Alien Intrusion

by Gary Bates

  Klaatu decides that a demonstration of power is necessary to convince man of the seriousness of his mission. Warning Earth’s leaders first, Gort shuts down all sources of power on the earth, except for airplanes, hospitals, and other essential services. Klaatu warns that if the earth does not disarm, Gort will be left behind as an intergalactic policeman, and at the first sign of trouble, it will destroy the earth. It seems that man, portrayed through the eyes of the more advanced aliens, was not even worthy of being allowed to self-destruct — it needed to be done by a superior race. The destructive machines of Klaatu’s world were designed for good, not war. The imagery reflects the idealism of American culture, which justified building atomic weapons for good — to overcome the evil of communism.

  This movie was quite different for science fiction movies of its time because it portrayed aliens as human-like, although supposedly more advanced in technology. Up until this point, aliens had mainly been portrayed as evil, grotesque-looking creatures with the sole agenda of taking over the earth.

  It is difficult for today’s generation to understand the fear that pervaded this era and the powerful emotions that this movie evoked. Nations were ready to attack or go to war at a moment’s notice, and this state of anxiety was used to brilliant effect, fixing the theme of the movie into peoples’ psyche. As mankind was developing more and more fearsome technologies, the movie warned us that self-annihilation was imminent, and that we were an “aggressive, less evolved species” that needed help from our more evolved and benevolent neighbors in space. This was one of the first science fiction movies to promote spiritual themes, a trend that

  continues today. The movie even showed its lead character, Klaatu (who was actually saving mankind from itself), being resurrected from the dead by his robot Gort, as an allegory of Jesus Christ.

  When Klaatu goes out among the populace, he chooses the name “Carpenter” (Jesus was a carpenter), and remarks to the woman that “the Almighty Spirit” has the power of life and death, not Klaatu’s science. If the Almighty Spirit was the Father, and Klaatu the Son, then Gort is the Holy Spirit. The scriptwriter, North, said of these similarities:

  It was my private little joke. I never discussed this angle with Blaustein [producer] or Wise [director] because I didn’t want it expressed. I hoped the Christ comparison would be subliminal.[3]

  Joke or not, the religious themes have remained part of the UFO psyche.

  In 2008, a remake of this classic movie was released starring Keanu Reeves. Instead of focusing on potential nuclear annihilation, Klaatu warned of potential man made destruction of the environmental. It attempted to cash in on the current political hype of the times. It lack the depth of the original movie and was a really a poor imitation.

  {Return to Chapter 1}

  The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells (1895)

  This classic novel was made into three major feature films — in 1960, 1978, and 2001. The best is probably the 1960s version with the Australian actor Rod Taylor in the lead role. It tells the story of a time traveler who journeys into the future to a.d. 802,701. Here he discovers that man has evolved into two separate species — the Eloi, a weak, small race who live in an Eden-like paradise above the ground, and the bestial ape-like Morlocks, who dwell underground.

  The Morlocks routinely capture and eat the fragile Eloi. This was a parody based on Wells’s Marxist views of class divisions. The Morlocks represented the workers or a subclass who were driven to long working hours — the underground darkness representing bleak factory-like conditions. The Eloi were representative of the upper class, who had become fat and weak by being reliant on (and exploiting) the working class — that is, until the Morlocks “evolved” into the stronger species.

  After returning to his own time, he again ventures further into the future to a period when the earth has stopped rotating. There he encounters crab-like creatures and a winged creature similar to a huge white butterfly that rules the planet. Finally, he travels to the time a.d. 30,000,000 where he finds little life and the earth in its death throes — cooling down. He returns to his normal time, horrified at what he has seen — the same fate that evolutionists today think will eventually befall our planet.[4]

  {Return to Chapter 2}

  2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

  Released in 1968 (after four years in production), this was the most “realistic” science fiction movie of its time. It is a story about evolution — the dawn of man. The story starts four million years ago. There is a strange shiny monolith on Earth, which seems to inspire the apes to pick up tools or even weapons for the very first time. It then zooms forward to the present time when another monolith is found on the moon, emitting signals to Jupiter.

  An expedition travels to Jupiter to solve the mystery. A human-sounding computer, the HAL 9000, controls the spacecraft. In 1968, talking computers were fantastic and futuristic and truly in the realm of science fiction. HAL’s single-minded programming decides that humans are a danger to the mission. It disposes of the crew one by one.

  The last crew member, Dave, alone in space without the tools he had fashioned to get there, faces his final challenge. But he escapes HAL’s plotting and manages to dismantle him. The isolation of space is not lost on the viewer. A terrifying journey ends in a curiously earthly room. Dave sees himself first as an old man and finally dying, at which moment he sees the monolith. Having reached a point that may be interpreted as death, the pinnacle of evolution, or both, Kubrick baffles us with the star-child, a giant human-embryo-cum-planet, suggesting that man has reached his next stage of evolution — some sort of spiritual enlightenment.19 It is these final frames that pose the biggest riddle for viewers. One frequently proposed answer is that the evolutionary “circle of life” has concluded and man has fully evolved — or a final stage of evolutionary development is about to occur, represented by the baby and its very large head proportional to its body (portraying the concept that its brain has evolved further). Since the major theme of the movie is to trace human evolution from its ape-like beginning, it is reasonable to conclude that the last

  frames somehow represent the full evolution of man to a final level of intelligence and/or insight.

  When the spaceship approaches its destination — the planet Jupiter — there are some amazing mystical special effects, seemingly meant to symbolize that man has arrived at something like the “Omega point.” This is the idea of the man who can be called the father of the modern New Age movement, Catholic priest and evolutionist Teilhard de Chardin. To de Chardin, all of reality was evolution; all of nature was propelled by some mysterious evolutionary force toward an ultimate culmination, which he coined the “Omega point” and mystically connected to notions of the “cosmic Christ.” This evolutionary neo-paganism, which owes much to Eastern ideas of Nirvana and the like, is on clear display in this film.[5]

  The soundtrack music was dominated by the theme of Thus Spake Zarathustra. This piece of music is named after one of the writings of the philosopher Nietzsche, who advocated the Darwin-inspired idea of the “superman,” later adopted by Hitler’s National Socialists.

  {Return to Chapter 2}

  The Miller/Urey experiment

  In an attempt to prove that life could arise by chance, in 1953 graduate student Stanley Miller conducted experiments based on Harold Urey’s proposals about the necessary environmental conditions for life on a primordial Earth billions of years ago.

  After concocting a mixture of gases in a flask and injecting an electrical charge, they produced some amino acids, which are building blocks of life. This experiment was regarded as one of the most important breakthroughs supporting the idea that life could have spontaneously arisen, given the right conditions. However, 1970 marked the death-knell for the fleeting hope generated by that experiment. In that year, scientists changed their minds about the conditions of the early earth. Instead of a “reducing,” or hydrogen-rich (low in oxygen) environment, they now believed Earth’s early atmosphere consi
sted of gases released by volcanoes (rich in methane and ammonia). Today there is a near-consensus among geochemists on this point. But if you mix those volcanic gases into the Miller-Urey apparatus, the experiment doesn’t work. It produces the wrong chemicals; in other words, no building blocks of life. A supposedly irrefutable idea had to be modified or even discarded.

  In addition, the major product of the experiment was a noxious mixture of tarry substances (about 85 percent by volume) which are poisonous to life, while the amino acids were only approximately 1.9 percent of the total volume. But even these amino acids were harmful to life. In the real world, the principle of “chirality” requires that all amino acids in proteins be “left-handed,” while all sugars in DNA and RNA must be “right-handed.” Miller’s experiment produced roughly equal amounts of left- and right-handed material, which is detrimental to the production of life.[6]

  Although the Urey-Miller experiment had produced [albeit the wrong] amino acids via inorganic processes, the creation of the first proteins began to seem not a small step, but a great — perhaps impassable — divide.[7] Far from proving that life could arise from non-life, Miller and Urey succeeded in highlighting the opposite. A few amino acids (in the wrong amounts) are a far cry from complex proteins, which require that these building blocks be assembled into precise sequences according to all sorts of detailed “city-building” information. In living things, these sequences are the result of pre-existing information passed down from other cells, not “natural processes” of physics or chemistry. How could the first information-laden sequences arise by chance?

  {Return to Chapter 4}

  Mission to Mars (2000)

  The movie Mission to Mars was a shallow attempt to cash in on the “Mars fever” of the time (probably a result of the “Martian rock” hype some years earlier). Unfortunately, it failed to live up to expectations. A famous director of many successful Hollywood thrillers, Brian De Palma focused on the “face” on Mars in the region of Cydonia. Capitalizing on recent speculation about the possibility of life on Mars, the marketing machine went into overdrive in promoting this movie, with captivating trailers and alluring posters on the mystery of Mars. Despite a busy opening at the box office, the movie’s gross earnings quickly trailed off as the viewing public got wind of its poor script and acting. The movie flopped despite having the best of special effects and brilliant sets, which tried to accurately portray life in space.

  The first manned mission to Mars meets with unexpected disaster, requiring a rescue mission to bring back any survivors and investigate the mystery. The rescue team and one survivor from the original mission encounter an unusual life form at a huge structure on Mars, where our hero-rescuer discovers the secret to the origin of life on Earth. Inside the structure, our hero views the history of the destruction of life on Mars like a video screening. Knowing that their fate was doomed because of an impending asteroid impact, the Martians had dispatched a probe to seed the earth with life — panspermia. However, the movie failed to reveal any more than this. Like all theories of panspermia, it lacked substance and detail. This is one of the first movies to portray panspermia so emphatically. The movie’s ending basically says, “That’s how it was done, the movie’s finished, now go home!” One critic wrote:

  The narrative’s greatest offense, however, is its horrendously simple genesis theory in its horrendously simple plot that needs no more elaboration than the movie’s title. It presents a completely vapid narrative with arguably the worst premise for the origin of humanity ever portrayed on film.[8]

  In trying to end the movie with an answer, it only posed more questions and left the viewer with an unsatisfactory sci-fi experience.

  Mission to Mars is much like space — pretty to look at but empty.[9]

  {Return to Chapter 4}

  A swarm of UFOs — an eyewitness testimony

  It was May 1986 — late autumn in Australia, and in the eastern inland rural areas of this massive island continent, well-known for its heat, dust, and flies, the evenings at this time of year have a definite chill to them. On this particular evening, however, it was a bit warmer than usual due to the cloud cover that blanketed the night sky. So many clouds, in fact, that hardly a star was visible. The moon was not scheduled to appear anyway. Paul and his brother Gary had the run of a friend’s wheat and cattle property this weekend for a bit of rest and relaxation.

  In the still, quiet evening, they were doing what a lot of young Aussie males do who are brought up in “the bush”[10] — shooting. Sometimes it’s for rabbits, but on this evening it was foxes. Neither species is native to Australia, and they have caused immense damage over the years to crops and the native fauna of this unique country.

  The silence was broken only by the imitation fox calls that the men were making in an effort to entice their prey out of their “hidey-holes.” Perched in the back of their “ute” (pick-up truck), they had two rifles and a spotlight at the ready, but alas there were no foxes this evening. To pass the time, Paul’s eyes surveyed the remote landscape. It was cleared, ready for planting, and very little caught the eye on the horizon — except for two lights.

  They must be stars, Paul thought to himself. Hang on, though, there’s clouds about, and these things are moving. He nudged Gary to have a look as well. As they fixed their eyes on these two strange lights, the objects moved more quickly and came closer, changing directions very sharply, as if in response to each other’s actions. Paul said later:

  At this stage we couldn’t perceive how far away they were, but they were definitely underneath the cloud layer, and moving at “impossible” speeds. I could feel my body tense — I wondered what was going on.

  Unable to take their eyes off these lights for several minutes, Paul glanced sideways, and noticed, almost with a sense of horror, that there were other lights — about 18 or more of them. They were closer, the lights were much bigger, and again, they were moving in all directions. Paul describes what he saw:

  They were moving faster than anything that I’ve ever seen or imagined, and turning — doing “u-turns” without even slowing down. It should be impossible for anything to do that — but they were! We were now terrified. We made a decision to get out of there, but when we got into the front seats of the ute to drive away, we realized we needed to turn the headlights on because it was pitch black. We were scared because we didn’t want “them” to notice us. But we had to do it, as we didn’t want to stay there any longer. It took us about five minutes to get back to the hut where we locked ourselves inside. After a few minutes, we decided to peer outside again. Instead of looking across the fields, we now had to look directly upward to see them. They were even closer. There was a break in the clouds and two of the lights sped through the gap as if they were racing each other. It gave the impression that something intelligent was guiding these things. Then, as we were watching, one of them dropped — no, sped — directly toward the ground, and as it got closer it did a u-turn and then went straight back upwards. It didn’t even slow down to change direction, and as it shot upward, there was a blue tinge and a triangle shape coming from underneath it. It was giving off no sound, not even the sound of rushing wind.

  Paul and his brother scanned the newspapers and television channels to see if there were any other reports of these sightings. They thought about visiting an observatory that was located nearby, thinking, Surely they must have seen something.

  Over the years, Paul has shared their experiences with only a handful of trusted friends and family. The doubts nagged at him for many years. He kept silent, fearing that people would doubt his sanity — until now. Many sightings must have gone similarly unreported due to such fears.

  Paul decided to relate this story to me, that it may help others. Since his experience, he has become a “born-again” Christian. Today, he reasons that no technology, man-made or otherwise, could be responsible for the types of maneuvers he witnessed, and he has reconciled the events within his belief system. However,


  when I asked him what he thought they were at the time of the sightings, he frankly admitted:

  Oh, there was no doubt in our minds. We thought they were UFOs — spacecraft piloted by aliens. Looking back, I can see that I was influenced by all the UFO stuff we saw and read — like the “Roswell Incident” for example. There was nothing else that I knew of at the time that could explain them.

  Interestingly, Paul’s father and grandfather had also seen UFOs. The family (generational) “link” and the “triangle” shape are both common in UFOlogy.

  {Return to Chapter 5}

  Where there’s smoke there’s no fire… .

  Lonnie Zamora

  One event that apparently left physical traces occurred in Socorro, New Mexico, on April 24, 1964. Lonnie Zamora, an experienced and respected police officer, reportedly came across a “landed” UFO after being distracted from the pursuit of a felon. He discovered, at a distance, a saucer-shaped craft standing on tripod-like legs, and two small figures about 4 feet tall dressed in white coveralls. As he moved closer to get a better look, he noticed that they had returned to their craft and it took off, hovering above the ground before it sped away. Zamora contacted his base and requested assistance, and a skeptical Sergeant Chavez was dispatched to investigate. Zamora showed him the site, where they found large imprints in the ground, supposedly from the legs of the craft. Smoke was coming from a bush that appeared to be burnt, yet it was not on fire, and apparently cold to touch. There were other areas that showed signs of being burnt, including clumps of grass. Charred particles and soil samples were taken for examination, yet they showed no traces of any chemical or foreign residue. No radioactivity emanated from the area, either. Although Zamora was the only person to “sight” the craft, nine separate people viewed the landing traces and burn marks when they were still “fresh.” Apparently there was also a concurrent sighting that was described as a “funny-looking helicopter” and ignored at the time.