Have We Been Visited by Aliens From Other Planets?

This article discusses whether it is possible that we have been visited by aliens from other worlds.

There have been literally thousands of reports of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) by people from every background, and in almost every country. China, Russia and USA have all devoted considerable resources to studying the phenomenon, though the official stance is that all UFO sightings are either hoaxes or misidentifications of natural phenomema.

Most people believe that the UFO sightings started with the Kenneth Arnold Sightings and the so-called Roswell incident in the 1940s. This had led many to believe that any sightings which were not outright hoaxes are merely sightings of experimental aircraft, since the UFO phenomenon began with the jet age. However it not true that the "UFO Age" started in the 1940s with the Kenneth Arnold's Flying Saucers sighting and the Roswell incident. Whether these sightings are true or not, there are hundreds of reported incidents including reports of crashed aerial vehicles going back hundreds of years. See the book Wonders in the Sky for a fascinating account of some of the most intriguing ones going back hundreds of years.

Despite the many credible sightings, people who report seeing UfO's are branded as delusional or misguided. It is argued a priori, that if they saw anything at all and are not either crazy or charlatans, they must be mistaken about what they saw. It must have been ball lighting, swamp gas or some other natural phenomenon. Why? Because, it is argued, aliens probably don't exist or if they do they could never come here. It's just too far.

It is a circular logic, to be sure. Aliens have never come to Earth because it would be impossible for them to travel so far to reach our planet. Interstellar space is far too large. Since they cannot come here, anyone who says they have observed them is wrong. Case closed.

But this is a bizarre logic: For us to argue that there are no other intelligent species in the universe, given the near infinite number of planets, is simply blind pride - it reminds me of when people stubbornly hung on to the belief that earth was the center of the universe, despite all proof to the contrary, because the proof contradicted their deepest held beliefs about our importance as a species in the grand design of the cosmos.

Nowadays most people would acknowledge that just as we are not the center of the universe, we are probably not the only intelligent species in the entire universe.

The video above shows a very fast moving UFO leaving rising from the Earth's surface. It was taken by NASA Astronauts and shows a tube shaped UFO flying between the Space Station and Hurricane Irene on 8-26-2011. The footage is visible at around the 50 second mark of the video.

So the question is, could these other species travel here? Our science says that it would be impossible because they would have to come from so far away - but in fact we did not know how to fly just over 100 years ago. And had you asked scientists then whether we would ever be able to fly in heavier than air aircraft, they would have said no.

It is very likely that among the thousands and thousands of species out there, some have developed science that we cannot dream of - and have mastered the technique of faster than light travel.

The fact that we have not mastered faster than light travel does not mean that it is impossible. As an analogy, we are somewhat like the North American Indians, who built civilizations and cities but never discovered the wheel. They went on with their lives oblivious to the fact there were other technologically more advanced civilizations beyond the great sea.

If you had asked an Aztec or Inca, before the coming of Columbus, if it were possible for people to cross the great sea to the west, they would have most likely told you that such things were impossible. They probably would have debated whether any people even lived across the sea. This is because, the Aztecs and the Inca, for all of their cultural and other achievements had never learned to build ocean powered sailing craft. Their canoes allowed them to reach some coastal islands, and some Native Americans branched out into the Caribbean, where the distance between land masses is not far. But waters beyond these coasts were off limits to the technology of the American Indians. No doubt their sense of pride would have led them to think that since they could not cross these oceans, no one else could.

Now compare us to the American Indians - we know only our own planets and the capabilities of our species - and yet we pridefully believe that it is not possible that alien races have visited our world, because we do not know how to reach the stars ourselves. It is a sad commentary on the closed mindedness of the human race that we would fall into this illogical belief. Let us hope that an alien Cortes or Pizzaro does not appear on our shores one day to prove us wrong in our conceit.

Even great scientists are often completely wrong about what is possible. Lord Kelvin (26 June 1824 – 17 December 1907), who discovered the first and second laws of thermodynamics,as well as the concept of absolute zero, believed firmly that heavier than air flight (that is to say, airplanes) was impossible. In 1896, Kelvin wrote:

"I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning or of expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear of." ^[1]

And then in a 1902 newspaper, Kelvin predicted that:

"Neither the balloon, nor the aeroplane, nor the gliding machine will be a practical success. The balloon is the best of all" ^[2]

He could not have been more wrong, of course. A little more than a year later, the Wright Brothers made the first successful heavier than air flight. Less than 11 years later, airplanes were dueling in dogfights over the battlefields of Europe. And by the mid-60s transatlantic passenger jet flights had become commonplace. Who knows what discoveries wait around the corner that may make FTL travel feasible, discoveries that may have been made millennia ago by more advanced or older alien civilizations. Already, there are indications that our theory of relativity is wrong or incomplete, and that neutrinos may be able to travel faster than light.

Other possible methods of beating the speed limit of light include worm holes, warp drives (in which space is bent closer to you while you travel at sublight speeds). These are just the things that we have been able to imagine, only a century after achieving flight. Imagine what a much older civilization with a far more advanced science may have been able to achieve. To think that it cannot be done because we cannot (yet) do it is the height of folly and betrays a certain self pride.

I stated at the beginning of this article, that scientists dismiss claims by people who say they have witnessed UFOs by saying that no alien species could travel here on account of the great distances, and therefore what they saw is not real. I think that it is time that we look at the problem from the other direction: if what is being reported is real, then it must be possible for aliens beings to cross the vastness of space. To conclude otherwise would be like the American Indians of the 1400s refusing to believe in Columbus, Cortes and Pizzaro because white men could not have existed, and surely they could not have crossed the great sea.

Ignoring the truth may mean that we are unprepared when the conquistadors show up on our shores.