We are like Ants to Them



A couple months ago I began dealing with the Fermi Paradox a.k.a. Where-is-everybody, and then introduced the Marceau Paradox, or Why-are-they-hiding-from-us?  The premise behind this update to the question is that I have seen an alien spaceship, up close, therefore the Where-is-everybody question is somewhat moot.  They are here.

Why are Aliens Hiding from Us?


Right after introducing my new question I spent a couple weeks exploring some possible reasons why aliens will not contact us, or at least show themselves.  I put forth many reasons but the one that stands out to me is we are probably just too violent or aggressive.  If the new show Project Blue Book is to be believed we have attacked them in the past.  Why would they then feel comfortable landing on the White House lawn or even my lawn, for that matter?

I stopped exploring these possible reasons for the Marceau Paradox partly because of the reason above and partly because I came back from the Thanksgiving break with a lot of new ideas to write about.  But I still have about a dozen more possible reasons why aliens do not contact us, which I have not yet written about.

We are like Ants to Them

Then, last week a friend of mine sent me a link to a Ted Talk about alien contact which I thought I had posted on Twitter last week but now I do not see it.  At any rate, the talk was about the Rare Earth Hypothesis, which is the preposterous idea that we are alone in the Universe and no other life exists.  What was really odd about the Ted presenter was that he claimed to have seen a spaceship when he was a kid.  But now as an adult he has convinced himself that he was wrong.  Bizarre.

One of the people who commented on the video, you gotta love the comments, "SBlaze89" posted the question, "Do humans try to communicate with ants? I mean, we've observed them. Learned about them. But they pose no threat. Insignificant."  Most of the replies to him or her ranged from snarky to hostile.  Everyone is a comedian or a big shot on social media.  But I took it seriously.  It was one of the items on my list to write about which I had tabled after Thanksgiving.

What if we are like ants to aliens?  We see ants going about their business down on the surface of the planet.  They see us do our fly-overs without stopping to communicate.  We go about our lives indifferent to what they are doing in their little sandy pyramids.  We see them collecting food and we do not stop them - sometimes we will even drop a few crumbs of cake, just to see them team up and pick them up.  Do they consider these delicious treats as gifts from the gods?  Perhaps there are hieroglyphs of humans inside ant pyramids.  Probably not.

Once in a while we abduct an ant.  The ant is transported through the air by a force it does not comprehend.  It then spends some time on an alien transporter, perhaps your hand or even your arm.  Ants tickle.  The ant is then transported back home, sometimes by flicking it with your finger.  I suspect if they were bigger, people would conduct experiments on them.  Most of us have no medical training but that would not stop the vast majority of people from acting like doctors on a species which is completely insignificant to us and which PETA and the ASPCA would not complain about us mistreating.  My wife says that is how Jeffrey Dahmer started.  She is usually right.

Do Ants Worship Humans?
Do Ants Worship Humans?

Sometimes ants bite or sting.  I do not like those ants.  Since it is hard to differentiate one from another, I try to avoid all of them.  I do not want to be bitten.  The bites do not hurt much but still, who wants something biting them?  What if something in the bite causes an infection or a disease?  Aliens probably think the same of the bullets and missiles from our jet fighters.  It does not hurt their ships but still, why chance it?

When two different types of ants come into contact with each other they may try to kill each other.  An entire colony may attack another, just because they are different.  We do that too.  Usually we justify this with some higher purpose like religion or politics and we say the other guys want to destroy our way of life so we are going to kill them all.  This is a primitive mentality.  We have been doing it since the dawn of Man.  That is probably what happened to the Neanderthals.

Do Aliens Try to Communicate with Us?


YouTube user "Impreval" asks, "The real question should be: Do ants try to communicate with us?"  Great question.  We try to communicate with aliens.  Do they recognize our attempts?  Our radio/TV signals can not reach their planets but their ships flying around in space can intercept these signals.  Are they able to decode them?
Do Aliens Try to Communicate with Us?
Would they recognize what the images are portraying?  Would they see it as a history of our people, like in Galaxy Quest or as more of a challenge to fight, like in Pixels?  Have they tried to reply but we do not recognize their responses?  There are a few channels on TV that I wonder about...  I suspect that if ants had the ability to know they could communicate with us and they actually tried, we would not recognize their attempts.  Maybe it is the same with us and aliens.

Sometimes we will smush an ant.  For no reason.  We do not think of it as murder.  The life of the ant is meaningless.  Just smush and, "Pass me another Junior Mint."  Would aliens think of us the same way?  Or do they think of us more like dogs or dolphins?  You would never smush a dolphin.  For one thing, they are too slippery.  Not to mention, they are really smart.  And cute.  Dolphins have a lot going for them.  Ants, not so much.  Are we more like ants or dolphins, to aliens?  I am hoping it is dolphins.

Along the same lines, for no reason at all people might step on an ant mound.  Those ants work really hard to build their colonies.  The sandy pyramids at the tops of their tunnels are designed to keep running water from rain out of the tunnels.  It is pretty smart for a dumb insect.  (Are we pretty smart for dumb Earthlings?)  And then along comes six-year-old Joey in his untied Nikes with the broken aglets and smush.  Bye-bye ant mound.  Would aliens ever do that to us?  Just come along and blow away a city in the blink of an eye?  We do not know.  If they can get from there to here, they could.  There are a lot of bad things we could do but we do not because of some moral code we are taught as kids.  Then there are laws preventing really bad things.  Do aliens have laws against destroying cities on other planets?  So far, so good.

Out of all the reasons why aliens do not contact us, the thought that we are like ants is probably the second lowest on my list, after Rare Earth.  But it is on the list.  Perhaps someday soon we will find out.



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If you have seen an alien spaceship or any type of unidentified flying object (UFO) contact me using the Contact form on this page.  You may remain anonymous if you want.  I will not ridicule you or try to tell you why you are wrong.  I get it, I saw one too.

Thank you for reading and keep an eye on the sky.

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