This is NOT a Test of the Emergency Broadcast System

 

How do we tell the world that we’ve found alien life?  

Before I delve into this crazy question, let me hasten to assure you that this is not a question that I, a bonafide card carrying Taobabe, would pose to the general public.  I would pose it differently, and for reasons that will be quite obvious as we further delve into this idea, but let me get back to the question and why I brought it up.

This question was posed in an article that I recently chanced to have read, while perusing my daily barrage of online written material.  It was written by a staff writer from an online magazine called I Fucking Love Science. [1]

In the article, the author cited a paper from astronomers Duncan Forgan and Alexander Scholz from the University of St Andrews in Scotland.  This scientific paper gave a brief outline of the protocols already in place, as well as how and when to implement it using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, or blogs like Taobabe.com, of which I’ve been squatting on ever since 2007, taking up valuable WordPress server space for my inane mutterings and crazy thoughts.

From what I gather, its aim is to outline protocols for online media outlets which would minimize panic and chaos in the general public should anything earth-shattering be revealed. [2]

You have to ask yourself, why would anyone write a science paper on something like that? To the average normal, intelligent person walking down the street, that’s like writing a scientific paper on how to tell the world that the Tooth Fairy is, quite possibly real.  How would one go about disclosing this fact to the masses of unwashed humanity?

Obviously, greater minds than ours have already come to the foregone conclusion that it is ultimately inevitable and necessary to disclose such long-reaching and over-arching possible phenomenon as extraterrestrials.

Up until this very moment, this subject has been relegated to the funnies, the movies, the comic books (sorry…visual novels), and those late night radio shows that talk about Bigfoot and ghostly sightings, alongside aliens and other such conspiracy theories.

Those who had any serious interest in such subjects were often publicly ridiculed and bullied by otherwise normal people, who felt that these subjects were a personal affront to their divine belief system.

This has always been the case throughout history.  It has always been the fringe groups, the secret sects, the ‘free-spirits’, and those marginalized individuals who had no position to protect, no fame to maintain, and no funds to safeguard, who were champions of the most uncomfortable subjects.

This is why this paper from Forgan and Scholz is so interesting to me.  The authors outline protocols for social media outlets faceless, nameless plebeians use to communicate with each other and to share information.  The fly in this ointment is that the majority of those who use social media and non-mainstream sources to get the news are the fringy-secretive-quasi shadow people who already have some idea that extraterrestrials exist.

This is most certainly not where the mainstream populace gets their news.

Upstanding citizens of the civilized world don’t get their information from late night radio shows and non-mainstream media websites.  They get them from the seven o’clock prime time news hour from one of the big broadcasting companies, or if they go online to read the news, it’s from CNN.com or BBC.com.

These solid, dependable, trusted news sources are where civilized and enlightened normal humans go when they need to find out what is going on in the world around them.  These erudite, advanced people will not believe anything they see or hear with their own eyes unless a mainstream news source has confirmed the veracity of the situation.

Indeed, even if an entire battalion of space aliens flew overhead, in plain view, shining a multitude of lights onto the denizens of one of the largest human metropolis, would not make it evidence enough to convince anyone of the reality of the situation.

Heck, even if the US armed forces threw everything they had at the aliens in a show of force which, to be honest, looked to be rather one-sided, would still not be adequate proof.

This actually happened back in 1942, when a large number of extraterrestrials flew over Los Angeles and caused the US armed forces to release “a massive barrage of anti-aircraft fire, with some 1400 shells shot into the skies over Los Angeles.” [3]   The government later said that it was no big deal.  It was just a bunch of weather balloons that they couldn’t shoot down from the sky with 1400 shells of anti-aircraft artillery.

Today, the truth is never what can be seen or heard or felt.  The truth is only what has been ratified as truth by the powers that be, via mainstream media.  Matt said the same thing a few years back.

For this people’s heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them. ~ Matthew

Don’t believe him?  Consider this.

There can be no arguing the fact that the events of 1942 actually happened, and yet, ask anyone on the street today if they believe extraterrestrials are real and the answer would probably be a resounding NO!

It’s obvious that these high quality weather balloons flew over LA and were so well-crafted by good old-fashion American manufacturing, that a barrage of anti-aircraft shells had no effect on them.

Methinks they thought we had devolve into pathetic twats.

I must confess, I feel an overarching tone of condescension and pomposity exuded by those of the garden-variety greater minds.  There is an obvious dummying down of information targeted at (and for) the lowest common denominator of the human herd.

It felt familiar.

That same crappy feeling that I used to get in high school, when the curriculum I was fed seemed to have been aimed at the single, least-motivated student in the class, while the rest of us got increasingly bored out of our skulls, waiting for something more interesting to pop up and get us excited again about subjects that should have been truly fascinating.  I mean, come on.

What’s more exciting than alien beings from the depths of the void?

It’s too late now to think about what could have and should have happened in the forties.  In deed, for the normal person off the street to accept the extraterrestrial phenomenon, it would require someone of the highest caliber to announce the breaking news–someone at the highest level, who could, through the sheer importance of their status, cut through the entrenched, knee-jerk comedic reaction that extraterrestrials seem to always induce.

It would have to be the President of the United States.

He would have to go onto those mainstream media outlets (ABC, CBS, NBC) and tell the erudite, educated, upstanding, god-fearing masses about this ET phenomenon.

Now, I’m not trying to rush him or anything, but the Russians have said very clearly.  Tell the world about the aliens, or we will.  [4]

After he has told us what he needs to tell us, the next thing would be to clear up something that should have been addressed, bringing up the question that I would have asked to begin with.

Instead of that silly ‘How do we tell the world we’ve found alien life?’ question, the question that I would pose to the world would be:

How do you explain to the world that you’ve kept everyone in the dark for almost a century, about the existence of intelligent alien life?

…

[1]  How Do We Tell the World That We’ve Found Alien Life?

[2]  21st Century Pre-Search and Post-Detection SETI Protocols for Social and Digital Media

[3]  The Time a UFO Invaded Los Angeles: UFO Diary Recreates the Great LA Air Raid of 1942

[4]  Russia Orders Obama:  Tell World About Aliens or We Will