Posthuman Blues

Nick Redfern hates aliens. Specifically, he deplores the disturbingly widespread belief that extraterrestrials are here to save us from ourselves in a gesture of galactic philanthropy.

And it would certainly seem he's backed by the evidence -- or, rather, the lack of it. Despite the persistent presence of unusual objects in our skies, we have yet to receive an ultimatum a la "The Day the Earth Stood Still." While UFOs have displayed apparent interest in military and nuclear facilities, a mass landing doesn't appear forthcoming. Whoever "they" might be, they're not the altruists we might wish they were.

Redfern's essay addresses hypothetical interstellar visitors in the context of the so-called "contemporary" UFO era, which began in 1947. On the other hand, a widescreen perspective reveals just how deeply the prospect of nonhuman contact has permeated our culture, perhaps predating history.

If an alien intelligence is accountable for even a small degree of our collective preoccupation with the "other," it's conceivable that we have, in fact, established a dialogue of sorts. Maybe we're being taught a new mythological syntax so that, confronted with the specter of planetary disaster, we'll have the means of rising to the challenge.

I'm not suggesting we'll be saved at the last minute in some alien Rapture. But the UFO phenomenon's symbolic importance shouldn't go unrecognized. Perhaps, as Carl Jung mused, UFOs signal a change in the collective unconscious. The UFO intelligence might be attempting to hasten that change, if only for ultimately selfish reasons. It might be devastatingly lonely and need us to keep from withering away in the long interstellar night. Or the truth could be more immediate: just because we might be someone else's property, an idea espoused by Charles Fort, doesn't mean we're not valuable property.

In almost any scenario, the sort of peaceable contact foreseen by the contactees of the 1950s is extraordinarily unlikely. The evidence indicates that life on Earth will become increasingly severe; we may or may not survive intact. But it's just conceivable that someone or something hopes we make it.