MONOLOGUE WRITTEN BY CLYDE LEWIS
Recently, the New York Times published an article about a scientist at Cambridge University that published a book about alien species and how they may resemble some of the animals we have here on earth.
Arik Kershenbaum asserts that the “universal laws of biology” that govern life on Earth also apply to aliens. The most important is that species evolve by natural selection, the bedrock idea of evolutionary biology proposed by Charles Darwin. No matter how alien biochemistry might work and no matter how planetary environments might differ, Kershenbaum argues that some version of Darwinian selection would be at work — and would have channeled alien evolution to restricted menus of possibilities.
Thus, Kershenbaum predicts that alien life will bear striking parallels to earthly life. Most aliens will be bilaterally symmetrical and use familiar forms of locomotion (such as legs, paddles or jets.)
Kershenbaum predicts that some aliens will exhibit social cooperation, technology and language (“Teatime with our alien neighbors may be possible after all,” he writes). He even posits that aliens will share the quality we hold most dear: intelligence. “We all want to believe in intelligent aliens,” he writes. “It seems inevitable that they will, in fact, exist.”
It looks like Kershenbaum has a good gig but his ideas are nothing new; in fact, there are others before him that have already tackled this issue in far more compelling ways and without any political prejudice which I believe damages his credibility.
In 1905, Albert Einstein determined that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and that the speed of light in a vacuum was independent of the motion of all observers. This was the theory of special relativity. It introduced a new framework for all of physics and proposed new concepts of space and time.
Einstein’s special relativity has proven more useful than ever, as scientists have now used it to discover alien planets, how they are rotating around stars and that their distances may be just perfect enough to sustain life elsewhere.
While the mainstream narratives love to focus on the political fracas that indicates the values of the world, there are very important stories buried in science journals that are making more and more arguments for life in space and the possibility of that life already among us; not only independent from human and animal life, but mingling with human life as it is being evidenced through genetic revelations of a Second Genesis.
Einstein’s physics simplified tell us that space and time are one, therefore the physical extent of the Universe: its size is inextricably bound by the length of its duration. We can surmise that as new revelations are being reported about the fossil record.
We can now admit that that extraterrestrial biological entities visited planet earth and that according to ancient writings these entities took part in DNA manipulation and even produced a new hybrid of human through sexual contact with primitive specimens of pre-humans.
If these beings traveled millions of miles to reach us then we would have to admit that these beings were masters of time travel and were highly advanced being capable of developing habitat and creating biological doppelgangers to live in the in the matrix they constructed.
Normally, genes get passed down from parents to their young. But sometimes they can jump around, moving from one species to another.
What if during the dawn of creation, a gene from an extraterrestrial being insinuated itself straight into human DNA?
What if more than a hundred genes from an alien bacterium ended up in humans? Would that make us some sort of alien Frankenstein?
Not necessarily.
It turns out that genes are quite capable of hopping from one organism into a completely different species. Not only do these genes jump, but when they land in a new host they can actively change it. This can give the host species new abilities, sending it down a new evolutionary path. Even humans play host to alien genes, and it seems they have shaped our evolution.
When we have children, we pass on some of our genes to them, and so those genes find a new host.
Sometimes the genes get altered along the way. These changes, known as mutations, help ensure that the offspring are different to their parents. Over many generations, enough mutations can build up to create a whole new species, and in the long run, all the diversity of the natural world.
Sometimes a gene can jump directly from one organism to another organism, which might belong to a completely different species. This process is called horizontal gene transfer.
What this means is that Darwin’s vision of the Tree of Life is flawed, and that eventually we will have to acknowledge a point in human evolution where we had help in improving our primitive state; into a stronger and more intelligent human.
Now mind you, gene transfers are rare. That’s because any gene trying to move into a new organism faces a lot of barriers.
Imagine a rogue gene, a loose strand of alien DNA, is trying to get into a civilization of primitive human like species.
First, it has to get inside one of the primitive human cells intact. Then the cellular machinery might incorporate it into the cell’s DNA. It may not happen on the first try, but as new life tries to find a way through time we start seeing the changes happen in the fossil record.
As it continues to successfully occupy the body it stands a greater chance of long-term survival. Then comes the transference through the breeding process. It then stands an even greater chance of surviving and spreading throughout the population.
This is all sounds like simple biology, but with an alien twist.
What is fascinating in 1999, it was found that a layer in the placenta of a human fetus contains viral genes that our ancestors picked up over 45 million years ago.
Some of them are unknown – so could they be a form of alien genes?
Again, it is a possibility. If is now confirmed the human genome contains DNA from other species — a ghost species.
Everything from viruses to insects have given us genes, and those genes have changed the ways our bodies work and helped us evolve. Even our most distant cousins have been involved in the evolution of our species.
Horizontal gene transfer indicates that our relationships with the other life-forms on Earth are much closer than we thought. However, different from us an organism may be, it seems their genes can often be remarkably useful to us.
We are only starting to discover just how many alien genes we have in us and what it means for humanity and a genetic relationship with possible extraterrestrials.
With all of the new data it is becoming obvious that aliens, especially those we had an ancient relationship with might look a lot like us, due in part to convergent evolution.
Recently, a University of Oxford research team notes, past astrobiology efforts have largely taken Earth life and extrapolated through the application of chemistry, geology and physics to predict what our extraterrestrial counter parts might look like.
For example, eyes are widespread on our planet, so it makes sense that aliens would have them as well. We’re carbon-based life-forms, so we might expect life-forms on the other side of the galaxy to follow suit.
However, according to the Oxford researchers, who published a November 2017 study in the journal International Journal of Astrobiology, natural selection is the firmest ground on which to base our predictions of alien life; natural selection being the directional force that led to life as we know it. In the absence of a designer, the authors stress, natural selection is necessary for the development of an organism, and we probably wouldn’t recognize it as an organism if it didn’t.
In an abstract called, Darwin’s Aliens we read:
“Here we show how evolutionary theory can be used to make predictions about aliens. We argue that aliens will undergo natural selection – something that should not be taken for granted but that rests on firm theoretical grounds. Given aliens undergo natural selection we can say something about their evolution. In particular, we can say something about how complexity will arise in space. Complexity has increased on the Earth as a result of a handful of events, known as the major transitions in individuality. Major transitions occur when groups of individuals come together to form a new higher level of the individual, such as when single-celled organisms evolved into multicellular organisms. Both theory and empirical data suggest that extreme conditions are required for major transitions to occur. We suggest that major transitions are likely to be the route to complexity on other planets, and that we should expect them to have been favored by similarly restrictive conditions. Thus, we can make specific predictions about the biological makeup of complex aliens.”
So even though the idea of complexity of the life forms is considered there is still a chance that aliens indeed might be more like us than we think.
But what about other creatures that are alien that donundefinedt look anthropomorphic. If we are to put variety in the mix we may also have to contend with aliens that have exoskeletons undefined or even creatures that may resemble octopus.
Back in 2001, I investigated the case of a man named Gary Lowery. Lowery was a fire safety inspector from California who claimed that extraterrestrials were showing up in his home at night. He decided to set up cameras and also set traps so he could get some evidence of these aliens. He managed to get a claw that he claimed was from one of his alien intruders.
The claw was analyzed and had turned up some unrecognizable DNA patterns and other patterns that indicated that the claw had some earthly connections to a mammal like a rat or an ape. A 12 moth alternative molecular analysis had determined that the DNA properties of the claw were similar to a Mollusk – particularly a snail or a slug.
Some say that this was enough to discredit the find.
However, the more we learn about earthly DNA – and the possibilities of alien life, we may find that logic actually lends credence to the possibility that aliens may have a few of the same DNA strands as earthly animals and even humans.
Now, bear in mind that this hypothesis carries weight if you believe that life generally needs to be seeded with artifacts from around the universe.
That is the “Panspermia” hypothesis.
This means that if our basic DNA components came from space, hitching a ride on an asteroid or meteor – then life elsewhere in space could share DNA markers with animals and humans here on Earth.
Some people think it’s possible we could meet an alien race only to discover that it is our relative, split off from our evolutionary line several billion years ago.
They may look different, bulgy almond eyes gray skin, more limbs, and a head that is bigger, but it has skin a head and a body.
Science has been telling us that our planet became this potential breeding ground of life for about 4.5 billion years but we also need to keep in mind that that for 600 million years a steady bombardment of primordial debris made the surface uninhabitable.
All of the debris and chaos we are told in bible class was organized by intelligent design and that an all-knowing God. This god of course was not of Earth, since Earth really wasn’t anything really as we say without form and void. It was dark and formidable and with a bit of cosmic engineering taking about 50 million years life showed up and if you believe Darwin, we evolved from bacteria, to sea slugs to snails, to apes to shaved apes to computer geeks and obsessive social media junkies.
Species on this planet vary wildly, but on a molecular level we are all part of a one big family of earthlings. Both beast and human we share so many things. We all use DNA to encode genetic information. We all use RNA molecules as messengers to transfer the information from DNA to cellular factories called, ribosomes, which then build proteins, which in turn drive our metabolisms and form the structures of our cells. In short, every species seems descended from a common ancestor whose attributes define what life is.
This of course generates stories of the molecular Adam and Eve and gardens of paradise where man not only walked the planet, but creatures not normally of this world also had an agenda to somehow thwart the creation in order to change man into becoming more like an alien.
If anyone discusses a quantum component to the creation story it sometimes can be held off as some cosmic blasphemy and often tampers with the majority of those who say that they do not believe that this is life as we know it.
But what about life as we don’t know it? What if other, completely distinct forms of biology also took root on the early Earth?
I know that science and even skeptics want to make sweeping accusations and arguments against alien proof and they will dismiss anything that even has any drop of an earthly component – but we are always quick to say that planets like Proxima B are earthlike – so what about its inhabitants?
Shouldn’t they be earth-like too? Couldn’t they?
Aliens may share far more physical characteristics than we are led to believe.
For example the dinosaurs, especially those at the top of the food chain displayed behaviors and traits that somehow resurfaced after their extinction. They resurfaced in humans.
Look at elephants, monkeys and dolphins, they are intelligent creatures in fact it is suggested that their brains approach ours in intelligence. But they are lesser species because of the fact that elephants and dolphins lack the proper appendages and monkeys lack the adaptability to various environments that we have.
We are intelligent, relative to life on earth, and thus we judge other life in that context.
Maybe we shouldn’t, take for example the octopus.
Octopuses are present in all of the Earth’s oceans and have shown a great sustainability among the other aquatic life that shares the seas. Their large brains and ability to solve complex problems with little observation have mystified researchers for years, coercing wonder of their true intelligence and cognitive abilities. The reveal of their DNA has researchers wondering more about the tentacled creatures, their origins, and why they are unlike any other animals on the planet.
It was found that the genome of the cephalopod mollusk, according to the Huffington Post, is quite complex. Over 33,000 protein-coding genomes were discovered during recent research. In comparison, humans have approximate 20,000. Although the information is intriguing and will lead to further research, the findings have created more questions than answers.
Dr. Clifton Ragsdale of the University of Chicago, according to Metro U.K., describes the findings more alien than Earthbound.
“The octopus appears to be utterly different from all other animals, even other mollusks, with its eight prehensile arms, its large brain and its clever problem-solving abilities.”
He continued to build off of Martin Wells, a zoologist, claiming that octopuses are aliens, in all sense of the word.
“The late British Zoologist, Martin Wells, grandson of H.G. Wells, said the octopus is an alien. In this sense, then, our paper describes the first sequenced genome from an alien.”
The mystery surrounding octopuses and their existence on Earth is now more complicated than ever before. Adding to the unique genome sequencing that removes it from the evolutionary connection between so many other of the planet’s life. Octopuses have the ability to camouflage their skin, the use of jet propulsion to move through the water, eight tentacles that are suction lined and capable of intricate manipulation of objects, and most oddly, the ability to regenerate limbs that may have been devoured by other animals.
Of course, there are plenty of cynical scientific critics that say that the study has been misinterpreted and that the scientists involved with the research were really just using a clever metaphor to highlight the unique complexity of the octopus genome. It seems that the biggest problem with these critics is that they are saying that people now believe octopuses are from other planets.
No, the scientists are saying they are alien in a sense that they are possible second genesis creatures—we perceive them as merely sea creatures, but there are some who perceive them as being more alien in nature.
Could it be that aliens share a lot of their traits with mollusks? Could there be alien beings that are similar to the Wookie in Star Wars, whose shape can be compared to a monkey, and its loyalty to that of a dog? How about feline- looking aliens? In the Bible, there are tales of the “Lion Men” in the Book of 2 Samuel.
“And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man, of Kabzeel, who had done many acts, he slew two lion-like men of Moab: he went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow:” –Chapter 23:20
The Bible even goes on to say that all of the flesh and attributes of man is not the same and that there o the flesh of the terrestrial human, and then the flesh of celestial or extraterrestrial bodies.
We will never know how dogs, cats or even cows perceive us. How do insects perceive us? Do they know or even care that we exist? Now, taking that logical leap we must then ask – do aliens perceive us? Do they even care that we exist? Even if they look different than us, it is a bit disingenuous to overlook the idea that there are simple traits that they would share with us – which we say can only be found in humans.
I think that to assume that strange DNA has to be the litmus test to identify an alien life form may limit our definitions of what life is in space or what alien life forms may have arrived and have had contact with humans.
Even the bible teaches us a lesson in how we identify the attributes of both the terrestrial bodies of man and animal and the attributes of bodies that are celestial or extraterrestrial.
All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. — 1 Corinthians 15:39-40
I think this makes things very clear – bodies terrestrial meaning earth bodies, bodies celestial meaning extraterrestrial bodies.
Why would the bible identify different life forms both extraterrestrial and terrestrial and why in the chapter does it say that God gave every seed its own body? Does this mean that we are connected to the celestial bodies that exist somewhere in space?
Terrestrial bodies have evolved in such a manner that a logical and intelligent design has made us who we are.
Our eyes are over our nose putting them closer to our brain, eliminating visual lag. Our nose is between our eyes so it does not obstruct our vision. Its size helps us get better downward visibility.
Our mouth is below both as to not obstruct our airflow, not obstruct our eyes, not interfere with our brain and give food the quickest path of least resistance to our stomach.
The trachea is in front of the esophagus and closes upon excitation of a nerve as food is swallowed. Digestion takes place giving us fuel and energy. Celestial bodies may absorb nourishment through their skin and may even eliminate waste through their skin as well. They may have an inability to chew food or perhaps they have a trachea or breathing tube behind their esophagus. This would make normal eating impossible.
In humans, if the trachea was behind the esophagus, the likelihood of choking on food would increase.
With the esophagus being in the back, food takes the path of least resistance down to our stomachs. Mucus secretions fall effortlessly down the back of the esophagus into the stomach instead of clogging up our lungs. From the same area we generate our voice, for communication.
Now celestial bodies or extraterrestrial we have been told speak telepathically and use images to convey their message. They may even communicate with bio-luminescent patterns of light… Maybe an alien has may diaphragms built into its main body cavity that vibrate a voice – or perhaps a moan that by frequency and pitch is a method of language, they could speak through a liquid or even oxygen to transmit information.
It is a possibility that our alien friends are like real humans but there are chances that we may be dealing with intelligent beings that look like dolphins, or monkeys—maybe a lobster or spider and yes, maybe a squid.
We also need to understand that we may also encounter creatures that would resemble animals undefined and perhaps we would see in the lain petting zoo creatures that communicate with us on a highly intelligent way.
We should prepare ourselves for the eventual disclosure of extraterrestrial biological entities out there or those who have been able to adapt to earth and the elements no matter how extreme down here.
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