Thursday, July 14, 2011

IS OR ISN'T? ANY BODY THERE?

When I was little, I'd look up at the night sky, pick out the brightest star and whisper, Star bright... star light ... I wish I may... wish I might ...

I thought the Milky Way was a carpet of diamonds, a pathway for me to follow into a wonderful dazzling future.

Here I am, now, in New York City, the place to be if you have big show-business dreams, and when I look up -- no stars! never a single star! There are no stars in the sky, definitely no moon -- just the red glow of lights from the busy city

It's always busy, always so crowded here -- wherever I go I'm dodging people, saying excuse me, or being jostled as I enter a store, or stand in line, waiting to pay a cashier. I worry because each year it's getting worse -- we are running out of things, like oil, water, coal, food, and space.

Remembering my carpet of diamonds, I find myself wondering if there are other worlds, other places, running out of things. I wonder about other planets like ours, people like us, who need and want things. Would they look like me, or like alien creatures in some of those movies?

Are there aliens? Would the presence of alien life explain away some of the strange things -- crop circles, UFO's, visitations that people have described, people disappearing?

The Kepler space telescope in California, studying the 500 "exoplanets" :orbiting other suns, found Gliese 58 1g. Was it headlines a year ago? It's three times the size of earth, in the constellation of Libra. (Being a Libra, I sort of know where it might be.)

Anyhow, the Kepler scientists decided It was too cold. -- water would freeze, you can't sustain life without water. But just recently, they've found another planet -- Gliese 58 rd -- which is twice the size of the earth, and redder looking than 58 1g

And now another group of scientists are saying there might be hydrogen heavy air on Gliese 58 rd, which might allow life to be sustained. So life on 58 rd or even 58 I g might be possible.

Major scientists throughout the world, say it's more than possible, it's probable. Lord Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society and astronomer to the Queen or Great Britain, said, “There could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can’t conceive. Just as a chimpanzee can’t understand quantum theory, it could be there are aspects of reality that are beyond the capacity of our brains.”

Stephen Hawking thinks that aliens are already here. They may be completely different from us humans, but like us need to find sources of things they need to survive -- not water, oil, coal, food -- other things that we may not have the intellectual capacity to understand.

I find this spooky, scary!

NBC's Brian Williams has quoted Hawking, saying that aliens may be like Columbus discovering America, "Look what happened to the Indians who were already here."

I find myself humming, hearing Cullum singing, " Is -- any-body - there?" (It's a plaintive tune the John Adams character sang in "1776." -- my husband played the role on Broadway for a while.)

Yes, oh my yes -- I'm paying attention to the idea that THEY could be here, casing us, colonizing in a form that we cannot see or comprehend!

Here are three scientists talking about extraterrestrials; also part of the Discovery Channel films that Hawking made, with an actor narrating Hawking's conclusions, plus images of aliens invading our earth like swarms of bees.





8 comments:

Linda Phillips said...

Fascinating! Goes way beyond my imagination.

Guess what Em, I'm a Libran too!!!!!! I'm not a bit surprised that you are also.

Steven Cates said...

Emily - I was reading an article in the Time magazine a few months ago by a writer who also believes that aliens may be among us, but we would never be able to recognize them as any form of life that we know. Very, very interesting stuff! I always loved to watch the skies here in Missouri at night as a child, wondering if a spaceship would come down and "beam" my family up for observation -- guess I saw CLOSE ENCOUNTERS too many times. Very intriguing to think about, though!

Carolyn Kalmus said...

A few years ago a friend and I decided to see for ourselves if we could spot a UFO, so we spent a couple of days exploring Nevada's Hway. 375 (the "Extraterrestrial Highway") between Alamo and Rachel and staying up all night while parked just beyond the perimeter of the U.S. Govt.'s "Area 51" to search the skies where so numerous UFO sightings supposedly occur every year. Were there no UFOs overhead the nights we were there or were our memories erased so we'd remember nothing?
I cannot say whether aliens are among us, Em, but I'll share a couple of quotes I've found fascinating:
(1) "Extraterrestrial contact is a real phenomenon. The Vatican is receiving much information about extraterrestrials and their contacts with humans from its Nuncios (embassies) in various countries, such as Mexico, Chile and Venezuela."
-- Monsignor Corrado Balducci as stated 5 different times on Italian TV. (Vatican theologian insider close to the Pope, Monsignor Balducci said that he is on a Vatican commission looking into extraterrestrial encounters, and how to cope with the emerging general realization of extraterrestrial contact.)
(2) "Let there be no doubt. Alien technology harvested from the infamous saucer crash in Roswell, N.Mex., in July 1947 led directly to the development of the integrated circuit chip, laser and fiber optic technologies, Particle beams, Electromagnetic propulsion systems, Depleted uranium projectiles, Stealth capabilities, and many others! How do I know? I was in charge! (A matter of public record) I think the kids on this planet are wise to the truth, and I think we ought to give it to them. I think they deserve it."
--Colonel Philip Corso Army Intelligence officer, former head of the Foreign Technology at the U.S. Army's Research and Development department at the Pentagon. Four years director of intelligence on President Eisenhower's White House National Security Staff.
(3) "All Apollo and Gemini flights were followed, both at a distance and sometimes also quite closely, by space vehicles of extraterrestrial origin - flying saucers, or UFOs, if you want to call them by that name. Every time it occurred, the astronauts informed Mission Control, who then ordered absolute silence." --Maurice Chatelain, former chief of NASA Communications Systems.

Carola said...

On the lack of stars in the sky: read about the activities of the Dark Sky Society which is trying to encourage cities to adopt new technology for their street lights so that the light is cast down but not out and upward. When a city radiates less light, a resident can see the stars.

Judy schlosser said...

This quote is mind boggleing
"All Apollo and Gemini flights were followed, both at a distance and sometimes also quite closely, by space vehicles of extraterrestrial origin - flying saucers, or UFOs, if you want to call them by that name. Every time it occurred, the astronauts informed Mission Control, who then ordered absolute silence." --Maurice Chatelain, former chief of NASA Communications Systems.

I never saw a couple of these before....and I have Corso's book which has been out for quite while.

Anonymous said...

http://youtu.be/7vyVe-6YdUk

david vernon said...

They are here and we are there.

Bill Dabney said...

It's so interesting, Em, that you post this musing on the day we "met" through Tommy Scott via Facebook. I suppose I'm an alien agnostic. I don't think about it a lot, but I have wondered from time to time if there's life out there. I've imagined that there could be humans even, on other planets, going about day-to-day errands much as I do. Why not? I think it's certainly entirely possible when you consider the vast expanse of space. So I don't NOT believe and I suppose I find it more fascinating than scary. Scarier, I believe, is the exploitation of our planet, by our own hand, on which Hawking touches in his video and to which you allude in your blog: "running out of things, like oil, water, coal, food, and space."