Many years ago I watched
a documentary about the development of our species. The narrator poignantly
described a singular moment in our history -- and indeed our planet's -- when
for the first time an individual, rather than fleeing, approached fire. The
scene was acted out with the individual taking hold of a stick whose other
end was alight. "And the rest is history" was the immediate conclusion.
I have long thought about what might really have happened, and what came next.
It would have taken a special set of circumstances: a person with enough intelligence
and curiosity to overcome their fear, a fire small enough to not pose a threat,
and a desire for heat and light. The prevailing assumption is that the first
individual would have learned about fire and passed that information on to
future generations. But what if after the fire went out that particular person
never saw fire again and the little information gathered wasn't passed on.
The whole scenario would have had to be repeated, perhaps thousands of times,
before the knowledge could become a permanent part of human culture. Another
possibility is that a small group of humans managed to tame fire but none
of them survived a particularly bad event. It is also possible that the knowledge
could have been gained in multiple locations independent of each other. This
information we will never know, but it is wise to understand that things are
seldom as simple as they seem.
Our solar system is two thirds of the way out from the center of our galaxy. We aren't even in a spiral arm -- we are on the edge of the spiral arm fragment. Our star, the Sun, is a yellow dwarf. At only a couple of dozen light-years away it's nearly invisible. We are way out in nowhere land. While it is true that we have been broadcasting radio waves into space for almost 100 years, those signals have only reached a handful of stars nearby -- and won't reach the center of our galaxy for about 30,000 years. No beings beyond the Earth even know that we exist.
Assuming aliens do know about us, why would they come here? There is nothing on earth that cannot be more easily obtained floating in space -- all the elements here came from space in the first place, including water. Could they be looking for a habitable planet? There are millions of them in our galaxy -- most much closer to any aliens than ours. The only thing unique about Earth is life, so studying our planet's life forms is the only reason aliens would be interested in us. It might seem as if this could explain alien abductions, UFO sightings and such, but if they can get here their technology is so wildly superior to anything we can imagine that they would only need one sample -- if any at all. And if they wished to remain hidden from us, they would. Or perhaps they are just twisted perverts who enjoy sticking things into native wildlife -- not likely. That would be like a human driving 3000 miles to find rocks with fungus on them for the sole purpose of picking at the fungus with a toothpick -- why? It makes no sense. There are certainly a great many humans who do strange and illogical things -- and we have nothing else to compare but ourselves -- but we cannot ascribe our own behavior to a far more advanced species. Are they actually more advanced or just more technologically advanced? It doesn't really matter. Even with some kind of amazing space travel technology, we are much too far away to bother with unless they would truly want to analyze us. (Learn more about astronomical distances here).
About a hundred years ago or so
two ornate and finely crafted Viking swords were found in the ruins of a palace in
India. At the time historians and archaeologists were baffled. Few believed that Norsemen
could have made it all the way to the middle east much less India, but some saw the weapons
as irrefutable evidence of this. Regardless of opinion, it seemed obvious to all that
someone must have transported the objects from Viking territory all the way to the heart
of the subcontinent. As time passed no further Viking evidence was found that far east.
Finally the most likely solution to the question began to emerge. The swords made the
journey on their own. Trade is the answer. The farther an object of value gets from its
point of origin the more its uniqueness increases, hence its value increases as well.
Those two prized treasures may have passed through a dozen hands before arriving at their
final destination. Seldom is history as simple as we humans would like.
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