We are Not Alone

W. B. Smith

Our universe is a very large place, much larger than our minds are capable of understanding. There are several billions of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy alone, and there are millions of similar galaxies scattered throughout space and within the range of our large telescopes. The universe is also incredibly old. Our earth is estimated to be several billion years old, and it is presumed that the stars are much older. Maybe the universe doesn’t even have an age; that it is eternal and ever passing through the cycle of energy to matter and matter to energy. The episode of man on this planet, so far as we can determine, is relatively and extremely small portion of the larger time that the universe has existed, and the period of recorded history is relatively even shorter.

We consider the race of Man to be native to this planet and to have evolved here from lower life forms. We look upon our present civilization with pride and realize that we have accomplished much, particularly in the last few centuries. Even in the past few decades we have made tremendous progress in certain directions. Therefore, it is only natural that we should be egotistical about our position in the Universe. But are we alone? Are there not others in the universe who, also, have progressed? The Universe is very large and has been here a long time.

In the past few years we have taken our first faltering steps out into the vastness of space, first through the Sputniks and now through manned space flight. There is no doubt that we can do it, and we can restrain from blowing ourselves to glory with atomic bombs, we most certainly will do it. In the light of our present technology, and not allowing for any basic new discoveries, out timetable calls for interplanetary space travel well before the year 2,000 and a good possibility of inter-stellar trips being initiated shortly thereafter.

Our space travel plans include exploration, exploitation, and colonization, of other planets, so far as this might be possible, and there is no doubt that this thinking will be extended to the planets attached to other stars as soon as we can arrange to get there. Mankind has always been an adventurous creature, exploring, conquering, colonizing, and exploiting, and there is little reason to think that his future actions will be much different from those in his past.

Our large telescopes indicate low order perturbations in the positions of several of the inner stars, such as should be accounted for by the presence of large planets, and if there are large ones there will probably be smaller ones also. In fact, it is generally agreed now that the planets attached to the stars are more probably the rule than the exception, and that we will eventually find the heavens filled with all sorts of primary and secondary bodies.

When we consider the extent, the age, and the opportunity of the Universe, and the fact that we do have intelligent life here on this planet, it is only reasonable to speculate that somewhere else in the vastness of space and the eternity of time, other intelligent life could have blossomed forth. Since we have such rapid progress towards space travel in such a short time, a differential of only a few hundred or at the most a few thousand years between the development on some other planet and ours could easily have resulted in a race capable of doing right now what we plane to do in the future. Furthermore, it is quite possible that such a race may have reached this critical point eons ago, and to them space travel is as commonplace as the wheeled vehicle is to us.

Now, if this should be the case, and this alien race were anything like us, they would probably set forth to explore and colonize as rapidly as their means would permit. It is rather obvious that, even with the speeds of travel available to us, it would be much quicker to colonize the Universe than to wait for Nature to evolve separate races in each and every favorable environment. In fact, intelligent races might even set about accelerating environmental conditions to their liking, seeding and stocking planets with appropriate life forms, and watching over them as they develop.

The foregoing is not just idle speculation, since we have a great deal of evidence that something like this is actually happening. The Darwinian theory of evolution shows certain relationships between the various forms, which inhabit this planet, but there is very little evidence to indicate that they all evolved here. Maybe some of them did, but a more reasonable explanation is that they were brought here when the planet was in a suitable condition to receive them. Recent spectroscopic observations of the reflected light from Mars show the presence of vegetation, which synthesizes sugar, thus making it closely related to much terrestrial vegetation. Radio telescopes are picking up all sorts of radio noises from the sky, many of which are so systematic as to preclude natural origin. Peculiar markings, light flashes, and cloud and dust formations have been seen on Mars and our moon. And, most significant of all, the craft of these alien beings have been seen near, and on, this earth!

Legends and history abound in stories of visits to this earth by beings from the sky; beings which came in strange crafts capable of the most extraordinary performance, and who themselves possessed greats powers, or had at their command strange forces, and much beyond the understanding of the simple folk who witnessed those things. There is much evidence that this has gone on all through the ages, and is going on right now. With exceptional new gathering and disseminating means at our disposal, very little happens in the world which is not reported, and, if it is of sufficient interest, gets wide publicity. During the last ten years or more there has been much publicity about “Flying Saucers” and thousands of reports have been made of sightings of these strange objects in our skies. But this is not an exclusively recent phenomena; only publicity is recent. Ever since we have had newspapers there have been similar reports, but the absence of news services until recent times usually confirmed the details to a few local papers, and searches of old newspapers files confirm that flying saucers are old stuff.

The tense international situation in recent years has made everyone jittery, and anything in the skies that could not be established as known and friendly, was regarded with suspicion. Consequently, procedures, projects, and publicity combined to make the whole subject of flying saucers appear quite out of perspective. Instead of recognizing them for what they probably were, they became a ward of the Military, and since the Military are charged only with the defense of a country, their interests waned when they established the fact that the saucers apparently were not hostile. But in order to arrive at this conclusion they collected much data, classified it, and buried it so effectively that no one else could get at it, and those who might have been able to sort the matter out found themselves deprived of the basic data and had to contend themselves with the bit which escaped the clutches of the Military. However, on the basis of this material some rather startling conclusions have been reached.

Thousands of people have seen lights and apparently solid objects in the sky that behaved as no light or object normally seen in the sky ought to behave. Thousands have seen these objects under circumstances, which enabled them to say definitely what they were not, even though they were not able to say what they were. Reliable photographs and movies have been taken, and bits of “hardware” collected which cannot be explained away without challenging the integrity of a great many cases, and there is quite a bit of evidence of physical contact with these strange craft.

In several instances reliable people have reported seeing the beings who ride about on these crafts, and they say they look just like us. There are quite a number of reported contacts between these people from “elsewhere” and people of this earth, and although this letter point may be hard to prove it is equally hard to prove it is equally hard to disprove, and the results of these contacts are remarkably consistent and enlightening. At the present time there are quite a number of books, magazines, and bulletins devoted to the study of flying saucers, and anyone who wishes to establish for himself the validity of these things will find no dearth of material.

At this point we may summarize the position somewhat as follows. There is virtually no doubt that alien craft are visiting this earth, and that the beings who operate them are very much like us, probably our distant relatives. Considering the age and extent of the Universe, it is reasonable that space travel, exploration, and colonization, may be quite commonplace among races of mankind more advanced than we are. Information obtained through alleged “contacts” confirm the general nature of the picture as presented herewith, together with quite a bit of interesting side-lighting on the technology, customs, way-of-life, and philosophy of these people from “elsewhere.” It would appear that we are well along the way to becoming truly civilized, and if we can refrain from committing racial suicide and learn to respect the dignity, divinity and brotherhood of man, we can expect eventually to be welcomed into the great cosmic fraternity of advanced races that inhabit the regions beyond the limits of this little planet.