While my topic is fringe, I assure you I'm not writing this in the cupboard under the stairs wearing a tinfoil hat. Nonetheless, over the years I have developed a rather different worldview than most, and while I'm not sure exactly why, I have a suspicion about how I came by it. At any rate, I've finally mustered enough courage to come out of the philosophical closet.
Since I was small, I've had a fascination with the stars and the possibility that other life exists "out there." Now, I'm positive that life exists elsewhere in this vast and ancient cosmos. And I'm sure that somewhere, other "intelligent" life has evolved. I'm also convinced that somehow, some sentient species has found a way to endure—and that they know we're here. All this doesn't make me unusual, only this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that somehow I have a connection to it. Okay, I said it.
But this blog isn't going to be about abduction stories (even though I could relate some disturbing experiences that began when I was a boy, followed me through married life—as family members will attest—and happened again recently). Instead, I want to share, vent is probably a better word, this outré view of the journey that sentience (including humanity) takes through the cosmos. Indeed, air a message that has crept unbidden into my sub-consciousness.
To my point, not only do I have a creepy feeling that I've been "monitored," tagged like a specimen in the wild, but worse, that the seeds of an alien mindset have been planted in my psyche ... strangely phrased thoughts about SURROUNDINGS, SELF, and SIGNIFICANCE that involve NINE THREATS and THREE AWAKENINGS, and the ONE PATH, a new paradigm of BELONGING, BEING, and BELIEF.
This is what I want to write about. In all honesty, I have written about it; I just finished the second book in a series called PROPHETURE (I couldn't get the first one published ... maybe if a Vampire had visited me, they seem to be more "in" than aliens). So in the spirit of disclosure, clearly I hope to promote my book(s). But this isn't about money (most authors struggle to make ends meet anyway); on the off chance that there is a message here, I feel compelled to get it out. Importantly, I don't want all this to come across as completely crazy. So before I jump into the deep end, let me start with why I think all this is at least possible.
To begin, the cosmos is some 13.7 billion years old and about 150 billion light years across (light travels 6 trillion miles in a year so this means nearly a trillion trillion miles wide). The best guess is that it holds some 100 sextillion stars and about 20% of those might have planets. With so much space, time, and opportunity, since the laws of nature hold everywhere, it is more than reasonable to expect microbial life to arise elsewhere. And there is every reason to expect such chemistry to conjoin and become more complex (aka evolve) when conditions are right.
Almost daily, scientists and NASA seems to expand the crannies of the cosmos where life could lurk, and in lock-step, the Drake Equation therefore increasingly favors (or favours if you are a "resident alien") life, if not intelligent life, elsewhere. But obviously, intelligent life (all caveats considered) has arisen once, so those that think it is a "one off" fluke are probably on the wrong side of the odds. As to hard evidence, something has been tracked by both military and commercial radar, fighter jets have been scrambled to chase them, airline pilots and military personnel have witnessed them, and governments have run inquiries (something not done for ghosts or gremlins), not to mention the odd photo that can't be explained or the stories of sightings by everyday folk that fill volumes. Some say there is more scientific reason to believe in UFOs than in God ... but as a wannabe Christian I'm not going to go there, nor revisit Roswell, nor relate anecdotal "proofs." Let me just conclude that based on science and sightings, there seems to be more possibility of visiting aliens than most of the other unproven things people choose to believe in.
Suggested viewing/reading: NASA finds new planets http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20100726/nasa-new-planets-100726/
Drake equation for intelligent life http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/SETI/drake_equation.html
I think that's plenty to digest in a first blog. Next time, I want to share why I've come to believe that any possible visiting Aliens might have more in common with us than most think. With the stage set—why visiting aliens are possible and why they might have an interest contact (albeit subtle)—I can then move on to the message I want to get off my chest. Cheers.
