The original post: /r/aliens by /u/Trendzboo on 2024-08-16 14:37:16.
Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81 R00560R0001 00010002-9 ~~ ? `?~r~~ 'ti .~ ~i~} l Z Apd-sc k. 0 3p U-164? N %4, PLUTO desire to communicate with other civilizations." Most of the great minds of human history believed that the greater part of the universe is inhabited by intelligent Life. Greek scientists and scholars as well as Egyptian priests recognized the Earth and other planets of the solar system as spheres moving in an eastward direction. Some- where along the line man fell into the ignorance and super- stition of the Dark Ages and forgot this knowledge. Appar- ently there was more than one Dark Age. When India reigned as one of the mightiest nations on the planet, Hindus took it for granted that the billions of Life forms (species, genera and phyla) on Earth were but a tiny fraction of that which existed on far flung worlds orbit- ing distant stars. Ancient China saw much the same sort of universal picture. Between them, these two pristine cultures have preserved the oldest records of man in existence. It seems amazing that man was so philosophically ad- vanced in such ancient times. The mere fact that any cul- ture in those days could deduce the correct explanation for the whiteness of the Milky Way is astonishing! There seems to be more mystery about early man than any anthropologist has guessed. Thousands of years later, as we embark on tentative voy- ages into space, we have some idea of the size, but very little is known about the formation or function of the uni- verse. Consider the Sun's retinue of planets stretching out to Pluto (as far as we know). Light from the Sun, traveling at 186,000 miles a second, takes about eight minutes to reach the Earth. Pluto, the outermost known planet, receives the Sun's light in about eight hours from the time photons are radiated from its corona. The next nearest celestial ob- ject is a star known as Alpha Centauri; it takes light from In an early, real-life version of the TV series "Startrek," the National Academy of Sciences founded the Order of the Dolphin in 1961 "to seek out and contact extraterres- trial life forms." The Order regards its formula as the equa- tion of existence. "N" stands for the number of civilizations in our galaxy now capable of communicating with other solar systems. The expressions- to the right of N are exotic modifying influences such as the rate at which new stars were being formed when the solar system was born . . . the number of staffs with a retinue of planets . . . the number of plan- ets in the galaxy capable of supporting Life . . . the num- ber of planets on which Life actually appears.. . . the number of Life-bearing planets on which intelligent Life has evolved, and finally, the most critical factor, "L-the number of intelligent worlds that develop the ability and the Sun 4.3 years to reach this star. It is 26 trillion miles away, 272,000 times as far as Earth is from the Sun (93 million miles)! Next, light traveling from one end of this vast aggregate of stars, star clouds, interstellar dust, planets, comets and possibly, quasars, to the other, takes 100,000 years. From here we can move out across intergalactic space to Andromeda, the nearest of billions of galaxies like our own Milky Way. If you visualize the nearest galaxy reduced to a tiny whirling disc of brilliance about the size of a dime, then picture another dime-disc three feet from that, and an entire series of dime-sized galaxies equidistantly spaced, stretching for three miles in all directions, you'll have an idea of the size of the (known) universe. It is probably only a tiny fraction of the larger universe we are unable to see. Oddly enough, all these galaxies are flying away from each other at a steady rate. Viewed from inside any galaxy, all other galaxies seem to be moving away, those on the perimeter moving much faster than those nearest to you. Some of these galaxies are flashing away at the speed of light, some slower, some faster (relatively). Those moving continued on next page Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81 R00560R000100010002-9
Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81 R00560R0001 00010002-9 Today the skies hold the challenge for adventurers that the seas held for our ancestors. at light speed or faster are moving away at a greater velocity than their light can speed back to us, therefore we will never see their light. It naturally follows that galaxies exist be- yond detection of any instruments man can devise. Such "island universes" may contain hundreds of billions of advanced planetary (and interplanetary or interstellar) civilizations. But these galaxies are lost forever to each other. By almost any measure the situation is paradoxical; the loss is incomprehensible. Returning inside the Milky Way galaxy to our own rela- tively close planetary and stellar neighbors-and the Equa- tion of Existence-it stands to reason by the simple law of averages that if Mother Earth was able to nurture dinosaurs, polar bears, eagles, whales, humans, elephants, microbes, plankton and trees, crabs and kangaroos and armadillos, then surely almost every celestial body is the home of some form of Life. And one Life form will cause a whole ecology. The experts who devised the Equation of Life claim that each society of intelligent. beings has a certain life-span, and a certain point in its history when its science and tech- nology make it want to communicate with other worlds in space. The seminar of extraterrestrial life at which the Or- der of the Dolphin was founded suggested that Phase "L" was either very short or very long-probably somewhere be- tween a thousand years and a thousand million years! If the "window in time" period is very short, Homo sa- piens may be on the threshold of its most unique historical period, a time much - shorter, say, than Egyptian history. This period could determine when Earthmen are able and eager to communicate with other civilizations. If the period is excessively long, and our evolution continues as it has, we're in for a truly halcyon' epoch.. But this "Renaissance" period could pass, claim the sci- entists, and man could fade back into a new Dark Age- or blow up the planet or the entire solar system in a nuclear war. It is also conceivable that civilization -could come to a grinding halt through- an unexpected, unforseen cosmic up- heaval. According to Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky of "Worlds In Collision" fame, this is precisely what happened to bring down the final great Chinese, Indian and Egyptian dynas- ties. Cosmic debris such as the immense cloud of rubble that follows sixty degrees behind our Moon in its orbit, the rings of Saturn, and the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, point up the evidence for prehistoric catastrophe on an interplanetary scale. The immense craters of the Moon and Mars can only have been formed by catastrophe, either .natural or made by "intelligent" beings. Assuming that such catastrophes could interrupt the smooth flow of history, invention, science and technology, how can we further sharpen our abilities to communicate with alien races-if they exist? Unfortunately, the magical Equation of Life excludes the possibility of superintelligent Life, which could be billions of years old! This is not a novel idea. Such intelligence could have evolved long before the period during which the experts tell us the Universe was born. The fact is that no one, regardless of his credentials in any science, can state this with any degree of certainty. Nothing in science can be said with dogmatism. It is pure egotism on our part to as- sume we will automatically be the "teachers" who send sig- nals into space-to be eagerly grasped and used by "back- ward" worlds to communicate with us. The fact that we have thought of it indicates that other worlds must also have conceived the idea; but so far we have failed miserably to decipher even those mysterious nearby "messages", emanating from Jupiter and Venus. No one can say whether the radio waves (which could be arti- ficial) contain any message for us. We should be equally eager and ,, able .to speak an alien language as to have them understand us. No-leading scientist has openly declared the real possi- bility that Earthmen may be so far down on the evolutionary scale that we might be about as interesting to Outworlders as viruses under a microscope are to an accountant or poli- tician. 40 Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81 R00560R000100010002-9
Approved For Release 2001/04/02 : CIA-RDP81 R00560R0001 00010002-9 Our egocentric Formula of Existence does not consider the rational probability that long before the Earth came into being large star-systems had already been in contact with one another, perhaps even linked together in a great federa- tion of worlds. If so, and their "window in time" is a very long one, this federation could still exist, and probably knows all about us. Anything is possible. The Life sciences need less dogmatism and much more imagination. Just as we can'only guess at the exact age of the universe, we also cannot discount the possibility that powerful super- intelligences far out in space are able to control their en- vironment, their heredity-and therefore their destiny . . . perhaps that of other species as well. Man exercises a great influence over the flora and fauna of his own planet- and expects to bring other worlds under his dominion in the same manner. This could be a great mistake; we haven't learned to control...
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