JUNE 4, 2021 – We’ve all seen the most recent set of scratchy photos of UFOs. This time around, we’re told, the bobbing lights “really are unexplainable.”
I’m skeptical—especially after four years of “fake news,” “Big Lies,” and a royal fest of “conspiracy theories.”
But pretend, for a moment, that aliens have actually landed on earth—or hovered over its more remarkable features. What would the cosmic travelers make of us and our home?
I thought about this earlier today as I entered heavy vehicular traffic in the Twin Cities. Cars, trucks, cars and trucks hauling boats and campers—it was a mad dash of pods on wheels racing along ribbons of concrete. St. Paul and Minneapolis “joined forces” years ago (doubtless under a socialist notion that the whole is bigger than the sum of the parts), and by organic growth since, the metro area has produced an impressive concentration of motor vehicles. Nothing, however, matches traffic around New York, Houston, Chicago, and, of course, Los Angeles. On approach from outer space, what defines us better than roads and highways? I’m not sure what would be the bigger draw for aliens—a ground view of the 26-lane Katy Freeway in Houston or an aerial view of I-95 at SR 4 near Fort Lee, New Jersey (the most congested highway in America).
In any case, imagine aliens taking initial stock of life on earth. Suppose that instead of landing in the Garden of Eden—Banff, for example, or New Zealand—the explorers picked out some section of I-5 connecting L.A., Long Beach, and Santa Ana (over half a million vehicles a day). What would they make of all the creatures flying by? Might they believe that the vehicles themselves were living beings?
If the aliens had the means and inclination to capture one of the fast-moving “creatures,” what next—especially if the windows were darkly tinted? Of course—the aliens would pry open the hood, see the engine and conclude that the guts of these “living creatures” are rather oily and noisy.
Upon further inquiry, they’d learn that living inside the “creature” is another creature, and inside the cranium (surely aliens would have a different word) of the inside creature is a world unto itself.
That inner world of the creature inside the outer creature is as infinite as the cosmos through which the aliens have traveled to discover earth. More interesting: that inner world harbors thoughts, ideas, and perceptions that can be quite . . . alien.
I think our fascination with the prospect of aliens paying us a visit should be abandoned without any further search for the truth. I fear that even if we were to prove beyond anyone’s doubt that aliens have landed, we’d eventually learn that they aren’t half as alien as are we. Imagine our feeling of alienation having to face fact that when it comes to “strangest of the strange,” we are indeed . . . alone.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
