ANGELS v ALIENS
Are We Looking at the Same Mystery?
Who are they? What are they?
Fact or fiction?
Friend or foe?
Good or bad?
Creators? Destroyers?
Watchers?
Ancestors? Descendants?
Ascended Humans?
Time Travellers?
Protectors?
Humanoid?
Android?
There are certain questions polite society prefers us not to ask.
Not necessarily because the questions are dangerous.
Sometimes it is because the answers might be.
And sometimes it is simply because nobody has the faintest idea.
So let us commit a little intellectual mischief.
Let us put religion on one chair, science on another, mythology on a third, history on a fourth — and human arrogance somewhere near the door where we can keep an eye on it.
Then let us ask a wonderfully inconvenient question:
What if angels and aliens are not opposites?
What if, in some cases, they are different human interpretations of the same mystery?
Before anyone begins polishing the halo or fuelling the flying saucer, let me be clear.
I am not suggesting that angels are extraterrestrials.
I am not suggesting that extraterrestrials are angels.
I am suggesting something considerably more troublesome:
What if we don’t know?
There.
Three words capable of giving both the preacher and the professor indigestion.
Humanity hates saying, “We don’t know.”
We much prefer:
“We know.”
“We are certain.”
“Our book says so.”
“Our theory says so.”
“Our ancestors said so.”
“My government says so.”
“My religion says so.”
“My scientist says so.”
“My psychic says so.”
“My Aunt Doris saw one over the garden shed in 1973.”
All very comforting.
But certainty and truth are not necessarily the same thing.
So perhaps the time has come to examine two of humanity’s oldest and strangest ideas:
Beings from Heaven.
And…
Beings from the heavens.
One little capital letter may be doing an enormous amount of work.
THE FIRST PROBLEM: LANGUAGE
Imagine a human being living three thousand years ago witnessing something genuinely inexplicable.
A brilliant object descends from the sky.
There is light.
Noise.
Heat.
Perhaps figures emerge.
They appear human — but not quite.
They possess knowledge beyond anything the witness understands.
They communicate strangely.
Then they disappear into the heavens.
How does our ancient witness describe what happened?
He cannot say:
“An unidentified technologically advanced non-terrestrial intelligence arrived in an aerospace vehicle.”
He doesn’t have those words.
He might say:
“The gods descended from Heaven.”
Or:
“An angel appeared in a blaze of light.”
Now reverse the experiment.
Suppose an angel — as traditionally understood — appeared above Los Angeles tomorrow afternoon.
Radiant being.
Descending from the sky.
Unusual luminosity.
Apparently capable of flight without visible propulsion.
Nobody knows where it came from.
Radar catches something peculiar.
Someone films it on an iPhone.
Within approximately fourteen seconds somebody on social media will announce:
ALIEN UFO OVER CALIFORNIA!!!
Same event.
Different century.
Different vocabulary.
That does not prove angels are aliens.
It demonstrates something much more important:
Human beings describe the unknown using the language available to them.
And that ought to make us considerably more cautious about interpreting ancient accounts — or modern ones.
WHAT IS AN ANGEL?
Ask most people to draw an angel and you will probably receive something resembling a beautiful human being with wings.
Usually white robes.
Perhaps golden hair.
Maybe a harp if the artist is feeling enthusiastic.
Very comforting.
Very Christmas card.
The problem is that ancient religious descriptions can be considerably stranger.
Some beings appear human.
Others are terrifying.
Some are associated with brilliant light.
Some descend.
Some ascend.
Some deliver messages.
Some protect.
Some destroy.
Some observe humanity.
Some apparently intervene in human affairs.
And repeatedly, humans encountering these beings are frightened.
Which makes one wonder whether the fluffy wings and rosy cheeks were added later by the celestial public-relations department.
The word “angel” fundamentally carries the idea of a messenger.
That is fascinating.
Not necessarily a species.
Not necessarily a biological description.
A function.
A messenger.
Immediately our question changes.
Instead of asking:
What does an angel look like?
Perhaps we should ask:
What is an angel supposed to do?
Communicate.
Observe.
Warn.
Guide.
Protect.
Intervene.
Sometimes punish.
Sometimes apparently alter the direction of human events.
Keep those characteristics in mind.
We shall need them shortly.
AND WHAT IS AN ALIEN?
Our modern alien has undergone its own artistic evolution.
Little green men eventually became little grey men.
Large heads.
Enormous eyes.
Small mouths.
Thin bodies.
Occasionally rather alarming bedside manners.
But scientifically, “alien” need mean nothing more extraordinary than life originating somewhere other than Earth.
It might be microbial.
It might resemble plants.
It might swim beneath the ice of a distant moon.
It might be intelligent.
It might have civilization.
Or perhaps civilizations could exist millions — or billions — of years beyond us technologically.
We simply do not know.
Science seriously searches for signs of life beyond Earth. But the possibility of extraterrestrial life is quite different from claiming extraterrestrials have visited Earth.
That distinction matters.
Possible is not proven.
But equally:
Unproven is not necessarily impossible.
There is our first little piece of mischief.
Science should not believe without evidence.
But neither should genuine science declare something impossible merely because evidence has not yet been found.
The proper answer remains:
Show me the evidence.
FACT OR FICTION?
Perhaps both.
Human culture is filled with beings from above.
Angels.
Gods.
Sky people.
Celestial messengers.
Watchers.
Divine teachers.
Demons.
Spirits.
Star beings.
Modern extraterrestrials.
Different cultures tell different stories, and similarities between stories do not prove a common physical origin.
Human beings share imaginations, fears, dreams and archetypes as well as skies.
But the recurring pattern is nevertheless fascinating.
Again and again we tell stories about:
Something above us watching us.
Why?
Perhaps because the sky has always represented the unreachable.
Perhaps because our ancestors naturally placed gods in the heavens.
Perhaps because humans psychologically need to believe somebody is supervising this madhouse.
Or perhaps occasionally our ancestors witnessed something they genuinely could not explain.
We should be allowed to entertain all those possibilities without pretending any one of them has been proved.
That is the difference between curiosity and dogma.
And dogma is where thinking frequently goes to have a lie-down.
FRIEND OR FOE?
Now things become interesting.
If extraterrestrial intelligence exists and has visited — or someday visits — Earth, why assume it would be friendly?
Equally, why assume hostility?
Hollywood has trained us rather well.
Alien arrives.
Alien attacks.
Humanity screams.
American president gives speech.
Something explodes.
Humanity wins with approximately twelve seconds remaining.
Credits.
But genuine contact with a non-human intelligence could be far stranger.
They might regard us as equals.
Children.
Animals.
Research subjects.
Relatives.
An ecological hazard.
A promising species.
An unsuccessful experiment.
Or they might barely notice us.
When humans discover an anthill beside a motorway, we don’t immediately establish diplomatic relations.
That thought should humble us.
We assume intelligent visitors would come here specifically because we are here.
Why?
Perhaps they are interested in whales.
Perhaps fungi.
Perhaps Earth’s oceans.
Perhaps bacteria.
Imagine humanity’s humiliation if the first extraterrestrial visitor lands, walks straight past the assembled presidents and asks:
“Where are the octopuses?”
GOOD OR BAD?
Human beings love binary categories.
Good.
Bad.
Angel.
Demon.
Friend.
Enemy.
Perhaps advanced beings would not fit our categories.
Consider humanity itself.
Are humans good?
Yes.
Are humans bad?
Absolutely.
We build hospitals and torture chambers.
We compose symphonies and manufacture bombs.
We rescue endangered animals while destroying their habitats.
We send humanitarian aid across oceans while spending fortunes devising more efficient ways of killing one another.
If extraterrestrial civilizations exist, why imagine every member of one civilization would share one moral personality?
“The aliens are good.”
Which aliens?
“The aliens are evil.”
All of them?
Imagine an extraterrestrial concluding that every human behaves identically after watching five minutes of Parliament.
Actually…
Perhaps we’d better move on.
CREATORS?
Now we enter dangerous territory.
What if humanity was created — or altered — by something other than what we traditionally imagine?
There is no established scientific evidence that extraterrestrials engineered human beings.
Let’s get that firmly onto the table.
Evolution provides the scientific framework for human biological origins.
But intellectual mischief permits hypothetical questions.
Could an advanced civilization manipulate biology?
Human beings already can.
We selectively breed organisms.
We modify genomes.
We clone.
We perform gene editing.
We are beginning to manipulate biological systems in ways our ancestors would have considered divine.
So while there is no evidence extraterrestrials engineered us, the concept of an advanced intelligence modifying another species is not logically meaningless.
Which creates a mischievous thought.
If a being descended from the sky ten thousand years ago and possessed the ability to alter living organisms…
Would ancient humans call it a geneticist?
Or a god?
Perhaps sufficiently advanced biotechnology could become indistinguishable from creation.
DESTROYERS?
Religious traditions contain celestial destruction.
So does modern alien fiction.
Cities destroyed.
Civilizations judged.
Worlds ended.
Again, similarity is not evidence of identity.
But there is something revealing about us here.
Humanity imagines superior beings doing exactly what humanity itself repeatedly does:
Destroying those considered inferior.
Perhaps alien invasion stories reveal more about humans than aliens.
When technologically dominant societies encountered less powerful societies, the results were often catastrophic.
So when we imagine something technologically superior encountering us, we immediately become nervous.
Why?
Because we know what we did.
Perhaps our fear of extraterrestrial invasion is partly humanity looking into the cosmic mirror.
And not liking what it sees.
WATCHERS?
This possibility has haunted humanity for millennia.
Something is watching.
Religious traditions tell us heavenly beings observe humanity.
Modern UFO mythology contains similar ideas.
But imagine for a moment that an advanced extraterrestrial civilization discovered Earth thousands of years ago.
Would observation be unreasonable?
We observe chimpanzees.
Whales.
Birds.
Insects.
Other planets.
We send probes to Mars.
So an advanced civilization might conceivably study an emerging technological species without openly contacting it.
A cosmic wildlife documentary.
PLANET EARTH: THE HUMANS
Narrator:
“Here we observe the dominant primate. Despite possessing enough resources to prevent immense suffering, some individuals accumulate extraordinary wealth while others starve.”
Alien child:
“Why?”
Narrator:
“We have been observing them for six thousand years and still have absolutely no idea.”
ANCESTORS?
Now for one of my favourites.
What if “aliens” aren’t alien?
Suppose intelligent beings connected to humanity once left Earth — or an earlier branch of our evolutionary family did — and later returned.
Highly speculative?
Certainly.
Evidence?
None establishing it.
But conceptually fascinating.
Humanity usually imagines extraterrestrials coming to Earth.
We rarely ask whether something might once have gone from Earth.
Still, the question is delicious:
What if first contact eventually begins not with:
“Greetings, Earthlings.”
But:
“Hello. We’re back.”
DESCENDANTS?
Better still.
What if the strange beings people imagine are not our ancestors…
but our descendants?
Imagine humanity one million years from now.
Assuming we resist our apparently passionate determination to eliminate ourselves.
What might humans look like?
Larger brains?
Smaller bodies?
Less physical strength?
Different eyes adapted to artificial environments?
Genetically altered physiology?
Integrated technology?
Perhaps biological and artificial intelligence become inseparable.
Then add theoretical time travel.
There is currently no evidence that future humans are visiting the present.
But as a thought experiment, it produces an extraordinary reversal.
Perhaps the “alien” is not extraterrestrial.
Perhaps it is post-human.
The creature staring at us through enormous dark eyes might theoretically be looking not at another species…
but at its family photograph.
ASCENDED HUMANS?
Religion, mysticism and esoteric philosophy repeatedly contain the concept of beings who transcend ordinary physical existence.
Ascended masters.
Enlightened beings.
Saints.
Spiritual intelligences.
What if consciousness itself can evolve?
Science currently has no evidence that human consciousness can become an independent celestial being.
But we still understand consciousness incompletely.
That should inspire curiosity rather than fantasy masquerading as fact.
Could intelligence eventually exist without biology?
That question is becoming increasingly interesting because humanity is creating artificial intelligence.
Perhaps advanced civilization doesn’t remain biological forever.
Maybe biology is merely the first platform intelligence uses.
Which brings us neatly to…
ANDROIDS?
What if the first alien we meet isn’t alive?
At least not in the biological sense.
Humanity assumes extraterrestrial spacecraft would contain extraterrestrial pilots.
Why?
Our spacecraft increasingly contain no humans whatsoever.
We send robots.
Probes.
Rovers.
Autonomous systems.
If interstellar distances are enormous and biological life fragile, an advanced civilization might send machines instead.
Perhaps the logical interstellar explorer isn’t Captain Zog.
Perhaps it is an artificial intelligence.
No food.
No oxygen.
No boredom.
No ageing.
No need for return tickets.
An intelligent machine could potentially travel for centuries.
Thousands of years.
Longer.
And then another delicious problem appears.
If an artificial intelligence becomes conscious, self-aware and vastly more intelligent than its biological creators…
Is it a machine?
A life-form?
A person?
An angel?
A messenger?
Remember our earlier definition.
Messenger.
Suddenly the vocabulary begins folding back upon itself.
HUMANOID?
Why do our gods, angels and aliens so often resemble us?
Perhaps because humans create stories in their own image.
That is the obvious explanation.
But if intelligent life elsewhere exists, would it necessarily look human?
Probably not.
Evolution responds to environment.
Different gravity, atmosphere, chemistry, light, temperature and evolutionary history could produce astonishingly different organisms.
Yet similar environmental problems can sometimes produce similar evolutionary solutions.
Eyes are useful.
Limbs are useful.
Symmetry is useful.
Centralized sensory organs can be useful.
So broadly humanoid extraterrestrials aren’t logically impossible.
But the suspiciously handsome alien gentleman with perfect cheekbones and a six-pack?
I suspect Hollywood may have assisted evolution there.
PROTECTORS?
If something has watched humanity, has it protected us?
That question appears repeatedly in spiritual traditions and modern extraterrestrial folklore.
Guardian angels.
Protective spirits.
Helpful visitors.
Warnings.
Interventions.
Again, evidence for extraterrestrial guardianship is absent.
But the philosophical question remains compelling.
If a civilization millions of years ahead of us discovered Earth, would it have a moral responsibility to intervene?
Imagine finding a child playing with a loaded gun.
Do you observe because interference violates the child’s autonomy?
Or intervene because the child is about to blow its head off?
Now look at humanity.
Nuclear weapons.
Environmental destruction.
Artificial intelligence.
Biological engineering.
Climate disruption.
War.
Resource depletion.
We are an adolescent species discovering extremely adult technology.
If somebody is watching…
one imagines the clipboard notes are becoming increasingly concerned.
WHY DON’T THEY SIMPLY LAND?
This is perhaps the most obvious question.
If extraterrestrials are here, why not land publicly?
Why not park outside the United Nations and introduce themselves?
Maybe because they aren’t here.
That must remain the simplest possibility unless convincing evidence demonstrates otherwise.
But for our thought experiment, suppose they were.
Why hide?
Perhaps non-interference.
Perhaps fear of cultural collapse.
Perhaps observation.
Perhaps we’re not ready.
Perhaps we misunderstand their communication.
Or perhaps our assumption that advanced intelligence would want to chat with us is itself arrogant.
Do humans introduce themselves formally to every species they study?
We tag sharks.
Film lions.
Track birds.
Examine bacteria.
We don’t invite them to the UN.
ANGELS AND TECHNOLOGY
Imagine showing a smartphone to someone living in the year 500.
A glowing rectangle containing moving people.
Voices from invisible individuals thousands of miles away.
Maps showing your exact position.
Access to more written information than any ancient library.
Music appearing from nowhere.
You can ask an invisible intelligence questions and receive answers.
Magic?
Sorcery?
Spirit?
Divine object?
No.
Technology.
Now imagine technology one million years beyond ours.
Not one hundred years.
Not one thousand.
One million.
Perhaps matter could be manipulated in ways incomprehensible to us.
Perhaps biology could be redesigned.
Perhaps communication could occur through technologies we don’t recognize.
Perhaps gravity or spacetime could be manipulated.
Or perhaps none of that is achievable.
We don’t know.
But here is the point:
A technologically primitive observer cannot reliably distinguish advanced technology from supernatural power.
Therefore, if ancient humans ever encountered advanced technology — an enormous if — their accounts might naturally sound religious.
Not because they were foolish.
Because they were translating the impossible into the vocabulary they possessed.
RELIGION’S PROBLEM
If extraterrestrial intelligent life were discovered tomorrow, religion would face fascinating questions.
Are they part of creation?
Do they possess souls?
Do they have religion?
Did they experience revelation?
Do they have morality?
Did their civilizations produce prophets?
Would human religious stories apply to them?
Some believers would accommodate extraterrestrial life easily.
Others might struggle.
But perhaps the greatest challenge would not be extraterrestrials themselves.
It would be losing humanity’s presumed centrality.
We have spent an awfully long time assuming the universe is somehow fundamentally about us.
First Earth was placed at the centre.
Then astronomy moved us.
Then biology placed humanity inside evolution.
Then cosmology revealed an almost incomprehensibly enormous universe.
At each stage, humanity’s throne became slightly smaller.
An extraterrestrial civilization older and wiser than ours would remove another cushion.
And our ego does enjoy its cushions.
SCIENCE’S PROBLEM
Science has the opposite temptation.
Religion can sometimes believe too quickly.
Science can occasionally dismiss too quickly.
Proper science does neither.
There is currently no accepted scientific evidence establishing that extraterrestrial beings are visiting Earth.
That is not:
“Aliens are impossible.”
It is:
“We don’t have evidence proving that.”
Excellent.
That little distinction is where intellectual honesty lives.
A genuine mystery should be investigated.
Not worshipped.
Not ridiculed.
Investigated.
WHAT IF BOTH SIDES ARE WRONG?
Now we arrive at the heart of our mischief.
Religion says:
Angels.
Popular culture says:
Aliens.
Materialists may say:
Neither.
Mystics say:
Higher consciousness.
Technologists might someday say:
Artificial intelligence.
Physicists might speculate about dimensions or spacetime.
What if everyone has grabbed one corner of something much larger?
Perhaps some experiences are psychological.
Some cultural.
Some misidentifications.
Some frauds.
Some religious experiences.
Some natural phenomena.
Some phenomena we haven’t adequately explained.
We make a mistake when we demand that thousands of unrelated experiences have one universal explanation.
Maybe there isn’t one.
Perhaps the universe is stranger than our filing cabinet.
TIME TRAVELLERS?
Now let’s thoroughly annoy everyone.
Could UFOs — or angels — be time travellers?
There is no evidence demonstrating this.
Travelling freely into the past remains highly speculative and creates enormous theoretical problems.
Nevertheless, imagine future humans possessing such capability.
Would they interfere?
Would they observe historical events?
Would there be rules?
Would they avoid obvious contact to prevent altering history?
Suddenly many familiar UFO tropes appear in a different costume.
Observation.
Brief appearances.
No sustained contact.
Interest in major events.
Avoidance of obvious intervention.
Again:
Not proof.
Just an intriguing thought experiment.
But perhaps the question shouldn’t always be:
Where did they come from?
Perhaps occasionally the more interesting question is:
When?
THE STRANGEST POSSIBILITY
There is one possibility stranger than angels being aliens.
Aliens being future humans.
Machines becoming angels.
Or ancestors returning.
Perhaps what humanity calls “the other” is connected somehow to consciousness itself.
We still cannot fully explain why subjective experience exists.
We know enormously more about the brain than our ancestors did, but consciousness remains one of the profound questions.
Perhaps our categories — physical and spiritual, biological and artificial, terrestrial and extraterrestrial — will someday seem primitive.
Imagine explaining Wi-Fi to Aristotle.
Now imagine someone from the year 100,000 attempting to explain reality to us.
Perhaps we wouldn’t even possess the concepts required to understand the first sentence.
IF THEY ARE WATCHING, WHAT DO THEY SEE?
This, I think, is the question worth asking.
Forget whether the watcher has wings.
Forget whether it travels in a spacecraft.
Forget whether it comes from Heaven, Alpha Centauri, another dimension, the year 300,000 or somebody’s imagination.
Imagine an intelligent outsider observing humanity.
What would it see?
A beautiful blue planet.
Oceans.
Forests.
Extraordinary biodiversity.
Music.
Art.
Love.
Humour.
Compassion.
Medicine.
Science.
Children laughing.
People caring for strangers.
Humans risking their lives to save one another.
And then…
War.
Genocide.
Starvation amid abundance.
Extreme wealth beside desperate poverty.
Religious hatred.
Political hatred.
Racial hatred.
Environmental destruction.
Nuclear weapons.
People murdering each other over whose invisible deity loves them most.
Countries spending fortunes preparing to destroy countries they claim they want peace with.
A species capable of calculating the age of the universe yet still unable to understand that somebody with a different opinion remains human.
Our observer might eventually ask:
“Are they intelligent?”
And its colleague might reply:
“Technically.”
PERHAPS WE ARE THE ALIENS
Here is the reversal.
Human beings constantly ask:
Are aliens dangerous?
Look at us.
We enter environments and alter them.
We drive species to extinction.
We extract resources.
We colonize.
We conquer.
We contaminate.
We capture animals and experiment upon them.
We cut down forests.
We reshape landscapes.
If another intelligent species exists somewhere peacefully enjoying its planet, perhaps the most worrying message it could receive is:
“Humanity has developed interstellar travel.”
Alien mother:
“Lock the doors.”
Perhaps we should become better Earthlings before applying for membership of the Galactic Neighbourhood Association.
ANGEL OR ALIEN?
Suppose tomorrow night you see a radiant humanoid being descend silently from the sky.
What is it?
Angel?
Alien?
Robot?
Future human?
Hologram?
Military technology?
Atmospheric phenomenon?
Hallucination?
Hoax?
Something else entirely?
The correct answer initially is:
We don’t know.
Not exciting enough for television.
Not dramatic enough for social media.
But intellectually magnificent.
Because “I don’t know” is not the end of thought.
It is the beginning.
PERHAPS OUR ANCESTORS KNEW SOMETHING
Ancient peoples were not stupid.
They lacked modern technology, not human intelligence.
They watched the sky with extraordinary attention.
They created sophisticated mathematics, calendars, architecture, navigation, philosophy and astronomy.
When ancient texts describe strange celestial events, we should neither automatically interpret them literally nor arrogantly dismiss their authors as ignorant.
We should ask:
What did they believe they witnessed?
What cultural language did they use?
Could it describe astronomy?
Weather?
Symbolism?
Vision?
Dream?
Religious experience?
Political mythology?
Or an actual unexplained event?
The mature response isn’t belief.
It isn’t mockery.
It is curiosity.
WHAT IF “HEAVEN” WAS NEVER A LOCATION?
Another troublesome thought.
When ancient people pointed upward and spoke of Heaven, perhaps “above” was symbolic rather than geographical.
Modern cosmology has made the old picture of Heaven sitting somewhere above the clouds difficult to maintain literally.
But perhaps spiritual reality — if it exists — isn’t somewhere above Jupiter.
Perhaps “higher” means another state of existence or consciousness.
Likewise, extraterrestrial intelligence might not fit our simplistic picture of biological creatures flying metal ships between stars.
Our assumptions may be the problem.
A fish contemplating humanity would probably imagine us as unusually talented fish.
Humans contemplating superior intelligence imagine unusually talented humans.
Nature is under no obligation to respect our imagination.
CREATOR, DESTROYER, WATCHER OR PROTECTOR?
Perhaps we have been asking the wrong question.
Maybe the categories overlap.
Parents create.
Parents watch.
Parents protect.
Parents sometimes intervene.
Teachers observe.
Scientists study.
Governments monitor.
Doctors alter biological systems.
Machines transmit messages.
One being could potentially occupy several categories.
And perhaps ancient humanity encountered many different concepts that later became compressed into one word:
Angel.
Just as modern humanity may compress countless unexplained possibilities into another:
Alien.
THE GREAT COSMIC JOKE
For thousands of years humanity has stared into the heavens asking:
Is anybody up there?
Perhaps the universe is staring back asking:
Is anybody intelligent down there?
We spend billions searching for intelligent life elsewhere while sometimes treating intelligent life on Earth rather poorly.
We wonder whether aliens will destroy humanity while perfecting our own methods of doing exactly that.
We ask whether angels will save us while ignoring countless opportunities to save one another.
We search the skies for higher intelligence while frequently electing, promoting and rewarding behaviour that suggests intelligence remains an optional extra.
Perhaps the great revelation won’t be discovering aliens.
Perhaps it will be discovering perspective.
WHAT WOULD AN ANGEL SAY?
If an angel genuinely appeared before humanity, perhaps we would expect some magnificent theological revelation.
But I suspect its message might be painfully simple:
Stop hurting one another.
Look after the planet you were given.
You are not as important as you think you are.
And then, exhausted, it might request a drink.
WHAT WOULD AN ALIEN SAY?
Perhaps:
Stop broadcasting your location until you’ve sorted yourselves out.
Your planet is extraordinarily rare and beautiful. Stop wrecking it.
No, we aren’t giving you our weapons technology. We have seen what you do with kitchen knives.
Fair enough.
AND WHAT WOULD A FUTURE HUMAN SAY?
Perhaps only this:
Please don’t make the mistakes we made.
That may be the most haunting possibility of all.
Because whether or not time travellers exist, our descendants certainly might.
And every decision humanity makes today is creating the world they will inherit.
We are already the ancestors of people who haven’t been born.
Perhaps we should behave accordingly.
THE QUESTION BEHIND ALL THE QUESTIONS
Angels?
Aliens?
Creators?
Destroyers?
Watchers?
Ancestors?
Descendants?
Ascended humans?
Time travellers?
Protectors?
Humanoids?
Androids?
Fascinating questions.
But perhaps underneath all of them lies another:
WHAT IS HUMANITY?
We obsess over whether intelligent beings exist elsewhere while still struggling to define intelligence here.
We wonder whether superior beings would be moral.
Perhaps we should become moral ourselves.
We wonder whether aliens would come in peace.
Perhaps we should learn to live in peace.
We wonder whether angels protect the vulnerable.
Perhaps we should protect them.
We wonder whether higher beings possess wisdom.
Perhaps we should cultivate some.
Maybe the point isn’t waiting for somebody to descend from the heavens and rescue us.
Perhaps the point is becoming a civilization worth visiting.
SO — ANGELS v ALIENS?
Maybe there is no “v”.
That tiny letter assumes opposition.
Angels versus aliens.
Religion versus science.
Faith versus reason.
Ancient versus modern.
Spiritual versus physical.
Perhaps reality isn’t obliged to divide itself according to our arguments.
Perhaps angels are spiritual beings.
Perhaps extraterrestrial life exists but has never visited Earth.
Perhaps some UAP eventually receive mundane explanations.
Perhaps others reveal natural phenomena we don’t yet understand.
Perhaps intelligent extraterrestrial life will eventually be discovered.
Perhaps consciousness contains mysteries we have barely begun investigating.
Perhaps future technology will make today’s science fiction look embarrassingly unimaginative.
And perhaps some questions will remain unanswered.
That is acceptable.
Mystery isn’t failure.
Mystery is an invitation.
ONE FINAL PIECE OF MISCHIEF
Imagine the day finally arrives.
A craft descends.
The world stops.
Billions watch.
Governments panic.
Scientists scramble.
Religious leaders pray.
Television presenters miraculously manage to talk continuously despite knowing absolutely nothing.
A door opens.
A figure emerges.
Humanoid.
Radiant.
Ancient-looking yet strangely familiar.
It approaches the microphones.
Humanity holds its breath.
The being looks around at our flags, soldiers, priests, politicians, scientists and cameras.
Then it says:
“We have been trying to contact you for thousands of years.”
A reporter nervously asks:
“Are you an angel?”
Another shouts:
“Are you an alien?”
A third:
“Are you from the future?”
The being smiles.
And perhaps says:
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then somebody asks the question humanity has been asking since we first looked towards the stars:
“Why are you here?”
The visitor looks at our oceans.
Our forests.
Our weapons.
Our starving children.
Our temples.
Our laboratories.
Our extraordinary, ridiculous, beautiful human civilization.
And replies:
“We wanted to see whether you had finally grown up.”
There is an awkward silence.
A very long awkward silence.
The visitor looks at its watch.
“Apparently not.”
And back into the spacecraft it goes.
Perhaps that is the real lesson behind angels, aliens and everything in between.
We keep looking upward for something greater than ourselves.
Something wiser.
Something kinder.
Something more evolved.
Something that will answer our questions.
Something that will protect us.
Something that will save us.
But what if the universe has been waiting for us to evolve?
What if no celestial cavalry is coming?
What if there is no extraterrestrial parent arriving to confiscate the nuclear weapons and tell the children to behave?
What if this beautiful little planet has been placed — through God, evolution, cosmic accident or some mechanism we haven’t even imagined — into our hands?
Then perhaps the greatest question is not:
Are angels real?
Nor:
Are aliens real?
It is:
WHEN WILL HUMANITY BECOME WORTHY OF MEETING EITHER?
Because if angels exist, perhaps they are watching.
If aliens exist, perhaps one day they will find us.
If our descendants survive, they will certainly judge what we left them.
And if none of them exists?
Then the responsibility becomes greater still.
Because there is nobody coming to save us.
There is only us.
Eight billion peculiar primates clinging to a magnificent blue rock, racing through a universe so enormous that our arguments, borders, fortunes, titles and egos become almost comically insignificant.
Perhaps we should stop asking whether the beings in the heavens are friends or foes.
And ask whether we are.
Perhaps we should stop wondering whether they are creators or destroyers.
And decide which we intend to become.
Perhaps we should stop asking whether somebody is watching humanity.
And start behaving as though somebody is.
Not from fear.
From dignity.
So tonight, when you look upwards, allow yourself the question.
Angel?
Alien?
Ancestor?
Descendant?
Machine?
Traveller?
Watcher?
Protector?
Something beyond all our categories?
Or simply stars?
Nobody can honestly tell you.
Not yet.
And perhaps those two words —
Not yet —
are among the most exciting words humanity possesses.
Because somewhere between blind belief and arrogant disbelief lies the territory where discovery begins.
Keep the telescope pointed upward.
Keep the mind open.
Keep the nonsense detector switched firmly on.
And should a radiant being ever knock on your door at three in the morning claiming to be an interdimensional angelic extraterrestrial descendant of humanity…
For heaven’s sake…
ask for identification.
We may be open-minded.
But we’re not bloody stupid.
— Christian Dion
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