The subject of aliens is not a new one and has been around for a really long time now. We talk about it all the time. News and articles about the possibility of alien visits or attacks are everywhere. Perhaps this has become so common that people have started to shrug it off, thinking this is just one of those science fiction topics that media loves to sensationalize.
If all of a sudden we have an alien encounter one day, are we psychologically prepared for this? Like many of you even I think we are not. In fact we might be in a state of shock as they might turn out to be completely different from any of our imaginations about them. But if we are prepared for “anything”, then such an alien encounter might not be shocking.
The objective of this book is to prepare its readers psychologically to deal with the subject of aliens and the first alien encounter. In other words aiming to prepare humanity with the cope of a possible shock upon an impending alien encounter.
There are a lot of mysteries in this world that might have some paranormal behavior associated to them, but they are kind of scattered and appear here and there. In other words although these mysteries have been documented well enough by a lot of people from time to time, but they do not appear related.
This book attempts to bring together these mysteries and relate them with one possible explanation that is common, the alien connection. Also it is trying to bring this subject out from the confines of a circle of scientists, subject experts and enthusiasts to a common person. So this book is for a common man by a common man.
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Chapter I Few Words on Why Am I Writing This Book
A lot of things are happening around us. I am not talking about regular things here. Regular things have always happened and will keep on happening and so need not be discussed specially. Well, at least not here.
I am talking about all those scientific research, developments, experiments, and successful results happening every day. Think of the subjects like cloning, stem cell research, space elevator, UFOs, theory of quantum interpolation, relativity theory, time travel, concept of multiverse, Philadelphia Experiment, and so many more, and you would not feel living in a world of just science fiction anymore. You will find some reality in these subjects. Thanks to all the never-ending efforts of the scientists who have made it possible for these subjects to break out of their fictional boundaries. Actually thanks to the fiction as well, as it all started with fiction only. If we won’t imagine, how can we see what else could be out there?
Sometime ago, I saw a program on the Discovery Channel about an alien planet. It was an imaginary future mission to an alien planet in search of an alien life-form. It was simply superb and really thought provoking. The mission shows a fictional planet known as Darwin IV that is 6.5 light-years from Earth, with two suns and 60 percent gravity. Having identified Darwin as a planet that could support life, Earth sends a pilot mission consisting of the mother ship Von Braun and three probes: Balboa, Da Vinci, and Newton.
This unmanned fleet is responsible for finding and assessing any life-form on Darwin IV. Initially, the expectation is to find microscopic life, but the probes soon find themselves in the middle of a developed ecosystem teeming with life of all sizes.
The viewer experiences Darwin IV through the “eyes” of the probes Ike (Newton) and Leo (Da Vinci), whose data is relayed back to their mother ship and then communicated to Earth. The biological and atmospheric data from the probes and mother ship are relayed to viewers through computer voice simulation and on-screen readouts.
The best part was that this program was motivated by the real scientific missions, facts, and findings. And I’m sure that it is not long before we will witness such a mission.
Then that other day, I read a headline somewhere that we are expecting to experience alien life-forms in some fifteen years or so. This sounds interesting, isn’t it? Yes, of course, you would say. The first alien encounter should be exciting. Well, to be very honest, it is not that simple and straightforward.
The first alien encounter might not be just exciting. It might be a complete shock and a weird surprise. It might come out to be entirely different from whatever we ever thought about this. And it will be an even bigger shock if we never thought about this.
We have been trying to reach outer space in search of other planets with life on them. In fiction, we have really gone far. A lot of science fiction writers have penned down their imaginations of life of other planets. In most of the science fiction works that portrays Earth in its future like, for example, twenty-fifth century or, say, year 2097 or something like that, Earth is never shown alone. It is shown as one of the planets in a group of planets with life on them. And there is some kind of a global alliance or a federation governing this group of planets.
One day, all of a sudden, we might encounter aliens. This day could be tomorrow, day after that, next week, or some other day. This day could be near, or it could be far, or it might never come, but suppose it comes, then what?
You might say you don’t care and do not believe in any such stuff. But the truth is that it does not matter what you and me believe in. All that matters is what is out there. And if it is there, it is there irrespective of what you and I think.
The big question is that are we prepared yet? I mean that are we psychologically prepared to cope with the possible shock of the first alien encounter? Are we prepared to accept how the first alien might look like? Are we prepared to accept the series of different aliens coming to Earth from distant planets and, perhaps, from other galaxies as well?
My personal thinking is that we are not. We are not even close to prepared. The reason behind my thinking is that this type of an encounter needs a strong acceptance of the fact that might be far away from our imaginations. Such an encounter might shatter our preconceived notion about this subject. It needs a solid buildup. It needs a lot of awareness and the ability to accept any possibility. Yes, any possibility.
Typically we don’t think beyond our own spectrum. And in the case of aliens, it is all the more important to do so. I have tried to highlight a lot of points beyond our thinking spectrum that might be relevant to the subject of extraterrestrials.
All that provoked me to do some writing on this subject. This subject of aliens is a very vast and an open-ended one, and there are already thousands of books and articles published on it and in good circulation.
There already are a lot of people thinking about this subject, but not a lot enough. Since it is an open-ended subject, no writing can ever be complete.
This book will just give you a head start on a flight of imagination, but once in the air, it is you who will control how and where it goes. If imagination is the matter, my writing is just an enzyme or a catalyst to power up the pace of the growth of this matter.
Well, I could have used the word “alien invasion” or “alien visit” or “alien something,” but we are not yet sure, and in fact, there is no way to make sure whether the first alien sighting will be good, bad, or ugly. In fact, we should always keep in mind that when we use the term “alien,” we are not talking about any particular alien race. The term “alien” represents thousands of possible alien races living on thousands of planets. Some of these races can be friendly and come in peace, and some can be real enemies. We have to really keep an open mind and be prepared for anything.
In most of the science fiction movies we see, the aliens are shown as a hostile species, mostly in search of a new habitat where they can survive. And in order to do so, they try to clean our Earth from its existing species, which is none other than us, the humans. So in short, aliens are mostly shown as villains trying to either eradicate the human race from the earth or make us their slaves.
There were a lot of incidents that made up my mind to finally write on this subject. I myself am very fascinated with this subject and get thrilled by a mere thought of seeing an alien.
You must have noticed this phenomenon that whenever we talk about aliens or say we are watching a science fiction movie on aliens, a lot of guys and specially women do not like them. The idea of those so unfamiliar, totally new, and kind of ugly faces, weird body structures, and a completely different voice and not to mention a completely alien language simply
freaks them out.
And since they don’t like it, they don’t want to talk about it. In a way, they are right. If they don’t want to see such movies or read such science fiction stuff, they have all the right to do that. After all, it is their go as to what they want to do and what not.
But what if there is any reality in this subject? I am not saying that what they write or show in the movies is real, but the subject itself might have some reality in it. After all, there may be other life-forms existing on some other planets. It is quite possible, and the odds are really in its favor.
Simple reasoning is if we can evolve, so can others. If Earth’s environment and physical conditions are favorable to us, some other planet’s environment can be favorable to some others.
For a long time now, we have been trying to reach outer space to find what is out there. So it is very much possible that one day we’ll find something, or even that something might find us. And a little bit more scary thought is that they have already found us. And if they have found us, what are they doing? What are they waiting for? Are they simply watching us, waiting for something to happen or something to do? Well, I should stop right here as imagination has no bounds. But you should not.
So I think it is not a very nice idea to just ignore the subject whether we like it or not. Maybe you don’t like the subject of aliens, but you don’t always get what you like. If there is even a remote possibility of an alien existence, and suddenly one day we might have an alien encounter, we should not completely ignore it. Rather we should prepare ourselves on how to tackle that.
Moreover, I have seen this very phenomenon at my very home itself. My dear wife, hello! I still remember the times whenever I used to talk about watching science fiction movies with aliens in them, not to mention their ugly faces; she was simply not ready to watch them as she just did not like those so unfamiliar ugly faces. Well, “ugly” is a relative word, but let’s just call it ugly.
Whenever I started a discussion on the topics involving aliens, UFOs, other galaxies and universes, etc., soon enough she would like to put an end to it.
Her reasoning was that whenever she starts to think on those subjects, she just could not cope with the possibilities. And on top of the possibilities, there always was a fear of unknown.
And a “fear of unknown” is a totally justified reasoning. But it should not be left alone to overpower you. Rather it should be tackled properly with a thoughtful reasoning. Bottom line is we should prepare ourselves to face this “fear of unknown” and possibly overpower it.
And so regardless of her continuous repulsion from the subject, I continued on. I talked to her about aliens, showed her many movies, etc. Eventually I saw a change in her thinking. Although still she does not like the subject, she is not that repulsive anymore.
And that is the very reason why I decided to write this book. It is not a very big journal of psychology, but a little effort in preparing ourselves to face a subject that may have some truth in it.
I have divided this book into various chapters, each throwing light on certain aspect on this subject. There are a lot of mysteries in our world that have not been completely explained so far and are still open-ended with some paranormal element associated with them, and one of the possible explanations behind these might be an alien connection. I just tried to highlight this alien connection to these mysteries.
I would suggest the readers of this book to discuss with a lot of people about this subject and gather their views on it so that they can gauge their views against other people’s views.
If you think what most of the others are thinking, then probably you are okay, or at least with the crowd. But if your views are almost mutually exclusive with other people’s views, then it should be an alarm for you.
You should start thinking why you think differently. Just keep in mind that thinking differently does not mean thinking right or wrong. It simply means thinking different from others. And if you have enough powerful reasoning behind your different thinking, then perhaps you can persuade others that you are thinking right.
My main intention in writing this book is to help you take off the flight of imagination, but once you are in the air, you will have to manage the flight and find your own way.
I have tried to cover as many topics as possible spanning a wide spectrum. The main challenge was to keep the balance of covering all these topics without going too much deep in any one topic and, at the same time, cover essential details about the topic. The reason I took this approach is that I wanted my readers to become aware of anything on Earth and beyond that might have an alien connection.
There is another thing that disturbed me. Whenever I mentioned to anyone that I’m writing a book on aliens, their first question would be that do I believe in aliens. I had to say yes just to show that I am not writing on some subject I myself don’t believe in.
But the truth is that it’s a very difficult question and a stupid one too. To believe in something, there must be a proof, and so far, there has been no proof of alien existence other than speculations, probability, and scientific reasoning about the presence of extraterrestrial life.
But at the same time, there is no proof of their nonexistence, and there won’t be as long as there are unexplored regions in the vast universe. So based on whatever facts there are, it’s not wrong to believe in aliens. At least thinking about them assuming they exist is not wrong at all.
In this book, I’m not selling or telling you to believe or not to believe in extraterrestrial life. I’m not advocating either side. All I am trying to express is that if there were life in some of the millions of planets and star systems, what would that be like? We know a lot of aspects and characteristics of a life in general from our very own experience. In one of the chapters, I have tried to look into these aspects from the perspective of an alien or extraterrestrial life.
Whenever I see today’s world with so much of artificial things like cars, busses, people wearing all sorts of clothes, watches, so many different cultures, so many types of constructions, so many views, so many types of entertainment, so many gadgets, electronics everywhere, doctors saving people, new technology in every field one can imagine, and a gazillion such things, I get only one feeling, a feeling of astonishment. To my mind comes the picture of a caveman, with bushy hairs, sitting calm after eating something. He has nothing else to do until he is hungry again,
so he is just sitting. And eventually he starts to get bored, and that is where his chase started, and he is still running.
A lot of people don’t even think about it. They simply assume this all was always there. But the fact is that it was not always there, and it has a really long story of a gradual evolution from a caveman’s world to today.
And then I think about what would have happened to other planets, which might have started around the same times as Earth.
Chapter II Why This Book Is Different from Others and Who Is My Audience
Chapter III A Little Nostalgia
Chapter IV Evolution
Chapter V Think Outside the Box
Chapter VI Some Strange Facts about Inhabitants of Earth
Chapter VII Common Assumptions about Aliens
Chapter VIII Common Alien Body Structures
Chapter IX Alien Races
Chapter X What Is Life?
Chapter XI Characteristics of Life
Chapter XII Obstacles in Our Quest for Extraterrestrial Life
Chapter XIII A Possible Alien Influence
Chapter XIV Some Mysteries and a Possible Alien Connection
Chapter XV Alien Attack and Our Defense
Chapter XVI Need for a Global Effort
Chapter XVII Formal Efforts and Organizations
Chapter XVIII Some Famous Quotes on This Subject
Chapter XIX Interesting News and Articles
Chapter XX Discoveries and Inventions
Chapter XXI Inside Our Own Earth
Chapter XXII Astro Sciences
Chapter XXIII Some Interesting Concepts
Chapter XXIV Conclusion
Index
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