The Neverending Story

Leslie Kean's book UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record is now a best seller. Various retired military men have gone public with their reports of UFOs disabling nuclear missiles . A growing list of countries are releasing documents confirming that alien objects are real. All in all, it seems to be pretty earth shaking stuff.

So naturally the national press is more focused on Lindsay Lohan's most recent arrest. After all, everyone is bound to be shock that she might be doing drugs.

So basically, aliens could launch a full scale attack, blow up half the cities on Earth, and generally wreak the kind of havoc seen mostly in Michael Bay's films and nobody will report it. Well, maybe a small report at the end of the news hour (mostly using another pointless interview with some debunker who will balance the story with another round of "it was only the planet Venus" jibber jabber).

I mean heck, most of Kean's book is packed with material that has actually been available for a few years, is pretty well documented (mostly by the U.S. military itself) and is widely known within UFO circles. But to the public at large, it is new and mysterious.

The attraction that UFOs have for nuclear missiles (both ours and the old Soviets) is also well known and documented (by both us and the Russians). Nothing exactly new. It is a topic that might be considered of some deep concern (at least if you are kind of concerned about global security and stuff), but it isn't actually new. Of course, a lot of the media isn't exactly paying attention because...well, just because.... Heck, this story is only going to get attention if you can someone factor in a drunk and drugged Lindsay Lohan (maybe doing wheelies around the silo while aliens shoot heat beams at her or something like that).

Heck, I just watched a news story on CNN about a farmer in Georgia trying to catch the mystery intruders who have killed and mutilated 20 of his cows over the past year. It is a classic "mute" case and it is also quite obvious that the reporters covering the story haven't a clue as to what they are chasing.

Despite ample evidence that these cases represent something extremely unusual (and there has been lots of evidence gathered over the years, mostly by honest-to-god police investigators - the FBI have even posted online the material), the cattle mutilations are still blown off as freak acts committed by elusive lone nutcases (I think they are second cousins to the equally odd lone gunmen types). Very little investigation has gone into these cases (and they don't even have to involve the UFO theory - in fact I have often leaned toward the "black op" notion). But the evidence strongly suggests something extremely serious is going on and it most likely involves something that just might be darn serious to public health and safety.

So obviously it is doomed to a small piece on the back page, surrounded by uninformed quotes from whatever dingbat the reporter can find on his speed dial.

After all, they have to save the front page for ol' Lindsay. She is about due for court again.

Katie Bar the Door

Stephen Hawking has just done the world a great favor. With his comments published today in the London Times the so-called smartest man on earth has just made it so of official that aliens exist and are lurking somewhere nearby. OK, he claims this on the basis of math and probability, but this is his area and he seems quite confident in his statement.

Which means we can now get down to the real issue: Do we greet them as space brothers or Help! Murder! Police! and Katie bar the door and tell grandpa to get out the shotgun!!!!!

These have always been the two main schools of thought on the matter. Kind of limited and certainly very simplistic, but this is about the best anyone has ever come up with concerning the issue. Each view is driven by obvious human needs. The aliens must be feared school is obviously rooted in human fear of the unknown. Well that, and our own long history of treating other cultures in various nasty and brutal manners. Gee whiz, why wouldn't an alien race do to us what we did to the American Indians (and the Africans and the Asians and on and on).

Likewise, the Space Brothers school is a strong extension of the I-Love-You-And-You-Love-Me childlike need for "adult" approval. We want them to be space brothers because we need their acceptance in order to bolster our own sense of low self-esteem.

Either way, we are hopelessly focused upon our own nightmares and dreams and want to project that upon the alien "other." Too bad. Since they are aliens, they may not be all that incline toward either enslaving us or patting our heads. Most likely, they will be rooted in their own psychology and social values and we can only hope to figure out what any of that means. They will operate according to their own needs, social values, and cultural traditions. It may or may not be good from our viewpoint. It will be up to us, as humans, to try and figure that out as fast as possible.

We will have no reasons to believe that any alien visitors love us. Nor do we have any reasons to believe that they are here to enslave us. The truth will be somewhere in the murky middle. It will be up to us to establish the means of handling contact and analyzing the intent of any such visitors. Each case will be different and every instance must be approached in a manner that is neither friendly nor hostile.

Hawking seems to suggest that we should turn off the lights, bolt the door, and not answer the phone. Tempting thought. Too bad this is a completely pointless notion. They already know that we are here and if any body out there is interested, they will find us quite quickly. So we need to be dealing with the best ways to prepare for global contact. The hiding option is no good.

And by the way, so is the hostile option. It's a safe bet that any alien race that is capable of getting here (and undoubtedly, there are some) will also be advance enough to blow our butts off if they are so inclined. No matter how advance some of our weapons may be, we will still end up looking like a pack of cave dwelling nitwits waving some sticks in their face (if they have one).

So what we need is less hardware and more rational, clear-headed thinking. I suspect we need to do this now. Actually, we should have been doing this many years ago.