The most convincing argument against the possibility of
extraterrestrial visitation to Earth, for the average, scientifically-literate
person, is that the universe is a very big place – the almost unimaginable
distances between even "nearby" star-systems is calculable only in light
years, the distance you would travel in 365 days if you were moving at
186,000 miles per second! It's just too far. No mortal species could
ever physically bridge the time-gap to get here, let alone in mechanical
vehicles subject to the same physical laws observed to be at work here
on Earth... and certainly not in the numbers being reported in contemporary
UFO contact literature. It's simply not possible.
Many theories have been proposed to reconcile this apparent
impossibility with the equally-convincing and ever-growing evidence that
extraterrestrials are, in fact, here – despite science, despite reason,
despite what we think we know about the universe based on our roughly 400
year scientific study of the 12 to 20 billion year old sea of stars around
us. Faster-than-light travel, dimensional shifts, wormholes, black holes
as doorways through space and time, all have been offered as possible mechanisms
by which our interstellar neighbors might reach us in good time, but none
have pierced the veil of "theory" to enter the solid canon of scientific
"fact," a truth which, in the end, places all such theories squarely in
the same quasi-fictional, sidereal realm as the UFOs themselves.
I recently had an insight into this conundrum that struck
me as quite profound. I am not so naive as to believe that this insight
is original to me, but still, I think it's worth sharing.
I was at the local public library, browsing the Internet.
I had relocated in November of 1997, and I was checking the The Golden
Age of Flying Saucers Newsletter webpage to make sure the mailing address
had been changed on-line. I typed in the URL, pressed "enter," and the
familiar TGAFS logo popped up instantly onto my computer screen – yes,
the change had been made.
Now, The Golden Age of Flying Saucers Newsletter was
published, on paper, in St. Louis, Missouri. The newsletter's advertising
webpage, however, was nestled amongst a zillion similar pages stored on
a commercial computer server somewhere deep in the heart of Texas, some
800+ miles away. Like ten million other webpages hosted everywhere
on Earth, people from all over the world, from many thousand of miles away,
were able to access the The Golden Age of Flying Saucers Newsletter webpage
at any time, from anywhere, with the simple click of a mouse, just as instantly
as I had done from the comfort of my plush library chair in St. Louis.
On a much larger scale, earlier in 1997, the NASA website received some
500,000,000 hits from people worldwide, anxious for a personal glimpse
of live pictures being beamed back from the Mars Pathfinder probe as it
frolicked about on the surface of our very distant red neighbor.
The point here is that, on the Internet, distance has
become a meaningless concept. In cyber-space, Beijing and Bangkok,
Nova Scotia and New York, the Earth, Moon and Mars are all as close as
the nearest computer terminal, equally accessible, the same distance from
one another as they are from me, sitting in the Midwest of the United States
... That is, no distance at all.
No distance!
Suppose the universe worked this way, either naturally,
or by some technological design instal-led over these twelve to twenty
billion years since the Big Bang. We already have in our hands, pervading
our culture and our everyday lives, an example of a communication system
that renders distance meaningless. Suppose the "cosmic URL" of Planet Earth
is finally making the rounds out there, and the UFO phenomenon represents
a growing and myriad "logging-on" by beings from a vast spectrum of civilizations,
at varying levels of development, and with as many mixed messages and conflicting
agendas as one might find passing through the fiber optic lines of our
own Internet on any given afternoon. Now factor in such advancements as
video-imaging, holo-graphy (our own present capabilities times 12,000,000,000
years of technological evolution), or even the possibility of the existence
of living energy beings who might travel such "cosmic links" physically,
as electronic impulses now travel the Worldwide Web...
The exhilarating picture that emerges is of a rather
(at least subjectively) small universe teeming with a great diversity of
life, of voices, views and possibilities – a universe in which, not only
are we not alone, but in which planetary solitude and species isolation
from the greater community of life stretching endlessly in every direction
is by far the least likely possibility of all. What emerges is a picture
of a universe in which – whether we know it or not, whether we like it
or not – we are inseparably connected members of one Universal Family On-line.
This notion is not too far removed from the plotline
of the blockbuster movie Contact, in which an extraterrestrial transmission
received from deep space contains detailed schematics for the construction
of a machine that will allow Earthlings to join the cosmic conversation,
if we can only manifest enough global unity to get the machine built, and
enough wisdom as a species to use it judiciously – requirements that don't
pan out so well for we hapless humans in the film.
But suppose no "machine" is necessary? What if the universe
is already hardwired for such communication, and each of us, too, as con-stituent
parts of that universe? What if every individual, everywhere on Earth
(and in the whole greater cosmos, too, of every species and planetary origin)
could at any moment register his or her own "domain" for receiving visitors,
and personally "surf" to any equidistant (non-distant) interstellar "web
page" out there at will, simply by becoming aware that a real Worlds-Wide
Web exists and tuning into it?
Perhaps no phrase so well expresses the deep root of
our human journey over the last 50 years as those two words: becoming aware.
Racing headlong toward the 21st Century, we have become increasingly aware
of ourselves and each other, of diverse cultures, global economies, the
environmental interconnectedness and interde-pendence of species on Earth,
of the ET presence, the vast distances between stars in the endless soup
of Creation...
We do, indeed, appear to be demonstrably hardwired in
favor of exponentially-increasing awareness, of expanding consciousness,
and to be gifted as a species with the innate ability to stretch our psychological
horizons, to consistently and successfully reorient ourselves amidst an
ever-changing, constantly-expanding map of reality.
If the Internet, in its brief time among us, has already
made us aware of the real possibility of eliminating geographic constraints
on human communication, then I, for one, can't help but ask How far will
it go? How much is possible?
The terrible physical distance between stars cannot be
crossed. Yet communication, extrater-restrial contact, is taking
place right now, all around us on Earth, at a truly startling rate. We
might sometimes be confused or frightened by the mix of messages being
received, but who can help but be filled with wonder at the fact that it
is happening at all? Whether we are in contact with physically present
beings, their holographic representatives, or some manifestation of non-human
intelligence beyond our current ability to comprehend in its true form
is largely beside the point. We are in contact! As human awareness
continues its meteoric rise – even if only in the mundane ways we
experience every day, even if the universe is not hardwired for anything
– the future of this tiny planet floating in an endless sea of stars
seems likely to be very exciting, indeed.
One theory among many, swimming cheek-to-cheek with the
wormholes and UFOs that populate the sidereal pool. But I like it.
A lot. Let me know how it pans out in your not-so-distant neck of the universe.