visiting the Earth for a while now. Some of these people aren't just crackpots
in the south searching for Elvis in the K-Mart parking lot. There are
lawyers,
doctors and numerous other professionals. They willingly risk their
reputation
on these occurrences. But the questions remain. Are there extra-terrestrials
here, hidden by a massive government conspiracy. Or is this just
another
example of mass hysteria fueled by modern day myth?
In 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were driving home through New
Hampshire. They
saw a rapidly moving light and stopped to
investigate. When they pulled out
their binoculars, it
disappeared. A few miles later, the strange light returned
and
seemed to follow them. It came closer and they saw that it was a circular
object
with figures moving behind blue tinted windows. Barney got out to get a
better
look. Suddenly, wings snapped out abruptly on both sides of the craft.
Barney
ran back to the car, panicked. Driving away, they looked back and it was
gone.
When they got home, they discovered that they had been gone an extra two
hours
instead of about ten minutes.
Betty began to have strange dreams, filled with haunting images
of abductions
scenes. She finally went to a hypnotist to find out
what had really happened in
the missing two hours. The therapist
decided to use hypnotic regression to get
the truth. When Barney
stopped the car the second time, it had in fact stalled.
The craft
landed and aliens got out.
They were separated and subjected to
many biological tests, and what they
called "sampling."
Before they were returned to their car, they showed Betty a
three
dimensional map. It was a star map and she was told to study it carefully.
Under
her hypnotic state Betty was able to reproduce the map. When the aliens
released
them, Betty was already in the car and Barney found himself running
back
to the car panicked.
This could be considered and interesting "story," yet
when the two separated
accounts were compared, they were
internally consistent on detail. The star map,
their only tangible
proof of the experience, was given to an amateur astronomer
for
further study. Five years later she concluded that the Hills had encountered
aliens
from the Zeta Reticuli system. Either they were going to the Zeta
Reticuli
system, or man would eventually go there.
A few years later, this
account was published. It was very popular and in
1975, made into
a film called The UFO Incident. Millions of people relived the
story
of an ordinary couple, a postal worker and a social worker. This was only
the
beginning.
If aliens had visited the Earth, then why isn't it common
knowledge? The most
publicized accounts today come from tabloids
and fanatics. There is not a lot
of scientist or even government
officials substantiating these claims. One of
the reasons the
governments around the world would want to hide these facts
would
be for our safety. Most of the books and movies in our culture portray
them
negatively. Popular opinion is that if aliens came to Earth, mass hysteria
would
ensue. The population would run for the hills. Any alien presence that
can
travel solar systems would surely have the capabilities to destroy the
Earth.
Or as the latest movies would suggest, kill or enslave the people and
rape
the planet. Remember "War of the Worlds"? That was only a fictional
radio
show and there was still a panic. For years the
entertainment industry has been
playing on our fears of
destruction by some outside force. It's not the Soviet
Union any
more, It's E.T. He's back because we can't take care of the Earth
ourselves
and have forfeited our stewardship. Those fictional stories may just be
for
entertainment, but there are some interesting facts.
In the middle of the
Nevada desert, possibly an extension of
Nellis AFB, is something referred to as
Area51. This is a real
place. It was also very top secret. There are signs all
around it
restricting access, even that the security has the right to use deadly
force.
In 1951 an alien space craft supposedly crash-landed in Roswell,
New Mexico.
It was then transported to Area 51. The government of
course denies this, but
they do admit to some things. For example,
Area51 was where the U-2 was
developed and tested. Also the SR-71
spy plane that flew over Cuba on the 60's
was made. Or the Stealth
Bomber, the government still denies this project even
months after
pictures were taken and released to the public. It's not unusual to
find
strange lights moving in the sky at night. Area 51 has a reputation as
testing
grounds for experimental air craft. If the government had found a crash
landed
alien ship, this would be the place to assess it capabilities.
There is a lot of information, accounts, stories, etc. out in
the world about
the possibility of aliens here on Earth. This
certainly warrants further
investigation. The scientific community
shouldn't be so quick to dismiss these
claims. Just by the sheer
number of them, they can't all be wrong, can they?
Of
course they can! The Hill story was just one of many highly
publicized cases.
Millions of people watched then just as they do
now. How many people saw "Fire in the Sky"? Most people today know
what is supposed to happen if aliens from
Mars come to
"abduct" you, even to the point of knowing what they are supposed to
look
like. People say that in our time we don't have any myths or legends. I say
that
we do. They're called Area51, Roswell, and numerous other governmental
conspiracies.
People have taken their own fears and made them into these
elaborate
stories.
So then, is the government hiding alien life? Most people would
agree that
the government does hide things from the public. That's
why they call it
national security. Some of the things that our
government does, we really
wouldn't want to know. But more people
agree that the government is really too
incompetent to balance the
budget much less fool millions of people. That would
require
forces beyond their current means. It's the Nixon era relived. Last year
it
was discovered that life did exist on Mars. This isn't a civilization either.
Scientists
found fossilized remains of bacteria millions of years old. It was
found
in a meteorite in the Antarctic. This is as close as we will ever come to
life
outside the Earth in our solar system with our current technology. Even
this
data is under scrutiny.
There is still a possibility of intelligent life nearby. The
only problem is
a big one for UFO fanatics. Why would they come to
the Earth? Or how would they
even know that we are out here?
Scientists are using the most primitive means to
try and contact
outside life. We have only radio waves which would be the bottom
rung
of the ladder. So our scientist are using the radio waves and sending them
into
space.
Even going the speed of light it would still take two
hundred years to reach
the nearest planetary system, which cannot
support life. We may not even be
around by the time alien
civilizations receive it. It would still take them two
hundred
years to come here. That is of course going the speed of light. They
would
need one big generational ship. Faster than light speed is not possible
with
our current technology. But supposing they could safely go faster than
light,
they would of course have ways of overcoming one of the most fundamental
laws
of physics.
But I understand how inconvenient the laws of physics can be.
There is another
interesting theory. Any civilization that has
been around long enough to become a
member of the United
Federation of Planets would need to have outlived many
things.
Wars, genocide, nuclear weapons, even its own UFO conspiracy theories.
They
would have to find a way to live in peace with themselves and others. They
would
have to realize that the Earth couldn't possibly be redundant elsewhere in
the
galaxy. If aliens have been coming here since the 1950's (when was "The
War of the
Worlds" first broadcast?), they have been
experimenting on the wrong people. They should be abducting political,
scientific, and religious leaders, not Betty and Barney Hill. People would
believe Carl Sagan, but question Barney Hill. So then it's really a question of
credibility. Alien life exists out beyond our
solar system, but
have they already come here?
We could just be a cosmic
accident. We could also be a
civilization searching for answers in the midst of
many. Despite
all of the evidence to the contrary, people are not entirely
dissuaded.
Maybe that's because all of the evidence to the contrary
is not
entirely dissuasive.
