Earth, Mars and Conjectures

 Foto divulgação

(By Francisco C.P. Rodrigues) 

Could it be that aliens think about colonizing us with viruses? 

Could this be possible? Only in theory, yes, however undesirable and “paranoic” this may seem at this sad time of intensification of a unique epidemic that is both persistent and selective, eliminating the “weak” — the sick and elderly — but sparing the young and strong who are able to keep the “planetary machine” working.  Read the arguments, the logical deductions and think, but with your own head. I must stress that I wish to be completely wrong in my theoretical doubt, as I am among its preferred victims, the elderly.

As there can be some seed of good in evil, the imaginary “Martian danger” would have a bright side: the political union of humanity, something that has never happened before. 

Aware of the risk of ridicule, I must mention that here I am not dealing with science fiction — fantasy, literature —, as this is not my style. I solely wish to draw attention to the remote and undesirable possibility, based on reading, reasoning and conclusions — that seem to me to be logically acceptable — if at least some of thousands of statements, photographs and footage of “unidentified flying objects” were authentic, as they seem to be to me. I say this, little by little, in a cautious manner, as the expression “flying saucers” will immediately scare away half the readers of this article. 

If I am not totally assertive regarding the reality of the danger mentioned in the title, why waste time — both my own and that of the reader —, solely addressing possibilities that are, furthermore, discouraging? My justification follows below. 

The fields of cosmology, astronomy and astrobiology are full of sensible conclusions mixed with tremendous scientific “guesses” that — to us, ordinary laymen — are a thousand times more unbelievable than my modest suspicion mentioned in the title. We shall see. 

The Big Bang (the universe arising from a “magic ball”); the Age of the Universe (nonsense, it was not ‘born” like a baby, coming from nothing, it always existed, as cosmic dust and celestial bodies); Wormholes; Parallel Universes (various, like ghosts); new Dimensions (besides the traditional 3 or 4?); Time Travel; Black Holes (with a rear exit to “another dimension”, impossible if the Hole is only a star that has become extinguished); String Theory, etc., are discussed seriously, without laughing. This, according to scientists, is because these ideas are based on “mathematical calculations”, inaccessible to verification by 99.9 % of human beings. With regard to the remaining 0.1% who have “checked” the calculations, disagreement among them is not a rare occurrence. 

At this point, an immediate change is necessary — solely in the manner in which I have expressed myself, not my opinion — to that which I have just written on impulse using the word “guess”, referring to those astronomers who believe in the Big Bang — just because galaxies are moving away from one another at any given “moment” in cosmic time and they do not know how to explain this observation. It would be sufficient to say that they do not know, for the time being.  However, affirming that all cosmic matter, with billions of galaxies arising, in a second, from nothing, suggests that the excessive abstraction of Astronomy tires the brain excessively, two annual holidays being recommended for neurons to rest. 

According to this theory, prior to the Big Bang there was absolutely “nothing”. A “space” not only empty of “things” but also the very “idea” of empty. With no matter, no energy and no, already immaterial, “time”. If this theory were only a request made to scientists by religious leaders, in order to reinforce the idea of God — a miracle uniting science and religion with a view to diminishing disbelief, wickedness and animal materialism,  it is necessary to remember that any ridiculous explicative theory nurtures a distrust of scientists in the most enlightened public opinion, considering them to be “a bunch of lunatics”. Even when they are right regarding such important issues as preservation of the environment. 

Benevolence, in the wrong place, becomes involuntary wickedness.    

When an astronomer, at sea on a cruise ship, contemplates the night sky and is casually surrounded by laymen who look up to him with respect, asking questions, he feels almost obliged to say something. After all, he is an astronomer, interested in diminishing general ignorance, at least in his area. 

On perceiving that the curiosity of the group is sincere, not merely teasing, the astronomer would probably attempt to be affable to those surrounding him who, as far as the stars are concerned, only know what they have read in poetry books. At most, they remember the verses of the great sentimental poets, associating the moon, stars and immortal love, such as Olavo Bilac and others so inspired. They forget, or do not know, that those twinkling lights are gigantic pitiless and indifferent furnaces that prevent, by “roasting”, or stimulate, by adequate heating”, the emergence and growth of life on thousands of planets whose inhabitants perhaps, at this very moment, are also peering at us through their binoculars or telescopes, conjecturing as to whether or not there is intelligent life in our solar system. 

It is natural, human, professional — and even charitable —, that the most imaginative astronomers — imagination was very highly valued by Einstein — explain what they know or presume, as it is all very distant and complex. With regard to what they do not know — because it is impossible to know, for the time being... —, and only thinking of not deceiving the laymen with silence, the astronomer that I am imagining here prefers to offer a brief explanation, which seems reasonable. This is better than remaining silent, which can be interpreted as arrogance or an incapacity for communication. 

This attitude is similar to that adopted by police chiefs when called to attend a crime scene of great repercussion — for example, a famous film “star” (no allusion intended) is found dead after disappearing for several days. When questioned by insistent reporters, filming the scene, the police chief give his provisory explanation of what could have happened. This mere “hunch” is both natural and useful, as it demonstrates the interest and intelligence of the government agency in fighting crime with rationality and planning. The same thing occurs with the use of intuition in astronomy, showing an intention to combat ignorance rather than crime. This is better than the astronomer remaining silent, like someone bewildered, lacking ideas.   

We cannot forget that the universe, as an object of study, is more ungrateful that any other science, because the astronomer cannot see, close up, what it is that he is investigating, in order to provide a subsequent explanation. Everything is shrouded in mystery, at a distance of light years or Parsecs, or other units of measurement of gigantic inter-stellar distances, however advanced telescopes are. Without such equipment, what would we know of celestial bodies? Practically nothing. Galileo Galilei discovered more than previous astronomers (Kepler, for example) because he used telescopes invented a short time previously by a Dutch manufacturer. Seeing more, he was able to better explain the reality of heliocentrism. 

I imagine the constant frustration of every professional astronomer: — “How is it possible to work like this, almost in the “dark”, so to speak? And in the light of day, it is impossible to see anything at all, because we cannot discern the stars. A biologist can at least see that which he intends to understand. We cannot do this; we have to guess, even take a “shot in the dark”, initially, because with this “shot”, the actual “shot” may be investigated and result in a “goal”, an important scientific discovery”. I even believe that the intuition of the most imaginative scientists was more profitable in terms of discoveries than the severe and cautious skepticism of those colleagues who wait for the truth to appear, already perfect and in its entirety, based on verifiable calculations and in observable form. 

Albert Einstein — for whom I have deep respect, due to his character and the ideas put forward in his books, when written with words rather than formulas — stated in 1915, when his Theory of Relativity was published, that a body of enormous mass could bend a ray of light that passes close to it. 

Until then, it was thought that light could only travel in a straight line. However, when a total eclipse of the sun occurred, five years later in 1919, sunlight was really “bent”, attracted by the gravity of our satellite, as found by telescopic observations. This was visual confirmation of what Einstein had stated only using calculations, as many physicists were unable to understand the Theory of Relativity solely in mathematical terms. 

Begging your forgiveness for my audacity — a characteristic of ignorant people —, I do not think that the bending of the ray of light is so surprising, as light, after all, is also “matter”. It is not a spiritual, immaterial “thing” like a thought. An immaterial idea can be the product of something material

and chemical in nature — synapses between neurons —, but one thing is the synapse, the “cause”, whereas the other, the “effect”, the actual idea. In a beam of light there are photons, or electrons, and other subatomic particles in movement. “Things”, after all, associated with the world of matter, subject to the attraction of gravity. 

There is something “material” in the electricity supplied to our homes, so much so that it is measured on a monthly basis and we have to pay our light bills. If it is measurable, palpable — a shock hurts ... —, there is some kind of “mass” in it that is subject to attraction by the Moon’s gravity, in the case of the aforementioned eclipse. 

According to what I read in a book about Einstein, he also considered this “brouhaha” associated with the scientific repercussion of the eclipse to be exaggerated, with people travelling to other countries just to observe the phenomenon. Unnecessary, because he had already predicted the bending of light, with his mathematics that probably contained some kind of intuitive or imaginative component. If the facts went against mathematics, bad luck of the facts. 

Going back to the title, if my suspicion regarding Martians, flying saucers and vaccines — perhaps disappointing —, is only fanciful speculation, I hereby authorize any science fiction writer or screenwriter to use the considerations shown herein in order to prepare a book or film of this type which, — barring brilliant exceptions — gives me little satisfaction due to exaggerations and illogicality. 

If a writer of unusual imagination wishes for his fantasies to be respected,  he should concern himself with arguments, showing, by means of a + b, that what he says, despite being unusual, is logically possible, even if highly unlikely. Without offending intelligence, O.K., because even appealing common sense may be and already has been, for thousands of years, totally wrong. 

Summarizing the content of my suspicion, referred to in the title, I believe that it is logically possible, although undesirable — that’s all we need in the middle of a pandemic! — that extremely intelligent extraterrestrials, with a technology much more advanced that our own, inhabiting our solar system — the stars and their planets are too far away — may aspire to, or really need a new “home”, i.e., Earth. 

To this end, they keep furtively “spying” on us, using unidentified flying objects, the generic “flying saucers”, which are not always in the form of saucers or disks. They not only observe us from above, but also — many swear —, kidnap and abduct us in order to study our bodies and then return us to the ground with our recent memory affected or blocked. A form of psychological camouflage, encouraging the idea that all this about “flying saucers” is nonsense. 

I do not believe that all reported cases of abduction — there are dozens or hundreds —, followed by partial memory loss, are lies. With the progress of research regarding substances that affect neurons, perhaps this temporary memory block will be within our routine reach in the near future. The “ignorant” Alzheimer’s disease already does this “for free”, without any scientific ostentation, selectively affecting remembrance of recent facts. 

Can the reader guarantee, with precision, what our knowledge of the brain will be like five hundred or a thousand years in the future? A Thousand years is nothing when compared with cosmological, astronomical, biological, physical and evolutionary time. An enormous number of discoveries await us.

In planetary matters, we cannot solely use our current knowledge as a basis. Our “current knowledge” may become an embarrassing “we used to think that ...”. For example, when scientists guarantee that the coronavirus is of natural origin — not created in a laboratory —, they make this affirmation based on their current state of knowledge, as scientists. They are not lying; they only do not know today what they will know tomorrow. Perhaps they do not know that secret laboratories of governments of the first world — or private billionaire groups, with megalomaniacal projects of global dominance, of the Illuminati kind — will maybe manage, in total secrecy, to manufacture viruses that only “appear” to be natural. 

Countries with advanced technology that are political adversaries, fearing that the enemy may fabricate viral attacks, also conduct research into biological weapons, for defense and/or offense. Such “arms” are state secrets. Everyone knows this. If they already compete, in secret, in the field of atomic weapons and missiles, why — I ask —, would they not do the same with biological “weapons” that would allow them to control the minds of their enemies without need to kill them or destroy their assets which, still intact, would come into the possession of the invaders? 

That which can be said regarding conflicts between countries, would be even more applicable in any interplanetary conflicts that come to occur. We are never aware of such conflicts, for reasons of physical or visual impossibility, because the distance between stars, with their planets, is so immense that they would not be within range of our telescopes. 

Calm down, dear reader ... I know that the mere idea of “interplanetary conflict” makes you laugh. For good reason, because it reminds you of “Star Wars” and all the bullshit that appears in films made for adolescents. As you, the reader, have never heard of a real war between planets, it seems “unthinkable” for you to imagine that the Earth may be the object of desire and conquest by the inhabitants of another planet, who intend to live here for reasons of ambition, convenience or necessity. Nevertheless, inconsistently, it seems “normal”, even desirable and “scientific” to earthlings that manned spaceships be sent to Mars in order to remain there indefinitely, initiating colonization of the planet. Earth colonizing Mars is nt absurd, but to the contrary, Mars colonizing us is considered to be “aberrant”. 

This idea of occupying the Red Planet does not shock us, perhaps because we presume that there is no life there. Or, if there is life, it will be very rudimentary. Bacteria or something similar. However, I would go so far to say that if we knew that animals similar to our chimpanzees — the high point of Martian evolution — lived on Mars, this would not prevent us, in moral terms, from conquering the planet, because we would think that we are “doing them a favor” taking our progress, our civilization to the primitive “Martians”, as in the case of Christopher Columbus and Pedro Álvares Cabral when they landed in the two Americas, seizing their lands and riches and enslaving the natives. 

I am totally convinced that microscopic, rudimentary life that is constantly evolving has arisen on all planets that, by chance, unite conditions favorable to life, namely: size, temperature — “reasonable” average distance from their star —, water in a liquid state and even benefitted by the luck of not suffering some kind of catastrophic impact, such as the one that wiped out our dinosaurs, millions of years ago.

On all planets, all living beings, irrespective of size, are born with the same instincts: perpetuation of their lives and their offspring. To this end, they need food, shelter, sex and total freedom —, although strict vigilance regarding the liberty of others that may affect us. No living beings are born hating themselves, unless this is caused by some kind of illness, or total desperation, where death would bring relief. In the event of a need to conquer another country, or planet — in order to not face extinction —, living beings will do this, although in a manner compatible with their degree of scientific, technical and moral culture.

Hence my conviction that Mars, or any other celestial body, if inhabited by intelligent beings, who consider Earth to be their only salvation, the celestial body in question will resolve “its problem” for better or worse. As we would, in a similar situation. If immensely civilized, the invading planet would attempt to do this with a minimum of pain and destruction, to itself and others. Subsequently, at least in theory, the invaded planet, having available space and finding that it does not have technology capable of confronting the invaders, should give a lot of thought to how it is going to react. Fantasizing now, my curiosity is imagining what the appearance would be of the result of interbreeding between humans and extraterrestrials.

I will stop writing here, as this article already has 16,331 characters, including spaces. And there is still a lot to say. This text is not a book. It is an unadvisable exaggeration on the internet. I do not know how you, the reader, have had the patience to put up with me. I thank you two, or three, for your kindness. I will leave the rest that I have typed for another possible article, based on the reaction to that which is written here, which will be published in English to see what kind of response it receives in the northern hemisphere.

I repeat that it is my wish that all vaccines against Covid-19 are effective in providing immunity for the usual period of time. If not, it will be necessary to think: something is up! And it would be better if this “something” has a terrestrial origin — easier to deal with as we are familiar with the nature of the enemy.

 (06.01.2021)

The author: Francisco Cesar Pinheiro Rodrigues is a Brazilian writer, retired judge who resides in São Paulo, Brazil, owner of the website www.500toques.com.br . His blog: francepiro.blogspot.com. Contact by e-mail oripec@terra.com.br

(06.01.2021)