Posthuman Blues

"The Abyss" was on the Sci-Fi Channel tonight. I watched with a true sense of wonder, realizing that while a sufficiently advanced technology may indeed be indistinguishable from magic, absolute stealth could remain a grave concern even for technologically accomplished species. The oceans are the obvious refuge for ETs who'd prefer to inhabit our planet in relative privacy, and it's probably no coincidence that so many UFOs are reported near large bodies of water.





Given the vast resources of space itself, one eventually wonders why aliens are here at all (assuming they are). After all, a robust civilization could remain comfortably hidden drifting among the asteroids, esconced in cometary ice or buried beneath the lunar surface. So despite the obvious anthropocentric objections, I suspect the aliens (for lack of a better term) are insatiably curious about us, possibly driven to distraction by our presence. Perhaps we shouldn't be overly surprised to find that their world, as foreign as it promises to be, virtually revolves around our own.





I've waded through hundreds of books about the alleged alien presence on our planet and come away largely convinced that we're sharing our world with an advanced form of intelligence. While not necessarily extraterrestrial, this intelligence is certainly not human in any normal sense. Yet it interacts with us in a manner that, at times, seems comprehensible -- which isn't what one would expect of dispassionate observers or mere extraterrestrial anthropologists.

That we've seen traces of its existence at all alludes to either its technological fallibility or its concerted desire to be seen. Both possibilities are disturbing from conventional exobiological and ufological perspectives.

The aliens -- whatever they are -- aren't simply visiting. They've quietly taken up residence.