Fact & Fantasy - Again!

A little while ago, in this ‘Blog’, there was a consideration of the difference between science fiction and science fact. How the two sometimes don’t quite gel when we authors are looking for effect.

We have seen how, in popular films such as ‘Star Wars’, there is a need to add sound effects to scenes set in outer space. We know for a certainty that we could not, in reality, hear sounds because there is nothing in space to transmit the necessary vibrations.

I will amend that last statement. We know that space contains matter. We can make a statement that absolute vacuum is defined as one molecule per cubic metre. So space is not ‘absolutely’ empty.

Fine. But this is insufficient material of any sort to transmit sound waves.

Nevertheless we feel it necessary to pump up the drama by adding sound effects - weapons fire and rocket motors, primarily.

There was also discussion about science fiction and fantasy.

My argument is that science fiction is largely fantasy. The idea of being able to hear weapons fire in deep space is fantastic. It is fantasy.

Given our current levels of scientific and technological advances we are unable to resume human movement towards the moon let alone any other planet and certainly not to interstellar regions.

We are stuck here. This is where we live and this is where we shall stay for the foreseeable future.

Sorry if you find that depressing but it is science fact. Anything beyond that is fiction.

These tales of visits to outer space, of flitting between planets, of wars and adventures with alien beings is all in the imagination.

It is fantasy.

True, we can incorporate the odd bits of science fact to make it more ‘realistic’ but it remains fantasy nonetheless.

In ‘Crater’ the idea was that the aliens came here. Certainly they did not come here with our well-being in their hearts – or what serves as heart to such entities. We could then reverse engineer their craft to give us the capability to travel through space.

We could look at that for a moment.

Ever since the alleged incident at Roswell there has been an all-consuming desire to meet with aliens; that aliens have visited us and have done so for many years. Indeed, there is even a programme, a popular one I am told, that purports to prove that aliens not only visited us in ancient times but that they were responsible for technical and scientific advances. That they assisted in the construction of mystical edifices. Stonehenge is, I believe, one such place.

Perhaps they also were responsible for the ley-lines and the magic of Glastonbury Tor.

Perhaps we shall never know.

For their part, the ‘believers’, there is a body of people who claim to have been abducted by aliens. This has been revealed to us mere mortals by the use of hypnotherapy. This is a quasi-science with which I have no truck

The argument against this comes in three parts:

Firstly, people under hypnosis can come up with all sorts of nonsense at the behest of the hypnotist. I understand that hypnotism can be very useful, very therapeutic. It has, no doubt, been used to great effect to help people in all sorts of ways from sleep disorders to giving up smoking to dietary solutions.

But.

Stories of alien abduction are not something that appeals to my sense of ‘evidence’.

Because.

Secondly, there are also stories of people being abused as children that are revealed by hypnosis. One poor man was accused of abusing his own child as a result of the child denouncing him under hypnosis. He was locked up for this crime but, eventually (once his life had been irrevocably ruined), he was released when his innocence was proven.

One wonders how the child felt about that.

I am curious to see what would happen if a hypnotist who specialised in child abuse and another one who specialised in alien abductions were to ‘cross over’ as it were. Perhaps we should see lots of children being abducted and abused by aliens.

What is the law governing alien paedophilia, one wonders?

Thirdly, the stories of alien abduction all seem to come from the USA. The way I see that is that the USA has more hypnotists than anyone else...

Just one more thing while we are thinking along these lines.

Aliens have never visited us.

Oh, sorry. Does that ruffle a feather or two?

Well, the thing is, that there are thousands of astronomers, amateur and professional, who are constantly looking up at the sky using everything from smoked glass to a billion dollars worth of optical and radio telescopes.

We also have the Hubble telescope that sees all sorts of wonderful – and mysterious things. None of them have seen an alien craft.

Agreed, the aliens could be using cloaking technology and wonderful radio frequencies undetectable to human devices.

Or they are just not there.

Why don’t they visit? Why don’t they simply come down and shake hands? They have spent vast fortunes on research and development; huge sums of their currency on fuel; risked life and tentacle to get here just to hide or abduct some poor wight. Perhaps they get their kicks out of making weird light patterns in the sky; maybe they are teenagers on some sort of illicit drug who are saying, “Let’s mystify these idiot Earthlings...”

The vast majority of people on Earth believe in some form of ethereal deity (me included). People who don’t are equally entitled to that view. There is great argument and mockery exchanged between these two camps much as there is between the ‘pro-Alien’ and ‘con-Alien’ camps.

When it comes to aliens I want proof. I want somebody to come back with an alien implant that ‘they’ have inserted into the abductee’s body during their ‘examinations’. It will be different, in subtle ways, from anything produced or manufactured on Earth. We can tell.

Why do I need proof of aliens and not of a deity? Because a deity is based on faith and gives me comfort. I’m old – tolerate it! Aliens are, effectively, solid and substantial living beings with blood, guts and brains. They have to leave evidence.

We constantly discover that the things we thought we knew are no longer valid or accurate. Things, scientific facts, that we were told as children now turn out to be not quite as they were thought to be.

Science is constantly modifying, finding new things rethinking old ideas.

This is how it should be. The days of persecuting people like Galileo should be a thing of the past but they are not.

Most of us live large portions of our lives harmlessly engaged in some sort of fantasy world. One of the biggest fantasies is that the knowledge of alien visitation is being withheld from us by Governmental conspiracies.

Nobody, just nobody, Government or not, can keep a secret held by so many people for so long. Nobody.

Conspiracies, fantasies, aliens visiting and abducting us, magical ley-lines and sounds travelling through space.

Fantasy.

The root of science fiction

Dragons and all.