July 28, 1998
By: Timothy W. Shire
It seems like every TV show and movie for the past few years, all have the constant
and wide spread belief that this planet of ours is about to be visited by Aliens,
already has been visited, they are already resident here, or residents of our planet
claim to have been abducted by aliens. Gene Roddenbury’s Star Trek began
in the sixties and was really a morality western that got carried away, since then
we have been introduced to Klingons, Cardasians, Ferengi and
the Dominion, but that all remains in the fantasy world. The X-Files
and the various rip off copies on television have taken the alien thing quite a bit
more to heart and in the theatre’s we have seen some pretty dramatic arrivals over
the past few years.
Any night there is a clear sky you can look up and see millions upon millions of
stars and knowing that some of what appear to be stars are actually galaxies themselves,
composed of millions of stars, the mind is a bit overwhelmed by the universe’s immensity.
Douglas Adams in his “Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy” has one of his
main characters punished by being placed in a chamber that exposed him to the enormity
of the universe as this would normally result in the victim’s death. Zeefog Beattlebrox
III was impressed but more so by himself and survived. The bottom line is that
the universe is a big place, and to quote Marvin from the “Hitchhiker’s
Guide,” “More then you can possibly imagine.”
The odds are that with all those stars and with most of them having planets and for
every planet system a good number are going to have “M” class planets similar to
our own and our own sun is sort of average among those out there, it seems remarkably
plausible that we are not the only humanoids walking around and discussing football,
politics and the opposite sex. The problem is of course, because of the size of
the place, we just don’t have the opportunity to bump into one another very often,
if at all, although television and movie writers like to think it “could” happen,
a lot.
Up until a few years ago we were all pretty confounded about the absence of Dinosaurs,
it seems these big creatures just about disappeared over a few thousand years perhaps
even a few thousand days. Well, that is except for the birds, which we now realise
are pretty direct ancestors of the monsters of long ago. Scientists were pretty
puzzled about the whole thing until they discovered that remarkable similarity between
a world wide layer of material having occurred right at the time the big guys took
a powder. This of course is the motivation for this year’s crop of disaster movies,
as we now are certain the Dinosaurs, the really big nasty ones, were exterminated
by a random hit by a celestial body, an asteroid, or comet. Wham, the air burns,
the sky darkens, the plants die and the Dinosaurs are ready for processing as motor
fuel and cosmetics base.
The odds of getting hit by a arrant object are pretty slight, but that did not stop
the movie writers from making it a distinct possibility and fortunately Bruce
Willis was on hand to save the world. Scientists point out that since it happened
at least once or twice and judging from the Gulf of Mexico, Hudson Bay
and few other distinctly round water bodies, we would have to agree. But the cool
thing is the timing.
When the Dinosaurs went off to fossil land there were very few mammals around and
the ones that existed were really little and none of them drank beer and road Harley-Davidsons.
But in a few thousand years of their demise the planet was awash in warm blooded
hairy creatures, among them some with big heads and only two feet. From a few summer’s
movies ago Steven Spielburg made it abundantly clear that Dinosaurs and people
just can not get along in a harmonious manner. Raptors and T-Rex would simply prevent
the development of the important things in life, baseball and golf.
I believe that the peculiar timing of the meteorite/asteroid/comet kill-off-the-dinosaur
thing triggered the evolution of our species and without the demise of the monsters
we would never have had a chance to develop panty hose and athletic supports.
So folks here is the message for the day. It is very likely that for “M” class planets
life comes along either evolving, or created by God, in a distinctly sequential manner,
single celled bacteria, primitive multi-cell invertebrates, crustaceans, fish, dinosaurs,
mammals and soap opera stars of which we are all examples. But if you don’t snuff
out the dinosaurs the following species are unlikely to have developed. This is
why kids are fascinated with dinosaurs, they know. With out their extinction we
would never have gotten past the beadie eyed jungle floor dweller skittering about
on all fours trying not to become dinosaur junk food.
I agree that the possibility of planets way out there will have life, but unless
their home world got zapped by a big chunk of something, the life forms will have
scales and bad breath. Sleek, nearly hairless, two footed, Ken and Barbies
need safety and lack of predation to become educated consumers, factory workers and
computer programmers.
Sorry to break this to you, but sitting around a campfire discussing Universal warming
with a pacified Borg is not going to happen.