by P P Corcoran
At the instance of origin, the hole appeared one meter above the forest floor holding its position while gradually expanding. In under a minute, the hole increased in size a thousand-fold to a millimeter, continuing to expand exponentially. At two minutes, the hole had had grown a million-fold to a meter. Upon reaching a perfect circular diameter of two meters it halted its expansion. Raw energy hummed around the peripheral edges of the aperture. Electrical discharges of bright yellow light arced from edge to edge in kaleidoscopic patterns.
A Creature emerged through the aperture. Traveling from its own planet to enter ours. Passing between thresholds, crossing into our universe. Existing for a nanosecond in two different realities across space and time. The opening to another world closed behind it. Simply ceasing to be, leaving the Creature behind, to deliver a response to Earth’s Invitation.
November 16th, 1974, the Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico. Scientists broadcast a three minutes long interstellar radio message; the aim of the message was for it to be received and deciphered by extra-terrestrial intelligence. In simple ones and zeros, 1679 binary digits, informed alien life precisely where in the universe to find humanity and what we look like. The message contained details of the chemical elements of humanities genetic building blocks, along with Earth’s environmental and population demographics.
The message was carried by the radio waves traveling at the speed of light aimed into the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. With space being so unimaginably vast, the scientists did not expect the message to reach the center of the galaxy for twenty-five thousand years. Given that a reply by the same means would take another twenty-five thousand years it was safe to say the scientists at the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute did not expect to receive a response anytime soon. They were wrong. Very wrong.
The naivety of these so-called space experts in sending such a message is astounding. Credulous in both its intention to randomly provide an unknown alien lifeform with important information on our existence. More importantly, they expected these intelligent, extra-terrestrial beings to be benevolent towards us. To welcome us warmly, with open arms. Not once stopping to think that our own history teaches important lessons in what happens when different civilizations meet. Ask the Carthaginians or the Babylonians; ask the Egyptians or the Assyrians. Ask the last South American tribes, sheltering in their shrinking rainforests, or the indigenous people of North America who once roamed the plains alone for twelve thousand years before the arrival of the white man changed their way of life forever. Our History tells us repeatedly and emphatically, when an established civilization meets a more advanced civilization, the lesser civilization ceases to exist.
Traveling at 300,000 kilometers per second, the Arecibo radio message reached the edge of our solar system in May 1975, passed Alpha Centauri in March 1978 and Ross 128-b in October of 1985. June 1988 saw the message race past Wolf 1061-d in June 1988 and Gliese 832-c in 1990, the broadcast traveled through the Eridian Stars in 1994, and beyond 61 Virginis-b in July 2002. Still undetected and unheard.
The unrequited Arecibo broadcast endured its journey for another seventeen years. In 2019, within the Aquarius Constellation the message reached a planetary system orbiting an orange dwarf star humanity designated Trappist-1. Similar to our own solar system, gravity arranged the Trappist planets in different orbital positions from their star. One planet, Trappist 1e, meets the Goldilocks principle criteria and by coincidence, is approximately the same size as our own planet. Like Earth, Trappist 1e has a compact atmosphere with a comparable mass, along with a parallel density, temperatures and gravity. The planet surface is covered in areas of liquid, very similar to water on Earth. Trappist 1e looks like Earth: it could be Earth, except being 39 light years away, rotating around a different, dying star. Here, at last, the Arecibo message was intercepted and deciphered, by a world 369 trillion kilometers away from Earth. However, as the broadcast continued its mission, ever deeper into space, the inhabitants of Trappist 1e, did not send a reciprocal radio message to Earth. Instead, they sent the Creature who now stood alone, in the dark Alaskan wilderness.
Two meters tall and mainly cylindrical in shape. With overlapping membranes at its base, the Creature used a form of undulatory locomotion, similar to Earth’s snake species, to move silently across the forest floor. The Creature did not possess the equivalent of a mouth, having no need to breathe, nor ingest liquids or solids for fuel. The Creature’s civilization long ago adapted to harness the power of its dwarf sun, converting solar energy through an advanced process of photosynthesis. They did not converse in an audible language, having evolved telepathy, allowing instant communication between groups and individuals. Its body was a robust design, evolved and adapted to the gravitational forces existing on its home world. Apart from a circular array of sensors, at the top of its body, hefty, thick overlapping scales protected its exterior. While the Creature did not have legs, it did possess what a human would have interpreted as arms, although tentacles would be a closer comparison. Around its tubular shaped body, seven tentacles were positioned equidistantly, nine centimeters thick and over three meters in length. Each tentacle ended with a broad flat pad, similar to the shape of a human hand; and across the inner surface of each pad, thousands of tiny sensitive filaments, which filtered the surrounding environment, doing the job of a human’s senses.
The seven tentacles, wrapped around the Creatures torso, in a downward, ivy-like formation, slowly unfurled with synchronized elegance, as the Creature began carrying out the tasks it had been send to Earth to accomplish. Cataloguing all types of life inside a fifty-meter radius of the emergence point. The Creature detected small fauna inside the flora, insects and various small mammals, but no organism matching the biped mammal, calling itself human.
The Arecibo message stated the average height of a human to be 1.753 meters, with a genetic make-up of principally Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen and Phosphorus. The message confirmed the genetic structure of all Earth life, structured via a double helix ladder, the same as life on the Creature’s home planet. The demographic information contained within the Arecibo message had been used to select the location for the Creature’s arrival on Earth. The absence of heat signatures meant an absence of technology, which in turn meant an absence of human activity. It appeared that there was no human activity within one hundred kilometers.
The Creature continued its scan of the surrounding vegetation, assessing the different types of trees, bushes, plants and grasses. Fundamentally, silicone based, the Creature shared more similarities to plants on Earth than the carbon-based fauna, which made up seventy-five percent of Earth’s life. The ambient temperature confirming this area of the planet habitable.. Delicate sensor filaments across the Creature’s pads measured the chemical components of Earth’s atmosphere. Nitrogen at seventy-eight percent proved uncomfortable but bearable. The twenty-one percent Oxygen level would be a greater problem. While not needing to breathe in any environmental gases to exist, the corrosive proprieties of such a high level of oxygen would become difficult to endure. Scheduled to remain in place for 2.42 Earth hours, the Creature calculated that its exterior should be able to withstand Earth’s atmosphere for the required amount of time to complete its mission.
The Creature concluded its atmospheric evaluation: Argon at 0.93%, Carbon Dioxide at 0.04% with trace elements of helium, hydrogen, methane, neon and krypton. Though not ideal, Earth’s atmosphere would not hinder The Plan.
If the Creature found Earth suitable then upon its return home then preparations would begin to mount an offensive to eliminate Earth’s human population. A minimum populace would be retained, to perform various terraforming activities, reducing excessive nitrogen and oxygen gases from the atmosphere. Subjugation of the human race would be swift. Completed in three Earth days.
The Plan called for portals to pierce the space/time fabric between Home and Earth in thousands of remote areas, around the entirety of the planet.
Through these portals vast armies would invade and wipe out all resistance simultaneously. Humanity would have no hiding place; eradication and near extinction would occur concurrently across the planet.
The Creature felt no animosity towards the human inhabitants of Earth. Emotions such as animosity, along with every other emotion, long ceased to exist amongst the inhabitants of Home. The decision to remove humankind from this planet, being purely requisite and logistical. Earth possessed a similar planetary environment to Home and the inhabitants of that world, needed to expand to survive as a civilization.
They had sent their own probes into the darkness of deep space, searching in vain for habitable planets. Four of its moons ago, the Arecibo message had reached Home, providing a possible solution to their obstacle of expansion and survival. A new world. A new planet. A new beginning. Earth.
The Creature was passing fifty-two percent of mission time duration busily mapping the positions of the constellations in the sky above when its senses identified multiple lifeforms approaching from the polar north. Through a series of pulse snapshots the Creature monitored the lifeforms progress, sensors concluded the trajectory of their advancement. The lifeforms were on a direct path to its current position, reaching its location in 0.19 Earth hours. Unperturbed; the Creature carried on with the scheduled evaluation of Earth’s position and surrounding solar system.
At the top of the Creature’s body the skin separated revealing a dome shaped quivering muscle. This muscle was embedded with millions of pixel like receptors providing 360-degree vision. The Creature’s version of vision operated by interpreting objects, using various light wave frequencies, each adapting to individual environments. As the lifeforms drew closer, the Creature finessed sensors to an infrared wavelength, enhancing the poor light conditions with the ability to detect heat signatures. A check of its internal chronometer showed 1.18 Earth hours until the portal opened again. Estimated contact with the approaching lifeforms in 0.16 Earth hours. In the silent darkness of the Alaskan timberland it resumed gathering data on the surrounding environment.
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M12 sat cocking its head to one side as it used a hind leg to scratch at the GPS collar around his neck. Details of his progress and locations was transmitted hourly to a monitoring satellite. Downloaded remotely, the information was used to map his range and his whereabouts, at different periods throughout the Alaskan seasons.
M12 had been shot with a Telazol dart from a helicopter last year and collared as part of the Wildlife and Fisheries program to monitor the Alaskan wolf population. It had been many years since such an initiative had been undertaken due to the remoteness and inaccessibility of the area. However, during the previous decade, the success of the Yellowstone program to reintroduce Canadian Timberwolves back into the national parks, ignited America’s and indeed, the world’s imagination. Yellowstone wolves became canine celebrities through award winning documentaries, so, people wanted to know more about wolves. No other wolf remained more unknown and more mysterious than the Northwest McKenzie Wolf.
M12 had become a minor celebrity himself amongst the Wildlife and Fisheries program due to him being only the twelfth McKenzie Wolf, collared in the McCarthy region of the Wrangell St. Elias National Park. If M12’s signal maintained the same position for two days or stopped transmitting altogether, the Wildlife and Fisheries Department, would use the last transmission to scour the Alaskan woodlands for him to find the cause. M12 belonged to the McCarthy pack, which lived in a valley, straddling high mountains, between the American and Canadian borders. Sharing a protected wilderness, stretching over 30 million square miles covering an area bigger than Scotland making it North America’s biggest and most isolated National Park.
Evolution had hardwired synchronized sleeping roles into wolves with alternate pack members sleeping at different stages throughout the night, ensuring the safety of the pack from a surprise assault. The McCarthy Alpha male and female did not sleep in stages, one of the many privileges of being leaders. Instead, they slumbered, back to back, contently in the middle of the den, bellies full from the two caribou they had brought down that day. M12 sat guardian like on the pack’s periphery. Eyes focused, ears swiveled one way and then another, sweeping the Alaskan night for sounds, his nose filtered the evening breeze for anything not his pack, not his valley, not his forest.
M12 froze as still as a statue as he detected something not forest to the southeast of the den. The first indication was an audible sharp crack, similar to the sound glacial ice makes when an inner flaw fails, resulting in a loud, and ripping facture sound. Measured in time, the millisecond long splinter sound wave, condensed into a short high frequency, well above the audible reach of humans. But not M12’s two million years of evolution hunter’s hearing.
Stretching his neck high, M12 let out an intense howl rousing the entire McCarthy pack from sleep. In seconds, all were barking and growling at some unidentified and unseen presence that dared enter their forest. Something unknown invading their homeland. The territory controlled by the pack provided them with a plentiful food supply throughout the seasons making it a prime real estate. Other wolf packs constantly probed and raided and each and every incursion was met with the full ferocity of the entire pack. This valley, their territory and their existence depended upon maintaining their dominance. With the two Alphas in front, the McCarthy pack set off to investigate the source of the intrusion.
Traveling at a steady trot of five miles an hour, switching back and forth across well-worn deer trails in the direction, of what their canine perception understood as a disturbance of their forest. It did not take long before the breeze brought them a strange, never encountered before scent. The unfamiliar spoor provided a clear direction of the disturbance and the pack increased their pace to reach it.
M12 brought up the rear, accompanied by two sisters, who would soon be leaving the McCarthy pack with him. When the light time returned, M12 and his sisters would move to the edge of the valley and form their own pack. Both strong dogs, one a dappled mixture of grey and white, the other, a uniform shimmering sliver from head to tail. M12 himself was a mirror image of his brother, the Alpha male. Three-years-old, thick fur the color of the darkest night, weighing over 130 pounds. The only difference between M12 and his brother was a small patch of white on M12’s forehead, earning him the nickname of ‘Black Beauty’ among the Wildlife and Fisheries rangers. The remainder of the McCarthy pack were a motley mixture and patchwork of thick fur, in hues of every variation and shade, of grey, sliver, black and white. Numbering forty-two, they seamlessly coordinated together as one company, one pack. Each individual being born with an instinctive, inherent cognizance, understanding survival depended upon functioning together, as one.
Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘law of the jungle’ encapsulates it probably the best. ‘The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack’
The pack reached a clearing, and without pause, began spreading themselves around the periphery, forming a loose circle around some unknown Thing. As one, they began closing the circle, preventing any escape, taking their lead from the two Alphas. Each standing tall, stiff legged, their ears erect and pointed forward. Lips drawn back with incisors exposed, their fur standing erect on their backs and their tails horizontal to the ground.
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If the Creature perceived a threat from the surrounding lifeforms besieging it, its stationary stance gave no outwardly indication. Its 360-degree infrared vision calmly assessed the surrounding forty-two unknown indigenous lifeforms. The Creature factored in each individual’s size and mass, based on their body heat signatures. The lifeforms encompassing circle maintained a firm distance of ten meters. Sensing no immediate danger, the Creature kept gathering information, while waiting for the portal to reopen in 1.02 Earth Hours
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The wolves understanding of their environment and its inhabitants was simplistic. They lived in the forest, where all animals belonged and a
ll had their place. The packs territory encompassed the valley and surrounding forest. Beyond that existed other packs, with their own territories. There were animals within their territory, and some of those animals could be dangerous to the pack. The wolves did not have a name for the Grizzly Bears who roamed through the forest at will however, they associated a bear with wolf known facts. Being big and powerful, stronger than many wolves. Having ferocious teeth and claws and a specific scent. A scent which triggered a survival warning mechanism inside each wolf’s brain. When the pack encountered a bear, their strategy evolved to avoid the large brown animal with vicious teeth and claws. If necessary, they could attack and kill it, but they would lose many brothers and sisters.
The Thing standing in front of them now however, stretched so far beyond their understanding of their environment it forced them into a rare behavioral reflex. Fight or flight.
Throughout the wolves’ evolutionary journey, neophobia has been a tried and tested survival approach. When encountering new things, neophobia, generates an extreme, irrational fear or dislike of anything new or unfamiliar. The normal neophobic behavior would be to detach themselves from this unknown Thing. Observe it from afar to gauge the threat level it posed to the pack. The intruder might be as deadly as the bear or might be benign and harmless. However, on some lower, primeval level, the wolves’ sensed this Thing standing in their forest to be an abomination to nature; not belonging to their forest environment. On a deep subliminal level, they sensed this Thing a threat to their way of life and their very survival. Fear set off a hormonal chain reaction, electrical synapses bridging neurons and chemical receptors, inactive for many millennia in wolf history.
Closer to the Thing, the wolves fully registered the smell, a strong stench, similar to rotten vegetation. The foreign aroma triggered neurotransmitters, generating huge quantities of Oxytocin and Vasopressin chemicals. Pituitary Glands, deep in the base of the wolves’ brains, adrenocorticotropic and corticosteroid hormones flooded across cranial receptors and coursed through their bodies. In short, the presence of the Thing set off an electrical storm inside each wolf brain, sending a surge of aggressive steroids across mind and body. The neophobic strategy of the wolves’ normal behavior was overridden. Evolution chose fight over flight. A fight to the death.