If Aliens were to land
Message-ID: <1P194B2w165w@sys6626.bison.mb.ca> Date:
28 May 93 08:16:23 GMT Organization: System 6626 BBS, Winnipeg
Manitoba Canada Lines: 194 From: Sheppard Gordon Date: 21-05-93
23:22 To: All Msg#: 75 Subj.: If Aliens Were To Land Area: UFO
If aliens were to land on Earth . . . 05/20/93 ST. PETERSBURG
TIMES If aliens landed on Earth this morning, as we drink coffee,
munch cream cheese bagels and read the newspaper, some say the
culture shock could elicit the best and worst of mankind. Mass
hysteria. Apathy. Religious and political upheaval. In the end,
perhaps, global unity. From a jungle valley in Puerto Rico to
California's Mojave Desert, operators stand by, tuned to potential
contact from alien civilizations. The National Aeronautics and
Space Administration equipped Voyager 2, now on its way out of
our solar system and possibly into the grasp of some alien race,
with a disc bearing information about our own civilization. Although
some dismiss as farfetched the possibility of alien contact,
the U.S. government has spent millions on NASA's Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence, or SETI, Program. What if E.T. answers? Suddenly,
we would know we really aren't alone in the universe. And we're
not the most advanced civilization, despite our cellular telephones,
cable TV and proposed space station. "If they do land, I
think there would be profound effects throughout the world,"
said Dr. Paul Horowitz, a Harvard physics professor who operates
a small galactic listening post at the Massachusetts university.
"In the short term, religionists would do a quick scramble
and a lot of rationalization. In a few weeks, the story fades
to page 14. "In the long term, it forever changes the way
we think about everything." UFO in Hernando Last month,
Hernando County sheriff's Deputy Ron Chancey and six other people
reported seeing a boomerang-shaped object hovering over a marsh
in Bayport. A dozen similar sightings were reported from Pinellas
Park to Hudson. Chancey thought the object followed him as he
drove a patrol car on Pine Island Drive the night of April 16.
He shined a spotlight toward the silent object, which he said
appeared to have a wingspan that would touch uprights on either
end of a football field. What if the object had turned out to
be an interstellar craft carrying intelligent life? What if the
ship had landed and the aliens had introduced themselves? "I
don't know what I'd do," Chancey said. "That's like
asking what do you do if you drive up and see your wife and kids
getting raped or something. If there had been an intelligent
life form, I don't know what I would've done. I'm kind of levelheaded
about things like that. It takes a lot to make me panic. If they
were friendly, I'd probably just say, `Whoa.' If they seemed
dangerous, I'd probably make like a tree and leave." In
1938, people panicked during the radio broadcast of War of the
Worlds, in which Martians invade Earth by way of New Jersey.
The story, presented by Orson Welles, seemed immediate and real.
Some listeners committed suicide. Even if aliens came in peace,
Chancey theorized, some humans would be traumatized. "Given
the fact that some alien life appeared on Earth, I'm sure that
some people would panic," he said. "I'm certain that
some people would take to it like a duck to water. There'll be
a range of reactions. It'll terrify us. Some will hide from it.
Others will take it in stride, say, `Oh, well,' and go on with
their daily business. Some would really turn on to it."
Chancey's boss, Sheriff Thomas Mylander, said he isn't sure how
the department would handle an alien in Hernando County. "That
one we'd have to play by ear," the sheriff said. "Who's
dealt with that before? We'd have to seek the expertise of someone
higher along the lines. I'd call in the feds, because locals
would have to take a back seat to something of that magnitude."
Peaceful adoption The same night Chancey saw his unidentified
flying object, 27-year-old Richard Wonch gazed at Jupiter through
his telescope in Holiday. About 9:30, Wonch saw "an arrow-shaped
object shoot through the sky." A Star Trek fan, Wonch said
he is optimistic that mankind could adapt peacefully to the arrival
of intelligent extraterrestrials. "We'd have to be pretty
egotistical not to believe there's life out in all the zillions
of galaxies out there. I think it would be pretty interesting,
to say the least. "It would unite the world a little more.
There'd be more possibility of a United Federation of Planets,
like in Star Trek, forming. It could get all the hatred out.
"It could be like a John Lennon song." A religious
view Father Robert Sherman of the Catholic Diocese in St. Petersburg
said the church has never taken an official stand on UFOs or
life on other worlds. "We've always assumed we were the
only intelligent life forms in the universe," he said. "If
we found out there was life on other planets, we would have to
struggle with the possibility that God would have a relationship
with someone other than ourselves. I don't think anything is
impossible." Hope for mankind Noted astronomer and science
writer Carl Sagan dealt with the prospect of meeting aliens in
his 1985 novel Contact, in which scientists decode a radio signal
from a distant star system. On the surface, the signal turns
out to be a return broadcast of Hitler at the opening ceremonies
of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Hidden within the signal
are instructions to build a machine - a cosmic subway that takes
the scientists to the alien world. Rather than a source of panic,
Sagan conjectured, such a development would bring hope for a
brighter future for mankind. But fundamental change in our cosmological
views would likely come with political, religious and cultural
upheaval. "Zealotry, fanaticism, fear, hope, fervent debate,
quiet prayer, agonizing reappraisal, exemplary selflessness,
close-minded bigotry, and a zest for dramatically new ideas were
epidemic, rushing feverishly over the surface of the tiny planet
Earth," Sagan wrote. Take me to your leader How aliens are
accepted may depend largely on to whom they first introduce themselves,
said Roland Foulkes, a professor of astroanthropology and futuristics
at the University of Florida. Will they go to our ruling elite?
Or homeless people? Homemakers? Different groups would respond
differently, Foulkes said. If the U.S. government managed to
sequester extraterrestrials without telling the public, for example,
it might exploit and then eliminate the aliens. "We would
do what we could to extract as much information as possible,"
he said. "The aliens would be studied, prodded and poked
so that we learn everything there is to know about them. Especially
in the United States. Any secrets we can learn to become an even
greater superpower would definitely be on the agenda. "The
life form would be exploited, enslaved and probably ultimately
killed." He bases this theory on how Europeans through the
centuries have similarly abused other races they've encountered
during their explorations. "Africans welcomed missionaries
and colonial administrators, although they didn't know what they
were in for by being so open," Foulkes said. "Native
Americans are often portrayed as savages, but the first pilgrims
would not have survived the first winter without them."
Confirming the signal If Horowitz, the Harvard professor, received
what appeared to be a signal from the stars, he said he first
would need confirmation from other scientists around the world.
Then he would have to determine whether the signal were natural
or synthetic. He said he would be convinced by a TV image or
a sequence of the digits of pi carried out to a few thousand
decimal places. "At that point, you have a discovery and
I guess you buy an air ticket to Stockholm" to accept the
Nobel Peace Prize for one of mankind's greatest discoveries,
Horowitz said. "I have a hard time -!- WM v3.00 [Gamma]
* Origin: STARGATE BB.SYSTEM NEW YORK,NY (718) 519-8042 (1:278/714.0)
From: Sheppard Gordon Date: 21-05-93 23:22 To: All Msg#: 77 Subj.:
If Aliens Were To Land / Area: UFO being mentally prepared. It's
pretty mind-boggling." If they landed on Earth, aliens probably
would have technology to surpass the speed of light, currently
thought to be the cosmic speed limit. "We would no longer
be the most advanced. These would be creatures who have solved
harder problems than we have," he said. "It would permeate
the subconscious and all layers of discourse, even jokes, in
a way I can't even begin to guess." Steve Maran, spokesman
for the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C., said
mankind today might actually be apathetic toward alien life.
Look up, glance briefly at the mother ship, then go back to sipping
java and wiping cream cheese off our lips. "The way our
society has gone to a nation of couch potatoes," Maran said,
"I think we'd probably wait for the government to deal with
it and watch it on CNN." -!- WM v3.00 [Gamma] * Origin:
STARGATE BB.SYSTEM NEW YORK,NY (718) 519-8042 (1:278/714.0) ---
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