When I told Daily Post editor Bill Hudson that I wanted to write an essay about my fear of extraterrestrials, he tried to dissuade me. I assured him that I was going to include references to religion, so that any readers who are uncomfortable with the idea of alien contact would have something to fall back on. If there ever was a thing to fall back on, it’s religion.
Hearing my assurances, Mr. Hudson seemed to become even more uncomfortable, and poured himself another drink. As the evening wore on, however, he became more at ease with my suggested storyline, and finally said something like, “What the hell. Shoot yourself.” Or maybe it was, “Suit yourself.”
So I will be going out on a limb, and writing on a subject that has not — to my knowledge — been broached previously in the pages of the Pagosa Daily Post.
The hideousness of alien contact.
A few years back, David A. Weintraub — a professor of astronomy at Vanderbilt University — wrote an essay entitled, “How Will Our Religions Handle the Discovery of Alien Life?” for the magazine, Nautilus.
How special and sacred are we? Is Earth a privileged place? Do we have an obligation to care for beings on other planets?… These questions point to a deeper issue about whether our religions can adapt to the idea that humans are not the only sentient beings in the universe capable of worshiping God.
The professor then gave his opinions about how various human religions might react when the space people arrive. (And we all know, they are coming sooner or later.) Mr. Weintraub is, as noted, a professor of astronomy, and presumably knows a thing or two about planets and comets and asteroids and galaxies and black holes and such. Whether he knows anything about religion, you can decide for yourself.
First of all, let’s get one thing straight. We don’t even feel an obligation to care for our next door neighbor, let alone some alien from Sagittarius.
But there has always been a close relationship between religion and the idea of unearthly beings — intelligent lifeforms that live “somewhere else” and visit now and again, when messages need to be delivered or miracles arranged.
I have no problem with messages and miracles. But I think the “alien problem” is a lot more frightening than people like Professor Weintraub are willing to admit.
For one thing, people generally have the mistaken notion that “aliens” will look like slightly deformed humans.
People (including perhaps Professor Weintraub) are generally comfortable with aliens that have two arms, two legs, a neck, two eyes, a nose, a mouth. (Ears are optional, for some reason.)
There’s one obvious reason why aliens are portrayed this way. Because, when you’re making a movie about aliens, you can save a lot of money by dressing up a live actor in a funny looking costume. Also, the audience is considerably more comfortable if they are shown an alien who looks half-way familiar. It has to do with ticket sales.
Statistically speaking, however, it is nearly impossible that aliens will look like us. Humans like to imagine that human physiology is Nature’s preference, when designing an intelligent being. This error derives from the belief that humans are, in fact, intelligent. I think if we open our eyes and look around us, that’s an obviously silly notion.
- Oceans thoroughly polluted with plastics, radioactive wastes, and other industrial pollutants.
- Constant, unending wars.
- Global warming.
- Individuals who are uncertain of their own gender.
- The US Congress.
- The Ford Pinto. Need I say more?
If we look at the life forms that Mother Nature (or, if you prefer, God) nurtures most vigorously — in terms of population — humankind doesn’t even rate a footnote. Scientists estimate that, for each human being on Planet Earth, there are about 1.4 billion insects flying and crawling around, doing whatever insects do. (They’re very versatile). That doesn’t even include spiders or scorpions. Or earthworms.
We don’t know for certain if plants are intelligent, because they don’t speak English, and they don’t engage in the types of actions that humans chauvinistically define as “intelligent”. (See my short list above.) It’s perfectly possible trees and flowers understand more, and think more deeply, than Albert Einstein or Joe Biden, but are simply too modest to brag about what they know.
What I am getting at is that ling things, here on Planet Earth, generally look nothing at all like people. We are totally outnumbered by non-human life forms, right here in our home planet. So why would aliens look like humans? It’s much more likely, statistically, that aliens will look like spiders. Or earthworms.
And what if aliens are enormously huge? The largest intelligent beings on planet Earth are the blue whales — pretty good singers, too, if you’re into whale music — but who says aliens can’t be a whole lot larger? What if aliens are, like, bigger than Godzilla? Or bigger than the Ever Given cargo ship? (Now there’s a great example of human intelligence.)
An alien could conceivably be even larger than that. A single alien could be as large as the whole Planet Earth. Who says they can’t?
But how much more horrible it would be… if aliens were… microscopic.
Imagine, for just a minute, aliens the size of, say, a coronavirus, invading the Earth. Imagine billions of them, multiplying inside our own bodies, and threatening to spread from one person to the next… with every breath, or sneeze. Imagine, that they are covered in… little red spikes!
Am I the only one who is frightened by this thought?
Can you imagine… the government-imposed mask mandates that would result?
It’s just too hideous to think about.
I’m sorry I even wrote this article. I’m probably going to have nightmares.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.