Alien Psychology

by Roderick R. MacDonald

  Finally, for some years the threat of collisions from space has been recognised as a very serious threat. In 1908, a comet exploded in the atmosphere over Siberia, flattening a huge area of trees. Had this happened over New York, London or Tokyo, millions of people would have been killed. This relatively minor intruder was nothing compared to the asteroids or comets which hit earth during geological times, wiping out vast numbers of species including the dinosaurs. Evidence for craters is widespread and so far we've been lucky to avoid a disaster. With this in mind, a search programme has been operating for years hoping to catch any large objects which may pose a threat. If a object on collision course is detected, it's not exactly certain what we could do about it: evacuating areas of maximum projected destruction; intercepting the object with nuclear weapons; or simply praying for deliverance. These are some of the options.

  So it can be seen that earth is very well protected from the surface to far out in space. Should unknown intruders come into this space, surely they would be detected? Obviously Exordican ships deciding to enter our space environment and atmosphere would know about all the detection methods and, difficult as it may seem to us, try their utmost to escape unnoticed.

  How do they go about this? A very difficult question to answer, after all, I'm not an alien with four million years of technology behind me. Well, I don't think I am anyway. Looking at the detection methods in turn, radar has been around since the time of the Second World War and almost as soon as it was operational, steps were taken to avoid detection by it. The Germans were the first to develop radar invisible aircraft but like other examples of their high technology weapons, it was too late and in insufficient numbers to affect the outcome of the war. The USA now have stealth fighters and bombers built around essentially the same principles. They are not completely detection free and this is about as far as our technology goes at the moment.

  New materials may be developed in the future which will be completely transparent or absorbent to radar microwave radiation. A radar system works by sending out a beam of radiation which is reflected from an object and then received back at the source. By making the radar dish turn, a complete 360 degrees is possible. The beam that the radar sends out is a form of electromagnetic radiation in the microwave wavelengths, not too dissimilar to that used by microwave ovens. The way to avoid radar is to make reflectance impossible, thus removing the return signal to the radar dish. How can microwaves be absorbed?

  In the microwave oven, the wavelengths used are specifically selected so that the water molecule will be affected, and, with water being a constituent of most foods, by making this molecule absorb the microwave radiation, it heats up. Water has the formula H2O where the oxygen atom has two hydrogen atoms connected to it in a flattened v shaped structure. The bond between the oxygen and hydrogen atom vibrates and if the microwaves are just of the right sort to make the bond vibrate faster, the water heats up. The microwaves also make the molecule rotate, this being displayed as heat. In fact, with any substance, when energy is supplied to make the atoms or molecules move faster, a temperature increase is observed. Heat is essentially moving atoms and molecules!

  When water in a microwave oven is heated up, the water absorbs the microwave radiation. With radar being similar in nature, all one has to do is cover the object which you wish to be reflection free in a substance that will totally absorb the radar's microwave radiation. While some materials can do this to an extent, it's difficult to find a totally absorbent and non-reflective substance. At some time in the future, a sponge—like material will be invented which, if it is applied to an aircraft, will make it undetectable by radar. This technology is likely to be within the scope of a race of extraterrestrials possessing the ability to travel between the stars.

  Optical detection avoidance is also difficult. To escape detection, a ship approaching earth would necessarily be very dark so that it didn't reflect light of any sort, including wavelengths other than visible. Only detectable as a silhouette against lighter surfaces, it would otherwise escape without witnesses. Alternatively, the ship may be able to change colour to blend in with the background. This technology already exists here. When visiting the nuclear power station at Torness not far from Edinburgh in Scotland, I was informed that the main building was painted with a substance which could mimic, albeit in a small way, the colour of the background sky. Depending on the colour temperature of the light, the paint adopted the same hue, so making the building not stand out against the sky. Changing the colour of a spaceship could be carried out using electromagnetic devices designed to alter reflected light to resemble the colour of the sky. For example, on a clear blue day, the underside of a ship could be made blue to avoid detection from those looking upwards, while the top side could be coloured like the earth, much as aeroplanes were camouflaged in the second world war.

  As mentioned earlier, infrared or heat radiation is just another part of the electromagnetic spectrum. If an object becomes hot, it will emit infrared waves which can easily be detected. The fact that a conventional rocket, jet or turbine engine pours out plenty of infrared was recognised some time ago by the inventors of the heat seeking missile so, to avoid the missile's heat sensing device from homing into the engine of a helicopter or jet, continuous emission of flares during dangerous flight phases is carried out to confuse the missile. If an alien ship is coated with an absorbent substance which soaks up radar wavelengths, it will heat up in the same way that food in a microwave oven heats up. While the temperature difference may be only a few degrees, it will be sufficient to alert an infrared detection system. Obviously a method of removing the heat is necessary in this case.

  If I knew the answers to the above detection problems and had the ability to put them into effective use, I would now be raking in billions from defence contracts all over the world. But, I'm not. However, the very fact that people from the early 21st century can talk about detection, offering semi feasible solutions, points to the good possibility that beings with far greater experience and technology would be able to solve these not insurmountable problems. Exordicans and others invading our space would definitely not wish to be seen, in any circumstances, and they will undoubtedly have the technology to make this wish a reality. The only exceptionally rare occurrences when earth people detect them take place by accident.

  * * *

  Phase 9

  The Aliens Are Here!

  There are a couple of possible reasons why Exordicans or similar extraterrestrials in asteroid ships may wish to travel to our planet to kidnap and abduct humans. Neither are very pleasant. The first is the effective pressganging of labour, and the second, a source of genetic material to augment their own evolution.

  Picture this: earthmen staggering out of the pub too many drinks within, merrily walking along a street and up a dark alleyway, then ... zap ... zap ... zap ... the aliens have ‘em. Next thing they know, they're in the alien asteroid ship, maybe not a ball and chain around the ankle but a pain collar around the neck—you know the device, they've been seen in Star Trek and many other science fiction films! Any disobedience will be rewarded with severe pain! They are set to work in the ship doing menial tasks until the end of their miserable misbegotten lives.

  This is not a realistic scenario. Raw recruits, even if they were collared, even if their minds were somehow controlled would absolutely terrify Exordicans. While it is undoubtedly probable that they want slaves to perform the tasks and operations deemed too risky for themselves, the selection criteria are governed by their xenophobic, hazard—free psychology. A life built round machinery and technology, they live a cloistered existence. Exordicans selected to investigate earth would do so with great fear and trepidation but would also act altruistically for the continuation of their own species.

  But why not build robots and save themselves a heap of bother? Performing tasks of machine maintenance and such like with great proficiency, indubitably many robotic devices inhabit the recesses of the asteroid ship. Normal
ly when we have visions of robots, we see mechanical men, or women, living and moving just like humans. It's a physical form we feel more comfortable with, preferable to something resembling a toaster on wheels, and its image has been successful in movies since Metropolis onwards. The late Isaac Asimov, a great exponent of mechanical humanoid creatures, formulated the laws of robotics which govern their behaviour towards humans. In modern times, Commander Data in Star Trek springs to mind as being a humanoid robot or android.

  This seems all very well but replicating a human mechanically is a very difficult task. We take the act of walking using our legs and feet as something which is simplicity itself but, in reality it is an enormously complex routine. Subconsciously, we minutely alter muscles to maintain balance, an act virtually impossible for a machine unless it is a cumbersome monstrosity with a low centre of gravity; walking, a delicate act controlled by the brain, spinal cord and muscles is well beyond anything envisaged by the mechanical sciences. Then think of all the other complex movements a human makes during a normal day? Who would wish to make the costly effort of duplicating this when there are much cheaper alternatives?

  The answer is, probably not the Exordicans! For moral and ethical reasons, their solution to the robotic problem would be totally rejected by virtually everyone on this planet today, but the Exordicans don't share our morals or ethics. It likely dawned on them millions of years ago that the easiest way to create a humanoid robot was to use a real humanoid. A biological solution would be a lot simpler than a mechanical one and there is the added bonus of a certain amount of self-repair following injury. Perhaps having ethical and practical qualms about genetically altering their own species, converting others was unquestionably more rewarding.

  This is what Exordicans would do: genetic samples, taken from other beings, stripped to the genome essentials and modified accordingly are combined to form embryos to be gestated in a laboratory using techniques with which they have great expertise. The being to be produced is altered to have a logical form of intelligence but it is also programmed to be subservient and completely respectful of Exordican life. Certain areas of the brain, perhaps for certain types of thought or experiences, are programmed not to develop. What you have from this process, were earth human material used, is, in essence, a being outwardly of our appearance but devoid of a soul. It communicates only when necessary and carries out its tasks to the utmost of its abilities. It does not need recreation, pleasure or any of the many facets of the human being. There's no lust, desire, ambition, greed, good, evil, kindness, or attributes contributing to make it a saint or a sinner. There is no chance of it developing any of these facets because the genes aren't there to programme the brain for them to exist. A perfect being, a perfect member of society some would say, but then, it wouldn't be human.

  This, essentially, is a biological robot. You don't need to worry about complex walking mechanisms, agility skills or coordination; all is there already biologically built in from millions of years of evolution. You don't need to build from scratch, all you need to do is physically alter the brain to make it perform the tasks required. Biological implants may be required too, especially if a shutting down mechanism was required or if a telepathic link was deemed necessary. We could do exactly the same on earth today and shove the other shoddy attempts to make a mechanical robot in the bucket but in so doing, the sense of humanity which we possess and need to make ourselves successful as a species would be bucketed too. Attempts to do this to human beings would be regarded with utmost abhorrence. Exordicans, on the other hand, are not inconvenienced by human ethics and would regard the acquisition of human reproduction cells for biological robot experimentation as the acquisition of a commodity.

  Perhaps this has been happening to earth people for a few hundred years? Can you imagine the life humanoid robots have? Carefully selected from genetic samples taken from earth, these people will have been reared from birth to early adulthood without parents, without friends, in an odious, disgusting asteroid ship. Ostensibly human, they will have little warm feelings, if any at all. From immediately after training until the day they are deemed unfit for further use, they will function as required, operate machinery, make things, and even look after Exordicans themselves. After that, they will be recycled, their body chemicals disseminated and used again.

  Listening to a farmer during the foot and mouth disease during 2001 in Britain, he reflected on the culling of animals within a so-called firebreak zone around infected areas. In a pragmatic manner he said that the deaths didn't really bother him. The animals were nuts and bolts things, only they were alive. In other words, the animals were a commodity much in the same way that genetically adjusted humans would be to their masters on the asteroid ship. They would speak a language unknown to us, they would have no conception of their own identity, history, or home and they would not be able to sense a feeling of belonging to earth. Maybe some actually reached earth, automatons in a ship piloted by Exordicans, to be directly responsible for the abduction of humans.

  We should feel sorry for them. Denied the right of choice, channelled into their Frankenstein—like existence, robbed of the chance to be human, these beings are not responsible for their actions. Instead, the blame lies solely with the Exordicans.

  If biological robots are used by the Exordicans, earth humans will not have been the first to be so adapted. The custom will be millennia old; modified and refined from first attempts to become a precise and commonplace routine, the acquisition of new genes and living beings would take place at every advanced world they encountered. Maybe, of course, the number of such worlds was rather limited, perhaps even occurring once in a hundred thousand years or thereabouts, thus making a visit to earth of prime importance.

  It could be the case that biological robots from an earlier nomadic visit to another star system still worked on the asteroid ship. Even their predecessors from a system further back in time could still be there but in smaller numbers. Although numerous genetic samples will have been taken, after many generations, defects in the available genes will appear and inbreeding will compromise later issues of robots. On earth, a vast new source of living beings would have been a welcome sight indeed.

  Within the asteroid ship, approximately thirty thousand Exordicans live in secluded cloisters, communicating by telepathy, often not departing from their own quarters for perhaps hundreds of years. Although a form of government no doubt exists, it is a loose affair where political formality is unimportant and where the future survival of the race is the only subject to discuss. To call them tedious and boring is an understatement. As a species, because of their long existence, stability and dominance, they could be termed a success but criteria for success should be based on sterner stuff. What matter an existence of one thousand years or one hundred million years in a universe of infinite age? Compared to infinity, everything else is nothing. Surely success should be judged on how a species lives its life and not for how long it lives?

  Subject to the Exordicans and residing with them in the asteroid ship are twenty thousand biological robots. This number has been constant for years; as soon as some die, new robots replace them. Receiving no thanks for their services, they are unceremoniously dumped when they outlive their usefulness. With new genetic material coming from earth, no doubt a clear—out of old stock was a matter of routine. Taken away, uncomplaining of the fate waiting for them, they would, by their own hands, end lives individually devoid of purpose and reason.

  Since the robots have no feelings or desires, sustenance in the form of food is on a purely functional basis. Fed the correct amount of protein, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins and minerals, the Exordicans undoubtedly aren't fussy about food sources. With everything recycled, including unwanted, dead or useless bodies, the diet could be classed as cannibalistic. This, then, is a portrait of life as a biological robot on an asteroid ship. Not very pleasant, is it?

  Other life would also prevail on the ship. Not finding it a pleasant place
and certainly not one to visit from choice, we'd discover walls coated with living slime perhaps the least of the horrors. Many forms of bacteria, and even viruses, live within our own bodies in a type of symbiotic relationship. For example, our intestines are infested by bacteria which aid digestion, helping to mop up the huge quantities of wind and gas we produce from eating. When given an antibiotic to fight off a specific attack by another form of harmful bacteria, it's often the case that benign bacteria are killed too, making side effects common, one being an upset digestive system. Exordicans undoubtedly carried their bacteria with them into space where it too, with a little bit of radioactivity thrown in, will have evolved under weightless conditions. What they evolved into is open to question but it seems more than likely that Exordicans’ immune systems will be able to cope with them. New residents, namely biological robots from other worlds, would not be immune to alien bacteria if they're genetically comparable to Exordicans. Immunity could be programmed into their genome codes but humans from earth may not be so lucky.

  It's likely that myriad forms of mutated bacteria found their way into every recess of the asteroid ship. Undoubtedly they were once subject to cleaning on a regular basis but probably, as time passed, the Exordicans no longer bothered because they weren't harmful. In fact, in combination with the bacteria, the ship may have become a complete biological entity which helped to protect its occupants from alien bacteria. Acting almost like an immune system, maybe walls dripping with green slime were a repellent to other invading bacteria?

  Perhaps the Exordicans are on a genetic dead end and, realising this, they wish to do something about it. Like the picture of the evolutionary tree where branches grow out, culminating in the names of species, maybe there is no more growth in their particular twig? It could be that we are the same. A branch exists with all our dead and living relatives growing out from it. Maybe like the australopithecines and other so called ape-men, we will come to an end. Ours branch still grows meanwhile, but for how long? Will it be our own stupidity which is our undoing, making our end a nuclear holocaust, or will it be something far in the future that we've no inkling of? Nothing lasts forever so the end will eventually come as it will do for the Exordicans. Try as they might to defeat death, it catches up with them eventually and now, in a situation where they have become small in number, specialised in the extreme, they must be worried as to their future viability. Victims of their own success, they are trapped by their own psychology. Only the most forward looking amongst them will have the ability to seek a way out of their dilemma.