Encounters: The UFO Phenomenon, Exposed!/Encounters - The UFO Phenomenon, Exposed (1995).iso/misc3/misc171.txt

Text File | 1995-10-20 | 9KB | 189 lines

 If aliens were to land on Earth . . .
 05/20/93
 ST. PETERSBURG TIMES

 If aliens landed on Earth this morning, as we drink coffee, munch
 cream cheese bagels and read the newspaper, some say the culture
 shock could elicit the best and worst of mankind.
 Mass hysteria.
 Apathy.
 Religious and political upheaval.
 In the end, perhaps, global unity.
 From a jungle valley in Puerto Rico to California's Mojave
 Desert, operators stand by, tuned to potential contact from alien
 civilizations.
 The National Aeronautics and Space Administration equipped
 Voyager 2, now on its way out of our solar system and possibly into
 the grasp of some alien race, with a disc bearing information about
 our own civilization.
 Although some dismiss as farfetched the possibility of alien
 contact, the U.S. government has spent millions on NASA's Search for
 Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, Program.
 What if E.T. answers?
 Suddenly, we would know we really aren't alone in the universe.
 And we're not the most advanced civilization, despite our cellular
 telephones, cable TV and proposed space station.
 "If they do land, I think there would be profound effects
 throughout the world," said Dr. Paul Horowitz, a Harvard physics
 professor who operates a small galactic listening post at the
 Massachusetts university. "In the short term, religionists would do
 a quick scramble and a lot of rationalization. In a few weeks, the
 story fades to page 14.
 "In the long term, it forever changes the way we think about
 everything."

 UFO in Hernando
 Last month, Hernando County sheriff's Deputy Ron Chancey and six
 other people reported seeing a boomerang-shaped object hovering over
 a marsh in Bayport. A dozen similar sightings were reported from
 Pinellas Park to Hudson.
 Chancey thought the object followed him as he drove a patrol car
 on Pine Island Drive the night of April 16. He shined a spotlight
 toward the silent object, which he said appeared to have a wingspan
 that would touch uprights on either end of a football field.
 What if the object had turned out to be an interstellar craft
 carrying intelligent life? What if the ship had landed and the
 aliens had introduced themselves?
 "I don't know what I'd do," Chancey said. "That's like asking
 what do you do if you drive up and see your wife and kids getting
 raped or something. If there had been an intelligent life form, I
 don't know what I would've done. I'm kind of levelheaded about
 things like that. It takes a lot to make me panic. If they were
 friendly, I'd probably just say, `Whoa.' If they seemed dangerous,
 I'd probably make like a tree and leave."
 In 1938, people panicked during the radio broadcast of War of the
 Worlds, in which Martians invade Earth by way of New Jersey. The
 story, presented by Orson Welles, seemed immediate and real. Some
 listeners committed suicide.
 Even if aliens came in peace, Chancey theorized, some humans
 would be traumatized.
 "Given the fact that some alien life appeared on Earth, I'm sure
 that some people would panic," he said. "I'm certain that some
 people would take to it like a duck to water. There'll be a range of
 reactions. It'll terrify us. Some will hide from it. Others will
 take it in stride, say, `Oh, well,' and go on with their daily
 business. Some would really turn on to it."
 Chancey's boss, Sheriff Thomas Mylander, said he isn't sure how
 the department would handle an alien in Hernando County.
 "That one we'd have to play by ear," the sheriff said. "Who's
 dealt with that before? We'd have to seek the expertise of someone
 higher along the lines. I'd call in the feds, because locals would
 have to take a back seat to something of that magnitude."

 Peaceful adoption
 The same night Chancey saw his unidentified flying object,
 27-year-old Richard Wonch gazed at Jupiter through his telescope in
 Holiday. About 9:30, Wonch saw "an arrow-shaped object shoot through
 the sky."
 A Star Trek fan, Wonch said he is optimistic that mankind could
 adapt peacefully to the arrival of intelligent extraterrestrials.
 "We'd have to be pretty egotistical not to believe there's life
 out in all the zillions of galaxies out there. I think it would be
 pretty interesting, to say the least.
 "It would unite the world a little more. There'd be more
 possibility of a United Federation of Planets, like in Star Trek,
 forming. It could get all the hatred out.
 "It could be like a John Lennon song."

 A religious view
 Father Robert Sherman of the Catholic Diocese in St. Petersburg
 said the church has never taken an official stand on UFOs or life on
 other worlds.
 "We've always assumed we were the only intelligent life forms in
 the universe," he said. "If we found out there was life on other
 planets, we would have to struggle with the possibility that God
 would have a relationship with someone other than ourselves. I don't
 think anything is impossible."

 Hope for mankind
 Noted astronomer and science writer Carl Sagan dealt with the
 prospect of meeting aliens in his 1985 novel Contact, in which
 scientists decode a radio signal from a distant star system.
 On the surface, the signal turns out to be a return broadcast of
 Hitler at the opening ceremonies of the 1936 Olympic Games in
 Berlin. Hidden within the signal are instructions to build a machine
 - a cosmic subway that takes the scientists to the alien world.
 Rather than a source of panic, Sagan conjectured, such a
 development would bring hope for a brighter future for mankind. But
 fundamental change in our cosmological views would likely come with
 political, religious and cultural upheaval.
 "Zealotry, fanaticism, fear, hope, fervent debate, quiet prayer,
 agonizing reappraisal, exemplary selflessness, close-minded bigotry,
 and a zest for dramatically new ideas were epidemic, rushing
 feverishly over the surface of the tiny planet Earth," Sagan wrote.

 Take me to your leader
 How aliens are accepted may depend largely on to whom they first
 introduce themselves, said Roland Foulkes, a professor of
 astroanthropology and futuristics at the University of Florida.
 Will they go to our ruling elite? Or homeless people?
 Homemakers?
 Different groups would respond differently, Foulkes said. If the
 U.S. government managed to sequester extraterrestrials without
 telling the public, for example, it might exploit and then eliminate
 the aliens.
 "We would do what we could to extract as much information as
 possible," he said. "The aliens would be studied, prodded and poked
 so that we learn everything there is to know about them. Especially
 in the United States. Any secrets we can learn to become an even
 greater superpower would definitely be on the agenda.
 "The life form would be exploited, enslaved and probably
 ultimately killed."
 He bases this theory on how Europeans through the centuries have
 similarly abused other races they've encountered during their
 explorations.
 "Africans welcomed missionaries and colonial administrators,
 although they didn't know what they were in for by being so open,"
 Foulkes said. "Native Americans are often portrayed as savages, but
 the first pilgrims would not have survived the first winter without
 them."

 Confirming the signal
 If Horowitz, the Harvard professor, received what appeared to be
 a signal from the stars, he said he first would need confirmation
 from other scientists around the world. Then he would have to
 determine whether the signal were natural or synthetic.
 He said he would be convinced by a TV image or a sequence of the
 digits of pi carried out to a few thousand decimal places.
 "At that point, you have a discovery and I guess you buy an air
 ticket to Stockholm" to accept the Nobel Peace Prize for one of
 mankind's greatest discoveries, Horowitz said. "I have a hard time


 -!- WM v3.00 [Gamma]
  * Origin: STARGATE BB.SYSTEM NEW YORK,NY [phone]  (1:278/714.0)

 From: Sheppard Gordon                       Date: 21-05-93 23:22
   To: All                                   Msg#: 77
Subj.: If Aliens Were To Land /
 Area: UFO



 being mentally prepared. It's pretty mind-boggling."
 If they landed on Earth, aliens probably would have technology to
 surpass the speed of light, currently thought to be the cosmic speed
 limit.
 "We would no longer be the most advanced. These would be
 creatures who have solved harder problems than we have," he said.
 "It would permeate the subconscious and all layers of discourse,
 even jokes, in a way I can't even begin to guess."
 Steve Maran, spokesman for the American Astronomical Society in
 Washington, D.C., said mankind today might actually be apathetic
 toward alien life.
 Look up, glance briefly at the mother ship, then go back to
 sipping java and wiping cream cheese off our lips.
 "The way our society has gone to a nation of couch potatoes,"
 Maran said, "I think we'd probably wait for the government to deal
 with it and watch it on CNN."


 -!- WM v3.00 [Gamma]
  * Origin: STARGATE BB.SYSTEM NEW YORK,NY [phone]  (1:278/714.0)

---
TitanIum Knight -= [e-mail] =-
[ Amiga 1200: 32 Bit, 16.8 million colours ]