June 2021

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s—a Weather balloon?

“So what do you make of the Department of Defense report to Congress, Al?  It doesn’t say that there are alien UFO’s but it doesn’t say that there aren’t either.  It just says, ‘we don’t know what we’re seeing.’”

“Well Lin, it’s a start.  After all the years of denial, at least there’s an official statement now that there are things in the skies that cannot be explained as natural phenomena or of human manufacture.  Help yourself to a cold one and the chips.”

“Thanks, I will.  You always thought that UFO’s existed and that they were aliens and that the government knew more than it was letting on.  Sounds like you might have been right.  But why is all of this coming out now?”

“Maybe there was such an accumulation of credible witnesses and images that it had to come out—that further denial would be laughable.”

“Or do you think that this is the government’s way of priming us, so that there’ll be less shock and panic when a more definitive report comes out in the future saying that the aliens are here?”

“Now you’re beginning to sound like me with the conspiracy theories, Lin.”

“No, really.  I mean I don’t believe all that Area 51 or alien abduction stuff, but it’s clear now that there’s been an effort to hide information.”

“Since you’re going down the government coverup path Lin, think about why the government, if it did have physical evidence of alien craft, would continue to keep it at Area 51 where all the attention of UFOlogists are focused?  Wouldn’t it make sense to use Area 51 as a decoy while the actual material and studies are going on at some other site?”

“Interesting thought, Al.  Makes sense.  Where do you think?”

“I think if there were such a site, it could be almost anywhere except in a big city.  But not so remote that comings and goings would stand out and be noticed.”

“It’s a big country.  Lots of possibilities.”

“Yes.  Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Okay, Al.  Another question.  If there are aliens who have been watching us for what—at least seventy years—maybe more—why are they doing it?”

“Because we’re so damn interesting.  We’re like their ant farm.” 

“No. Seriously Al.”

“Well, I don’t think that they’re here to take over Earth or to steal our resources like some people worry.  If they have the science to travel between stars and maybe galaxies, they don’t need our planet for its natural resources.  And if they were going to invade us, why are they waiting to do so?”

“You still haven’t answered me.”

“Okay, Lin.  Maybe not exactly like their ant farm, but I think they are watching to keep track of our scientific progress.”

“Then why don’t they do a better job of staying concealed?”

“Perhaps they want us to know that they are here, watching, and that our technology doesn’t come close to doing anything about it.  I wonder if that’s why they engage our newest aircraft, to show that our best fighter jets can’t compare.”

“But why?”

“There was that part of the report that said that when the navy installed a new radar system on their jets there was a flurry of UFO activity where this happened.  Pilots were reporting radar contacts but couldn’t see anything visually.  Perhaps the UFOs were checking out the new technology that made them more detectable.”

“You think that they show enough of themselves so that our leaders realize we’re not alone, but not so much that everyone on earth believes it?”

“Something like that, Lin.  Like not hovering saucers over cities and towns all over the world.  That if it were that obvious that far-advanced aliens were here, it might destroy any motivation we humans have to make progress.”  

“Okay, so if they aren’t here to harm us, do you think they’re here to help—to keep us from wiping ourselves out or destroying the planet?  That if things go really bad, they’ll step in?   Or are they strictly observers?”

“Who knows, Lin.  Have another cold one and hope that the former’s the case.”

Deep under the ocean at their base, undetectable by human technology, two observers are communicating with each other.

“You’ve been here longer than I.  Do you ever feel disheartened by the humans?” asked ##&%.

“Sometimes.  But they seem to be making progress, albeit slowly.  No recent continents-wide conflicts as by the group called the Mongols or the ones called the Romans.  It is true that they have had two bloody so-called world wars with bursts of technology, but none for the past seventy-five of their years,” answered #&#%@.

“Their aggressive nature seems innate.  Even humans subjugated by ruling groups find other humans that they can in turn, dominate,” said ##&%

“We are bound by our code to never intervene in the societies that we encounter.  To nether help nor harm.  They no longer do ritual sacrifices of fellow humans although they still have executions and murders.  They hold some strange beliefs.  They make slow progress, but progress,” #&#%@ repeated.

“The ones—their leaders and scientists—who know of our presence, must surely have surmised that in order for us to visit their world, we have the means to travel between stars and galaxies beyond their understanding of physics and space-time,” stated ##&% 

“As you know, that is why we are here, ##&%,” said #&#%@.  “They are one of the more inventive and adventuresome peoples we have encountered and they are rapidly developing artificial intelligence and more advanced computation devices.  There is concern that if a prodigious savant such as the one who defined gravity or the one who gave them a theory of relativity—incomplete though it is—were to arrive and ask the right questions with a future far-advanced computation device, then that person could find the secret of piecing the fabric of space-time as we do, to travel among the stars and galaxies.  And given their present level of aggressiveness, we would have to intervene.  To have them running loose in the galaxy with their current mindset would be very troubling.”

“It’s disturbing that when their entertainment depicts alien contacts it always, with a very few exceptions, results in violence,”  said ##&%.

“I also find it strange—a blind spot in their thinking—that even scientists who are talking of traveling to the stars to find other worlds to colonize don’t ever say that such a world would most likely have beings living on it already.  Attempted colonization would repeat the colonization history of this planet where more aggressive and technologically advanced groups took the land of the peoples already living there,” replied #&#%@.  “Therefor until humans demonstrate that they have evolved into a more peaceful and collaborative race, we will monitor them to prevent them from acquiring the means to travel beyond their solar system.  If they do evolve, then we would welcome them and share our knowledge.”

“We might be watching them for a long time,” said ##&%.