This week we’re talking about aliens, and by aliens, I presume that we’re yakking about “Beings from Outer Space” and not people who have come to this country by crossing a border somewhere. I probably have as much to say about the latter as the former, but I’ll just let it go by saying this: the word “alien” is too easily used to dehumanize people when it’s applied to visitors from another country as opposed to visitor’s from another world. If I stick to referring to aliens as space travelers from another planet, I don’t need to worry about dehumanizing them because the chances are that they’re not human anyway.
If you, Dear Readers, somehow missed last year’s District 9, a movie directed by Neill Blomkamp and produced by Peter Jackson, I highly recommend you move it to the top of your Netflix list. It was a terrific movie that had both the amazing, in-your-face special effects that we’ve come to expect from good science fiction movies, and it also was a shrewd commentary on how easy it is for governments (and not just our own, by the way, because this one is set in Johannesburg, South Africa) can treat displaced populations as rubbish that needs to be hidden if not disposed of.
Anywho, what I really want to say about space aliens is this: I don’t buy into the whole Roswell/Area 51 mythology.
A few years ago, Ruth and I took the girls on a enormous, once-in-a-lifetime vacation driving around the country in a conversion van. That summer we crammed in all the big US must-see tourist destinations we could fit into one trip: Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone, The Grand Canyon, White Sands National Park, Carlsbad Caverns, the Kansas City Memorial, and the St. Louis Arch. As we were planning the trip, I made sure we’d go to the one place I really wanted to see which was Roswell, New Mexico.
I image that pretty much everyone who’s my age has that list of Big Projects that we file in the back of our heads as “Will Do Someday” although the odds of us ever actual getting to them diminish the older we get and the more “We Have to Do” nudges out all the things “We Want to Do.” On my list of Big Projects that’s filed under “Will Do Someday” is a book on the Roswell mythology. I even have most of a chapter finished, but like I said, other things keep getting in the way (work, family, sleep, and video games to name a few).
Although the book I would write if I had the time focuses on the rhetorical aspects of the Roswell myth (as a rhetorical theorist I’m fascinated in the mechanics of credibility as they work in texts), the basic premise of this book can be summarized in a single sentence: If an alien civilization has the intellectual resources to traverse the mind-boggling distances they need to cross Outer Space to reach Planet Earth, don’t you suppose the first essential technology they would develop before setting out would be a decent set of brakes?
Really. The Roswell mythology asks people to believe that somehow an advanced alien civilization has the technical wherewithal to overcome the physics of traveling beyond the speed of light (which, by the way, both Einstein and Hawkins both agree would send you hurling backwards in time) and yet, they don’t have that whole “stopping thing” down first.
For the Roswell scenario to work, we have to imagine the aliens having some form of this conversation:
“Well, Commander Grog, the new hyper-parsec drives have been installed and we should be able to flit across the galaxy as quickly as slithering across the room.”
“Excellent, Chief Engineer Geekboy, have you worked out how we’re going to stop when we come out of hyperdrive?”
“Not exactly, Commander, but we do have seat belts, and there’s a Class M planet about three clicks out from where we’re headed. It looks soft enough from here. I think we’re going to be okay.”
“Sounds good, Geekboy, how about double checking those seat belts just to be on the safe side? You say you’re pretty sure this planet is soft enough to stop us without suffering major damage to the ship’s hull on impact.”
“Oh, yes, Sir. You see we’re aiming for some sand. They got a lot of sand on this planet. We’re going to stop like we just slid into a giant sponge. We shouldn’t even scratch the paint.”
“Well that’s good, Geekboy, because even though we don’t plan on sticking around long, we need to impress upon the local inhabitants on this planet that we’re vastly superior to them with our vastly superior technology and all, and you know, if we scratch the paint on entry, they’re going to wonder about our ability to come from such a long distance without scratching the paint.”
“I already thought of that, Sir. That’s why we made sure the primer coat was the same color as the final couple coats of paint so that if we scratch it up a little, it’ll never show.”
“Okay then, I’d say we’re good to go. Point us right at the biggest sandy spot you can find and push that big red button that sends us into hyperdrive. I can’t wait to see the look on those locals faces when they see we’ve crossed almost unfathomable distances to visit them and we haven’t even scratched the paint.”
“It’s going to be historic, Sir. Truly historic.”
“And you say that sand is soft, right?”
“Oh, yes, Sir. I’d say that there’s almost no chance that we’re going to hit the ground hard enough to kill most of us and have the rest of us hidden away in some secret government facility while the natives there exploit our vastly advanced technology by reverse-engineering our microwave ovens and our digital watches.”
“That’s great, Geekboy, because you know we’re hoping to trade our digital watch technology for some prime real estate. Perhaps set up a casino or something while we decide if we’d rather befriend the local community or just do the Standard Protocol.”
“Standard Protocol being ‘terrorize a few of them while they are sleeping and learn what we can about them by giving them rectal exams’, correct?”
“That’s correct, Geekboy. Okay, folks, strap in. Be sure your seat belt is good and tight before we push the big red button. Next stop: some soft, soft sand.”
Olivia says:
While it may be true that Roswell, NM was probably not legit, I still think aliens could potentially crash here.
I can see you shaking your head over your glasses, Dad. But hear me out.
If the aliens have developed anything like we have, it could totally happen. All it takes is one summer intern to screw up everything. A miscalculation here, a missed memo there, it could happen.
I mean, we may not be able to take Sunday drives through space yet, but we can do some spectacular things already. Have you seen those iPhone 4 commercials? Do you think you could explain the iPhone completely to grandpa?
And yet, to err is ... well ... human. We don't always function properly because we're hungry or tired or sick. Mistakes are made.
So, if we were to travel through space (and we've dabbled) and get to the point where we crashed on another planet, do you think the inhabitants would laugh at us? Or try to explain it away because it doesn't fit within their frame of reality? Of course in that case, we would be the aliens.
If the aliens haven't developed like us, for example, let's say they are smart and never make mistakes. All it would take is one thing they could not control - one meteor to knock them from their course, or maybe a factor they couldn't have foreseen such as what our atmosphere is like. It could be totally different out there!
I'm sayin' it. It's not beyond the realm of possibility for aliens to crash here.
As long as they don't crash here. They cannot crash at my place. My couch is spoken for. And aliens still freak me out.
