By Mark Antony Rossi
Every day we hear a new proclamation from NASA on how their newest equipment is trained on discovering aliens on a planet millions of light years from the Milky Way. This curiosity may be premature after considering all that remains hidden in various parts of unexplored Earth. Shouldn’t we investigate the microscopic fossils found on a meteorite originally from Mars? And what if the streams of water shot into space from a liquid ocean by Jupiter’s moon Europa contain primitive life? Why the rush to explore the deep dark sectors of ancient space?
Are we ready? The Earth is 80% covered in water and mankind has only explored 5% of its undiscovered depths. Recently it was proven there are giant squids capable of attacking large ships. Off the reefs of Australia fishermen have caught sharks supposedly extinct for millions of years. Could the capture of “Nessie” the famed Loch Ness Monster be far behind? Is a live Bigfoot coming to your local zoo? Are we fit? As a species we burn each other in cages and fuel battles on a regular basis. There hasn’t been a war-free decade in 17 centuries. What do have to offer alien visitors but a few pieces of art work and the George Foreman Grill. Let’s face it we haven’t achieved very much in 2,000 years. Today we hate on a larger scale. We engage in war with deadlier weapons. The fundamental essence of humanity continues to be a frightened child capable of crushing the cranium of anything that looks different.
That pathetic image is one of people huddled in separate groups living and killing on a blue ball of water. It is arrogant to think we can contain our aggressive jealousy when contacting creatures far more advanced than humanity. We will slaughter them or the aliens will be forced to destroy us. This is human nature and will not be curtailed because a scientist, who doesn’t date very much, believes we can have peaceful dialogue with cosmic civilizations.
Our movies. Our novels. Our art points to human paranoia of the unknown. We cannot learn from alien contact precisely because we do not learn from human contact. History is an open book humanity refuses to read. Wars. Famines. Terrorism. Each can be boiled down to one reason: a failure to communicate. Before we venture into seeking alien intelligence we might want to fund an effort to find some on this planet.
About the Author: Mark Antony Rossi is a poet, playwright and author of the bioethics volume “Dark Tech” now available from Amazon. His most recent plays have been produced in Liverpool and New York.
http://ethical-stranger.webnode.com/