Alien Psychology Read online

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  Alien Psychology

  by Roderick R. MacDonald

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  Science Fiction, Reference

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  SynergEbooks

  www.synergebooks.com

  Copyright ©2002 by Roderick R. MacDonald

  First Published by SynergEbooks, 2002

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  This book is dedicated to my mother

  for her support and encouragement over the years.

  She passed away recently but

  will always be remembered.

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  Preface

  The Martians Are Coming!

  We've heard this cry many times before in old 50's science fiction movies. A reflection, perhaps, on our western fear of communism, this had more to do with current events than an envisaged invasion from space. The planet Mars, coincidentally red in colour, produced an overspill of invading Martians with a predilection to covertly substitute themselves for honest, decent earth people and so spread out like a cancerous disease. The reasons for this are twofold: communism was envisaged as an insidious, creeping conversion process leaving the convert a cold, emotionless zombie similar in appearance to a normal human but inwardly much different, and secondly, this was by far the easiest way to portray aliens in a low budget movie before the age of computerised special effects.

  Mars was also a hopeful place for life to exist. Some still had notions of a world where vegetation stubbornly clung to life on the dry surface, below which a race of Martians fighting the elements in an austere battle for survival greedily longed for the abundant resources of the blue and green earth just 40 million miles distant on its closest approach. Even respectable scientists believed that under the conditions then thought to exist on Mars, the chance of some form of life was reasonable. The Mariner and Viking space programmes of the 60's and 70's gave us a picture of a much more inhospitable world where even the existence of an extinct microbe was doubtful. However, the pendulum has swung the other way. Latest research for life on Mars is much more hopeful. There is strong evidence to suggest that early in its existence, Mars was wet. The Mars orbital spacecraft has revealed some features which looked suspiciously like ancient coastlines and others which resemble sedimentary rocks laid down in the ancient seas. I think we'll know for certain by the year 2010 whether or not life exists or has existed on Mars.

  As for communism, it subsided after Ronald Reagan spearheaded the last great battle of the cold war. We found, surprisingly, that the communists, removed from their system and despotic leaders, were people not much different from ourselves, and when their threat had been neutralised, the problem was one of finding the next bogeyman. A moustachioed gentleman from a land situated between the Tigris and the Euphrates seemed to fit the bill for a while, but now, added to this, we have a conflict with terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism. Maybe the future will show that, basically, removed from dangerous idealism on both sides, these people are also more alike than different.

  We now know that microbes notwithstanding, the Martians are not coming in their flying saucers. However, Mars is only a cosmic stone's throw away and it would be surprisingly negative and unrealistic for anyone to suggest that life did not exist elsewhere in the universe.

  When you look up at the sky on a clear night, approximately 2000 stars are visible. When telescopes are used, more and more stars, normally too faint to be seen by the naked eye, appear into view, but when images are recorded with the world's largest telescopes, the most numerous objects by far are galaxies. Down to the faintest magnitudes that we can observe, all we can see, excepting the occasional star, are galaxies. Hundreds of millions of galaxies, billions of galaxies, spread out in curious sponge-like structures throughout the universe. Each galaxy, of course, could be like our own: a disk formation composed of one hundred thousand million stars and this is only the portion of the universe that we can detect. The immensity of the universe is staggering and really beyond the comprehension of mere mortals such as ourselves. So, for all we know, there could be billions of planets out there, absolutely teeming with life, separated from us by huge distances and the laws of physics. On the other hand, that does not mean to say that they will not visit us at some point in the future and an idea of their possible thought processes or psychology would be useful. It may also be the case that an alien visitation would not be a pleasant experience, for us at least, and only the foolhardy would not wish to consider the consequences. After all, there is nothing to lose should nobody appear in our skies from afar and everything to gain if we have prepared ourselves should this unlikely scenario emerge.

  The aim of this book is to discuss the possibilities of life from elsewhere in the galaxy visiting our world and then to consider the thought processes of these extraterrestrials. What makes them tick? Why have they come here and what do they want? How will their visit affect us? What will be the final outcome?

  There is a reasonable amount of science in this book but most of the background material is contained in the appendix sections which follow the main chapters. The science is necessary to put forward some of the arguments as to the nature of extraterrestrials but, for those not of a scientific inclination, don't worry—this isn't a science textbook. Throughout the text, except for a small section, distance measurements are given in miles. People in Britain and the United States still think in miles. Despite a scientific education, I still think in miles rather than metres and kilometres. This isn't a cultural statement, it's simply the way I was brought up, and to get the book's message over to people, I've chosen the simplest method.

  Now, it's time to look at the myths about aliens—unidentified flying objects and other phenomenon of a similar nature to examine them—and see beyond to what might be the truth!

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  Phase 1

  The IMMORTALS

  Before considering life elsewhere in the universe, it should be stressed that life here, at least in this time period, is rather unique, in that it is experiencing a transitional phase. There have been other versions of mankind in the past. Earlier migrations from Africa gave rise to Peking and Java man, so designated by the area in which they were found. Surprisingly successful, they managed to spread across the globe and acquired a niche in the environment, which lasted for a quarter of a million years. They possessed primitive stone tools and could manage fire but that really was as far as they could go. To people such as ourselves, used to change, almost expecting change to happen, life as experienced by those ancient beings must have been mind numbingly boring. Seasonal weather would likely have been the only changes they would experience in a life that revolved round scavenging for food and maintaining the flame. Evenings in the cave, sheltering from nocturnal predators, would not have been pleasant social events with fine food and conversation; rather, they would have been dull, dirty and devoid of niceties.

  And that's how matters stood for a quarter of a million years! When our lot came out of Africa about one hundred thousand years ago—or maybe less depending on the arguments—we were different, more resourceful and probably more adaptable to change. Very low population densities in all communities whether old or new meant that survival was on a knife-edge, and the existence of the incumbents was put in jeopardy when a new competitor arrived on the scene. The last ten thousand y
ears of mankind's history has been exceptionally changeable, and the last one hundred years, truly remarkable. Evolutionary change occurs as a consequence of changes in the physical and social environment. We, by our actions, have changed the physical and social environment and consequently we have altered the path of evolution. Those people more able to survive in our changeable world will proliferate at the expense of those to whom change is an anathema. One day it will probably level off, but when? Perhaps we are not yet done with evolution?

  What will happen to mankind in the future?

  People have been speculating for years about the possible evolution of mankind. All sorts of projections have made the news, the most common being that we end up with the big heads encasing large brains, small noses, and spindly hairless bodies. But why should we end up this way? Why should we evolve at all?

  If we carry on in much the same way as we do now, there is no reason why we should evolve. A pessimist would say that we're probably all doomed from over—population, industrial poisoning, starvation, and the host of other things we are doing wrong to the planet and our environment. However, should we get our act together to produce a society not too dissimilar to what we have now but with the problems sorted out so that life in the future is stable and conserved, it is likely that we won't evolve physically and mentally much beyond our present state. The environment will then be stable; the species will, like Peking and Neanderthal man, find itself at equilibrium and evolution changes will not be favoured. Like our past cousins, we could go on for hundreds of thousands of years until unforeseen environmental alterations take place.

  On the other hand, we may at this very moment be venturing out along unknown paths into the future. One such avenue of exploration is space. If you watched the movie 2001—A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, which hit the cinemas in 1968, you would have seen a vision of the future where mankind had ventured outward towards the planet Jupiter and beyond. Although we are, in reality, not at that stage yet, some progress has been made by the way of Space Station Alpha and our machines have travelled over the solar system, taking photographs and measurements to show what the are really like.

  Current space exploration notwithstanding, essentially, we are two-dimensional beings. We see the surface of the earth as a flat map over which we travel from point to point. Only when looking form space do we achieve any real sense of the earth's three-dimensional character but in our daily lives, this sense is lost to us. We've been used to living on this seemingly flat land for thousands of years—this is our natural environment. We can think of three dimensions in a city, looking up at tall buildings or in the country when looking at mountains but this doesn't really constitute much in comparison to the earth itself.

  Earth is about eight thousand miles in diameter. The crust, upon which we reside varies in thickness from a few miles to perhaps forty miles and the highest mountains are little more than five miles above sea level. Actually, if you could hold the earth in your hands, say, the size of a soccer ball, you would be amazed at how smooth the surface was. The mountains would be about seven thousands of an inch high. It's our tiny size in comparison that makes us think that they are big. The bulk of the atmosphere that we breathe—the atmosphere essential to all life on this planet would be about the same thickness. This is a measure of the fragility of our biosphere and how important it is to look after it.

  So really, mountains and deep-sea troughs hardly raise a ripple on earth's surface; it's our two dimensional sense of reality that make us think they do. To show an example of how constrained we are in our dimensions, think about a journey in a car you could make to a friend or even a neighbour just five miles distant. It would take no more than ten minutes at a leisurely speed. Walking briskly, you could do it in an hour and a few minutes. A journey of five miles is rather insignificant but, make that same journey upward instead of outward and you would find a different reality. That insignificant five miles takes you to a place where the air is so thin and cold that survival for most of us beyond a day is impossible. Think also of distances across the earth. In Britain, if asked how far Australia is, most would say about twelve thousand miles. In reality, through the earth, it's only eight thousand miles; another example of our two-dimensional thinking.

  How many times have we looked out of the window at miserable rain? If we could only be in the sun, you say? But, you think, the whole country is covered with cloud and it would take a long journey to reach a sunny spot. Wrong! Just above the clouds, maybe a mile or two up, you'll find plenty of sunshine.

  Make a journey just one hundred miles over land and still you wouldn't think much of it. Make the same journey upwards and you would be in space where satellites orbit the earth and almost all of the atmosphere has disappeared. This is an environment alien to us, experienced by nobody except for a few hundred astronauts and cosmonauts since 1961. Yet, on the soccer ball, this is represented only by fifteen hundreds of an inch—not very much, is it? The new Space Station Alpha orbits the earth not much above this level so what we think of space is really quite close to the earth. Only when considering the Apollo lunar missions do we begin to leave the earth and our two dimensions behind. Only on nine missions were people from our planet taken to the moon's environment, six of which landed on the surface. Many of the astronauts, on seeing the earth from the moon, remarked on the fragility of our existence. All of our history and experiences were contained within the disk that could be easily covered with a hand. An awesome thought.

  But, there are more than three dimensions. Mathematically there are probably quite a lot but for our purposes, there are the three physical dimensions of length, breadth and height, plus, the fourth dimension of time. An object or person cannot exist in the physical dimensions unless it has a past, present and future. This time dimension can be viewed almost like the other three with a specific value given to it. For example, a concrete cubic box with sides each of one yard was created on January 1st 2001 and demolished exactly one year later. Its dimensions are therefore 1 x 1 x 1 yard by 1 year.

  As with the other three dimensions, we have little ability to understand the huge magnitude of time in relation to the earth and life in general. We possess a lifespan which, fate permitting, lasts for a century at most. Perceived as a very long time, compared to the history of mankind this fades to insignificance, it is even smaller when put beside the huge timespans of geological history and is virtually nothing against the age of the earth at about 4.6 billion years.

  One of the major problems with our society is that we are unable to plan for the future for more than a few years. Most political parties view an election as the event horizon and corporate companies rarely look beyond five years. Whenever long-term plans have been formulated, such as in the Soviet Union, the uncertainties of the future soon made them meaningless. It is even the case that with attempted long term international goals such as the lowering of greenhouse gases, few people really expect us to match specific figures in fifty years time. Now abandoned by the George W. Bush administration, the Kyoto agreement will probably evaporate altogether thus making any future attempts to manage the environment an impossibility. Nature works in cycles that can take fifty years, one hundred years or even thousands of years but we seem to be unable, for various reasons, to have the ability to make long-term plans and stick to them.

  An important factor is apathy of personal responsibility. Ask someone at the present moment to make sacrifices so that conditions will be different for those existing a century hence and any effort will be, at the most, half hearted. Why should I bother about things in the twenty-second century? I'll be dead then and so will my children, most likely. Let them sort things out for themselves when the time comes. This type of reasoning is quite common. However, matters would be a little different if we had a lifespan of centuries. Although we would still be somewhat lackadaisical, events taking place within a century would be more important to us and I predict more effort in forward planning w
ould result. Is the answer to the problem a longer life?

  Now on the verge of changing from two to three dimensional beings, humanity will probably venture into space. Within the next fifty years a return to the moon, a voyage to Mars and perhaps even Jupiter's satellite system are likely events. But, we won't be there. While tourist trips to low earth orbit will become economically and practically feasible for most of us and will not cost $20 million as it did Tito, the real exploration of the solar system will have to wait for future generations. Travelling to other star systems will require even more time, perhaps hundreds or thousands of years, and it won't be ourselves, our great-great grandchildren going on the journeys: it will be an evolved offshoot of humanity. The people of earth will be left behind for a new evolved race of human beings to make the journey to the stars.

  What impetus will make us go into space? The discovery of life on Mars, even if extinct?

  Could be but still unlikely because it doesn't pay the bills. Well, what if there was a substance on the moon which could solve all our energy problems? What if that substance was worth, in today's terms, $5 billion per ton?

  Helium 3 is like ordinary Helium except that it's missing a neutron. (the nucleus contains two protons and one neutron) Capable of producing huge quantities of fusion energy with very little pollutants or dangerous radioactive remnants, it comes from the sun as a stream of particles, known as the solar wind, which become trapped in lunar rock. All you have to do is mine it, an easy thing to say but not beyond our means should we so wish. Let's face it, fossil fuels won't last forever and over and above the greenhouse gases they emit on combustion, oil is really far too valuable a resource to be burnt for its energy. Fission materials are running out and they're messy, and alternative sources like wind and water just aren't capable of producing the energy needs for six billion, rising to nine billion within fifty years.