The next epoch
The future
A highly respected French paleontologist named Yves Coppens once said:
"I'm convinced that the story of life unfolded like that of inert matter...from the simplest to the most complex. The proof of this is that fossils from the first three billion years are all unicellular. It's not until four billion years that you get pluri-cellular fossils. In other words, multicellular living creatures. This law, which is truly general, at least for our universe, is evident as much in the sky as it is on earth...in the history of life and the history of mankind." (Homo Futurus, a documentary film by Thomas Johnson and produced by Hind Saih in 2005, televised on SBS 6 May 2007)

After progressing through hundreds of millions of years of evolution, we come to a disturbing discovery for science: Why is it that life follows this general law of increasing order and complexity, from the simplest to the most complex?

In other words, is this law of nature simply a natural event throughout the Universe and there isn't suppose to be an aim behind all this evolutionary activity?

Or could there be a purpose?

Scientists are not entirely sure of the answer. Perhaps this is more a question of religion than of science. But one thing is certain: a better understanding of where we are heading in the future may give scientists the clue.

Let us begin by presenting below some of the things scientists do know will happen in the future assuming our neck of the woods in the Milky Way is relatively stable and predictable. We will combine this information with current trends and behaviours observed today among humans as well as cutting-edge scientific knowledge and technologies emerging as we speak. And we will apply a realistic extrapolation of this trend and behaviour to explain where we are going.

For example, we see humans have come to dominate life on Earth for now and naturally would seem to have the power to control the destiny of everything in it. Will we continue to dominate on Earth, or will something happen to us?

And what will this mean for us when we start travelling to the stars, if we ever do?

When we see how humans behave today and in the past and the technology we have created, it may be possible to build a basic but realistic picture of our likely social, political, environmental and evolutionary future. And this in turn will decide how the rest of life on Earth will develop for many millions of years from now.

Perhaps from this "looking into the future" approach we can begin to answer our greatest questions of evolution:

Where are we heading to and what is our purpose along this evolutionary path of seemingly greater awareness and enlightenment of this Universe through our increasingly organised and more complex physical bodies and brains?

It is clear our greatest journey has only just begun...

 

THE YEAR 2008 AND BEYOND
The Golden Age or the Age of Human Extinction?

 
Just as life in the Cambrian period reached up to the surface of the oceans for a better and more secure future, now it is again our turn in the Holocene epoch to reach up for the stars, this time without the prevailing predators on our backs!

Before this happens, humans would have hopefully learnt something about themselves and their technology before meeting with other intelligent creatures in the Universe. Otherwise the consequences for humanity could be devastating and the word "intelligent" would have to be re-phrased differently for the human race.

We will explain later why it would be devastating for us. For now, let's ask, "Are we ready to be peaceful and learn to live within our means using the available resources?"

The evidence isn't exactly overwhelming. As we have seen over the past few thousand years, humans look more preoccupied in plundering and using up the available resources from anywhere and throwing the waste away without adequate recycling. We also want to interfere with other nations to acquire the resources we want (eg. oil in Iraq). And we want to be as rich as possible even if it means increasing one's insecurity with other humans who don't have what they want.

Why do humans do it? Well, it could be because we are still incredibly insecure in ourselves and what we think we need to survive. Without adequate knowledge of recycling, love and learning to live within our means, we have a L-brain tendency to accumulate more than what is considered sensible for our survival. "More is more" as they say, and so it is with people who believe in the L-brain approach to life.

Or maybe it is because we are frightened to do something different after doing the same thing for so long and how comfortable it is to do the same thing.

Fear could be a major issue. When we look at other creatures in the animal kingdom, we may see behaviours that would appear to be different to us. So if the behaviours somehow interfere with what we are comfortable with, we automatically think our survival is at risk and we have to deal with the animal as if it were a predator.

The same feeling of potentially being threatened by anything that looks and acts differently to us continues to be observed in those science fiction films such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Deep Space Nine, Farscape and War of the Worlds just to name a few.

Do we need more reminders?

What will we find out there, and will we be ready for them? Or is the time for our extinction fast approaching us?

Haven't we learnt anything from our long and arduous past? Don't we know why animals are constantly struggling to survive? Why do we need to feel the same today?

A quick look around us today suggests we haven't learnt a great deal. Ignoring our technological feats, already there are millions of people dying from starvation and countless others committing suicide or fighting against society in negative ways (ie. war, murder, theft, terrorism, vandalism etc) at an alarming rate. While this is happening, an increasing number of people in developed nations appear to be more preoccupied with conquering new worlds, exploiting new resources, selling the resources to others at high prices, and maximising their own security so they can have what they want (ie. be rich, powerful and even famous) at the expense of interfering and losing a few living organisms on Earth.

So what are our chances of survival over the long-term? Very slim at the moment. Hence the reason for yet more communication and other L-brain skills to acquire more resources etc.

Already we have seen excellent evidence to show that our primitive technology of fire and spears has wiped-out many species of animals and plants in the last 50,000 years. And the number of these tools, in more sophisticated forms, now in the hands of so many people all trying to survive, let alone become rich beyond their wildest dreams, are starting to have a serious effect on the life ecology of this planet. And as we destroy our planet, we again refine our technology, be more efficient, communicate more, be cunning and devious in our behaviour to get what we want, only to make things worse.

Surely a turning point for humanity must soon come when this vicious cycle is broken and a new world order begins, or there will be no chance for us to survive beyond this present century. As Ronald Wright in A Short History of Progress said:

'Joseph Tainter, analysing the collapse of civilisations, described three models of collapse. These are the Runaway Train, the Dinosaur and the House of Cards. These usually act together, so they are really aspects of the same collapse.

'The invention of agriculture, enabling large population growth until it hits the bounds of the food supply, is the Runaway Train. It encourages the growth of hierarchical systems, with an upward concentration of wealth, ensuring there is never enough to go round. (It is horrifying that no matter how wealthy people are today, they still claim to be unable to buy everything they need!)

'The rulers' failure to tackle these problems is the Dinosaur aspect. The swift, irreparable and unforeseen (by the rulers, anyway) collapse represents the House of Cards.'

Is there light at the end of the tunnel for humanity? Maybe when we are dead. But we shouldn't have to become extinct to find out. While we are alive we can do something to improve the situation.

How?

Perhaps a little more communication and technology may help. Unfortunately, communication and technology have been around for a long time and still not everyone and every living thing are benefiting from all this L-brain activity. We only need to see the state of our planet today given the amount of technology we have acquired so far to see what we mean by this. Or maybe more R-brain activity such as visualisation and human creativity are the keys to finding a much simpler and all encompassing solution to our problems?

Certainly L-brain people could benefit from more R-brain skills to help simplify their thinking, actions and behaviours.

In truth, human communication, technology and even effective creativity and visualisation alone will not be enough to guarantee the survival of the human race. We need one more ingredient if all humans and the rest of life on Earth are to survive for as long as the Sun and the Universe will permit us. That ingredient, the true universal language of life, is called love.

No matter how rational or inventive we might like to think of ourselves, we cannot live without love. We need love. We do things to feel the love and be loved by others in a social situation.

With so many extraordinary and unique creatures in the history of the Earth who have, from time to time, lacked this necessary love, which has resulted in many of them having to find food, reproduce and manipulate and/or adapt to new environments and with other creatures as quickly as their little L- and R-brains and bodies can permit them or else face the threat of extinction. And today more and more people are increasingly feeling not much different from prehistoric times (unless you are immuned to this because you are living a comfortable, stable and rich lifestyle), it seems love will play an increasing role in the survival of all remaining life on this planet.


 

Predators are creatures coping with a world lacking in love. They appear in times of famine. The animals become meat eaters when there is no other food choice (ie. plants are in short supply). To stop the hunting instinct, providing food from birth and activities to develop concentration and memory will transform predators to become curious and loving creatures. Some predators may take longer over many generations so long as the love through food is provided. Eventually a time comes when not even the presence of a cat would cause the predator to chase after it.

This is why dogs learn to live with cats in the same house and sleep together as soon as the love has been provided and the creatures do not see each other as a threat or a source of food.

 

Because it is through love that we begin to appreciate how far we have come, what we have learnt after all this time, and what we are going to do for the benefit of all living things to bring back love after a long and hard period of evolution. For example, should we continue to populate the world with more human beings?

An example of a high population centre. This photograph taken by Karen Kasmauski shows some of the people of Bangladesh seeking employment in the city of Dhaka. Source: Parfit 1998, p.7.

Should we continue to erect massive high-rise artificial monuments by males of the human species (like a scene from "How big is my penis?") to show how rich and powerful we are?

An example of a massive modern monument (this one from Sydney) to mark the business achievements of some of our enterprising individuals in society. Source: SUNRISE/Cesar J. Trujillo.

And should we tread heavily on the environment to the point of literally destroying our free natural recycling systems just to satisfy our selfish wants?

No, this is not the way to show love to all living things on this planet (and, by implications, with the rest of the Universe). We have to do a lot more to show we really care for one another.

For example, with a bit of love, we can help people to learn how to create their own free "recycling" fertiliser using green 'nitrogen-fixing" manure called moocoona beans. Once the green manure has reached maturity and dug into the ground, the soil becomes enriched and fertile in a matter of months to help grow a healthy and rich crop. Such a self-fertilising system is now vital not just for economic reasons where poor farmers often cannot afford expensive artificial fertilisers (usually sold by big US companies), but also for environmental reasons where the farmer can keep to the same plot of land without needing to cut down more trees in the natural forest just to acquire more fertile land.

Likewise, it isn't love to force families in third-world and developing countries to pay for termination seeds from companies such as Monsanto just to prop up the massive profits of big corporations selling the seeds and providing short-term food benefits. Should there be cross fertilisation of natural and man-made seeds, there is a risk that one day the genes for terminating the seeds may suddenly become activated again and all of the plants in that species will disappear in a matter of weeks. Then people will starve to death.

This is not love.

It is too risky to follow this kind of profit-mentality when it comes to the food we grow and eat on this planet. We need to let nature recycle original plants though the constant seed production and regeneration, and it should be done for free.

As for the demands of a large human population on agriculture to create food on the environment, a combination of good education, population control, better self-esteem, encouragement to create one's own form of employment and be rewarded for it, and grow certain types of beneficial plants could help reduce our need for eating excessive amounts of food and populating the planet to such a high level.

For example, the Hoodia Cactus of southern Africa contains a special molecule capable of suppressing hunger for up to 20 hours. Now imagine some of the benefits of this substance to Western society. There is an excellent chance for some people to eat less food. And that would result in less impact on the environment through massive human agriculture. Who knows? It could improve the health system through less patients experiencing diabetes, obesity etc.

Now if we could develop more recycling systems like this on a grand scale, can we help everyone to have what they need? Do we have enough love within us to help every person and every living thing on this planet to have what they need through this knowledge without asking for a buck for everything they need to survive?

And now that humans have passed the tipping point and nature is becoming less and less able to control climate change (as there is not enough healthy trees to absorb the carbon dioxide) because of our need to survive and make a profit, the time has truly come to show exactly what love is all about as the great religions and psychologists should be teaching us. It is our first supportive step we can make before tackling world problems using non-emotive methods of rational and creative thinking. Because love develops the necessary self-esteem, an acceptance of who we are and acknowledge we have everything we need, to be happy with ourselves. And then we can do the right thing by everyone by taking what we need (and not what we want!), and give back whatever we take through the contributions we can make to society, without having to prove to everyone and everything who we are and how much we are worth.

If this is not true, then how else are we going to guarantee the survival of the human race (1)? With guns, money and computers only?

We already have the manpower, the technology, the language for effective communication with people, and the resources to keep virtually everyone and all living things alive without having to satisfy all our selfish wants. So why are there so many people still struggling and fighting to survive as we speak? And why must we continue to spend money on defence simply because we don't know how to love ourselves and all our brothers and sisters and ensure everyone has what they need? Is the military there to protect the rich (and perhaps even hide some great truth about this Universe in the case of the US military since July 1947) and to go to war so that the rich and powerful can continue with their greedy and "extravagant patterns of consumption" attitude after the war?

In other words, should politicians, business professionals and other rich and powerful people have to feel teary-eyed whenever they see their own (or more likely other) people's sons and daughters return home in coffins or terribly deformed after a war and yet expect to see their forgiveness by getting on with what's left of their lives while the rich and powerful continue carrying on making more money and doing what they please! Or has our lust for power and money blinded us to the real aim in life? We are truly a pathetic lot of creatures if we can't see beyond this.

Fortunately there are some people who can see the futility of war. Take, for instance, the words of L. York, a citizen of O'Connor in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT):

'Marching on Anzac Day and meeting so many people who'd lost loved ones, or who'd lost eyesight or limbs, one realises the futility of war.

'When are world leaders going to learn that wars do not solve anything? For life's sake let some wise nation start a sincere conference for peace.' (2)


 
Why are there so many world problems created by humans today? Perhaps the answer lies in how primate groups are formed.

For example, certain chimpanzees in the harsher and drier central African continent have been observed to form groups dominated by males. In these groups, male chimpanzees will get themselves into a position of power through aggression, competition and even violence. And once they reach this position of power and consequently easy access to a wide variety of resources acquired with the help of other members in the group, will often use bullying tactics such as intimidation, manipulation and violence to justify maintaining this dominating position (and all because they think their survival is at risk if they don't). Also the harshness of the environment means food resources tend to be limited and this often means males come to the foray to fight for the available resources.

Thus the male-dominated groups will almost always have a pecking order (ie. hierarchy), there will be specialisation in the functions of each member in the group, and there is regular and intense competition between males. Male chimpanzees will use aggression and violence as a natural and brutal means of getting what they want in order to help make the task of surviving easier for themselves.

Do these male-dominated groups remind you of any other species here on Earth?

Then there is another group of chimpanzees which survive just as successfully in the food-rich jungles of Africa (ie. in Congo). Here, female chimpanzees reach their position of power in a group by using sex as the instrument for controlling the behaviour of individuals within the group and in ensuring everyone has what they need to be happy (eg. food, grooming, sex etc).

When nature is allowed to do its work of providing food and recycling and the group learns to be happy with what they need to survive, the chimpanzees become much more peaceful. There is no war between various groups of chimpanzees in the jungles. Clearly it doesn't take a genius to see why this is the case.

Now if we turn our attention to human society, we can see one obvious trend. Many of our human leaders are almost invariably male. Could we have too many males leading human society along a road which is not as bright as we would like? Is this because the environment is being decimated and food supplies are going down and more males think they have to come to the forefront in controlling the remaining supplies and not do enough to create more supplies and help other nations?

Could this explain the male-dominated tribal societies in the Middle East and other desert areas which rely heavily on Islam to provide a solution to their harsh predicament?

Could too many men in leadership position with strong L-brain skills be creating too many world problems as we see today because they think they will not survive easily (ie. be rich) if we chose a different approach involving more sharing, recycling and rebuilding the environment to ensure everyone has what they need to survive?

If this is true, we can only wonder what the future may hold for us when males continue to run the economic system.

Will we one day see women follow the road like certain female chimpanzees in dominating the power struggle and changing human societies forever? Or will men and women ever learn to work together in a balanced way and do the right thing?

Whatever our future may bring, one thing is certain. We have got to try something different (ie. break the male domination) before it is too late. If we let males continue to dominate the leadership scene on a worldwide basis, we will eventually destroy our environment and end up using violence through war as the final solution to all our world problems.

So what do we do? Let the males of our human society dictate the way things should be? Or are we intelligent and courageous enough to balance this situation right now?

NOTE: We should not think an all-female dominant society will work either. It is also possible for a female-dominated society to be imbalanced just like we see in a beehive. Just like the queen in a beehive, a female leader may get paranoid and obsessed in being the only leader. She may try to destroy the babies of female workers to stop males emerging into society and creating extra competition for the leader. However, balance usually comes when workers discover what has happened and eventually get together to destroy the leader, allowing some males to appear and fertilise enough females until the next new female leader appears (or male leader if he can successfully create a male-dominated society). Should a new leader be found, he/she will develop a new colony and the process of eventual imbalance followed by a balancing act will persist until the end of time. Balance will be the key to avoiding the negative consequences of either extreme cases.

 

As the great Indian philosopher Gandhi once said, "There is enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed."

So either we learn to love with all the remaining life on this planet first by giving them food, shelter and a place they can call a home (and later we learn to apply language, science and the arts, interspersed with plenty of rest and quiet time to think) by changing the way we do things (ie. by ensuring that we are all happy and have what we need, not what we want); or we must be prepared to die through war, crime, famine and disease on a scale and speed never seen before thanks to our technology and the shear number of people living on this planet.

And if we should ever choose to take the road to human extinction (simply because we all want to have what we want and not what we need), we might as well forget about calling our new millennium a part of the Holocene epoch. It might be more appropriate to call it the Obscene epoch!

Or in the words of Australian National University ecologist Professor Breandan Mackey:

'Welcome to the Anthropocene — the era of human-forcing of global change.' (Beeby, Rosslyn. Tiny evidence of a very big problem: The Canberra Times. 23 June 2007, p.B5.)

Can humans continue to rely on technology, more communication and self-greed (rather than need) for its continued survival without understanding the importance of love, effective visualisation and creativity and developing a recycling approach to life for the good of all living things?

Let us hope there is time for humans to realise this fact, or we will definitely end up joining the scrap heap of so many millions of species that have become extinct over the past 4,500 million years.

 

0 TO 10 YEARS FROM NOW

 

"Prepare people for the future and empower them [for they can change the outcome]." Richard Clive Neville, futurist

Environmental degradation as a consequence of human greed, high human population levels, land clearing, global warming and various other issues will reach crisis levels. People in the cities notice a marked rise in the price of essential products and services including food, water, housing and oil to name a few. Some governments and businesses (including the oil companies) will try to subsidise the costs where possible to help make the human population think everything is okay so as not to create panic or chaos. But the time will be reached when the reality of our impact on the environment reaches the consciousness of everyone.

Already the public are realising environmental problems are related to these high prices. The other problem involves the profit-mentality of certain businesses.

Soon the public will realise the environmental issues and profit will be the biggest threat to humankind greater than terrorism (even if the terrorists could build an atomic bomb).

As the environment degrades further, more virulent strains of diseases and flus will appear. Migrating mainly from animals, it is possible an outbreak worse than the influenza of 1918-19 that killed 40 million people will occur. We should expect the death toll to reach in the hundreds of millions and affecting people in nearly all countries because of the limited medical resources to help everyone and the deadly nature of the viruses ravaging the human body. This will be a time when people will have to work and live from home to minimise the spread of the disease. People with well-established rural properties growing fresh vegetables and fruit are likely to survive the best and will be valued more by city people.

Or they could get overrun by city dwellers trying to survive. It depends on how desperate things get.

If we are going to avoid this difficult social upheaval, rural people must be put on the pedestal of solving the environmental problems, not the supermarket giants and their executives. And society must support them to do the right thing. For example, people on the land must plant more trees, fruit and vegetables and in return receive some form of credit or reward for their efforts.

Next, we must encourage businesses to set a realistic level of profit. Any more profit and it should be automatically reinvested into developing environmentally-friendly products, services and methods of employing labour (eg. working from home). This may not work for public companies where shareholders expect increasing profits, but all other independent businesses and companies must do it.

As for people in the cities, they must find opportunities to work from home and leave the cars in the garage. Otherwise, car and house/apartment sharing must become the norm in the cities as people find ways to get close to work.

We may also need the proper implementation of genetic engineering without profit such that the need to kill other animals for food (a highly intensive farming option requiring extensive environmental resources) could become a thing of the past as humans learn to grow the necessary vitamins, minerals, proteins, fibre and carbohydrates our bodies need into plant material.

A new world order must soon come, whether by force or agreement. It will be a time when true recycling and living within our means while ensuring everyone has what they need will arrive, or else humankind may not be around for much longer.

For example, with wars, political unrest, the need to become rich, and a massive demand for the consumption of oil from so many people now exceeding world supplies, some experts are predicting petrol prices will rise to A$3 per litre in the next two years and higher in the years thereafter. Soon people will find it too expensive to own their own car. Working from home will be the only option for many people.

And how will this translate in terms of the cost of buying food? Will businesses have to destroy more of the environment in areas of higher rainfall near the equator and along some coasts to maintain food supplies at a reasonable cost? And what will this mean to global warming? Are we making the problem worse?

Our attitude to consuming resources on this planet without limit and without implementing significant recycling processes in everything that we do will end.

No more excessive change, profit, fighting to survive, and stress in life. Balance and love will return to humanity once again. Only a proper and rapid recycling system to replenish everything we use is our best hope of protecting the fragile environment of planet Earth and help humankind to live longer in this Universe.

Humans may have broken free from the shackles of being hunted or be the hunter through his tools. Now he has to learn to live a better life through recycling and combining positive, more ethical type of science than any other animal in the world.

 

15 YEARS FROM NOW

 

Society will make the transition to an electromagnetic society where electricity is the fundamental source of energy for driving the world. It will be generated by renewable energy sources such as solar, radio waves, wind, tidal waves etc.

Companies wanting to maintain profit will attempt to provide other energy solutions such as hydrogen and ethanol to get people to continually "fill up" and pay. But eventually only electricity will be the best solution to all our energy problems so long as the source for generating it is one hundred per cent renewable.

This will have implications for the US military, which is currently trying to find alternative solutions such as building a solar farm in space for generating electricity for cities, colonising the Moon and eventually Mars, and so on. They need to in order to maintain the current economic system of keeping people preoccupied and avoid working out certain secrets from the world of electromagnetism.

But all this effort will fail. People working in electromagnetism more closely will discover certain secrets. One of the secrets will be a way to recycle electromagnetic energy thanks to the presence of the gravitational field in the energy. When a critical energy density is reached through control via frequency and voltage, the gravitational field will be strong enough to bend back electromagnetic energy. Soon a new form of transportation vehicle will be built.

So if we are extraordinarily lucky as a species not to destroy ourselves through shear greed, power, money, lack of food because of the US military's desire to maintain it's biggest secret from the world and for us to become rich leading to desertification of our environment (3), or the Universe does not throw at us a big enough comet or asteroid perhaps hidden in the glare of the sun to destroy humankind, we can expect the world's first "electromagnetic energy recycling" vehicles to be developed on Earth (thanks to the Abraham-Lorentz formula of classical electrodynamics and the realisation that light is gravity and gravity is light through Albert Einstein's Unified Field Theory).

These new self-accelerating "recycling" machines will be capable of reaching very close to the speed of light and travel enormous distances because of their tremendous exponential acceleration in accordance with the "recycling" solution derived from the Abraham-Lorentz formula and the presence of the gravitational field. These are true electromagnetic-recycling vehicles and their cost to operate will be far less than anything we have ever built today.

With their incredibly simple propulsion design (just creating greater curvature of the newspaper thin metal hull is enough to distribute a greater density of electric charge to one side of the vehicle) containing no moving parts (as first discovered by Dr Thomas T. Brown and largely forgotten by the public despite his efforts to patent his invention called the electrokinetic device), the extraordinarily high-speed capabilities of these machines will soon see humans make the world's first serious scientific attempt at reaching the nearest stars beyond our Sun known as Proxima and Alpha Centauri nearly 4.3 light years away. This will be the reality for humankind.

Tougher and more durable alloys and insulators will be used to ensure the vehicles maintain their shape and survive the rigours of interstellar travelling. And these vehicles will not be built to be thrown away after one trip. It will be reused again and again. It will also use less materials to help minimise mass and can be fully recycled to build better and more refined electromagnetic vehicles.

Among the expected refinements include developing techniques to help build an almost perfectly symmetrical metallic cabins inside. This will be important for interstellar travelling. Humans participating in the flights need better control of the gravity inside so as to withstand much greater inertial forces. Fortunately there is a solution. It involves a little known unified field concept linking light with gravity and how a Faraday cage can reduce both fields.

At first, the engineers assisting these early human travellers will concentrate on building as near-to-perfect symmetrical metallic boxes in the confines of space above the Earth's atmosphere. Later, biological scientists will look at ways of significantly minimising body mass for human travellers reaching the stars. Or possibly the scientists will choose people who are naturally small and lightweight to participate in the flight (eg. people with dwarfism).

Minimising mass is considered absolutely essential to the success of interstellar flights over increasing greater distances. It is the only way consciously-awake humans can participate and observe an increasing number of incredible things at their destinations. Consequently over time human star travellers will have to be very thin and small. Remember, low mass is the key to minimising the inertial effects on the body and to be able to accelerate effortlessly and quickly to near light speeds. Later, as our technology and our body mass is refined and become more lightweight over time, this mass issue will become less of a problem when travelling to the nearest stars (probably within 12 light years or more).

NOTE: Every ounce of mass removed from the spacecraft and the people travelling in them could make an enormous difference in the time taken to travel to the stars depending on how far away they are according to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. Who knows? Perhaps a clip of the finger and toe nails and the removal of all body hair could reduce the time to travel to an extrasolar star from say a few months to maybe an hour or less. Heck! There may even be a use for that powerful laxative anyway! Or why not go to the extreme of removing unnecessary organs in the body such as the reproductive regions and have smaller breasts? (4) In fact, through effective and well-thought out genetic engineering, the nutrients required by the human body can be concentrated in plant materials to the point where it is unnecessary to have a long gut. Eventually the whole digestive tract can be simplified to help reduce mass.

During this time our brains will continue to evolve and acquire more patterns as it thinks and learns more about this great Universe and other living creatures living within it.

As French orthodontist Marie-Joséphe Deshayes studying the skulls of ancient and modern humans said:

'As far as the immediate future is concerned, the construction and number of neurons is multiplying. That's happening now. On a cognitive level, the neuronal wiring seems to be happening right now, and fast. So cognitive and neuronal evolution in young children is something we can be sure of in the very near future.' (Homo Futurus, a documentary film by Thomas Johnson and produced by Hind Saih in 2005, televised on SBS 6 May 2007)

Marie-Joséphe Deshayes

A continually evolving brain means our heads will be getting bigger while our bodies will get smaller and more lightweight (especially if you wish to travel to the stars, or you want to avoid having an impact on the environment by taking away too many resources). The frontal cortex will almost certainly push our foreheads slightly forward to show the tremendous thinking and problem-solving skills our brains are able to perform.

Also the adjustment of our eyes (our most important sensory organ in the human body) to the darker environment of space may see them get larger and possibly more wrap-around (if regular protection to the brighter objects and high-frequency radiation is provided through large sunglass shades). Becoming more sensitive and potentially processing more visual information may require the back of our heads to expand slightly as this is the region visual information is processed.

Other features such as a smaller mouth may be important as we reduce our demand for eating food for a more slender and lightweight body. This may result in a narrowing of our chin and jawline.


 
A slender and lightweight body will become important for those travelling to the stars. But it could also be a natural consequence for those idiotic civilisations that are nearing the end of exhausting their natural resources on a planet causing the cost of food for the people to become phenomenally high — a clear sign of a major catastrophe looming for the people of those civilisations.

We can only hope it isn't ours.

 

Our noses may also get smaller not so much because it reduces body mass, but because humans may find this more attractive. This raises another complicating factor in determining how we will look in the next few centuries — love.

Love comes to the forefront again, this time in the way we will look. The changes we will see will be designed not only to help some of us reach for the stars by minimising mass and adapting to the environment of space, but also to feel loved by those who want to see these features as attractive. Our bodies will therefore change by the way other people see us. Because we all want to be loved

Love shapes evolution.

NOTE: Some L-brain science fiction writers like to predict humans may one day become cyborgs — a creature half human and half robot. Why? Because machines can apparently extend the capabilities of humans thanks to medical science combining artificial materials with human tissue. However, one factor might determine whether humans do follow this path — love. Given how we all want to be loved by someone else, to be loved often means asking, "Are we attractive?" If the answer is no, it is unlikely humans will ever look like a machine. We may receive artificial joints and other additions to the body to help overcome clear medical problems or following an accident. But they will be designed to blend or be hidden. The aim is to enhance who we already are. In essence, the human body is already a remarkable machine in itself. It is the most compact and lightweight machine ever produced. And humans would want to make sure their bodies remain attractive to their own kind in the future no matter what changes take place superficially. In other words, images of a camera lense sticking out of a person's eye, for instance, is a highly unlikely scenario for many human beings.

As our bodies change, we will discover something interesting. Soon we will have many of the same characteristics we have seen in those humanoid-like aliens travelling in their own electromagnetic vehicles. We will be just like any other people in the Universe.

But before our bodies change dramatically, something else will happen.

As these electromagnetic vehicles become accepted into the mainstream of society, more and more people will recognise the similarities in the technological design of these "electromagnetic" vehicles to those formerly unidentified flying objects described in the reports by people in the past. This can only mean one thing. The biggest cover up in human history regarding UFOs will be blown sky high.

All the effort by way of a very small elite and highly controlled group of people in the US Army and Air Force to hide the big secret and using certain R-wing people to maintain the status quo can no longer be maintained. All remaining UFO documents kept by the US Government will have to be released to the public and scientific community for closer scrutiny. Then the next expected major revelation for the human race will come when we realise at least one crashed disk has occurred in the 20th century. The existence of this crashed disk will prove once and for all the existence of intelligent and technologically-advanced ETs.

If, for any reason, the US Government refuses to release the information and evidence because they want to maintain power or some other reason, they will be forced under some kind of great new "cosmic watergate-type" of inquiry in the United States to release all UFO evidence on the grounds that it is in the interest of the human race and science to know the truth. Why? Because it will affect everyone.

Who knows? What if you were to encounter an alien spacecraft? What would you do? How would you protect yourself from the electromagnetic side-effects of these vehicles? What would be a suitable human response towards an alien if you should meet one face-to-face? Should you be scared, aggressive, or take a more curious approach with these people of the Universe who have little need to make contact with our dangerous society and, if anything, would probably prefer to run away from us if we observe them (hence a perfectly understandable reason why it is difficult for scientists to observe them)?

And if these people should appear to us, it is probably because they wish to study us closely; reveal something about themselves and/or their technology to us (since they probably know it is just a matter of time before we find out how their machines work); test us on our ability to be curious, friendly, and perhaps how fit we are (in the case of sexual abduction cases) for genetic reasons; warn us of the dangers of damaging our environment; or simply to say "Hello" in a way that protects them (ie. with selected individuals in isolated areas). In our age of terrorism, the last thing an alien would want to do is land on the front lawns of the White House to say "Hello" when it could easily be shot dead by the US military.

The necessary and comprehensive public education campaigns on UFOs will come through for everyone by this time.

 

20 YEARS FROM NOW AND BEYOND

 
Our environmental and social chaos will stabilise. We have no choice. The survival of the human race requires our environment to be protected and our people to have a reliable source of natural and low-cost foods and energy if we are to avoid conflict and social destruction.

There is also another reason why we must stabilise what we do on our planet: we want the first humans travelling to the stars to know there is a stable and peaceful place called Earth to come back to to share their knowledge.

Knowing such stability will prevail on Earth, it will also be the time when the first of our human-made "electromagnetic" vehicles reaching the nearest extrasolar stars (eg. the triple star system known as Alpha Centauri) will return with a wealth of amazing information. We will discover once and for all exactly what kind of life exists beyond our solar system. Because latest astronomical data suggests planets up to the distance of where Mars exist in our solar system can exist in a very stable way around the two closest and most Sun-like stars we know of (the third star is a red dwarf moving around the other two stars).

And when we reach for the stars, we will definitely have to include meeting up with other intelligent and possibly more technologically-advanced civilisations in our local stellar neighbourhood up to say within 12 light years away.

Will these advanced civilisations be dangerous, war-faring and aggressive? Or peaceful, curious and friendly?

Most scientists are firmly coming to the view based on sound sociological arguments that these ET civilisations will have to be peaceful, curious and friendly. There is no choice, especially if they can travel and affect the future of other intelligent life in the universe. Any aggressive star-faring civilisation in the universe wanting to harm other life for their own selfish reasons (eg. plundering resources) cannot survive the onslaught of more advanced and peaceful civilisations that may be forced to deal with the aggressors in a similar way.

John D. Rummel, Planetary Protection Officer at NASA

There are scientists who believe life on other planets may not be friendly. For example, John D. Rummel, the Planetary Protection Officer at NASA's headquarters, said:

'Well, my guess, is that if there's life out there, it would be interesting, it might even be compelling in its lessons but it wouldn't be dangerous. But that's just my guess. And one of the things that I have to acknowledge is that ignorance is not bliss. I'm not going to be able to guarantee anybody that life out there isn't dangerous.' (Quote obtained from the BBC Horizon documentary titled We Are the Aliens.)

When he talks of life being dangerous, he is referring to life that is still struggling to survive predators and other creatures through natural evolution. What we are talking about is intelligent, technologically-advanced life that have already dealt with its own predators after millions of years and can now travel to the stars.

When we speak of friendly and curious alien life, we are talking about creatures travelling to other stars.

Let's face it. An aggressive civilisation in space is a threat to the survival of other civilisations. Civilisations that are aggressive do so because they have almost certainly used up their natural resources and are aggressively searching for more. Anything interfering with this aim of finding more resources instead of implementing proper recycling solutions and learning to live within their means would be seen by the agressive civilisation as a sign of war.

We should therefore expect an advanced alien civilisation seeing this behaviour not to sit down and do nothing. They will act in their own way to deal with the aggressors.

The universe is more than big enough for every civilisation in it to grow and survive with love and curiosity (and with a bit of "recycling" knowledge). But there will be no room in the universe for just one civilisation wishing to take the opposite and more "aggressive" and "interfering" road to life for whatever narrow-minded reason.

Why?

Let us put it this way. Any supposedly intelligent creature in the universe who believes aggression is the way to solve all problems is almost certainly risking the survival of themselves and their own species. All it takes is a slightly more advanced civilisation (let alone a really advanced civilisation) somewhere in the universe to notice what is happening and before long they will quickly put and end to the nonsense.

Want an example?

To solve the aggression in the quickest way, an advanced alien civilisation would not have to show their faces to the aggressors. It can be a simple task for the advanced alien civilisation to introduce, say, an incredibly contagious and deadly genetically-engineered virus capable of reeking havoc to the aggressors.

Perhaps some of you might be thinking, "Well, we will just blow these little critters out of the sky with our sophisticated guns and missiles if they try to do that to us!" Think again! Our technology, not even nuclear power, will be advanced enough to protect the 'aggressors' (ie. ourselves) from the kind of surreptitious biological warfare aliens are capable of throwing at us.

Protecting ourselves from (let alone attacking) advanced aliens will be a completely hopeless task. Apart from not knowing which alien civilisation is responsible and where they might be located (really advanced civilisations may live very far away), it'll be like what we see on television with the US military annihilating the Taliban government in Afghanistan, but many times worse because no one will know exactly how dangerous this virus might be until it has infected a large number of people in a very short space of time (and then it might be too late).

Should the aggressors become infected, the time for their extinction would be near.

Still think it can't be done? Think again. Already the technology for creating a deadly virus (to the aliens the virus would be as harmless as "chicken pox") is now in the hands of terrorists and are ready to cause havoc to one or more developed nations of the world thanks to the Internet and readily available biochemicals. As newspapers have reported in July 2002:

'WASHINGTON, Friday: Following a recipe downloaded from the Internet and using gene sequences from a mail-order supply house, researchers have assembled a man-made version of the polio virus to prove how easy it would be for terrorists to make deadly biological weapons.

'Researchers at the University of New York at Stony Brook assembled the virus and then injected it into mice to show that it worked. The animals were paralysed and then killed.' (5)

Of course, aliens will be a whole lot smarter than this. They certainly won't be going around injecting whatever deadly virus they may create into humans. That's too obvious and time-consuming. Aliens will be much more quieter and energy efficient in their actions. It will be true guerilla warfare "alien-style" to its ultimate extreme. You think the US military is having a hard time dealing with guerilla-tactics of terrorists in the urban environment of Baghdad, Iraq, today? This is nothing compared to what aliens are capable of doing to us.

If you think about it, it would be very easy for an alien to attach extra gene sequences to help create a virus that floats around in the air, or use another organism as the host carrier to move through say the water. And once the virus enters the human body by breathing it in, or drinking the water, we could easily suffer the consequences.

Add a few more gene sequences and the aliens can build a custom-made virus designed specifically to target a particular weakness or common characteristic of humans.

Basically if you should ever make an alien angry because you have not learnt how to control your aggressive behaviours, you might as well put down your guns and start kissing your ass goodbye.

As Dr Eckard Wimmer, co-author of the study conducted by the University of New York, said:

'This approach has been talked about, but people didn't take it seriously. Now people have to take it seriously. Progress in biomedical research has its benefits and it has its down side. There is a danger inherent to progress in sciences. This is a new reality, a new consideration.' (6)

The implications are clear: shape up (quite literally by showing how big your brain is) or ship out. Start learning to solve your aggressive behaviours now or you will face the consequences of your actions. Furthermore, you can be guaranteed that life travelling to the stars in some kind of a technology will be friendly.

There is no choice.

Remember, we may think we are overly confident in doing whatever we like in this Universe. A look around Earth may give this impression. But we can't do anything to stop aliens from achieving the same goals if they get really p*ssed off with us.

Now let us reverse this situation. Should we think other civilisations will be a threat to us? Absolutely not! We must not think for a moment that technologically-advanced 'star-faring' ETs are going to be a threat to humankind. The day we start travelling to the stars will be the time when humans (and, by implications, all other intelligent and technically-advanced 'star-faring' creatures) learn to put away their weapons of mass destruction and all our negative differences to one side, and start to be curious and loving with all life in the universe. Forget the science fiction movie Independence Day. It will be closer to Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

As much as the astronomer and science fiction author Dr David Brin from Encinitas in California likes to think it is possible for ETs to harm us if they so wish when he said in 2007:

'Physical harm is a possibility. A bomb sent through space is much easier to send than a starship full of colonists. There have been many science fiction in which intelligent bombs can be sent to a new civilisation that is broadcasting into space in order to prevent them from becoming competitors.' (Calling All Aliens Part 2: Contact in Space. A television documentary and film by Christian Schidlowski © Vidicom 2007)

Dr David Brin

The reality could turn out to be quite different.

And why send machines into space as Dr Brin argues? It is because machines can be built to outlast the lifetime of its biological creators, have a simple objective it can follow (ie. do not think for itself), and can be easier to manufacture and copy itself in large numbers by the machines themselves utilising the raw materials on other planets in the Milky Way. Dr John von Newmann looked at this possibility in the 1950s and claimed mathematically such a machine could exist.

Scientists now call it the von Neumann machine.

Dr Brin is not saying that our Milky Way has millions of these machines ready and waiting to pounce on Earth if they receive a signal from us. Rather he claims "there is no proof that there are not".

We can effectively discount any von Neumann machines flying around through space to target the Earth. We have been broadcasting our television, radio and radar signals into space and would have reached advanced alien civilisations at a distance of 100 light years. Astronomers are already convinced the nearest star after our Sun called Alpha Centauri at 4.3 light years away have two Sun-like stars older than our Sun and far enough apart to have a stable planetary system up to the distance of Mars in our solar system. It is likely intelligent technological life at 4.3 light years would have done something to us by now.

The reality is that they haven't. Why? Because it is more probable they will be friendly if they want to stick around in the universe in the presence of other more advanced alien civilisations. It's basic common sense.

Again no choice for other civilisations.

It may not make for exciting Hollywood film blockbusters and get bums on cinema seats by showing cities or whole planets getting blown up by violent alien civilisations in a form of Star Wars. But then again, the people who participate in these interstellar flights will find it more exciting than anything on the big screens. And there will be enough challenges too such as avoiding rocks in space, and possibly the odd lightning strike in the atmosphere of an alien world.

And, of course, what happens when these people meet up with people of other civilisations including our own?

In essence, we should stop worrying about alien life visiting our planet. They have been doing it for millenia. And the US military can't stop them. It is unlikely the universe will be populated by aggressors hell bent at taking over other planets in the universe or some other reason for fear they would be easily targeted in a similar tactic by other civilisations (7). In the never-ending continuum of increasingly advanced civilisations, intelligent creatures will have to be benevolent and friendly, or else face the devastating consequences from more advanced civilisations.

The evidence for this is all around us today and throughout evolution.

Just think for a moment. Why are we still here? Surely an aggressive alien civilisation would not have allowed us time to exist and grow on this planet. It just complicates the issue for the aliens. They would have taken over the Earth long before we came into existence. Not even those so-called von Neumann machines are intelligent enough to sit back and wait for the time to take over the Earth — these simple machines are not designed to make those sorts of decisions. They are only designed to reach a planet and plunder its resources (a bit like the way some humans behave today). It's as simple as that. The fact that we are still here can only mean one thing: alien civilisations capable of reaching our planet must be benevolent or face their own devastating consequences.

The rude awakening for humankind is clear: Civilisations travelling between the stars must be benevolent.

So once humans travel to the stars, we should by then have solved many of our own world problems and have dealt with our aggression and greed in the most positive way we know how. Who knows? Our future in this universe may depend on it.

It truly is a remarkable scientific discovery.


 
Indirect evidence, if we may call it that, for supporting this benelovent view of ETs can be seen in those poorly studied UFO reports of alien abductions. In virtually every alleged abduction experience and officially mentioned to the authorities by humans, aliens were universally observed to be curious and friendly.

More specifically, aliens having a similar appearance to us (often described as Scandinavian with their blonde hair, large eyes, pale white skin, tall and thin) tend to be very friendly and communicative with humans. The more exotic variety of aliens with unusually large eyes, large heads, and very short and thin bodies, tend to conduct themselves like a scientist with a guinea pig. However, at all times the humans were treated with respect and kindness. To further reinforce this positive feeling, it is not unusual for the latter variety of exotic aliens to use their large eyes to communicate this feeling of kindness and love to their human subjects because of the difficulties aliens have in expressing a similar emotion or communicating through their small mouths. (8)

In a few instances, the aliens looking more like us are likely to engage in some form of sexual intercourse with the abductees. This extraordinary discovery is not unusual if we think about the reasons why aliens are prepared to go this far with humans.

A closer look at these 'sexual encounter' cases suggest the aliens are interested from a scientific perspective in obtaining high quality genetic material from humans for their own scientific work (eg. the use of a glass vial to collect sperm samples) — possibly to prove the existence of alien life from their perspective. But there are other reasons. Firstly, the encounter (if the abductees' are allowed to consciously recall the event) can provide a form of indirect public education through UFO reports of what is really happening in the universe between space-faring civilisations and how war is an unlikely scenario in space.

Could aliens be alleviating our fears of them in an indirect manner?

And secondly, the genetic material may be used to improve the stock of an otherwise isolated civilisation (in this case, the alien civilisation).

Further support for the former reason can be better understood here on Earth through the many wars humans seem to go through in their history. During times of war when two nations are at each other's throats, the male species forming the armies of each nation will fight each other to reduce male populations. On certain occasions, some males will successfully win some battles. As a result, the surviving males experienced in fighting and killing more than love and peace are likely to engage temporarily in raping and pillaging of enemy towns as a form of balance.

As time goes by, the women of both nations having experienced this situation will soon bear the children of the male enemies who fought during the war. It will only be a matter of time before the people of both nations soon see the pointless nature of war when they observe their own children being brought up in another nation.

Where once two nations were at each other's throats, it is not unusual for the nations to eventually unite strongly after a serious conflict because of the children and how adults learn to think what they are doing deeply enough. And these children will have a better chance of understanding the views of both nations in a balanced way and so avoid conflict between the nations in the future.

Would humans do the same if we knew our children were being brought up on another world?

Also obtaining genetic materials could be the means by which aliens can scientifically prove they have visited a foreign planet harbouring alien life — because it is virtually impossible to fake a visit to another planet when you have the alien genes in a vial.

These observations can be gleaned from cases where the witnesses have not required hynopsis to recall their alleged alien abductions. Classic examples of this include the Antonio Villas Boas case in Brazil in 1967, and Alfred Burtoo of Aldershot, England, in 1980.

NOTE 1: A similar behaviour can also be found in cases where witnesses were required to be hypnotised. However, because hynopsis can embellish some imaginative information with real experiences, it is more difficult to ascertain the genuine nature of the reports from hypnotised witnesses. It is best to go for the cases where no hypnosis was required. And there are enough cases of this kind to warrant further scientific study.

NOTE 2: It is possible for the more exotic aliens to take the route of disrupting human memory during an abduction to minimise the potential stress and shock to the abductees.

 

And what will happen to the military here on Earth when serious conflict can be resolved peacefully as we start travelling to the stars?

When we finally realise conflicts will be a thing of the past, all excessive spending on defence budgets to deal with our so-called aggressive fellow human beings and other supposedly aggressive 'star-faring' civilisations (if any) would be seen as a waste of time and money. There would be absolutely no point in having a military force if it can't defend against any alien attack. Furthermore, when people have what they need to survive and learn to solve problems peacefully, it will be even harder for the military to justify their existence.


 
While further research is needed, there are cases where aliens arriving on Earth in those UFO reports appear to do nothing more than enter people's bedrooms as if to indicate that they can bypass our military defence systems with ease and therefore the only way to feel secure is to not fight, but show curiority and love.

 

Yes, just imagine how many future historians will look back at our time as the age of overwhelming stupidity, greed and power because we all thought spending money on the military was the only solution to world problems (or more likely it is because the US military have discovered something incredible and want to find ways to maintain the status quo so that the big secret can be kept secret for as long as possible, but not realising people will eventually find out the truth).

Possibly the only purpose for having a defence budget in the future could be to scour the heavens for maurauding rocks and ice that may threaten the Earth and then deal with them appropriately in a kind of real-life "Maelstrom" game of reducing the rocks and ice to dust. This is a far more useful aim for the military rather than fighting its own kind simply because we are silly enough not to spend the money appropriately on social and environmental solutions instead. (9)

If we still haven't learnt why, then we are truly alone in this universe (a good enough reason why ETs in UFO reports don't wish to make themselves directly known to us). Any military action deployed by its creators against its own kind or other intelligent life will be clear evidence of a lack of understanding of the principles by which all intelligent 'star-travelling' civilisations in the universe must come to accept as vital for their own survival. Any aggressive behaviour on our part when we are ready to travel to the stars will give the right for any advanced civilisation to deal with us as they please at the time of their choosing.

When we begin to travel to the stars, humankind must be ready to change its attitude to one of peace, hope and love for all living things.

Do we want to know there is other life in the Universe? Then learn to love one another.

 

800 YEARS FROM NOW

 

US scientists have found an asteroid on the outskirts of our solar system heading towards the Earth. Known as 1950DA, the rock is 1 kilometre wide and will either hit the Earth or come extremely close to the planet in roughly 800 years from now (ie. 2880 A.D.).

If the asteroid does hit the Earth's surface, it will unleash the energy of 100,000 megatons of TNT, or roughly 10 times the energy of the most powerful nuclear bomb known to humankind in the 20th century — the hydrogen bomb.

A normal 20 megaton nuclear weapon will not stop it. A direct impact of a nuclear weapon with the asteroid will only shatter it and create many small nuclear bomb-like explosions over many continents.

Or better still, scientists could remotely manoeuvre several self-accelerating electromagnetic vehicles and place them on the surface of the asteroid. By using the energy in the light to reach a certain density for recycling (ie. its own gravitational field), the electromagnetic vehicles can exert a constant physical force on the asteroid over a greater period of time until it is deflected to a safer trajectory. The aim is for a more gentle and continuous pushing action (perhaps lasting several years or decades) until the asteroid is thrown off course and away from its likely intended target of planet Earth.

 

0 TO 100 MILLION YEARS FROM NOW

 
If by incredible luck we are smart enough not to create conflict with other civilisations in the Universe (let's hope our brains are big enough to show how wise we are and have the right education for humankind), we will have to eventually focus our attention on the heavens once more, because this will be the ultimate test of our ability to survive. Why? Our future is still dependent on what happens in the Universe.

It is here where our seemingly stable and safe planet we call Earth will experience many more impacts from asteroids and comets (and perhaps from other stars dying too soon while our Sun travels around the edge of the Milky Way). Certainly they won't be quite as great in numbers as they did nearly 6 billion years ago. But they will come. When? Nobody knows for sure. It could come tomorrow, or we may have to wait for 1000 years before it happens. But it will happen!

Because we don't know what the universe will throw at us or where it will land (we have yet to find and track the paths of cool non-reflective dark matter existent outside our solar system), it would be prudent for scientists and peaceful world governments to at least have some kind of a program in place to look for such maurauding rocks and ice flying through space in any direction.

Why? Space debris will collide with Earth. This is a veritable fact of life. Most will probably hit the equatorial and temperate zones if they are not absorbed by the other planets in the solar system. Some space debris may come perpendicular to the plane of the solar system and could collide in the polar region.

Then there is the size of the rock or ice to consider when they hit the Earth - they could be the size of small moons!

When space debris do hit the Earth, they could land in the oceans, creating massive tidal waves ranging anywhere from 20 metres to 2,000 metres in height (a 2 kilometre-wide asteroid hitting the oceans can create a 600 feet tidal wave) when they reach the continents. Others may hit the land masses, creating severe wintery conditions for up to 10 years throughout the planet as the dust is thrown high into the upper atmosphere by the impact and reducing the amount of available sunlight reaching the ground.

In the worse case scenario, the Earth and all its inhabitants could be destroyed by a big enough asteroid. And all that would be left is a bunch of rocks and ice forming another more spectacular asteroid belt around the Sun (or, with a bit of luck, icy comets flying into deeper space will be ready to fertilise another new Earth-like planet with our bacteria and hopefully harbour more intelligent beings than our own). Now wouldn't that be an absolute bugger for all life on Earth if this became a reality; and all because we were too preoccupied with making money and/or still resolving conflicts with our fellow human beings!

 

100 MILLION YEARS FROM NOW

 
The rings of Saturn will disappear after the bombardment of countless meteorites passing through the rings.

 

215 MILLION YEARS FROM NOW

 
Africa merges with Europe to form a supercontinent.

 

1 BILLION YEARS FROM NOW

 
The moon known as Triton will break up and collide into the planet Neptune. A new and more spectacular set of rings will form around the planet.

 

5 BILLION YEARS FROM NOW

 
The Sun will expand in size and turn a distinctly dark orange to almost a reddish colour. The Sun will continue to expand until it reaches the orbit of the Earth, thereby forever destroying our humble planet.

Not long after that, the Sun will eject its outer layers of material into space. The ejection of matter will not be as great as the ancient star that created our Sun over 6 billion years ago. It is more likely the ejection of matter will create what is known as a ring nebula.

Before that time comes, hopefully humans will have successfully learned to live with one another, with other great civilisations in the universe, and in dealing with the asteroids and comets flying through the universe. Who knows? We may need the help of an alien civilisation somewhere in the Milky Way to help us find a new place to live after the Earth is destroyed. Actually, this might explain why some aliens could be interested in our genetic material as this would allow better adaptation to the Earth if we are welcoming of them in case their own planet gets destroyed.

What we do for others we will get back in return.

Whatever happens in the future, humans by this time will probably not look anything like we do now unless these people choose to use their technology of genetic engineering and the possible intermingling of humans with other similar-looking humanoid-like alien people in our Milky Way to have a particular set of physical characteristics which we might still describe as "human".

Possibly the only thing that will give these future "humans" some connection with us would probably be in the shape of their bodies (ie. humanoid form) and the memories recorded on their highly advanced technological storage mediums of where they originally came from (ie. the Earth).

 

3 to 5.1 BILLION YEARS FROM NOW

 
According to researchers T. J. Cox and Abraham Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., the Milky Way will eventually merge with the much larger Andromeda galaxy.

Presently the spiral-shaped spectacular known as the Andromeda galaxy is the closest galaxy to our own. Apart from the Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy is the only other galaxy visible to the naked eye today because of its distance of 2.5 million light years. However, in about 3 billion years from now, we can expect our night sky in whatever part of the Milky Way we choose to live to be filled with the spectacular view of the Andromeda galaxy fast approaching us.

The Andromeda galaxy is definitely heading our way at an estimated speed of 120 km (75 miles) per second

In 4 billion years from now, the Andromeda galaxy will have its first close fly-by with our galaxy causing the Milky Way to distort and stretch one or more of its spiral arms out into space and towards the second galaxy. Computer modelling using the latest data suggests there is a 50 per cent chance the Sun and Earth will be dragged into a long "tidal tail" extending out from our galaxy. Or we could stay within the Milky Way depending on which spiral arm we happen to be on at this time. If we are moved further away from the Milky Way by the tidal forces of the other galaxy, it is likely our Sun will become part of the Andromeda galaxy.

After 5.1 billion years have passed, the Andromeda galaxy would have encircled and merged with our Milky Way on the second close encounter forming a much larger galaxy in space.

Further details about this merger between the Andromeda galaxy and our own can be found in the research journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society of May 2007.

 

100 BILLION YEARS FROM NOW

 
Researchers T. J. Cox and Abraham Loeb think the only thing to watch in this Universe at this time will be our Milkomeda — the new name given for the galaxy formed after the merger of the Andromeda galaxy with the Milky Way — and a few Local Groups.

In other words, scientists today believe our visible Universe of galaxies will disappear from sight and eventually be pitch black except for our new galaxy and a few local groups of stars caught in the gravitational field of our new galaxy.

Why?

Our Universe is believed by 20th and early 21st century scientists to be expanding because of the red-shifting effect of the light (or stretching of the fabric of space-time) from distant galaxies observed through our telescopes today.

The Andromeda galaxy might be an exception to the "expanding Universe" rule because it is travelling fast enough in our direction and close enough to make the reading of an approaching galaxy possible. But so far, scientists are not expecting more distant galaxies to be moving anywhere in our direction. Whatever it is that's causing the red-shifting of the light from distant galaxies is best interpreted at the moment as a receding of those galaxies due to an expanding Universe.

Sounds pretty odd, no doubt.

It would not be surprising if future scientists might revise this expanding Universe idea to take into account Einstein's unifying attempts. Because if the light from distant galaxies is found to be naturally losing energy (which implies a red-shifting of its frequency) because of the countless collisions with other light in the supposed emptiness between the galaxies, it may make it impossible to tell precisely whether other galaxies are indeed receding from us or not.

As the Unified Field Theory claims, light and gravity are really one and the same thing and that light could be just another form of matter including having its own gravitational field. If light is naturally losing energy as it travels the immense distances between the stars because of its collision with other light, it could cause problems for the scientists who believe in the "expanding Universe" theory.

Whatever the truth, scientists will have a lot more learning to do for a long time to come.



NOTES

  1. Barring, of course, any natural catastrophes such as a massive asteroid or comet plunging to the Earth, which is why we need science and technology and all the imagination we can muster for all eternity to solve this great problem..

  2. York, L. Give peace a chance: The Australian Senior. June 2002, p.17.

  3. Some scientists believe humans should learn to adapt to the drier conditions in many parts of the world (including Australia) because of the greenhouse effect generated from all our human activity (eg. burning fossil fuels and coal, forest fires, chemical factories etc). In other words, we should accept what we are doing to the planet.

    CSIRO chief of Atmospheric Research Dr Graeme Pearman is a supporter of this view. Based on available data obtained from nine of the world's best climate modelling systems, Pearman believed it is time we all get use to the drier conditions and see it as normal. Yes, but for how long? For all eternity?

    One must assume Pearman's view is for the short-term, in which case our farmers should consider growing a variety of different crops or instead go into other industries like wind generation and tourism.

    Why? Pearman predicts temperatures in various parts of the world are going to rise anywhere between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees celsius over the next 100 years. (Lucas 2002, p.1.)

    Should we have to live with the way the climate is heading right now? Perhaps in the short-term, but not in the long-term.

    We need to keep in mind that the Earth has experienced much hotter conditions in the past than scientists are now predicting for the next 100 years. And in those times, Earth did somehow manage to maintain regular and significant amounts of rainfall on an almost daily basis over the great supercontinent at the time for more than 50 million years (ie. the Jurassic Period). So what's the difference?

    It would appear the plant populations across the world continents were significantly greater in numbers and in better health to do its job in the past than they are now. In other words, the amount of plants available to absorb carbon dioxide also helped to retain enough water on the ground as well as affecting the humidity in the air. And this appears to be an important factor in determining the probability of significant rain occuring over land (apart from mountain ranges).

    When plants are highly abundant across a vast area, the higher temperatures created by the sun and the abundant greenhouse gases would not be enough to evaporate all the surface water on the ground because of the plant cover (ie. less wind and a lower temperature at ground level would make it much harder to evaporate all the water).

    Now where there would be significant water loss is in the plants themselves (ie. in the upper canopy). But this does not mean all the water from the plants will be lost forever, never to be seen again. It simply means the water will raise humidity in the air. So as the heat helps the water-laden air to rise, heavy clouds are formed and this in turn would lead to rain. Or if the wind is blowing, a nearby mountain range can help to turn the moist air into rainmaking clouds.

    If the plants cover enough area and the shape of the land allows a fair amount of the water to return to its original location, it is possible to fully replenish the water loss. Then the cycle repeats itself.

    However, as things have it at the moment, we are facing a critical time in human history where population is high, fewer trees and other plant species exist to protect the fragile top soil and retain ground water while maintaining reasonable humidity in the air as needed to create regular and dependable rainfall, and human activity such as burning coal and fossil fuel is raising the temperature in the air.

    So while we continue with this desertification of the land and a drier and hotter climate trend (ie. believing that we merely have to change ourselves and not the environment as well), we can expect more and more scientists, politicians and business professionals to say, "Learn to adapt because this is how the climate is going to be like from now on."

    Rubbish. As if it is going to be like this forever. Humans have created the problem. Humans can also create the solution.

    It's a cop out from people who can't lead society towards a brighter future.

  4. This may not be quite as bad as it sounds. People who are able to cope best when travelling to the stars are those described in society as being a loner, very independent, highly curious, searching for the truth and want to present things in an accurate way, and probably have no family (because many years, decades or even centuries may go past at home by the time these people return from their trips to the stars) so will not be prone to feelings of loneliness. It is these people, probably balanced L- and R-brain individuals, who will choose to undergo these very long trips and may even reduce weight by radical means (probably after conceiving a child with someone else willing to look after the child as a sole parent) so as to help humanity progress and see a greater future in this universe.

    However there is another benefit for people choosing to remove their reproductive organs — they live much longer.

    In a study conducted by scientists at the University of California San Francisco, roundworms called Caenorhabditis elegans were created to live six times longer than normal. The secret to the worms longevity lies in changing certain genes and in modifying the environment to the point of having the reproductive organs of the worms removed.

    The worms were chosen for their simple "short-length" genes making gene manipulation easy for the scientists, a relatively short lifespan of 18 to 20 days for normal worms, and how a great deal of the genes are in common with other animals including humans.

    Among the research results found include one gene called IGF-1 designed to control the growth of insulin and regulate its use in the body. IGF-1 is also known to regulate metabolism. By weakening the gene's function, scientists were able to slow the metabolic rate and hence double the lifespan of the worms. And if the reproductive organs are removed (which also contains hormones for controlling metabolism and growth), the worms doubled it again.

    In the end, the new worms managed to live on average about three months or longer compared to up to 20 days for normal worms. As the scientists wrote in the journal Science:

    'In human terms, these animals would correspond to healthy, active 500-year-olds.'

    Would we be willing to live for 500 years?

    And are there space travellers doing this right now? Is there any evidence that might support this? The closest scientists have to supporting this possibility has been the release of some controversial information from anonymous scientists working for the US Government and military in the field of crashed discs after 1947 and recently after the release of several books on the Roswell incident.

    It is believed, according to the scientific informants and others, autopsies performed on aliens retrieved from crashed discs in the US from the late 1940s suggest the space travellers live a long life based on the number of convolutions and the degree of convolution in the brains of the aliens. Apparently it is much greater than those of humans. Also the aliens do not have sexual organs to make it clear the gender of the space travellers.

    This indirect evidence plus the fact that aliens are often small and slender makes it ideal for travelling to the stars.

    Could we see a similar situation happening for humans when travelling to the stars?

  5. The Canberra Times: Scientists make killer virus as a warning. 13 July 2002, p.5.

  6. The Canberra Times: Scientists make killer virus as a warning. 13 July 2002, p.5. More of this quote may be found in the journal Science.

  7. If, for some incredible reason, this were to be true, it would imply that the universe we live in with all its stars, planets and galaxies would be essentially dominated by one super-race and all other lifeforms (including ourselves) would be unable to develop beyond the level of a bacteria. It is a scenario that would require us to take the "aggressive" argument to its logical conclusion. However, since we are still here, it should be seen as a testament to the fact that intelligent creatures in the universe must be friendly and benevolent.

    This is a remarkable scientific discovery.

    Assuming the technology for travelling to the stars is now within our reach (and yes that technology will be based on the laws of electromagnetism, and not nuclear or chemical), then the ability of these creatures to reach us and yet do nothing to interfere with our culture means there can be no other explanation — aliens will have to be curious and friendly. This is likely to be the fact, not the exception to the rule.

    Sorry guys, we don't need the world military to keep ourselves secure and happy! Try something else if you want to continue receiving a modest "defence budget".

    ## SPECIAL UPDATE ##
    February 2006
    According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, global strategy.com and CIA World Factbook, the US will spend for the 2007 fiscal year US$463 billion. The nearest country capable of competing at this budget size is China. However, it can only manage a woeful US$67 billion.

    Nearly half the budget of the US is taken up in the paying, feeding, training and clothing of all the 1.4 million marines, soldiers, sailors and air force personnel and the Iraq War (about US$50 billion at last count for the war itself). The rest is on maintaining existing military assets, in building new ones such as command centres and bases, in building new weapons (around US$84.2 billion), and special space-based research work (to the tune of US$73.2 billion), which may include secret studies into UFOs.

    Wouldn't it be better to train people to look after the environment, grow high quality food and obtain clean water, and help nations to achieve a similar goal themselves through the time, money and manpower being spent in defence? It is not as if defence people will be out of a job. It would just be in more appropriate jobs helping humanity rather than against it as they have unfortunately learned for so long.

    Don't let history dictate the future of humanity by continuing to maintain a defence budget. Too much focus on history has taught us war is normal. The truth is, war is not normal.

    It is time to create a new future, and a peaceful one by that, because peace is the most normal thing we can do.

  8. One of the arguments against aliens coming to Earth in UFOs is how they look. There is a view by skeptics that any alien life looking remotely like us (ie. humanoid form) has to be impossible and therefore UFO reports have to be bogus.

    One supporter of this "wildly imaginative look in the aliens" view is Gentry Lee. He said:

    'One of the the things that I always find amusing is whenever the classical media start to recreate aliens they look remarkably like us. They have two eyes in the middle of something that looks like a head. That is so ridiculous to me. There are so many things that happened along our evolutionary path to create us, that the probability that we would encounter anything remotely like us is virtually zero.' (Australian 60 Minutes documentary: The Hunt for ET by reporter Peter Overton. 21 August 2008.)

    This quote assumes the laws of physics such as gravity and the advantages of certain evolutionary traits for maximising survival do not apply. In other words, they don't exist.

    We know this is untrue. Every planet where life can evolve will experience the same forces of gravity. And every lifeform will evolve common evolutionary traits to maximise their chances of survival.

    For example, to move away from predators at high enough speeds through water or air, appendages on the body are necessary for propulsion. When walking on land, these appendages need to provide support against the forces of gravity constantly pulling the body down while still permitting movement. To observe predators at a distance, it is important for a living organism to stand up on two limbs (for balance) to raise the eyes to a new perspective. And when two limbs are free from mobility purposes for extended periods of time, they can be used to manipulate the environment and create tools.

    Already we are seeing the advantages of creatures having humanoid characteristics.

    Dr Harlow Shapley supports this "common look with aliens" view when he commented at one time:

    'A mixture of pure chemical elements will always under the same physical conditions produce the same result, whether it be an odour, an explosion, or a colour. Perhaps we should expect that a mixture of starshine, water, carbon, nitrogen and other atoms, when physical conditions are fairly similar, will everywhere produce animals that are much alike in structure and operation and plants that have certain standard behaviour, notwithstanding great morphological differences. It we should visit a planet essentially identical with ours in mass, temperature, age and structure, we would probably not find the biology queer beyond comprehension.... Therefore we surmise that the biology on Planet X and Planets Y, Z and so forth might have much in common with the living forms on Planet Earth just because the carbon compounds will have it so, and because the same chemistry and the same natural laws prevail throughout the universe we explore.' (Holmes 1966, pp.78-79.)

    Dr Paul Davies, professor of Mathematical Physics at the University of Adelaide, Australia, also supports this belief. Despite the natural tendency for stupendous genetic diversity of life, Davies says that:

    'I believe that life is channelled by the [same] forces of nature and evolution, so it would not surprise me if life forms somewhere or other in the universe were very similar to ourselves.' (Hough & Randles 1991, p.123.)

    So maybe it would be biologically feasible for intelligent life to appear in humanoid form as described by the witnesses?

  9. Professor Peter H. Schultz of the Department of Geological Sciences at Brown University with a Ph.D in Astronomy from the University of Texas visited a meteorite impact of 15 September 2007 near the Peruvian village of Carancas. In his current position as director of the Northeast Planetary Data Center and the NASA/Rhode Island University Space Grant Consortium, the crater he found in a muddy field formed by a subsurface water table was 13 to 14 metres (49 feet) in diameter with a rim a metre above the original soft red soil. So he naturally thought a large meteorite had probably gently landed on the ground and raising soil around it. On the contrary, on closer analysis of the impact site, we learn for the first time in science how the object responsible for the damage was found to be much smaller than Schultz or any other scientist had envisaged.

    After examining the shattered sand grains described as exhibiting "planar deformation features" and calculating the energy required to produce the crater, Schultz estimated the object was travelling at about 25,000km/h (or 6.5 kilometres per second) when it hit the ground. It is almost as if the atmosphere had done little if anything to slow it down. As Schultz said:

    'Normally with a small object like this, the atmosphere slows it down, and it becomes the equivalent of a bowling ball dropping into the ground. It would make a hole in the ground, like a pit, but not a crater. But this meteorite kept on going at a speed about 40 to 50 times faster than it should have been going. This isn't what we expected. It was to the point that many thought this was fake. It was completely inconsistent with our understanding how stony meteorites act.' (www.scientificblogging.com: The Peruvian Meteorite that became the Carancas Fireball. 11 March 2008. Also partially quoted in Clark, Stuart. Tunguska the Truth: BBC Sky at Night. June 2008, pp.36-41 (p.40.).)

    Graduate student Robert "Scott" Harris, Peruvian astrophysicist Jose Ishitsuka, and astronomer from Uruguay named Gonzalo Tancredi accompanied Schultz to the crater. All agreed after analysing the crater that this was an unusual stony meteorite.

    Schultz suggested a possible explanation:

    'It [the object] became very streamlined and so it penetrated the Earth's atmosphere more efficiently.' (www.scientificblogging.com: The Peruvian Meteorite that became the Carancas Fireball. 11 March 2008.)

    In other words, the speed this object was travelling through the atmosphere must have heated it up enough (explaining its brightness as it streaked across the sky as observed by residents in the city of Desaguadero, approximately 20 kilometres north of Carancas) to allow the air to pass over it and reshape the object to become more aerodynamic. Yet remarkably the object did not disintegrate, which would have suggested to the scientists it was a conglomeration of stones, ice and perhaps a bit of metal particles such as iron. Rather the object that landed in Peru was probably a solid chunk of iron or some other heavy metal.

    However the iron has not been uncovered. It either means the meteorite was not entirely composed of iron. Or the iron is buried much deeper than expected but too small to detect. If it wasn't composed of iron, then somehow the aerodynamic shape was already there, perhaps as a result of a split from a larger piece.

    Some meteor fragments were eventually found. Examination of these fragments showed they weren't the solid iron pieces scientists were hoping to see. Instead, scientists observed what could be best described as "fine-grained, light grey, fragile rocky material, with disseminated iron of one-millimetre diameter" and with the presence of tiny silicate spheres (a common characteristic of other meteorites) thereby confirming the object did originate from space, according to the report by Luisa Macedo and Jose Macharé of the Peruvian Institute for Geology, Mining and Metallurgy.

    The concern scientists are having with this discovery is that if a smaller stony (if it isn't a lump of metal) fragment can create a lot of damage on the ground as it occurred in Peru, it is likely many more of these fragments will be flying around in space than larger ones. And how many of these types of stony meteorite have managed to land on the Earth?

    As Schultz said:

    'You just wonder how many other lakes and ponds were created by a stony meteorite, but we just don't know about them because when these things hit the surface they just completely pulverize and then they weather [down over time].' (www.scientificblogging.com: The Peruvian Meteorite that became the Carancas Fireball. 11 March 2008.)

    We already know that the one that hit Tunguska in 1908 is thought to be between 40 and 100 metres in diameter, leaving no trace of itself after impact (very similar to the Peruvian example). Where as the object that landed near Peru was probably a few tens of centimetres in diameter if made of pure iron, or about 1 metre if made of a stony material. Unfortunately the largest asteroids scientists are capable of detecting using the most advanced Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) with its 8.4 metre diameter light collecting surface will be no less than 140 metres (460 feet) with a maximum 90 per cent detection rate due to other factors.

    Humanity remains vulnerable to whatever projectiles get thrown at us from space.

 
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