Whenever I show doubt about the aliens, someone inevitably cites all kinds of anecdotes about abductions, sightings and so on, and asks \u201cwhat else could it be?\u201d<\/p>\n
I hate that question. That\u2019s how stupid ideas without any basis in reality held on for centuries. Milky way was made because someone spilled milk in the sky, because what else could it be? The planets are Gods moving in the sky, because what else could it be? The stars are the hearths of ancestors in heaven because what else could it be? The constellations are heavenly homes of the spirit totems, because what else could it be? The plague was caused by the Jews poisoning the wells, because what else could it be? So, now it\u2019s the aliens, because what else could it be?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat else could it be?\u201d is a sentence that should be punished by public ridicule, because everyone who ever used it was an idiot. It\u2019s like answering every single question in science with \u201cJesus did it\u201d.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s obvious that stupid people hate having question marks in their worldview, and they prefer whatever answer to statement of ignorance, but I don\u2019t. I have no problem with stating ignorance. I don\u2019t know what caused all sorts of things and I\u2019ll tell you I don\u2019t know, but then a stupid idiot with lots of confidence will state he knows the answer, because what else could it be?<\/p>\n
Let me cite something that has absolutely no basis in evidence or knowledge of any kind, and is purely a hypothesis, but it provides an alternative to aliens \u2013 and, also, to the alternative claim that it must be demons, or nonphysical entities of some kind. It\u2019s called the Silurian Hypothesis<\/a>.<\/p>\n It goes like this. The dinosaurs evolved into a sapient species at some particular part of the world. This species had a habit of burrowing into the ground, and had whole underground settlements. Whether it was for growing\/storing food, or for mining some resource, or for protection against big predators, or all of the above, I can\u2019t tell you, but let\u2019s say they were technologically in an early bronze age, 65 MY ago when the asteroid struck. Since they were dug into rock like Dwarves into Moria, they managed to survive the impact and its aftermath, and if they grew mushrooms or something underground as a food source, they could have survived just fine. Let\u2019s say that the aftermath of the disaster put evolutionary pressure on them, and they evolved both intelligence and technology, and 65 MY is a very long time, mind you. Humans stretch some 200-300 KY into the past. 70 KY ago the Neanderthals ruled Europe. Civilization goes back some 5 KY. 11 KY ago we were in an ice age. So, 65 MY is enough for continents to shift, let alone for a species to evolve intelligence and technology that\u2019s so far ahead of ours that it looks like visitors from another star system, because \u201cwhat else could it be?\u201d. What else could it be, the Fairies could be fucking in the sky, you fucking idiots. But let\u2019s keep with the Silurian hypothesis. The objections would be as following: a civilization would strip Earth for mineral resources, leaving nothing for the early humans, who on the contrary managed to find things like copper, gold, zinc and iron all over the place, without having to dig into the mountains. Well, as I said, 65 MY is a long time, long enough for the mountains to erode, for the strip-mined sections to be washed away and new, abundant mineral sources to be revealed. One would expect technological signatures of such a civilization to be obvious; not really. Our signature was very obvious when we were broadcasting TV and radio all over the place, but now that we\u2019ve transitioned to watching YouTube over the Internet, and it\u2019s all transferred via fibre-optics and focused microwave beams, it\u2019s pretty much undetectable. Extend this for a thousand years, and it\u2019s the difference between the age of an ox cart and the age of iPhone. Technology of a species that\u2019s been working on it at some pace for a million years in continuity might be something we might not even recognize as technology. I don\u2019t know, using mycelia of fungi as computational devices or communication. Something. Whatever I make up is probably much inferior to what they would think of. They could use either geothermal sources for energy, or they could use nuclear energy, or something even more sophisticated that we wouldn\u2019t even recognize. Let\u2019s say they really like living deep in the mountains because that\u2019s how they were saved from the cataclysm and they worship the mountains on a genetic level and go out only to explore this recent infestation that\u2019s been spreading on the surface. Let\u2019s say they have all kinds of flying saucers and \u201calien\u201d shit. Let\u2019s say they look generally anthropomorphic, and they are dinosaur-descendants like the birds, only some different branch, so they look more reptilian, so there\u2019s your reptilian \u201caliens\u201d.<\/p>\n Mind you, I pulled the whole thing out of my arse, mildly inspired by a Dr. Who episode, and I can now say \u201cwhat else could it be?\u201d.<\/p>\n Fuck you, that\u2019s what it could be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whenever I show doubt about the aliens, someone inevitably cites all kinds of anecdotes about abductions, sightings and so on, and asks \u201cwhat else could it be?\u201d I hate that question. That\u2019s how stupid ideas without any basis in reality … Continue reading