And now, having spread doom and gloom with respect to the prospect of disclosure / contact with an advanced non-human intelligence by humanity as a group, let's take a look at what I think is far more likely, indeed, what has probably been happening throughout human history - contact with individuals who are ready for it.
As always, this kind of analysis is best presented by puppets and 80s pop music - Peter Schilling's hit Major Tom (Coming Home), as imagined by Fluff & Such puppetry:
Frankly, this one song and video tells us more about what might be waiting for us than 60 years of books and videos about UFOs and the paranormal... or 2,000 years of priests and preachers standing in a pulpit.
Paul Kimball
P.S. Here are a couple of non-puppet versions.
In German:
The original video in English:
Finally, an interesting video that uses images from Stanley Kubrick's classic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey:
P.S. Here are a couple of non-puppet versions.
In German:
The original video in English:
Finally, an interesting video that uses images from Stanley Kubrick's classic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey:
4 comments:
Dammit Paul! I expected a comedy puppet version of Space Oddity.
I'll be humming that Europop cheese for days...
Here's the antidote...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7wF4IWK5pc
Hoisted by own my own petard...sigh...'I know a song...'etc etc etc
The ending of 2001 always makes me think: was the whole purpose of the Firstborn's experiment —i.e. us— just to acquire 1 evolved member of that species to be elevated to godhood? was that one member the whole purpose of Earth's entire biological menagerie? after that, would it matter if the rest blew themselves to pieces?
Would just one be sufficient to start anew? a-la The Fountain?
Or perhaps since we're all connected, one member's enlightenment is transmitted to the whole, as with the 100th monkey?
I don't know if you've checked the webcomic Dresden Codak, but I've always thought Mac Tonnies would have enjoyed it —it's got posthumanism, UFOs, AIs and time travelers! a bit hard to follow at the beginning, but it's worth it.
PS: What do you think of all those stories of alleged encounters between Russian cosmonauts and non-human beings, where the poor Russkies were receiving telepathic messages to 'go back', that humanity was not ready for space?
Kandinsky,
Well, it's not like I didn't make it pretty clear that it was Schilling, not Bowie. ;-)
That said, I've never been a huge Bowie fan (Let's Dance being an exception), so I prefer Schilling's song. But then I grew up in the 80s...
Paul
RPJ:
Or perhaps since we're all connected, one member's enlightenment is transmitted to the whole, as with the 100th monkey?
Bingo... I think! ;-)
Thanks for the link - I'll definitely check it out.
Paul
P.S. I discount the stories about anything telling us to "go back" because we didn't - we're still out there. We just haven't gone back to the Moon, or on to Mars etc., but that has everything to do with a lack of political will, and nothing to do with aliens. We don't need others to hold us back; we do a perfectly good job of it ourselves.
But we like to blame others, so hence the "aliens told us to go home" meme. I can imagine there might have been Europeans during the earliest days of exploration saying the same thing about sea monsters, or something, to account for the very fitful nature of exploration back then.
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