Popular Astronomy July 1997
"Encounters of the absurd kind"
Dateline: The Serengeti Plain, Africa, 2,500,000 BC. A hairy pre-human with an enquiring mind gazed into the night sky and briefly wondered whether life could possibly exist in places other than the Earth. After a couple of seconds its brain began to hurt. The creature scratched its sloping forehead and, quite unable to go any further with this complicated train of thought, grunted and proceeded to consume the half-cooked remains of a jackal.
Little could our very distant ancestor have suspected that the universe is teeming with life. Long before we had developed a half-decent cerebral cortex, a grand network of interstellar trade routes was established in our local neighbourhood. These busy space shipping lanes were plied at hyperspeeds by antigravity-powered flying saucers which were skilfully piloted by diminutive grey-skinned aliens with massive heads and large dark wrap-around eyes. Their origin - the Sun-like twin star system of Zeta Reticuli, around 35 light years away.
Several million years later, we the ape's descendants still gaze into the night and contemplate the possibilities of extraterrestrial life. Although we have yet to see any obvious evidence that we are not alone, we have used our brains to reason that other life-forms may inhabit distant planets.
According to some, the Earth continues to be a vital component of a dark and mysterious interstellar empire, although us humans remain utterly ignorant as to the aliens' intentions. Apparently, we don't have the necessary cerebral megabytes or CPU speed to qualify for membership of the galactic club of sophisticated sentient beings. It is claimed that alien craft often appear in our skies, occasionally make an unannounced landing - usually on a lonely country road late at night - and they sometimes even make direct physical contact with us (whether the contactee likes it or not!).
Hundreds of thousands of UFO buffs over the world (hard to believe there are so many naive enough to take the subject seriously) whole-heartedly support the scenario outlined above. It is but one of many versions of the so-called extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) of alien visitation. ETH believers maintain that aliens are physical creatures from some distant planet who travel around in hard nuts-and-bolts spacecraft propelled by some exotic power source.
The implausible notion that big-headed little aliens from Zeta Reticuli are lavishing their attention on us is actively promoted by one of the world's most vociferous UFOlogists, Stanton Friedman, an American physicist who worked on the nuclear power system for the Pioneer spacecraft. Strangely, the plaque on Pioneer 10 was engraved with some useful information for any lucky alien finder on where we are located in the universe. It is often assumed that all aliens out there are benevolent souls - but imagine an alien reading Pioneer's plaque and licking its lips, as if it was reading an advertisement for a new fast food shop which had opened in the local neighbourhood: the special offer - warm, fresh humans.
Friedman bases his theory upon a simple line drawing made by Betty Hill, an American who, along with her husband, was supposedly abducted and taken aboard a flying saucer in 1961. The drawing (made in 1964 under a post-hypnotic suggestion) is claimed to have been based upon a holograph of a section of our galaxy shown to her by the alien host. Lines connecting the stars represent the various routes the aliens travel throughout the local stellar neighbourhood. However, a comparison of the Hill drawing with a view of the Zeta Reticuli system is extraordinarily unfavourable. Annoyed that a whole theory could be based upon such flimsy evidence, the American astronomer Donald Menzel proved that any random pattern of a similar selection of stars could be viewed to approximate the Hill drawing. The late astronomer Carl Sagan was a champion of true science and a vociferous opponent of pseudoscience. As for the diagram drawn by Hill compared to a star map of the area it purports to portray, Sagan stated the obvious - erase the lines linking the stars, and the two images look nothing like each other.
It is unfortunate that only a minute fraction of the UFO literature can claim to be truly objective and scientific. I personally recommend the works of the late Dr J Allen Hynek, an astronomer once attached to the US Air Force Project Blue Book - his books "The UFO Experience" (1972) and "The Hynek UFO Report" (1977) are fairly sober accounts of the phenomenon.
The worrying thing is that the worst kind of UFO pseudo-science is continually propagated in the form of ill-researched sensationalist books, countless glossy magazines, nonsensical videos and lectures attended chiefly by wide-eyed "true believers" - and this pattern is growing. Treated as science fiction, this material is harmless, and you don't have to be embarrassed if you have one or two UFO books on your own bookshelves and occasionally read them for entertainment value. Yet the unquestioning mind will readily accept the most fanciful assertions, much like those who fell for the famous Moon hoax published in the New York Sun in 1835. Unlike the charlatans of today, at least our nineteenth century hoaxer had the decency to eventually admit the truth.
The science of astronomy is frequently intruded upon with ignorance and contempt by UFOlogists. We must be aware that this is the point at which vigilance and a knowledge of facts is absolutely essential. No amateur astronomer is ever likely to be convinced that the bright planet Venus is an alien spacecraft; yet a few minutes of hurried and shaky camcorder footage of the same object, taken by an over-excited person or one who means to deceive, might be enough to warrant a slot on the television news.
Mexico City was a favourite destination of astronomers eager to view the total solar eclipse of 1991 July 11. Around totality the Sun was seen to be surrounded by a splendid star field and the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter. Camcorder images of this event have been assembled into a video which claims that these objects are flying saucers visiting us to fulfil some ancient Mayan prophecy. Needless to say, this extremely misleading video is currently a best-seller among the unenlightened UFO fraternity. It is just one example of how pseudoscience is infiltrating popular culture, and if left unchecked people's ignorance will grow worse.
Perhaps real science needs to address the problem by making itself more welcoming to those wanting to find out more about the way the universe really works. Thankfully, the way ahead is clearly visible, now that we have seen the arrival of superb multimedia fact sources and encyclopedias on CD-rom; scientific subjects are beginning to be transformed into sexy items from which everyone can enjoy and learn.
The Moon has featured prominently in the minds of flying saucer fans. The American George Adamski (who lived near Mount Palomar, home of the famous 200" reflector) was a self-appointed extra-terrestrial "contactee" and friend of aliens from Venus. His interplanetary adventures on board a flying saucer are recounted in his 1955 book "Inside the Spaceships". The book contains a vivid account of the Moon's far-side seen through the saucer's port-hole; Adamski claimed to have seen lush lunar forests, foaming rivers, snow-clad mountains and stupendous cities with humanoid aliens strolling merrily along the sidewalks. When spaceprobe images showed the real nature of the Moon's far-side, Adamski claimed that they had all evidence of alien habitation had been painted-out.
Many other UFOlogists and alien "contactees" regarded the Moon as a base for UFO operations. Some authors have interpreted certain lunar formations to be alien artifacts. Other more paranoid UFOlogists have accused NASA and government authorities of not releasing vital photographs and film footage. Some have even claimed that all of the manned lunar missions were under the close scrutiny of alien craft whose design was so advanced that they made the Apollo vehicles look like tin kettles!
In his books "Our Mysterious Spaceship Moon" (1976) and "Secrets of Our Spaceship Moon" (1980), Don Wilson claimed that the entire Moon was originally constructed by extraterrestrials, with an inner metallic shell and a thick protective outer rock cladding. Much of the material is allegedly based around the speculations of two mysterious Soviet scientists, Mikhail Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov. Uncanny alien activity is still observed on the lunar surface, Wilson claims. Low rounded hills called lunar domes are actually lids for subterranean flying saucer hangars (like the huge terrestrial crater aperture in the James Bond film "Thunderball").
UFO folklore would have us believe that each of the manned lunar missions (maybe every single space shot) was under the omnipotent gaze of extra-terrestrials and that we the general public were not informed by NASA about this covert alien surveillance.
According to Margaret Sachs in "The UFO Encyclopedia" (1980) Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin (the first men on the Moon) both think that there may be intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Both astronauts strenuously deny that the Apollo 11 spacecraft were chased by alien vehicles, and Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins also denies that UFOs were seen during the mission. Apollo 14 Moon-walker Edgar Mitchell once stated there is strong evidence for UFOs, and if aliens exist at all they may originate from another dimension. Veteran astronaut John Young, Apollo 16 Moon-walker, says "odds are that UFOs exist", but denies that he saw anything which could be interpreted as a manifestation of ET. In 1973, Eugene Cernan of Apollo 17 (the last person who walked on the Moon) stated that it was his belief that UFOs might come from another civilisation. Harrison Schmitt, who accompanied Cernan on the Moon, has mentioned the possibility that aliens may have visited Earth in ancient times and speculated that in the centuries to come humanity may conduct a similar programme of exploration. Schmitt does not believe that there is any concrete proof of extra-terrestrial communication either now or in the past.
A 1993 video of a lecture by the American Richard Hoagland, called the "Moon-Mars Connection", claims to be a non-fictional account of amazing new discoveries of extraterrestrial lunar artefacts. The images shown are largely based upon enhanced images obtained by various lunar spaceprobes in the past. Gigantic artificial glass shards, many kilometres high, can be seen around the Sinus Medii, and there is a triangular "message to humanity" on the floor of the crater Triesnecker at the apparent centre of the near-side lunar disc.
More recently there has been an upsurgence in the claim that America never put men on the Moon and that the Apollo lunar landings were actually filmed in some massive secret government studio in Utah. These claims are more full of holes than the Moon's heavily cratered southern uplands!
Astronomers are often looked upon by UFOlogists as bogeymen intent upon destroying their theories. But we simply want the truth and want to protect it. We detest the slack attitudes, the negative qualities and money-making drive of pseudoscience.
Finally, "have you spotted any little green aliens through your telescope?" This daft remark is one of the most annoying questions likely to be put to the amateur astronomer; it rates alongside gems like "how far can you see through your telescope?" and "can you do my horoscope?"
Our response to the question may vary, from a slight chuckle to a serious explanation of telescope optics and the implications of resolving power. After all, any self-respecting Martian will need the staggering waist measurement of 60 million cm to be visible in a 60 mm refractor - even when Mars is at a favourable opposition. Similarly, any Lunarian (Moon being) must be blessed with the proportions of a small industrial town to be discerned. Even the weighty Star Wars character Jabba the Hut could only be seen by powerful cameras in lunar orbit! No, the only creatures ever likely to be spotted strolling around on the Moon and planets are those odd little bugs which sometimes crawl into our eyepieces to become magnified to gruesome proportions.
The subject of Earth-visiting aliens and flying saucers is probably as far removed from the science of astronomy as is train spotting. There is, however, a wholly respectable science of exo-biology which attempts to explain the various forms alien life may take, given a range of unearthly environments. For example, Carl Sagan proposed that Jupiter's upper atmosphere may harbour blimp-like animals which propel themselves around the hydrogen-rich clouds like ramjets, feeding on the nutritious chemical broth. An exo-biology scenario can be as simple or as complex as one envisions - Sagan introduced the idea of swift shark-like predators which preyed on these sluggish Jovian gasbags.
Exo-biology is firmly based upon established science, and therefore must not be confused with the pseudo-science spouted by the vast majority of the flying saucer fraternity. It is a good idea, though, to become at least a little familiar with the nonsense propagated by many UFO buffs - just in case you have a close encounter with a strange being who insists that Einstein was born on Venus.
Carl Sagan was by no means a wide eyed supporter of the idea that we are being visited by extraterrestrial beings. In response to the "ancient astronaut" hypothesis, which claims that aliens have been visiting our planet and influencing human affairs for millennia, Sagan wrote:-
"The possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence is something I take very seriously....if there were good evidence that in the past we were visited by such beings, our task would be made immeasurably easier....unfortunately there is no such evidence...."
