Dreamrail

We Still Light Fire
A Mild Rant About S.E.T.I.By Michael Ripley

This story starts on July 2, 1947. It begins with the premise that sometimes, even when loaded with the best intentions and all the evidence in front of our eyes, we see the wrong things and make bad decisions. With hindsight, however, we should be able to get it right. After all, we consistently employ the help of internal audits, executive review, oversight committees, and instant replay. It’s part of our culture, entrenched in our daily practices; but as I said, we see the wrong things. On this July day, fifty-seven years ago, we thought in many regards, exactly as we think today. Neither evolution, nor social revolution have improved our ability analyze what we found at the crash site near Roswell, New Mexico.

Efforts are increasing today to communicate with life outside our solar system. We send more and more messages into deep space, while waiting for an answer, looking for a sign that somebody or something is out there. We also want to be able to deal with them once they arrive. Their ship that crashed near Roswell had to be able to communicate; they certainly carried sophisticated transmission devices. We found them, most likely still intact, functioning like nothing we had ever seen before, beaming messages to a mother ship or base on a far off planet. It was handed to us, a working prototype of the very system we are trying to develop on our own today. In our infinite wisdom, back in 1947, we turned it off.

Of course, this is only my theory, but I do have one compelling piece of evidence to offer as support for the proposition that the communication device, providing the capabilities we are seeking was put into the wrong hands. Somehow, the people that snagged the technology from the grasp of our military, possibly just by being at the right place at the right time, thought not of interplanetary communication, but instead, small home appliances.

They gave this secret to the companies that build our kitchen gadgets. These corporations also provide us stoves, along with gas and electric ranges that heat with fire or coils. Imagine the progress there: we still burn fire in our kitchens, a giant leap from, well the caveman. He didn’t have fire early on.

We have running water. All right maybe the appliance manufacturers don’t provide our water, but nevertheless, it has evolved at about the same speed as fire. We pipe it in, fill a sink, and to our credit, we have learned how to retain it by the use of something commonly known as a stopper. Maybe you call it a plug.

We have a dishwasher, but that really is just a version of the sink, only it sprays the water faster. We also have a refrigerator that uses gases and pumps to generate cold air. It is the system that was invented right after ice. Somebody did the research to figure out how to refrigerate, and then simply stopped. No more progress.

Now, the only reason I go on about the lack of continuous improvement in the area of these kitchen appliances is to prove my point. It may seem like a small point; it’s not even a totally original idea. I heard it first a couple decades ago, and thought, ‘wow, they are on to something. Somebody will research this, and find the truth. It will all come out now and everybody will know.’ Then it just died out. Maybe it isn’t a big deal to everybody; maybe I’m just odd. Or, possibly they don’t want us to know.

Sitting there, right along side a flame in our kitchen, and I still find it amazing that we are burning fires all over our homes; our stoves, furnaces, water heaters, clothes dryers all produce flame if we use gas. So, with all this fire burning, all this gas flowing, and exhaust fumes hopefully going outside of our homes, all these items working about the same that they have for these past fifty-seven years we somehow manage to pop popcorn with a device called a microwave oven.

Millions of radio waves that penetrate the raw food, exciting the atomic structure to accelerate their normal energy patterns, while bouncing around inside simple plastic walls can heat those corn kernels into a popped delight in about three minutes flat. This is what I call evidence that has been plopped right in front of our eyes, and we have looked the other way for half a century. Does nobody notice it being a little out of place next to the open fire?

Microwave technology wasn’t brought over a million miles to help us get faster popcorn. It is supposed to be how we communicate with them. You know them. They brought it, maybe they left it here by accident, but still we got it, and maybe this is a forecast of how we would use more of their technology. My guess is they won’t be dropping any new items off real soon, but like I said, ‘Maybe I’m just odd.’

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The End