Does Intelligent Life Exist in other Worlds?

I once asked a priest this question. As he put it, the universe is a vast place, and he would find it hard to believe that God would create the universe for just humans. So other questions came to mind: what are these people like? What color eyes? What color hair, if any? What about language, verbal and nonverbal? Do they possess telepathy, telekinesis, or any of the other powers with which our movies endow them? Are they gentle friendly beings or are they monsters that prey on weaker species?

I didn’t go into my other questions with this priest, but I searched Google and Yahoo to get others’ thoughts on aliens. I’m not referring to our neighboring planets where the environment isn’t hospitable to life as we know it. I’m considering the yet-to-be-discovered planets outside our solar system. If people live in these worlds and visit our own, their technology must surpass us by centuries to construct spaceships capable of traveling to Earth.

Some folks believe the aliens would treat us the way we do animals – capture, dissect, see what it’s all about, tag it, release it, and study it in its natural habitat. In some cases, we might steamroll over it, destroying the habitat and wiping out the species. At worst, they might eat us, enslave us, torture and attack us. In Steel Rose, Woehar and her evil renegades do just that – inject a chemical that turns their human prisoners into zombies. When she’s not torturing, she hunts humans for nourishment the way we might hunt a deer or pheasant.

However, I’d like to think that bad and good qualities exist in the extraterrestrials just as they do in humans. The bad ones like Woehar might regard us as subservient beings deemed for slavery or an entrée for the dinner table. The decent ones might work shoulder to shoulder with us at a job, use their knowledge to help find cures, and may try to understand what it means to be human. Yeron, a refugee alien, works at Jackson Hospital in a research laboratory, trying to develop cures for cancer and other killer diseases. He works closely with the human doctors in that laboratory and shields Alexis from the evil hospital administrator. Sometimes humans make the worst kind of monsters.

Even in best case scenarios, the aliens’ culture and beliefs will be radically different from ours. Their logical minds would preclude a belief in any god. Before his compound exploded, Yeron grew up doing experimental treatments on human prisoners and releasing them (into their natural habitat). In his mind, he was doing The Right Thing by treating their injuries and ailments. The people getting the treatments didn’t agree, and he had to hypnotize them into forgetting. Alexis and Yeron have a tough go at working together at first because of the cultural differences.

Talk about diversity training. Imagine working with a boss from Planet X or having lunch with a coworker from Planet Y. Most workplaces teach diversity, and alien coworkers would present new challenges for the instructor.

Someone on Yahoo asked what people would do if they saw extraterrestrials roaming the streets. I’d stay in the house and watch between the drapes before taking any action. How do the aliens treat humans? If any blood spilled, I’d lock my doors and windows and hide under my balloon tree. If however, the aliens and humans engaged in pleasant interaction, I might come outside and introduce myself. And if there was one alien, and people were shooting at him, I might invite him in my house and offer him shelter under my balloon tree. Above all, I hate seeing people bullied, human or alien.

Whether we anticipate it or not, we might have to prepare for a meeting with people from other worlds one day. The weather patterns have gotten more erratic with tornadoes, harsher blizzards during the winter, and droughts that result in fires, not to mention earthquakes such as the kind that leveled Haiti. It may not happen in my lifetime, but one day the severity of these patterns will make Earth incompatible with human life unless we build underground or dome-covered cities, or migrate to other planets. Will we find friendly neighbors and embrace diversity? Might their advanced technology afford cures for diseases like cancer? Or will we be fighting for the right to live?

In Barbara Custer's Steel Rose, her characters learn what it means to work with extraterrestrials.

About Barbara Custer

Author of: Twilight Healer Steel Rose Life Raft: Earth City of Brotherly Death Close Liaisons Infinite Sight When Blood Reigns Infinite Sight Publisher / Editor of Night to Dawn Books & Magazine
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6 Comments

  1. Al, thank you for referring me to the article. Looking for mega-artifacts might tell us whether or not their owners are peaceful or hostile. I think though we shouldn’t ignore smaller computers and the like ~ Barbara of the Balloons

  2. I almost wish it would happen in my lifetime too because I have Walter Mitty dreams of seeing all our diseases cured. However, I’m careful as to what I’d wish for because I realize we could meet evil aliens who’d want to destroy humanity ~ Barbara of the Balloons

  3. You’ve got it right about the aliens treating their own brand of cancer, Rod. Yeron had hell to pay to find a treatment to contain Alexis’ arthritis because he only know alien diseases, so he had to develop something to help humans. He also had bullying to deal with – a lot of humans were afraid of him ~ Barbara of the Balloons

  4. Joseph J. Patchen

    The most pivotal moment in human history and I almost wish it would happen in my lifetime. But then again as you point out it could lead to our extinction. God Bless Damon Knight, whose take is legendary.

  5. We just don’t know, and that’s that. Right now some scientists are engaged in a search for alien mega-artifacts: Dyson spheres and the like. “By their works shell ye know them,” so to speak. Good article about it here (registration required, but worthwhile and free): http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829112.100-alien-megaprojects-the-hunt-has-begun.html?full=true

  6. I would say that intelligent life does exist on other worlds. An alien species might have a cure for cancer but it might be their brand of cancer. The cure might work perfectly on one of them but would either be harmful or completely useless on as human. If they did decide to give us a cure for cancer it might take decades to engineer what they had to make it safe and useful for humans.

    Over the years a number of theories about aliens have been tried out in novels, movies and television shows. There is the all out agressive invasion such as in H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. In Wells’ novel the aliens are defeated by earth creatures far older than humans. Earth bacteria and viruses we have developed immunities for over centuries makes the ultimate conquest of earth unworkable. In the original V series on television the aliens seem to come in peace and wish to share some of their technology with us humans. Instead they want to enslave humanity and steal our resources. Young humans are recruited. There’s shades of Hitler Youth here only instead of Hitler you have a supposedly beautiful alien woman. By the way the woman who played the lead alien was once runner up in a beauty contest. (The only reason she lost I believe was the fact that the judges had a thing for blondes.)

    In Star Trek the people of earth had been observed by the Vulcans for a very long time before contact was made. First the earth men had to prove that they’d gotten over their period of nuclear barbarism. Then they had to prove they were on their way to scientific greatness. It was the development of warp technology that proved that at least one earth person was worth talking to.

    Will aliens come to earth to save us from ourselves as you suggest or to destroy us to prevent us from spreading like a plague across the universe? Both possibilities were explored in The Day the Earth Stood Still, both the original and the remake. Both possibilities have been explored in episodes of Doctor Who.

    In space and on other planets will we treat intelligent aliens with rspect or savagery? Both possibilities have also been explored in Star Trek, Doctor Who and also Babalon 5.

    Crime in the future has been explored tongue-un-cheek in the Steel Rat series of novels.

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