One of these days, I was looking at the sky. It was unusually dark where I stood, probably because there was a power cut. For a state that prides itself in supplying additional power to the national grid, power cuts were too common.
I love absolute darkness, much like absolute silence. But slowly my eyes grew accustomed to the faint light, and I could see the silhouettes of dark objects around me. Of course, my brain had mapped my study and other areas from its memory, but I wondered how the brain and eyes recalibrated to adapt to the dark environment caused by the power failure.
As I marveled at the evolution of human intelligence, my eyes turned toward the dark sky. Without the artificial lights, the sky revealed more. I saw a speck of twinkling stars and even a faint brown cloud that I have always wondered about. Is that how the space looks? I wondered how I could see all that with my bespectacled eyes.
While I was staring at those winking celestial bodies, a feeling crept on me – would there be somebody on any of those bodies staring at me or my blue marble? What would they think of us?
That question gnawed and grew on me, as I went about my chores the next day. And another. And another. I wrote this piece’s first paragraph, then parked it for a while. But suddenly, on the first day of the rains and the last day of my much-needed break, I picked this up. The cloudy skies reminded me that there is manna from the stratosphere still in the form of life-giving rains, so I decided to approach this introspectively.
***
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by an intelligence greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own.
― H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds
I don’t have a view on the comparative intelligence levels or longevity of those who might be staring at us from deep space. But human imagination is vast, and therefore, most of the assumptions that we make are those from the great works of science fiction. Isaac Asimov and HG Wells have influenced most of our thinking, among other stalwarts with fertile and inquisitive minds.
From here on, by popular science folklore, let me call them ‘Aliens’. The first thought about Aliens was how they would be thinking about themselves.
Were they products of their version of apes? Did they have their version of Gods? Did they have rituals?
If we have watched Sci-Fi movies, there are a few things that stand out in common: They are inquisitive beings, so they are naturally curious about our Earth. They are social indeed, for they seem to work in teams and accept leadership. They communicate with each other. Their forms and shapes are grotesque – well, relatively speaking – considering that we have our version of beauty, they might have theirs. Their glassy eyes, frog-shaped skulls, webbed limbs and incomprehensible sounds – we have seen them all in the movies and read them in the books.
Most definitely, they must have a home to return to, where near and dear are waiting. The concept of travel, time, and space must be similar to ours.
Any planet is ‘Earth’ to those that live on it.
― Isaac Asimov, Pebble in the Sky
If they were similar to us in ‘intellectual’ aspects, would they be similar to us in emotional aspects? The questions about life, identity, and purpose might be common. Do they have a heart full of feelings? Would they feel emotional or homesick when they are out so far (we know this) from their home planet?
Our curiosity and imagination have created our version of Aliens. There is enough literature out there, so I won’t add to that. But the fact is that some of us have been thinking about them and imagining their physical traits, behavior, technology, and engineering skills, their ability to discover, see and engage us, explore our planet Earth and even, in some extreme cases, fight wars with us to capture this beautiful home of ours.
***
Some of us have assumed that past civilizations had ‘contact’ with aliens. There is no ‘evidence’ to this, but the hypothesis still does the rounds.
The ancient pyramids (there are chambers inside the pyramids used to communicate), Mount Kailash (the pointed structure has some thesis around this), the Elora caves (the temple is carved out vertically – an amazing architectural marvel that some of us attribute to alien architectural and engineering skills) the Mayan City of the Incas, the inexplicable shapes that appear in the fields of the US and the UK – all point towards possible trysts with aliens.
The Unidentified Flying Objects – often in the shape of saucers have been sighted across the US. I wonder why they don’t appear in other parts of the world.
I am discounting reports of UFOs. Why would they appear only to cranks and weirdos?
— Stephen Hawking, From a TED Talk, 2008
The above point out one thing – with a combination of imagination and faith, people are looking for evidence of Aliens on our planet.
Now compare this with what some of us think about Heaven.
Have you noticed that the heavens are above and not below? Have you noticed that in Greek, Indian, Chinese, and other pantheons, the Gods have traveled across planets?
There is a sense of awe about the sky and by extension, space. If someone had to cross the light moments of spatial distance, they had to have super-tech or possess superpowers. There is no doubt about that.
If Aliens reach Earth, they must have such powers that they may even sound ‘Godly’ to us. But those spots are taken. Gods have those superpowers, and they can crisscross the universe as they wish. Aliens are, therefore, not Gods.
***
Another aspect that separates Aliens from our Gods is their mortality. By either their being or genetic composition, or by drinking the mythical elixir of immortality, Gods stay alive and don’t age beyond what we imagined.
We all know from sci-fi books and moves that Aliens are mortal. They age over time and then die. They spawn and grow, and then die.
Let us look at ourselves – we are chasing anti-aging drugs and medicines and cosmetics. We don’t want to age and die. In a sense, that is something we have not thought about in Aliens. So aspiration-wise, we want to be immortal like our Gods. By the looks of our imagination (going back to our Sci-Fi books and movies), we can’t evidence that the Aliens are on a similar quest. So, humans try to mime their Gods and not Aliens.
So, that’s that. We can now safely position Aliens to be lesser beings than our Gods, but are they better than us, humans? Here is a take from Stephen Hawking.
The extraterrestrials would probably be far in advance of us. The history of advanced races meeting more primitive people on this planet is not very happy, and they were the same species. I think we should keep our heads low.
— From an appearance on Naked Science: Alien Contact on the National Geographic Channel, 2004
We can imagine that, for we know the fate of other species in the hands of homo-sapiens. We have outwitted, outmaneuvered, and supplicated them. We have even made sure that they are extinct. We continue to do so with our insatiable thirst for energy, space, water, food, and other luxuries at the cost of other beings.
If what Hawking suggests, then I don’t want to be alive when an advanced race visits us. We know how being at the top of the pile of evolution can bring greed to unimaginable speed. A group of more advanced Aliens visiting us shall result in slavery, poverty, deprivation, massacre, and mass extinction of the human race. We have covered that in our sci-fi movies and books, haven’t we?
***
While we brood and ponder about how we think about Aliens, I would like to take a moment about what Aliens would think of us, when they are either visiting us or passing by, or just staring at us through a high-powered telescope from their home planet.
I see them pity us. I see them consider us as petty, naïve, and short-sighted. I see them wonder about how selfish and unscrupulous we are.
