Aliens and Us Are We Prepared Yet?: A Psychological Preparation for the First Alien Encounter

By Vikas Gupta

The subject of aliens is not a new one and has been around for a really long time now. We talk about it all the time.
News and articles about the possibility of alien visits or attacks are everywhere. Perhaps this has become so
common that people have started to shrug it off, thinking this is just one of those science fiction topics that media
loves to sensationalize.
If all of a sudden we have an alien encounter one day, are we psychologically prepared for this? Like many of you
even I think we are not. In fact we might be in a state of shock as they might turn out to be completely different
from any of our imaginations about them. But if we are prepared for anything, then such an alien encounter
might not be shocking.
The objective of this book is to prepare its readers psychologically to deal with the subject of aliens and the
first alien encounter. In other words aiming to prepare humanity with the cope of a possible shock upon an
impending alien encounter.
There are a lot of mysteries in this world that might have some paranormal behavior associated to them, but they
are kind of scattered and appear here and there. In other words although these mysteries have been documented
well enough by a lot of people from time to time, but they do not appear related.
This book attempts to bring together these mysteries and relate them with one possible explanation that is
common, the alien connection. Also it is trying to bring this subject out from the confines of a circle of scientists,
subject experts and enthusiasts to a common person. So this book is for a common man by a common man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 23, 2010
• ISBN: 9781524533090

Book preview

Copyright © 2010 by Vikas Gupta.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2008912164

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-4363-9987-6

             Softcover     978-1-4363-9986-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

53531

Contents

Chapter I Few Words on Why Am I Writing This Book

Chapter II Why This Book Is Different from Others and Who Is My Audience

Chapter III A Little Nostalgia

Chapter IV Evolution

Chapter V Think Outside the Box

Chapter VI Some Strange Facts about Inhabitants of Earth

Chapter VII Common Assumptions about Aliens

Chapter VIII Common Alien Body Structures

Chapter IX Alien Races

Chapter X What Is Life?

Chapter XI Characteristics of Life

Chapter XII Obstacles in Our Quest for Extraterrestrial Life

Chapter XIII A Possible Alien Influence

Chapter XIV Some Mysteries and a Possible Alien Connection

Chapter XV Alien Attack and Our Defense

Chapter XVI Need for a Global Effort

Chapter XVII Formal Efforts and Organizations

Chapter XVIII Some Famous Quotes on This Subject

Chapter XIX Interesting News and Articles

Chapter XX Discoveries and Inventions

Chapter XXI Inside Our Own Earth

Chapter XXII Astro Sciences

Chapter XXIII Some Interesting Concepts

Chapter XXIV Conclusion

To Mommy, Papa & My Entire Family for all the love and support.

With Special thanks to my wife and best friend Swati,

for her love, encouragement and understanding

during all the late nights and weekends

when I should have been spending time with her.

And to my little one Hanu, who kills all my stress with a

simple innocent smile…

And to Deepak & Vivek, my brothers and ideals in life…

Thank you

Few%20Words%20on%20Why%20Am%20I%20Writing%20This%20Book.jpg

Chapter I

Few Words on Why Am I Writing This Book

A lot of things are happening around us. I am not talking about regular things here. Regular things have always happened and will keep on happening and so need not be discussed specially. Well, at least not here.

I am talking about all those scientific research, developments, experiments, and successful results happening every day. Think of subjects such as cloning, stem cell research, space elevator, UFOs, theory of quantum interpolation, relativity theory, time travel, concept of multiverse, Philadelphia Experiment, and so many more, and you will not feel living in a world of just science fiction anymore. You will find some reality in these subjects. Thanks to all the never-ending efforts of the scientists who have made it possible for these subjects to break out of their fictional boundaries. Actually thanks to the fiction as well, since it all started with fiction only. If we won’t imagine, how can we see what else could be out there?

Sometime ago, I saw a program on the Discovery Channel about an alien planet. It was an imaginary future mission to an alien planet in search of life. It was simply superb and really thought provoking. The mission shows a fictional planet known as Darwin IV that is 6.5 light-years from Earth, with two suns and 60 percent gravity. Having identified Darwin as a planet that could support life, Earth sends a pilot mission consisting of a mother ship Von Braun and three probes: Balboa, Da Vinci, and Newton. This unmanned fleet is responsible for finding and assessing any life-form on Darwin IV. Initially, the expectation was to find microscopic life, but the probes soon find themselves in the middle of a developed ecosystem teeming with life of all sizes.

The viewer experiences Darwin IV through the eyes of the probes Ike (Newton) and Leo (Da Vinci), whose data is relayed back to their mother ship and then communicated to Earth. The biological and atmospheric data from the probes and mother ship are relayed to viewers through computer voice simulation and on-screen readouts.

The best part was that this program was motivated by the real scientific missions, facts, and findings. And I’m sure that it is not long before we will witness such a mission.

Then some other day, I read a headline somewhere that we are expecting to experience alien life-forms in some fifteen years or so. This sounds interesting, isn’t it? Yes, of course, one would say. The first alien encounter should be exciting. Well, to be very honest, it is not that simple and straightforward. The first alien encounter might not be just exciting. It might be a complete shock and a weird surprise. It might come out to be entirely different from whatever we ever thought about this. And it will be an even bigger shock if we never thought about this.

We have been trying to reach outer space in search of other planets with life on them. In fiction, we have already gone far. A lot of science fiction writers have penned down their imaginations of life on other planets. In most of the science fiction works, which portray Earth in its future, like, for example, twenty-fifth century or, say, year 2097 or something like that, Earth is never shown alone. It is shown as one of the planets in a group of planets with life on them. And there is some kind of a global alliance or a federation governing this group of planets.

One day, all of a sudden, we might encounter aliens. This day could be tomorrow, day after that, next week, or some other day. This day could be near, or it could be far, or it might never come, but suppose if it comes, then what?

You might say you don’t care and do not believe in any such stuff. But the truth is that it does not matter what you and me believe in. All that matters is what is out there. And if it is there, it is there irrespective of what you and I think.

The big question is that are we prepared yet? I mean that are we psychologically prepared to cope with a possible shock of the first alien encounter? Are we prepared to accept how the first alien might look like? Are we prepared to accept the series of different aliens coming to Earth from distant planets and, perhaps, from other galaxies as well?

My feeling is that we are not. We are not even close to prepared. The reason behind my thinking is that this type of an encounter needs a strong acceptance of the fact that might be far away from any of our imaginations. Such an encounter might shatter our preconceived notion about this subject. It needs a solid buildup. It needs a lot of awareness and the ability to accept any possibility. Yes, any possibility.

Typically we don’t think beyond our own spectrum. And in the case of aliens, it is all the more important to do so. I have tried to highlight a lot of points beyond our thinking spectrum, which might be relevant to the subject of extraterrestrials.

There were a lot of incidents that made up my mind to finally write on this subject. I myself am very fascinated with this subject and get thrilled by a mere thought of seeing an alien.

All this provoked me to do some writing on this subject. The subject of aliens is very vast and an open-ended one, and there are already thousands of books and articles published on it and in good circulation. Already there are a lot of people thinking about this subject, but not a lot enough. Since this is an open-ended subject, no writing can ever be complete.

This book will give you just a head start on a flight of imagination, but once in the air, it is you who will control how and where it goes. If imagination is the matter, my writing is just an enzyme or a catalyst to power up the pace of the growth of this matter.

Another thing is that I could have used the words like alien invasion, alien visit or alien something, but we are not yet sure, and in fact, there is no way to make sure whether the first alien sighting will be good, bad, or ugly. In fact, we should always keep in mind that when we use the term alien, we are not talking about any particular alien race. The term alien represents thousands of possible alien races living on thousands of planets. Some of these aliens can be friendly and come in peace, and some others can be real enemies. We have to really keep an open mind and be prepared for anything.

In most of the science fiction movies we see, the aliens are shown as hostile species, mostly in search of a new habitat where they can survive. And in order to do so, they try to clean our Earth from its existing inhabitants, who are none other than us, the humans. So in short, aliens are mostly shown as villains trying to either eradicate the human race from earth or make us their slaves.

Like me you might also have noticed this phenomenon that whenever we talk about aliens or say we are watching a science fiction movie on aliens, a lot of guys and specially women do not like them. The idea of those so unfamiliar, totally new, and kind of ugly faces, weird body structures, and a completely different voice and not to mention a completely alien language simply freaks them out.

And since they don’t like it, they don’t want to talk about it. In a way, they are right. If they don’t want to see such movies or read such science fiction stuff, they have all the right to do so. After all, it is their go as to what they want to do and what not.

But what if there is any reality in this subject? I am not saying that what they write or show in the movies is real, but the subject itself might have some reality in it. After all, there may be other life-forms existing on some other planets. It is quite possible, and the odds are really in its favor. Simple reasoning is that if we can evolve, so can others. If Earth’s environment and physical conditions are favorable to us, some other planet’s environment can be favorable to some others.

For a long time now, we have been trying to reach outer space to find what is out there. So it is very much possible that one day we’ll find something, or even that something might find us. And a little bit more scary thought is that they have already found us. And if they have found us, what are they doing? What are they waiting for? Are they simply watching us, waiting for something to happen or something to do? Well, I should stop right here as imagination has no bounds. But you should not.

So I think it is not a very nice idea to just ignore the subject whether we like it or not. Maybe you don’t like the subject of aliens, but you don’t always get what you like. If there is even a remote possibility of an alien existence, and suddenly one day we might have an alien encounter, we should not completely ignore it. Rather we should prepare ourselves on how to tackle that.

Moreover, I have seen this very phenomenon at my very home itself. My dear wife, hello! I still remember the times whenever I used to talk about watching science fiction movies with aliens in them, not to mention their ugly faces; she was simply not ready to watch them as she just did not like those so unfamiliar ugly faces. Well, ugly is a relative word, but let’s just call it ugly.

Whenever I started a discussion on the topics involving aliens, UFOs, other galaxies and universes, etc., soon enough she would like to put an end to it. Her reasoning was that whenever she starts to think on those subjects, she just could not cope with the possibilities. And on top of the possibilities, there always was a fear of unknown.

And a fear of unknown is a totally justified reasoning. But it should not be left alone to overpower you. Rather it should be tackled properly with a thoughtful reasoning. Bottom line is we should prepare ourselves to face this fear of unknown and possibly overpower it.

And so regardless of her continuous repulsion from the subject, I continued on. I talked to her about aliens, showed her many movies, etc. Eventually I saw a change in her thinking. Although still she does not like the subject, she is not that repulsive anymore.

And that is another why I decided to write this book. It is not a very big journal of psychology, but a little effort in preparing ourselves to face a subject that may have some truth in it.

This book is divided into various chapters, each throwing light on certain aspect of aliens. There are a lot of mysteries in our world that have not been completely explained so far and are still open-ended with some paranormal element associated with them, and one of the possible explanations behind these might be an alien connection. I have tried to highlight this alien connection to these mysteries.

I have tried to cover as many topics as possible spanning a wide spectrum. The main challenge was to keep the balance of covering all these topics without going too much deep in any one topic and, at the same time, cover essential details about the topic.

There is another thing that disturbed me. Whenever I mentioned to anyone that I’m writing a book on aliens, their first question would be that do I believe in aliens. I had to say yes just to show that I am not writing on some subject I myself don’t believe in. But the truth is that it’s a very difficult question. To believe in something, there must be a proof, and so far, there has been no proof of alien existence other than speculations, probability, and scientific reasoning about the presence of extraterrestrial life. But at the same time, there is no proof of their nonexistence, and there won’t be as long as there are unexplored regions in the vast universe. So based on whatever facts there are, it’s not wrong to believe in aliens. At least thinking about them assuming they exist is not wrong at all.

In this book, I’m not selling or telling you to believe or not to believe in extraterrestrial life. I’m not advocating either side. All I am trying to express is that if there were life in some of the millions of planets and star systems, what could that be like? We know a lot of aspects and characteristics of a life in general from our very own experience. In one of the chapters, I have tried to look into these aspects from the perspective of an alien or extraterrestrial life.

Whenever I see today’s world with so much of artificial things like cars, busses, people wearing all sorts of clothes, watches, so many different cultures, so many types of constructions, so many views, so many types of entertainment, so many gadgets, electronics everywhere, doctors saving people, new technology in every field one can imagine, and a gazillion such things, I get only one feeling, a feeling of astonishment.

To my mind comes the picture of a caveman, with bushy hairs, sitting calm after eating something. He has nothing else to do until he is hungry again, so he is just sitting. And eventually he starts to get bored, and that is where his chase started, and he is still running.

A lot of people don’t even think about it. They simply assume this all was always there. But the fact is that it was not always there, and it has a really long story of a gradual evolution from a caveman’s world to today.

And then I think about what would have happened to other planets, which might have started around the same times as Earth.

Why%20This%20Book%20Is%20Different%20from%20Others%20and%20Who%20Is%20My%20Audience.jpg

Chapter II

Why This Book Is Different from Others and Who Is My Audience

Whenever I mentioned this book to anyone, the very first question that would come to their mind was that why would anyone read such a book written by me? The basis of this question was that I am not an expert on this subject, and also I don’t have any professional experience on or around this subject.

And that’s exactly what my answer is. I’m a common man who just happens to be a science buff interested in anything that has a support of science.

I am writing on a subject that has been with us for centuries. In fact, if I say that this subject could have been there even before the earth was formed, it would not be wrong. A number of people and organizations are dedicated to this subject. But even after such a long time, it has not made any place among us and is still confined in the world of science fiction and the inner circle of subject experts, enthusiasts, and organizations. It is still of interest to only some scientific communities, subject enthusiasts and movie buffs. A common man usually does not take this subject seriously. And so in this book, I am trying to highlight this subject in such a way that it will appear interesting to even a common man who has no interest in science and specially aliens. I think this subject has not been given the required attention.

The target audience of this book is not people from this inner circle of experts, but a common man who would clearly understand what another common man has to say. If someone from this inner circle would write this book, definitely it would be more enlightening and rich in content, but it would end up in a thick science journal that would be beyond the reach of a common man.

There are a lot of books, articles, Web sites, and movies on the subject of aliens, UFOs, and others in the category. A lot of these are pretty interesting and knowledgeable as well. While I am writing this book, I have no intention of stopping my readers from reading any of these books. In fact, I would encourage them to read these other books as well. In a way, this book will prepare you to better understand and absorb what these other books and movies have to convey. After all, I am also motivated to write on this subject after a lot of years of reading and watching such stuff.

Since any of the terms or concepts I’ve mentioned in my book would have a lot of material, and it’s simply overwhelming to go through all these in one go, I have kept my writing not too descriptive. Rather I want to cover as much as possible from what’s popular and relevant in the discussions of aliens and life outside Earth.

In fact, there is nothing known about aliens that anybody can tell you with certainty about them. And that’s exactly what my focus is, the unknown about aliens.

The objective of writing this book is to prepare my readers psychologically to deal with the subject of aliens and to be prepared for the first alien encounter if and when it occurs. We should become psychologically so strong that nothing can shock us.

Imagination is the start step toward this preparation and also a key to it. Famous scientist and author Carl Sagan once said that imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere. And he was so right.

Most of the books concentrate on topics such as alien encounters, alien abductions, UFO sights and myths, people’s experiences, hoaxes, government involvements, conspiracy theories and so on, in a depthwise fashion and have really detailed stuff on these topics. So although they are in a way related to my writing, they are different. The fundamental difference is that these books go vertical in depth of the topics, and this book goes horizontal, covering as many topics of interest as possible. I have tried to cover a wide spectrum of topics that have a direct or indirect connection to some alien interference.

Unless one is prepared, this subject would appear difficult and boring and possibly even shocking sometimes. So in a way, this book is an effort toward preparing its readers to cope with this subject so that they can think about it with interest when going in details.

Almost everyone knows about the pyramids, and a lot of people know about the Bermuda Triangle, and some people know about the crop circles as well. Some have heard of alien encounters, alien abductions, UFO sightings, SETI, Area 51 and the likes. Even Atlantis will ring a bell in some ears.

I am emphasizing on the psychological aspect of this subject as compared to the scientific one. The target audience spectrum of this book is quite wide from any person who is totally unaware of this subject to people who are experts in the field. This subject is mostly confined within the scientific communities which are attached to some research on this subject in one way or another. My goal is to bring this out to common man.

The difficult part of this book was to keep a balance between the science and psychology. No matter what, the role of science in this subject cannot be neglected. Talking about extraterrestrials, space exploration, origin of life, etc., would be almost impossible without mentioning the scientific aspects behind these. But I did not want this book to become a science journal, and yet at the same time, I wanted my readers to have a taste of science. So throughout the book, I’ve tried to keep a balance between the two. I’m not going to be very detailed in describing scientific aspect of this subject. The only reason I want to talk about this aspect is because of what I just mentioned that I want my readers to be aware of what is going on and around this subject from the science point of view.

But there are certain topics in which there will be a slightly heavier influence of scientific reasoning as these topics demand such a reasoning to make them better understood to their readers.

There has already been a lot of work done on this subject, and much of it is going on currently. The fascination of this subject has drawn the interest and dedication of a vast array of scientists and researchers. Their work should really be appreciated as because of their countless efforts only, one day we’ll witness life on other planets.

Even in case if aliens visit us before we reach them, it’s the research of these scientists only that would help us better understand and communicate with these aliens.

The Word Alien

Whenever the word alien comes, it never comes alone. It brings along with it all the imaginations that have been depicted on screen and paper and have become almost the reality of this word. But the significance of this word is much more than this interpretation. This can be only some of the thousands of various descriptions possible for this word.

The word alien is a very powerful word indeed. Its power lies in its representing so much of unknown that can be out there. If we see any life-form from outer space, we’ll call it an alien or extraterrestrial. This word has different meanings in different contexts. In an earthly or a human context, it means something strange, foreign, unfamiliar, or unknown and is typically used to address people living in a country other than the one from where they originated. In a little broader context in which Earth is just a little part of an incredibly huge universe, it means something extraterrestrial or some creature from outer space. In this book, I am advocating this extraterrestrial context of this word.

The one thing that makes this word so versatile and resourceful is that it does not represent any particular alien from any particular planet. Rather it is more like a placeholder. There are thousands and thousands of planets in thousands of galaxies. The probability of life evolving in more than one planet is really not bad. Now when we talk about aliens, we talk about aliens in general. So this little word is quite heavy as it carries a lot of weight of representing all these possible life-forms on other planets.

In other words, this word is like a black hole of information yet unknown. It has an enormous amount of unknown data buried within. There can be so many different possibilities of life there on other planets and solar systems, and yet we address them all by this little word.

Another powerful aspect of this word is that this little word carries with it the power to defy our entire science including physics, chemistry, mathematics, and biology. We might someday witness an alien life-form that could not be explained by our existing science and show the shallowness of our understanding.

In truth, each alien race could be very different from the others depending upon the conditions on the planet during which their evolution took place. They can vary in all sorts of characteristics possible like shapes, sizes, color, life cycle, and so on. On top of this, there may be some other characteristics that we are not even aware of.

This could be a little shocking to realize that even we are aliens to these aliens. And in a little more irregular thinking, we might be aliens even to this planet Earth. Our ancestors might have chosen this planet to live or came here accidentally from somewhere. And if it is true, then where did they come from and why and how. This would also mean that we would have far distant cousins somewhere out there.

The true acceptance of this word will come only by keeping an open mind. By true acceptance I mean accepting what this word brings out to us from time to time.

Even if there may be life on other planets and galaxies, the possibility of all of them reaching us or us reaching them is very low. There are many obstacles in such a feat that I have mentioned in the chapter titled Obstacles in Our Quest for Extraterrestrial Life. This means only a very few of them may reach us. And whichever aliens reach us first will become the representation of alien to us, even though there might be others in the game. And these others might be very different from the ones who have reached here. So we have to keep the book open even after finding the sought-after page as there might be more pages of the similar sort.

My feeling is that we are not thinking in the right direction. When we think about aliens or say we imagine about various aspects about aliens like how would they look, think, behave, and other similar things, we never leave our frame of mind. We should start thinking from their side of the wall. Well, at least outside of our spectrum of thoughts.

We imagine what aliens would be thinking, and I think that’s exactly where we are wrong. How can we expect our way of thinking from a completely alien brain? Maybe they don’t have a brain. But something similar to brain has to be there, otherwise they would be sitting like rocks on the planet they belong to. If they are not thinking, something or someone else is doing that on their behalf. They are just the action party representing this thinking entity.

If we humans are so unique within Earth where life is evident and in abundance, then there is a possibility that we are unique in the entire galaxy. We have to keep it very clear in our minds that any aliens visiting us will be very different in all respects. If there were at all any similarities between them and us, it would be a sheer coincidence.

One out of million possibilities is that some of the aliens on some distant planets are exactly like humans. I mean their physical characteristics are very similar to humans. But even then from inside, they are going to be very different from us. Their whole evolution, history, culture, civilization, environment, and frame of mind will be nowhere near to ours, so even if they look like us, they would be very different. Just think of this. The way we are today is because of how our evolution took place and the path it followed. Things kept on changing during this process of evolution. It’s like a series of steps where activities in each step results into a new step. So if some of the steps in the process of our evolution would have been different, then we would have been very different from what we are today.

So even though two different planets started at the same time, the possibility of their steps of evolution to be same or even similar is quite remote.

Some Basic Questions

I have some basic questions like how was the first human born, or how was the first shark or a first parrot born. In fact, the question is how was the first of any living species born, formed, or came into existence. There have been many theories attempting to answer these questions, but these are just theories. One of the theories says that the first life was originated in the ocean water, and eventually, some of the living species came out of water in the form of amphibians and started living on land as well as water and, eventually, converted to land-based species. During this process, millions of new life-forms came into existence.

My next question is that why it does not happen anymore. The usual answer to this question is that the environmental conditions and properties of Earth that used to support the formation of new species has changed a lot since its inception and does not support and facilitate the formation of new life-forms anymore.

Sudden Boost or Acceleration to Our Own Development

Have you ever thought as to what would happen if all of a sudden one day we found some aliens who are very similar to us as if they are also based on the same type of life that we are aware of on Earth? That means they would also need the same basic materials for their survival such as water, oxygen, supporting atmosphere, and so on. Also if they are at an advanced stage of their evolution, they would be technologically sound as well.

So how would such an encounter affect us in general? In my opinion, it would be a sudden boost to our own development. Soon you’ll know what I am talking about.

During the evolution of any intelligent species, there would be a lot of discoveries and inventions made. The same phenomenon occurred on Earth, and the same would have happened on the planet in question. They would have their own assortment of discoveries and inventions.

So after coming in contact with these aliens in question, all of a sudden, we’ll witness all these discoveries, inventions, and a lot of other advancements. It’s like thousands of years of their development coming to our doorstep in one shot. All of a sudden, we’ll see altogether different modes of transportation, various types of vehicles, new technology, something similar to electricity, new forms of light sources, new concepts, and countless such things. The same would happen to them as well.

I emphasized on the point that these aliens in question are very similar to us both biologically and psychologically as only then everything that is relevant to them would also be relevant to us. I mean almost everything. I think when we are talking about two different planets or star systems, we can