The Aliens Are Back
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An article from 4WL


A couple issues ago Jon Ripley replied to what he thought was John Robson's
questions. In fact they were actually written by me, Martin Wilson, as was
the article. In fact it wasn't an article at all; it was meant to be a
personal direct reply to a specific member who sent me some 8BS mail.
However it got quite long and I sent it as a normal text file hoping it
would be popped on the right member's disk only. All my own fault for not
following proper prodcedures. So anyway it all got a bit confusing because
8BS members never saw the original Mail that I got. 

Also I'd like to reply to some of John Ripley's points.

Answers for Aliens

By Jon Ripley member D5B

Here are some of my answers to John Robson's (actually Martin
Wilson's ) questions from issue 53.

I have not approached any of the points he raised in his article before
asking these questions, as I would end up writing a few thousand too many
words for Chris's magazine to deal with. I have already used almost one and
a half thousand in this brief response. 

1 Energy based life forms? 

John:In a sense we are all energy based life forms because matter itself
could be described as being made of frozen energy or energy in it's solid
state. It seems to many people that all life forms whether organic or non-
organic which are bound to exist somewhere should eventualy evolve to the
level where a physical body is no longer necessary and either pure energy or
plasma could be the replacement. An energy based life form would be free
from all constraints aside from the laws of physics, our knowledge of the
laws of the physical universe is still very basic, the constraints of space
time which hold us prisoner at the moment may no longer present a barrier.
Theorists are now beginning to postulate what the next step up from pure
energy life forms may be If anything, it is still far in our future.

Mart:My own opinion thinking on the subject again is that the step from a
physical animal to an energy based creature would not be a step in evolution
but be one designed and created through the technology of the physical
animal. It may theoretically be possible for an animal to evolve this way
but I think this would come a long way after the animal has become very
intelligent and therefore it would be achieved by technology a long time
before. Besides evolution is more about offensive and defensive attributes.
I suppose one of the steps may be finding a food source which is not meat or
vegetation. Perhaps a creature on a planet with a very stormy lightning
based weather system would develop the ability to harness the power of
lightning. First by evolving resistance to lightning and then making use
of it as an energy source. I still feel though that technology rather than
evolution will be the catylst.

2 Life in binary and multiple star systems does it exist? 

John:Perhaps there are beings in multiple star systems who are wondering the
same thing about single star systems. In reality there is no real reason why
the presence of more than one local star should prevent life from
developing. Certainly the planet or similar object should not be highly
affected by the orbit of the planet around the suns. There would probably be
no concept of day or night unless one sun dominated the others in it's
brightness creating a period of semi darkness when the part of the planet
not facing the star would only receive light from the others, it would
probably still be very bright. Either way the populace might probably have
no concept of the number of stars beyond their own planetary system and
pinpricks of light they would see such distant but very bright stars and
planets in their own system that were visible would be few and far between.
Indeed if a total solar eclipse ever happened it might be very scary for a
race that had never experienced a sky not lit by one or more suns and the
spectacle of the countless stars in the sky may well overwhelm them. If there
had been a lot more stellar dust in our own solar system when the planets
were still forming it is almost certain that Jupiter would have been a
second smaller sun and not the gas giant it is.

Mart:My question was more open ended than anticipated. When I said binary
and multiple I was really thinking of stars which were more than one in the
heart or centre of the system which I believe is generally regarded as the
norm. These systems seem to have planetary paths that are incredibly
eliptical. It would be like the Earth orbit going as close in as Mercury and
then going out to the distance of Mars. I.e. temperature variation would be
phenomenal and therefore surely life can't exist. There would possibly be
rotational variation as well, as the orbit close to the stars is slowed down
and then it is pushed away by a double gravitational effect. I imagine such
a planet would have a fragmented surface. Millions of years of heating and
cooling. It would be a sight to see what it would turn out like. Yes its
interesting to think if that Jupiter had been a bit bigger it would have
become a star. Mind you it would have been a pretty pathetic star that
wouldn't have lasted up to this age I doubt. Stars slightly larger than
Jupiter are very shortlived I believe (in star terms that is). Perhaps we
would have our own black hole. I say we but if it had formed a black hole
our planet would probably have gone down it.
 
3. Ideas on how complex life became on Mars before extinction or possibly
still existing? 

John:The thin carbon dioxide atmosphere and almost complete lack of an ozone
layer indicate that Mars may have reached a similar level to our 20th
century. Mars may then have been very similar to Earth certainly it is close
enough to the sun to sustain life similar to that on Earth. Mars may have
had a problem with a thinning ozone layer far worse than the one we are
suffering from now. If they had reached our level of technology then ozone
destroying chemicals would most certainly have been developed. With a
thinning and patchy ozone layer the UV rays from the sun would have bleached
the soil and slowly killed off all or most life on the planet without any
protective layer around the atmosphere, it may have bled into space causing
the planet to cool freezing the water and making it the inhospitable place
it is today. A face very similar to a human face has been seen carved into
rock on the surface of Mars. Perhaps it is just coincidence as many suggest
that the face was eroded out of the rock by the turbulent winds on Mars. Or
it could be a message, certainly it seems unlikely that the primitive
Neanderthals could have evolved side by side homo sapiens who at that time
in history would have been almost identical physically to us now. Perhaps all
humans as we now know ourselves are descendants from a mass exodus from Mars
before it became impossible for life to exist there.

Mart:I don't believe Man is in anyway connected to Mars as genetically we
are so similar to all our predecessors and other animals. The Mars bacteria
seems similar to our basic bacteria. Similar but definitely not the same. I
watched that NASA announcement religiously and unless they're pulling our legs
what they basically said was that it didn't equate to early Earth bacteria.
I think Mars life may have evolved to something like fish in the warm
volcano heated streams. Mars has always been cold in comparison to Earth
although sometimes its hard to relate to this when it always looks like a
Dry hot Desert world. The thing that slightly worries me about Mars and its
far hardier environment is that any Martian bacteria may knock spots off our
own. Meaning Martian bacteria could destroy us. Even if its not as
sophisticated as ours the fact that we have never encountered it before
means it could be highly successful against us. Animals and bacteria have
evolved together on this planet step by step together with victories on
either side. What if you introduce something totally alien in the way it
attacks larger animals. One things for sure any life that has evolved on
Mars will know how to seek out heat like a magnet, to survive. On the
subject of Mars wouldn't it be great if we could swop over Mars and Venus.
I'm sure Venus would be much easier to terraform in the Martian orbit as it's
atmosphere is very successful in keeping heat in. Whereas Mars is rubbish
at it and would seem ideal for the Venusian orbit. I imagine Mars would be
livable at night and you could hide underground in the day. You could do a
lot with all that solar energy too. In both cases toxic gases and substances
would need to be transformed into breathable or harmless ones. A series of
sequenced nuclear explosions would do the trick of moving the planets,
explosions along vertical lines of either planet. It would of course be a lot
easier to do this on Mars than Venus. The Earth would be on the other side
of the Sun at the time. The result after terraforming would be three
habitable worlds in our Sol system. Mind you shifts in orbit may cause
gravitational ripples that the Sun will respond to in solarflares but there
may come a time when we need more space for the population.

4 Views on Earth society 200 years from now? 

John:Perhaps it might be very similar to life today? There is a lot of
evidence that civilisations more advanced than ourselves once lived on this
planet. It is certainly true that the Greeks were very advanced, more advanced
than us in some ways and less advanced in others. They certainly didn't have
cars. What followed were the dark ages where almost ALL knowledge was
forgotten. Many of the scientific facts that we had thought we had discovered
in the last 100 years have been proved to have been known by ancient
scholars. Perhaps another dark age will follow or we may destroy ourselves
and only a remnant of how we are today will exist. There are a lot of
problems with environmental pollution that are slowly killing us. One true
but terrifying example is that chemicals that mimic oestrogen the female sex
hormone are causing each generation of men to have just half the sperm count
of their father's, also the large number of babies born with gender
disfunction is rising. It is almost certain that if we continue to develop at
our present rate or even at a higher rate as is indicated by recent trends
in science society may itself be radically different. In short anything is
possible.

Mart:Its weird I remember watching SCIFI films which featured low
populations in the future and thinking it was ridiculous. Soylent Green
seemed more realistic in its predictions for the future. However recent
events seem to point to a lower population of people. In fact these
chemicals you mention will probably affect other animals too and therefore
the world will become depopulated due to this contamination. Whats weirder
is that book, I forget the title where an English woman has written how she
believes she is the mother of various Irish children of many years ago. She
has met with them who are now quite elderly and they believe she is the
reincarnation of their mother. I'm a sceptic by nature but this story seems
to have so much merit. The point is her book mentions her visions of the
future and she describes a depopulated world. One description is of a
basically bleak area of cultivated fields with a single solitary skyscraper
and no visible population outside this building. This is in England of the
future. She describes the view but doesn't make any definite interpretations
of what she sees. I'm left trying to fit the pieces of information together.
Possible explanations range from people avoiding outside contamination by
living in single isolated buildings. Others being people living out lives in
virtual reality environments in preference to the natural environment. I
personally see Virtual Reality as the lifestyle of the future and so I see
this as quite a viable option. However from todays viewpoint it may seem a
totally indulgent one. 

5 Alternate realities? 

John:A rising number of people believe that there are an infinite number of
universes some would be different only by the position of a photon and
others may be completely different. A recent television series Sliders shows
this. It also follows that every possible outcome happens with new universes
splitting from others to accommodate all possibilities. Perhaps in this
universe you decide to go and watch Star Trek First Contact in another
universe you would go and see the First Wives Club, other than that the two
universes would be exact in every other detail.

Mart: I don't see alternate realities as being every branch possible off one
point of time. This taken to its logical conclusion from the beginning of
time to now would mean an infinite amount of different realities. In fact in
this context, infinity seems too small. Yes I know the definition of infinity
used in the context that the universe never ends fine, in this context where
every billionth of a second has a billionsxbillionsxbillions etc of
possibilities all over the world and this rule applies to the whole universe
you realise that alternate realities of this description doesn't seem to
make much sense. I personally don't see it as making much sense at all. I
mean if the Sun burns two hydrogen atoms instead of one that makes an
alternative reality. In fact there could be (take a wild figure out of my
head) 50 billion variations on how the sun burns hydrogen in one millionth
of a second and so theres 50 billion earths with identical events except for
the few billion atoms variations in the Sun. I prefer to see alternate
realities as simply a different place altogether sharing few of the same
rules of existence of our world. Earlier we mentioned energy based
lifeforms. People believe in an afterlife but don't know where it is. Yet we 
believe we can get to it often through some sort of vortex or tunnel after
death. Thats my example for an alternate reality not that I believe it.

6 Grey race origin and purpose? 

John:Well first the crystal people may exist probably at a different address
though. Life on Earth is based mainly on Carbon, over 99% of our bodies is
made up of just 5 elements; Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Calcium and one other
I can t remember at the moment. The rest less than 1% is made up of other
elements. Silicon based life has been suggested, no not computers although
it is a possibility, silicon is atomically very similar to carbon. By greys
I assume you mean the aliens that almost all abductees describe. It is
certainly not impossible and it is really only a lack of publicly available
proveable evidence and our own short sightedness that prevents us from
accepting their existence. Perhaps they are just waiting for a time when we
will be able to accept them.

Mart: It would be impossible for me to form any conclusive opinion on this
subject as my source of info is people and people do lie. Photographs and
technical evidence is more acceptable but again this can be fraudulent. A
mass sighting at close distance would be conclusive proof as the larger the
group of people the more unlikely that they would all lie. 5 friends can
collectively lie. 5000 people at a football match is something completely
different. I sit on the fence on so called abductees but I'm as sure as I
can be about something without proof that life exists outside our solar
system. The martian bacteria is the definite proof that life can develop
given the right ingredients. Being out at the rim of the milky way distances
between other star systems can be quite high. I wonder about those lone
systems between the galaxies though as they have total stability but it
would take an age for their ships to get anywhere. Whereas inner galaxy
systems nearer the centre have only fractions of a light year between them.
Good for space travel but dangerous for stability. If greys do exist we
cannot cancel out that they're actually the humans of the future. With the
standard monkey layout it would be ridiculous to say it wasn't possible. Are
monkeys everywhere in the universe. What would a human look like who did no
work, concealed himself in darkness on a virtual reality machine for most of
his life. Take that scenerio down 1000 generations. The natural instinct is
to colonise, who else would have reason not to colonise the Earth but
visitors from the Future. Who else would have an interest in us.

7 The afterlife the big question? 

John:There is almost concrete proof out there readily available and often
seen in the media or just down the local pub or graveyard. The afterlife
must exist even many atheists admit that the thought of completely ceasing
to exist is too terrifying to contemplate. All the major and minor religions
believe in some form of life after death perhaps it is reincarnation as has
been widely proved to exist as with other post death happenings. In short if
there is an afterlife everyone will find out eventually one way or the other
and if there isn t well you ll never know about it because you ll not exist
to find out.

Mart: For that reason it seems more interesting to debate the question
before I die as I believe I won't have the option afterwards. I want there
to be an afterlife, unfortunately this means nought. Every second bacteria
is trying to destroy us, the whole natural system is about dog eat dog.
Nature kills the weak. When a rabbit is not too well this is the opportunity
for the Fox to strike etc. Mother nature is probably one of the most stupid
names you could give nature. Pyscho Nature is more like it. We have rejected
natures lessons in favour of cushy houses and a less violent existence.
There is no indication that compassion or respect forms any part of the
natural world. Therefore it seems ridiculous in the extreme to expect death
to be the gateway to a wonderful existence. Total non existence is what
awaits us all. You didn't exist before you were born and death is merely the
other side of your existence. The christian bible has been shown to be
totally false in much of its teachings about history. When you have a book
which can be proved 20% wrong with the other 80% being debatable either way
its pretty obvious to me which way its likely to go. The wonderful people
that have existed throughout time. The wonderful thoughts and ideas.
I'd be the first to admit that it would be terrible for these intellects
to be lost. I used to work for Age Concern and often would make some nice
old lady or gent a cup of tea and sit down and talk about the past. This
I'd do on a weekly basis and hear about all that life had shown them. A
couple hours would seem like 20 minutes. I remember one such chap called
Ray who I regularly chatted to and then the next week he's dead. Now Ray
could tell a story or two about the War that was total entertainment. It
always started slow but built up to some exciting event with plenty of
sidelines about incompetent officers, desirable woman and pure comical
twists. His existance now is just a memory to a handful of people. The only
way there can realistically be an afterlife is if its been created either by
aliens (earlier civilisations) or Humans of the future. The notion that some
super being came about in a puff of smoke so to speak is plainly ridiculous.
Someone once said that the day aliens land is the day when people finally
grasp truth instead of making up stories and believing them. I'll second
this.

Err... Sorry for getting a bit deep in places. A bit self-indulgent perhaps.
Apologies if I've offended anyone with my anti-religious stance. 

Martin Wilson