posted on Feb, 28 2008 @ 03:59 PM
Is Earth the “Galapagos Islands” of our corner of the Galaxy??
For the sake of this discussion let’s assume that there are lots of advanced civilizations scattered across the galaxy. Many of them would likely
be far older than our civilization and thousands of years or tens of thousands of years more advanced. So one day maybe ten thousand years ago by our
reckoning, one of these civilizations happens to find a small blue planet in an obscure corner on the edge of the galaxy that is still completely
untouched by the galactic community. This planet is absolutely brimming with life including some really interesting, unpredictable and somewhat
intelligent beings known locally as humans. This discovery would be very similar to Europeans first discovering the Galapagos Islands in 1535.
What would a good citizen of the galactic community do about such a wonderful discovery? If they were as civilized as we would hope and expect, they
would band together to protect this fantastic discovery so everyone could study and learn from it. Much the same way we try to establish game
preserves in Africa, wilderness areas and national parks to preserve “nature,” I would expect these advanced alien civilizations to do the same.
The only difference would be that WE are the ones being preserved, protected and studied.
Of course, there would always be those among any civilization that didn’t want to follow the rules. Some of them may have visited here in the past
and caused all kinds of mischief. But over time, the alien civilizations would have come up with some kind of protection plan for Earth. This could
include agreements among the various civilizations and most likely a protective force located close by to ward off troublemakers. A good place for
such a protective force to be stationed would, of course, be on the far side of the moon.
There would be researchers and other groups authorized to come to earth to study humans and all of the other life here. In fact, we humans may not
even be the primary focus of their study. There would be other individuals around as well such as protective force personnel and those who would
monitor the agreements.
On occasion there would likely be unauthorized visitors that could include souvenir hunters, profiteers, pranksters and even poachers. I would expect
that these unauthorized visitors would help explain the wide variety of strange events associated with UFO sightings. They would probably come in all
kinds of strange spacecraft and be very different in their appearance.
When I was a youth living on a farm in Idaho we would often fight the boredom by sneaking out to the barn and annoying the animals. We would throw
rocks at the bull to see if we could make him angry or bang the side of the chicken coop to watch them fly around and get all crazy. Sometimes we
would catch two old barn cats and put them in a box to see if we could get them to fight.
Imagine you are a young alien looking for some “fun.” You could “borrow” your father’s old star cruiser and sneak off to Earth to annoy the
humans. You could buzz their military bases and watch them try to catch you in their primitive chemical powered aircraft. You could grab a couple
humans and put them in a box so you could poke and annoy them or try to get them to fight or have sex. You could also come up with totally random
meaningless things like cattle mutilations or crop circles just to watch the humans try to figure out what deep meaning is associated with them.
On some occasions, dad’s old star cruiser might break down or even crash. This is what could have happened in Roswell in 1947. Some poor teenage
aliens got unlucky and were killed in a stupid crash on a joy ride trying to annoy some humans. Inevitably, their parents would have come to retrieve
their injured or dead children to take them home. If the local humans had already “captured” these aliens there would no choice other than to
make contact and discuss some matters in person.
Assuming my little fantasy was true, what would be the current arrangement or understanding between the alien civilizations and humans? First, I
would expect that the aliens would still be trying not to disrupt our natural evolution and would want to keep their existence know to as few humans
as possible. Most likely, the few humans with knowledge of the aliens would include leaders of the major world powers who possess large armies and
nuclear weapons. Second, I would expect that the aliens would make it pretty clear who is the boss. They would agree to leave us alone and try to
protect us from exploitation by other civilizations if we would agree to BEHAVE. Behaving for us might include staying away from the moon, not
allowing any pictures or other evidence of the aliens to become known and not destroying ourselves and all of the other interesting life on earth with
our nuclear weapons.
Over the course of time more and more humans would become aware of or highly suspect the presence of the aliens. At some point, the aliens and the
human governments would have to agree upon a plan to reveal the truth. I am guessing that this truth would be very hard for most people on the earth
to accept and comprehend. It would probably upset our civilization (such as it is) to a great degree. At a minimum all of the old ideas of world
government, empires and who is in charge would be tossed out the window. How differently would we behave if we knew WE were the chimpanzees in
somebody else’s zoo???
Let me know what you think.
Thanks.