Space Cadets

What is it about these guys who’ve gone into space? Especially the ones who’ve been to the Moon. They come back, well, more or less the same, but strangely changed in some ways. I mean, what is it? Cosmic rays? Long periods of weightlessness? Diaper rash? In any case, former astronaut (“and moonwalker” – but not in the Michael Jackson sense) Edgar Mitchell has now come up with a statement that flies directly in the face of the Air Force’s decades-long assertion that there are no UFOs, there never were any, and there never will be any. Mitchell claims that he was “in on the fact that we’ve been visited on this planet and the UFO phenomena is real.” (He should have said, “phenomena are”, but let that go for now.) He says the government has been covering up for 60 years – “why” is not discussed. (It’s usually presented as a matter of “national security”, as if we’re somehow more secure if the government doesn’t acknowledge the existence of UFOs than if it does. Gee, they should have tried that with al Qaeda.) Of course, the Air Force’s response to Mitchell’s assertions is to pronounce him “a great American” – with the unstated follow-up phrase, “but a complete nut”.

An amusing side note is that Mitchell says that “sources at NASA who had contact with aliens described the beings as ‘little people who look strange to us’.” Well heck, I can say that about half the kids I run into around here. Does that make them aliens? Mitchell says further that the aliens are, sure enough, “’small gray’ being[s] – short, slight frame, large eyes and large head.” Well, that’s perfect description of Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Has anyone had him DNA tested?

But in any case, Mitchell’s claims and the usual Air Force and NASA denials raise, once again, the perennial question as to the existence of UFOs and aliens. And I’ll bet you think you know what I’m going to say about this – but you’re wrong! I’m convinced that UFOs and aliens don’t exist. Now, I’ve gone into this before at length, but let me summarize my argument – one which, as it turns out, has been independently developed by at least one other writer (whose name escapes me at present). Aside from the overwhelming improbability, as argued by the Intelligent Design researchers, of even one planet in the Universe being able to not only support life, but being able to support intelligent life – yea, life intelligent enough to come up with the means for interplanetary and even interstellar travel – the main question, as the other writer put it, is: If UFOs and aliens exist, where are they? In other words, why do they seem to appear only to tinfoil hat types out in the middle of the desert? Why don’t they land on the White House lawn, like in the old science fiction movies? In other words, what do they have to lose by revealing themselves to more than a handful of nut cases and as unidentified blips on radar? Now, there are some ready answers to these questions. One is based on what I call “cosmic elitism” – namely, they only reveal themselves to those who are considered “worthy” – i.e. who are highly-developed beings who are primed for initial contact with visitors from other planets. OK, fair enough. But most of the people who hold to this point of view are locked up somewhere. That’s not conclusive counterevidence, I admit, but it does carry some weight.

Another argument is that they don’t reveal themselves directly because that would constitute “interference” with the course of human history… and that they have subscribed to some sort of pact, like in Star Trek, that prohibits them from altering the natural course of history for any civilization they encounter. (Would that our State Department felt the same way!) Well, that might actually be the case for some aliens – but for all? Surely there would be a few who would be unable to resist the temptation to get up close and personal (or down and funky) with the human race. They might even want to start using us a laboratory animals, as part of some sort of massive experiment (this has also been argued, mostly by people who don’t think the CIA is quite up to the job). In any case, it’s unlikely that, of all the alien races who have managed to get as far as Earth, there wouldn’t be at least one that would want to strut its stuff in a very obvious manner (which makes me think of Gay Pride parades – do you suppose…?).

But now someone’s going to argue that maybe there really is just one alien race that has succeeded in getting to Earth, and that they, in fact, believe in keeping a low profile. To which I answer, well maybe, but what are the chances? If the Universe contains “millions and billions” (in the immortal words of Carl Sagan) of stars, galaxies, and planets, what are the chances that – assuming a reasonable proportion of them can and do support life, i.e. intelligent, i.e. capable of space travel, etc. – there is, in fact, only one that has made it this far? By all rights, there should be dozens – hundreds – thousands! We should be overrun with aliens the way our national parks are overrun by Japanese. UFOs should darken our skies! We should, by now, all be selling trinkets to little skinny gray men like Arthur Schlesinger – and catering to their, um, sexual needs – assuming they have any (Schlesinger’s case in encouraging in this regard). But guess what – we aren’t! American cities have not been turned into “border towns” on the order of Juarez, for the service of high-tech and highly-intelligent aliens. Instead, we cling to this more or less round rock as it hurtles through space, and feel lonely… so lonely… except, of course, for guys like Mitchell, who are convinced that we are surrounded by a cloud of UFOs and aliens, who are all, for reasons known only to themselves, unanimously hesitant to show themselves in broad daylight.

To sum up my position, I believe that the lack of solid, and public, evidence for UFOs and aliens is the best evidence that they do not exist – not here, not anywhere. The fact that this leaves Earth in a unique place in the Universe as “the” home of intelligent life doesn’t bother me at all, because I see this as being in perfect harmony with salvation history, as it is laid out in the Bible. And this, of course, is why “scientists” are so obsessive about finding “evidence of life on other planets” – or “evidence of the precursors of life on other planets” – or “evidence of the building blocks of… etc.” – or “evidence of conditions that could possibly have led… etc.” The worst news the “scientific community” could ever get is that, sorry guys, but there really is life only on Earth. Because that implies that Earth is someplace special – which is also the last thing they want to hear. And if Earth is special, then maybe life is special, and then maybe mankind is special, and… well, you see where this can lead. So the quest goes on for even the slightest hint of a possibility of life elsewhere, because that will confirm their premise that Earth is second-rate (at best), that the human race is second-rate, and so on. The current scientific community has not changed its primary agenda item since Darwin’s time – namely, to prove, once and for all, that “life sucks then you die”. The fact that they find this notion reassuring – nay, comforting – makes one wonder about their mental stability. But if the science of man is only the science of “nothing but”, then morality is irrelevant, God is irrelevant, and salvation is an illusion – and these, of course, are the conclusions they have already come to, but are still straining to collect data to support. So, to the extent to which Astronaut Mitchell’s program is part of this larger agenda, I have no use for it. To the extent to which he manages to irritate the Air Force and NASA, I say, go for it!