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UFO Studies: The Absence of Science

(by Joseph Dougherty)



Your average-Joe rocket scientist might simply shake his head at the mere notion that extra-terrestrial beings have been visiting Earth.

While the scientific community guardedly approaches what inarguably would be the greatest discovery in human history, the thought that aliens have visited - and are visiting - this planet of ours is something to be scoffed at by the educated scientist. That is, while NASA's entire budget might be classified as a fund that aims to discover just that - there is life beyond our planet.

In the 21st century, space programs admittedly declare that discovering some form of life - on, say, a moon of Saturn, or one of Jupiter’s many satellites - is the chief driving force in spending millions and even billions of dollars in venture. If we hypothetically subtract the assignment to discover life outside our home from the NASA mission, the entire organization would shrink in its form (and, largely, its budgets) considerably.

While the human brain has been figuring out things for only a few thousand years, science estimates there are things that have been lurking around in this universe for as many as 15 billion years longer. Yet...to state that this life we seek so feverishly has...well, that it already has evolved? Ahead of the human race? And that it already has thought to do the same as we have - to seek other life forms? And that some form of life out there has been developed to such a stage in its own existence that it has managed to place rivets into metal containers, creating spacecrafts capable of interstellar travel?

Albeit - though we expect the very same of our own race - the idea that others have achieved this is preposterous.

There are many branches of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). However, the overall mission statement for NASA declares that the administration strives to “understand and protect our home planet, to explore the universe and search for life, and to inspire the next generation of explorers…as only NASA can”. Extra-planetary rovers of the program, assigned such names as “Spirit” and “Opportunity”, have been set out to discover if Mars ever hosted life. Space awards have been bestowed upon the craft called “Cassini”, which offered a piggy-back ride for the Huygens probe. The mission of the probe? Discover if the conditions for any form of life might exist on one of the promising moons of Saturn.

As a human race, we forge ahead into space, first exhausting the grounds of our own solar system, scouring for any sign of this thing we recognize as “life”. We are represented by the scientists of our population, who lead us toward other prospective neighboring worlds, probing and scanning, poking and prodding – all in respect to one very exciting ideal: We are not alone.

Many missions of NASA are prompted by that very conception.

In 2006, Atlas V will launch a piano-sized space probe called “New Horizons” that will span the solar system in record time. Its mission: To visit the outer planet of Pluto (and its moon, Charon), to “unlock one of the solar system's last, great planetary secrets”. That is, we have hopes of discovering how water is created on planets. In November 2006, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, equipped with the highest resolution camera to-date, is expected to reveal ancient water beds of the red planet. “Stardust” is a spacecraft that was programmed to take a 1.5 billion mile round trip course – all to collect some tailings of a comet (weighing less than a pound) and bring the stuff back to Earth. The analysis is aimed to validate that comets contain building blocks of life, labeled CHON. The idea is that these icy-fiery objects make special deliveries of life-giving chemicals to prospective planets as they perform their fly-bys through solar systems like ours.

These days, high-tech telescopes are being built to act as peepholes into the universe. The Spitzer Space Telescope possesses and uses state-of-the-art infrared detectors to pierce the dense clouds of gas and dust that enshroud many celestial objects, including distant galaxies; clusters of stars in formation; and planet forming discs surrounding stars. It is the fourth of NASA's Great Observatories, a program that also includes the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory.

These super-science telescopes, as with many devices of the modern day, allow us to embark on a bold mission to reveal very modest parts of the unknown to ourselves - in fact, some things which are currently unimaginable. We aspire to shed light onto those spinning objects in the distant skies to reveal more about the things we know little of as well as discover more stuff that undoubtedly will spaw only more inticing questions.

The scientific community postures that if we discover life has formed on one of the planets that share the resources of our own star, it is not only likely that life is abundant beyond the proximity of the sun, but that likelihood is mathematically profound. To venture into that fundamental math is to calculate that we – the humble human beings – are certainly not the first to have taken in life-giving breath. Hence, nor should we be considered to be the first brain in this vast universe to ponder the hair-brained idea that we might not be alone in this ten-to-fifteen billion year old home of ours.

Hence, the voice of science itself should be the first to scream out the possibility that our elusive alien guests have been discovering the likes of us.

Average-Joe rocket scientist fails to position himself well if so much of the costly missions of NASA purport that life is out there to be discovered…but – still, relentlessly – shakes his head at the simple view that he is indeed correct.

A science exists here on Earth, one untouched by scientists. It supports the cause and aim of NASA that “life is out there”. That science – conveniently located in our own atmosphere – is the evidence that we have been visited. The community that very well should be responsible for putting together this evidence is even fortunate enough in that so much of it already has been documented, logged, discussed and recorded.

So, I address NASA, respectfully, and I encourage our scientists to build those spacecrafts, to enhance the resolution of our telescopes and to send probes to places that we are all excited to see. Why not?

But – hey there, Joe. While you’re at it…do as any formally educated weatherman does.

Look up.

Joseph Dougherty

Los Angeles, California

DocORock@comcast.net

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