The chances of anything coming from Mars

The chances of anything coming from Mars

So just after a General Election what else are we going to talk about but UFOs and Aliens?

“Engage Warp Drive”.

“Make it so”.

And off shoots the USS Enterprise using its amazing warp drive.

Standing on Earth, looking up into space, seeing all of those stars shining in the night sky is, to me, a deeply humbling exercise. If I’m having a hard time a quick step outside and skyward glance is often enough to put things into perspective. A reminder really how small I am, how insignificant my problems are in the scheme of the Universe.

A bit like listening to this song:

The stars I can see are only those of my own Galaxy, and there are countless Galaxies in the Universe. It is inconceivable to me that there is no other life out there. A completely ridiculous idea. But have any of those life forms developed to the point of serious space travel? UFO enthusiasts will say yes. There’s no doubt that there is evidence of visitations from Other Worlds, and when you look at the UFO files the descriptions are very close to the old stories of Faerie visitations from earlier history. So we seem to have been visited for a long, long time.

As a Pagan I don’t feel the idea of life on other planets threatens my spiritual views. I know it can be hard for some religions to come to terms with the idea that God might not purely be focussed on this little blue planet. That when we talk about creation we have to now look further than the time span of Earth – that creation is a lot bigger that we thought when humans first wrote the Bible or the Koran. Denying it won’t change anything.

So how does the idea of life on other planets work with my Pagan view?

I don’t think animism, Gods/Spirits of Place, Elemental Spirits would have any problem transposing to elsewhere in the Universe. I already look to the stars, the Sun the Moon for inspiration and connection, so I have no problem looking even further. If I close my eyes and try to imagine life on other planets I obviously colour it with human experience – seeing carbon-based lifeforms, but that’s only because of our current scientific advancement, and this will change over time, as new discoveries are made.

A new discovery (that admittedly needs more research) is something that, on the surface, looks like it could lead to the discovery of a real Warp Drive. A method of travel that would mean we could get to Mars in three minutes! The question is, if there is other life that has already discovered a similar form of travelling huge distances in space, why are they here?

Or to put it another way, if we discover this form of travel, why would we use it?

Much of science fiction has already become science fact.

Maybe other life forms elsewhere in the Universe also wonder about aliens visiting them, and maybe we will one day be those aliens. With these possible developments in space travel, it is looking increasingly likely.

3 responses to “The chances of anything coming from Mars”

  1. Reading your post has given me such a lot of food for thought. I do believe we are not alone in the Universe. Perhaps other planets have life as we know it and others have life as we cannot imagine it. Nothing can make me doubt that other lives exist on planets we can’t even see.

  2. I see it as even more so. The universe, {we wont mention the multiverse here} is 14 or so billion years old. We {humans} only only about two hundred thousand years. Therefore the universe and what ever life is out there theoretically could have a couple billion years of technological advancement over little us. I recently watched a Documentary that provided the above amounts of time and then quantified the visitation of aliens with the following. With that level of advancement, It would be like us as humans, going to ant hill, towering over it and stating “take me to your leader”. Dr. Who, a brilliant piece of television sums it up nicely in one of the 10th Doctors episode. When asked why all of the recent attacks and visits and such the Doctor replied simply “your getting too noisy.” or something similar. I believe in life out there, from the not-so- fantastic to the utterly fantastic. From the low micro organisms that can survive in methane atmospheres to the possibility of complete and whole crystal like intelligent silica based organisms, right down to even the most terrifying beings {to me} sentient spider races.
    Looking up at the night sky and being a geek, a sci fi and video game nerd {if you will} fills me with hope and optimism, not fear and dread. If any race deemed it important to stop here and do something other than fly over, i cant imagine what ot would be, surely it wont be religious holy war, war or terror of any kind or any such rubbish because the matter of point here is we are but children on the stage of the universe. The universe has been around for a while, we are new. we are the children, trying to figure out why the adults in the room arent really engaged or acknowledging us in any way that isnt just a passing glance.
    Yet another way to see this and ask if it threatens your believe system is such. go to a larger bustling city, New York, Boston, D.C, L.A etc. Go to a park for this experiment. Choose A secluded park bench {but one you feel safe at} and sit down. Now imagine the area immediately around you is the solar system, maybe a radius of about 15 feet. now imagine that the city is just a small part of the arm of the galaxy we are in {starting to see the spatial relation ship of where we are the grand scheme of size?} now imagine that the state your in is the galaxy. Beyond that are other galaxies, and solar systems etc, in each of those buildings {planets} there is life. life as we know it, do they see you? do they know you exist? do they care what you need? are you cold? are you hungry? do your beliefs contradict theirs? the answer is, they don’t care.
    If we develop warp drive and we use it to announce our entrance into this great and aged galactic and universal state of being, we have to be prepared for it to impact the galactic community as a whole about as much as a boring and average person entering a busy downtown London coffee shop asking for directions. some will notice and have compassion and help, some will not notice at all, some will notice with contempt and malice, most? most just wont care and move on about their day.
    I could keep going but i have said enough. I believe in life out there, However i believe we are but children learning to walk with explosive tied to our backs dreaming of flying.
    ~C.S.

  3. I love the novels of Sheri S Tepper for the ways she conceives different sorts of alien life forms and their cultures, and the different ways she comes up with that we might interact with them, both good and bad. She tackles spirituality in many ways as well. Always makes my mind expand to read one of her books. 🙂

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