Tuesday, January 4, 2011

ET, Stay Home

"Yo! Where's Ripley?"
As a Xmas bonus to those who "believe", thousands of documents were released of alleged NZ UFO sightings between 1952-2009. And naturally the more wierd/believing/gullible are urging the NZ Government to admit ET is out there.
Aetherius Society NZ organiser Frank McManus says the documents prove our government knows about the existence of alien life, and he's calling for a full state investigation: "The next question is, 'why are they here?'."
The Aetherius Society claims to be in touch with alien life (or Cosmic Masters) who give messages on how to halt Earth's slide into ruin. Ah, but surely if the Aetherius Society is in touch with ET, why do they not simply ask him that burning question?
Meanwhile...food for thought: if aliens really did invade, wouldn't we be dead instantly?
Think about it: in movies, humans fight off alien forces with lap-top viruses (as in "Independence Day"), microbes ("War Of The Worlds"), even the power of love ("Skyline"). The main way we stop aliens in movies/tv is by finding their One Big Weakness. The problem with every One Big Weakness is that the audience starts picking apart why the key was that one weakness and no other eg: in "Signs" it was water, but did it have to be fresh water? Wasn't it raining anywhere? Snow? And what about the water in the human body? The One Big Weakness is a tiny crack that's meant to wrap up the movie happily but instead rips it all to pieces (just like in "Alien"!).
Sure, we're all happy to temporarily suspend our disbelief, because laser fights and big alien ships are cool and we like to watch them. But any alien force so advanced that it can cross vast reaches of space would make short shrift of us. And I don't just mean technological advancement: as NASA will attest, space travel comes with a whole host of chemical, physical and biological challenges. If we are being visited, then they've already mastered these problems. If they came in anger, we'd all be dead before we even knew they were here. They'd have interstellar travel and we have iPods. No contest.
Of course there's always the question of what ET might actually want from mankind. There's a possiblity he'd want slaves, pack animals or meat, but who says we'd be any use to him at all?
The point is, if ET and his mates do someday turn up and don't want us alive, we won't be. We could fight, run, hide, give up, search for the One Big Weakness. We could do whatever we liked.
We'd still all be killed.

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