Alien Psychology

by Roderick R. MacDonald

  Matters aren't quite so bad if we consider that amateurs can now carry out sophisticated research. To give an example, thirty years ago the best pictures of the solar system, the galaxy and beyond were taken by professionals using large and expensive telescopes. Twenty years ago, amateur telescopes became larger, better guided and more optically correct than ever before. Film emulsion technology was also much improved and a combination of the two enabled amateurs to take quite astounding astronomical pictures. Now, with electronics so cheaply available, amateurs can use charge-coupled devices to record images with stupendous accuracy and detail. Amateur work is now far superior to professional work only thirty years ago. The enthusiasm is there, so is the technology, and, when individuals get together to form a society they can even be in the position to afford time on professional telescopes. Hopefully those in charge of telescope time can develop the ability to relax their attitudes and preconceptions about research not considered appropriate by the scientific community.

  Detecting an asteroid ship with a diameter of only ten miles by optical methods isn't going to be easy. While it will be visible using the world's largest telescopes, it would appear as no more than a dot on a photographic plate or a computer screen. Tracking it over several months could show what type of orbit it possessed but extraterrestrials like the Exordicans are careful not to present anything unusual or unnatural so it will be difficult to tell much about the object from its motion alone. However, spectral analysis may reveal something! There's a chance that, from time to time, gases or materials are vented from the ship. Normal waste gases like carbon dioxide or methane are too valuable for disposal but there may be others considered uneconomical, perhaps of a toxic nature, which will be collected and ejected into space. At its huge distance from the sun, almost three billion miles, the waste gases could form a temporary atmosphere around the asteroid ship. This atmosphere, of a very tenuous nature, many times less dense in fact than the gas in a light bulb, could reveal itself if the image was subjected to spectral analysis. A little piece of evidence to show that something was strange about the object being studied would be results from spectral analysis showing materials not normally found either at this distance in the solar system or on asteroid bodies of any type. Maybe gases like fluorine or neon could show up? This would indicate an anomaly pointing towards artificial structures.

  Being very cold this far from the sun, some of the gases would even solidify on the surface of the asteroid ship. Further to this, the asteroid ship is likely to be rotating to provide artificial gravity for the occupants. If the asteroid's surface is of variable brightness, possibly caused by irregular deposits of frozen atmosphere, magnitude or brightness variations may show up in telescopic observations. While a rotating small object of this nature which also possesses an atmosphere is unusual compared to the other Kupier belt worlds, this is still insufficient evidence to show that it is artificial; however, if the rotation speed could be measured its value likely exceeds other Kuiper objects by a factor of ten to one hundred. Normal asteroids have natural rotation periods of a few hours to a few days but in order to maintain any reasonable form artificial gravity, the ship will have to rotate in at least twenty minutes so giving the outside surface a relative speed of over one hundred miles per hour. This is unnatural. This is real evidence.

  Though a step in the right direction, finding the object equates to the proverbial needle in a haystack and it's very unlikely that valuable professional resources would be put to this use. Amateur telescopes, while increasingly powerful, do not have the capability to track and analyse such faint objects but, who knows, in ten years advancements in electronics and optics may be up to the task. There are many other areas where professional help would be valuable in the meantime.

  Satellites and special telescopes could be used to detect x-ray and gamma ray emissions coming from the antimatter drive. If they arrived a few hundred years ago, then we're obviously too late to pick up anything but we may be able to see them leave. If and when the asteroid ship commenced its long journey to another star system, we would be able to recognise a burst of radiation produced from an artificial antimatter source. Similarly, fusion power will leave residual traces in interplanetary space but detecting these with the devices we have today won't be easy.

  We can also forget about space missions to the Kupier belt. NASA has considered a mission to Pluto for years but it has been a stop / start affair with funding cut, reinstated and then cut again. Speed is essential for this mission because Pluto is now moving further from the sun in its long orbit and scientists want to catch it before the tenuous atmosphere freezes up again for the next two hundred years. Apart from being expensive, a space probe would take twenty years to reach another destination in the Kuiper belt. The extraterrestrials, knowing exactly where it was, could easily avoid it or put it out of action. If the probe is destroyed, all we would experience on earth is a loss of contact, leaving the cause of its demise open to speculation.

  It's probably true that if extraterrestrials are to be detected, the task will be cheaper and easier here on earth rather than billions of miles into space. Being so secretive, this isn't going to be easy. Having powers to avoid optical and radar tracking, there isn't much to go on but there's one ray of hope. However invisible they make their UFO's, they'll still cast a shadow. This is something that is, even with all the technology at their disposal, impossible to avoid. Where will the fleeting shadows appear? Clouds are the best bet. If UFO's get between the sun and a thin cloud, a shadow resembling a dark disk will be observed. The clouds don't have to be ordinary atmospheric types: they could be high altitude noctilucent clouds. Best seen after and before sunset and sunrise respectively, these are dust remains from meteors which appear as faint illuminated clouds on which UFO's could cast shadows. Instead of the sun, the moon and the planet Venus may also act as light sources. However, all we're going to get from this is a collection of observations of dark shadows. What will this prove? It certainly wouldn't be enough proof to show that extraterrestrials are here.

  In the last chapter, the nature of UFO's was discussed. If they fly using a form of an electromagnetic force field, it should be possible to detect them from earth, or even space. Making a detector is easy. A magnet or a coil or both combined, rather like a solenoid, if exposed to the environment of a UFO would produce an electric current by a process called induction. One detector in itself, even if it could be steered or positioned in space, is useless. A large-scale network of detectors is required.

  In this, individual sophisticated and sensitive detectors are spread out in a grid formation over a large piece of land, perhaps an area reputed for its sightings of UFO's. The detectors don't have to be close to each other: maybe a few hundred yards apart would be sufficient. So that anything flying over the area shows up as a trace going across the detectors, they all must be connected to a central computer. The computer part is simple and cheap enough to organise, and so are the detectors, but the connections between them will amount to miles of magnetically shielded and weatherproof cable. This isn't going to be cheap! An alternative idea of using a wireless system employing radio transmitters to the central unit probably wouldn't work because the strong electromagnetic fields from UFO's will make them inoperable.

  The land chosen for siting the detectors must not be of much commercial value: a moor or desert where everything could remain undisturbed for a long time springs to mind as a suitable site. A grid system, set up with one thousand detectors one hundred yards apart from each other, covering over three square miles would make it possible to track any object emitting a magnetic field. It would also be possible to calculate the object's height and speed.

  The above task, while daunting for an individual to construct, could easily be undertaken by a society or organisation with reasonable funds and a big membership. Just think, if a few patches of detectors were positioned over a suspected area, a visiting UFO could be traced by its electromagnetic influence. Combined wi
th the detectors, a series of cameras or night sight devices triggered by any incoming signal may even result in a photograph. Not only would a magnetic trace be produced, a valuable visual image may even be captured!

  While the above electromagnetic detection plan is relatively expensive, it would be nothing for a government or university to plan and execute. The only hurdle such a body need clear is the ridicule factor but, if sonar devices are dragged over the bottom of Loch Ness to look for a fictitious monster, surely something a lot more serious like UFO research deserves increased attention. It's even a task that a newspaper could fund. Imagine the scoop! A picture of a flying saucer on the front page!

  Another method of actively investigating the UFO phenomenon involves the use of web cameras and security cameras. Computers are now very popular and a large percentage of households possess one or more. The web camera, usually a small device connected to the usb port, can be used to send visual images through the Internet but it can also act as a security camera. The computer, which remains switched on, has the camera set up so that it will start recording only when movement takes place in its field of vision. Instead of pointing it to the room to look for thieves, try pointing it to the sky.

  If you don't wish to compromise security, a computer can operate two cameras. Better still, use an old computer—there are many of them about—to be used specifically for the sky camera. Since it will only activate when movement occurs, it should be possible to run it all night without taking up much space on the hard drive and also without taking up much of your time reviewing the recordings. It will also run during the day but may be more active because moving clouds will, depending on the settings, activate the recording.

  Instead of a web camera, an ordinary exterior security camera could be used. Usually designed to show who's coming to the door, it can be modified to point at the sky. This is a cheaper alternative to using a computer but it is just as versatile and works in a similar way. Recordings made on a video recorder connected to the camera will only show scenes where movement has taken place. At the time of writing, such colour cameras can be picked up for 30 in Britain or around the same in dollars in the United States. Video recorders are also much cheaper than they used to be. You can buy a new one for 60 but there's probably many old videos lying about with no work to do.

  People everywhere can therefore, by the use of modem cheap technology, make recordings of the sky. Examining evidence will take minimum time but think, if this was carried out on a widespread basis, perhaps someone somewhere could record an unusual phenomenon and if the recording web was wide enough, an uncorroborated and independent image of the same event would give UFO research a new level of validity. A website devoted to these recordings may be a good idea. Anything that came up could be examined all around the world very quickly, thus allowing others to concentrate efforts in a particular area.

  If properly applied, the ideas as described above could add substantially to investigations of UFO's. This would take matters further than the collection of sightings we have now, a collection which basically hasn't moved us any forward for years. All we have to date are mainly written accounts by eyewitnesses and a few spurious photographs and films. Rather than rely on old methods, we should use the universal cheap technology now at our disposal to take this investigation a quantum leap higher.

  Two other areas of research involve biology and botany. Forensic science is now a highly specialised and accurate subject. Its findings can prove someone innocent or guilty, so distinguishing between freedom, years in prison or even death in some countries or states. There hasn't been any evidence coming out of the alien abduction stories to prove them true. Thinking that a slight difference, at least, in the properties of alien and human DNA must exist, surely this should be detected from the scenes of so called abduction. People claiming to have been taken to spacecraft where experiments were performed on them should immediately seek professional help to establish the validity of their claim but the problem seems to be that they come up with the notion of abduction using hypnotic regression usually weeks or months beyond the event by which time evidence will be lost forever. Should forensic science examinations be rigorously carried out in each case, despite the ridicule that may follow, maybe something unusual could turn up?

  There's also the question of alien bacteria and viruses introduced to earth by extraterrestrials. Bacteria containing a full set of chromosomes are a better bet for study whereas viruses, with only partial genetic structures, are more difficult to label as strictly belonging to earth. One day a researcher may find a new bacterium with an unusual DNA structure, one in fact which isn't found anywhere else on earth. This would be a good candidate to prove the existence of extraterrestrials.

  Finally, alien plants may exist on earth. Taken here by accident from the asteroid ship as tiny spores or seeds, they could have passed by unnoticed on the clothing or implements of extraterrestrials and then subsequently released on earth. Looking around earth, there are indeed many species of plants which appear alien, the Venus fly trap, for example. Just because they look alien and come in a single species not related to any other plant doesn't necessarily prove anything. If they have genetic structures unlike earth plants, then a start could be made to prove their extraterrestrial origin. So far, nothing like this has been found.

  If, after years of detailed research using all methods at our disposal, nothing more is seriously added to prove that UFO's are spacecraft piloted by extraterrestrials, maybe we should give up the idea that they are.

  If there were ever to be a direct conflict between ourselves and the aliens, how would we fare? Physically, they would not be a match for earth people accustomed to strong gravity, as would their biological robot slaves; although the latter might do a bit better than their masters they still developed in low gravity and will suffer the restrictions thereof. Only those especially prepared for the encounter with the solar system could come close.

  Given that the extraterrestrials have lived and evolved in the darkness of interstellar space away from stars, they may have an abhorrence of bright lights, an abhorrence, which could be used against them. A torch that projected ultra violet light would damage their eyes and skin. A laser could be fatal for them. And, if earth forces ever wished to interrogate an alien, all they would have to do is take the unfortunate being to a health club and lock it in the tanning cubicle. The usual interrogation as seen on movies with a darkened room, a desk and the light shining in the suspect's face, though intended to be mentally threatening would be physically painful too. However, as we are ineffective at fighting elephants bare handed, we are more than a match for them with a gun. Similarly the aliens with their devices would be more than a match for us. Physical prowess isn't everything unless backed up by intelligence and firepower!

  With a population little larger than a smallish town, their numbers are small. For every one of them, there's two hundred thousand of us! Numbers are meaningless in such a context. A dozen people with nuclear weapons can defeat a hundred million without. It's the might of the technology that matters and in this department the extraterrestrials are immeasurably superior to ourselves so whatever we do it would be best not to go to war with them.

  At any rate, they don't want a war with us. Illogical and serving no purpose, a war isn't a serious option for aliens with protected, cosseted lives that last for thousands of years. Remember, it's likely that they will have studied us so thoroughly that they will know more about us than we know about ourselves. We will be predictable in psychology and action: little will surprise them. Fighting us would be an unnecessary risk, however small, and also something that was totally inconsequential to them. Should we ever become a serious threat, the simple release of a manufactured virus would neutralise us forever.

  Should we therefore take everything meekly as cattle in a field, being calmly subservient to their demands until they decide to go away? Is it worth fighting back even though we can't win on a global scale? If people are
being abducted and in the process being put through indignities, pain and suffering so that they can further their needs, this amounts to a crime in just about every country on this planet and it should be a crime as far as they are concerned too. Not regarding them with awe, we should resist as much as possible by not making it easy. Should you be abducted, fight all the way, keep your mind together as much as possible and, pushing back fear, strike out at your assailants. They are composed of flesh too—older, weaker flesh—and if you manage to give one of them a straight punch, you'll do damage. If everyone fights back, we will be too much trouble for them and maybe they'll then go away. As feeble as this sounds, perhaps it's the only way left open to us!

  Should an aggressive alien encounter take place in the future, it may not be all that it seems. Many years ago I wrote a short story. Set well into the future, we had a situation where earth was reluctant to fund further incursions into space. A couple of jokers in charge of the space programme meet in a base located on one of Jupiter's satellites where a new interstellar ship lies waiting for takeoff. Unfortunately, the government has cancelled the plan for economic reasons.

  The jokers hatch a plan to fake an alien invasion by sending out three converted cargo ships on a wide trajectory which will re-enter the solar system, boosted to a high speed, to pass by Pluto where an unmanned base is located. When the ships return, the Pluto base is destroyed and an alien invasion is announced. With panic reigning on earth, the public demand that the government do something and piles of money are thrown at the space effort.