smiling bandit got me thinking about this one. I’ve actually kicked the thought around off and on for a few years now.
Seems there are a lot of folks who believe the pyramids were built by aliens. Extraterrestrial, not illegal. These folks claim that the evidence of the ET’s involvement in the pyramids, Egyptian and Meso-American, as well as some other ancient construction projects was suppressed by religious authorities because it would shake people’s faith in God, or in the authority of teachings of the assorted religions in question (Christianity is usuall cited as the Big Suppressor of Evidence).
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the pyramids were built by aliens. OK. Are you assuming? Good.
So what if they were? The universe is a very big place, and, IMV, it would be pretty darned arrogant of us to assume that our Big Blue Marble is the only planet the Good Lord saw fit to put intelligent life on. So, if it were proven beyond any reasonable doubt that some of our extraterrestrial bretheren dropped by, said hello, and maybe helped put up a few buildings, it wouldn’t rock my little world.
Well, the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence (whether through me getting lucky running the SETI@Home screensaver on my computer, or some Egyptologist discovering a “Made in Zeta Reticuli” label on the pyramids) would be a scientific and philosophical discovery of great importance, one of the biggest since Copernicus. The philosophical and theological implications could be profound; it would undoubtedly change how we view ourselves and the Universe.
But, no, it wouldn’t necessarily have any immediate impact on everyday life, beyond something new to talk about at the water cooler or on message boards. It wouldn’t make organized religion vanish, or cause everyone to convert to some particular religion. (Though some people might be pushed towards atheism, and other people, atheists or believers, might join UFO cults.) We’d still have war and politics and the economy to think about. Now, actual contact with extraterrestrial intelligence (as opposed to some archaeological discovery) would have a bigger impact. And actually having E.T.'s show up here (inviting us to join the Galactic Federation and offering us the cure for cancer and the secret to cold fusion; informing us we had just been annexed to the Galactic Empire and ordering us all to report to the dilithium mines; or just showing up and trying to convert us to Reformed Great Pupaism, offering to buy Australia in exhange for some used anti-gravity generators, and so on) could be huge. But is also really unlikely.
I detest the idea because it belittles the accomplishments of those who did do it. It essentially says that Egypitians and Myans, Incan, or Aztecs were too backwrd and stupid to accomplish this without help.
What if I said:
" Yeah the United States is a good coutry but all of its innovations really came from Zygorts from the Bleah dimension. Really Americans are too stupid and lazy to do these things on their own.
They couldn’t invent lightbulbs, mass production, or even get to the moon on their own… How arrogant to believe they could after all it was the Zygorts."
Kind of makes those people who worked hard to do these accomplishments look like useless boobs.
You know, two consecutive threads on this subject have done to me what Eric von Stupid was never able to do. I have been thinking about it, as a possible reality. Examining the world picture I get by assuming as fact that the Pyramids are alien artifacts.
What I get is aliens who drop by Earth, leave no traces of the technology that spanned the void over which they must have come, and decide to spend fifteen hundred years piling large rocks on top of each other, and then leave with still no trace.
Isn’t there another theory which says that it was not Aliens but the ancient people of Atlantis/Lemuria, which moved from Egypt to Atantis, which then sunk?
I’d like to take this opportunity to state that the Catholic Church has already studied the theological implications of extraterrestrial life.
We also have a couple of contingency plans to immediately deploy an army of devoted theologians to Alpha Centauri to convert the heathens, unless Jesus has already visited them, in which case we’ll fit right in.
We’ll be flying in large silver crosses ships, doing battle with the Space Jews. When we catch one, we’ll send them to be converted by the Swimming Nuns.
OK, that was in really bad taste.
I’d like to thank Thea Logica for nodding in my general direction.
Triskadecamus is correct;
it would be irrational to build pyramids on a planet with intelligent inhabitants, then go away or hide-
either you make contact or you don’t.
There are lots of useful things to do when making first contact with a primitive alien race-
making pyramids-
(which they could have made themselves)
isn’t one of them.
It cold be aliens and people together. It might have just been one or two aliens that stopped by for the hell of it. They take over a local patch of the Earth. Then they rule as kings for a while, have the locals build them nice big monuments, giving them just enough info of how to build the things with hard, hard labor. They stick around for a thousand years or so and get bored and head out. Could be like a game of Civilization to them. If you lived for millions of years it might be fun to travel around the universe, get worshiped by this primitive race or that one for kicks, and when you get bored move on.
OK, FTR, I agree that the notion that aliens built the pyramids is, well, kinda silly.
I just wonder if the effects that it would have on most peoples’ worldview would be as profound as the proponents of the “alien theory” think.
I figure most of the Hindu world would pretty much say, “OK, yeah, sure, whatever.” The idea would probably fit in quite well with their worldview and cosmology.
The Catholic Church would probably say, “Really? Wow.” A former catechist of mine, when another student asked about the question of the Church’s stand on the existence of aliens, said, “Well, you don’t have to believe in them, but you’re going to feel really silly when they land on the White House lawn.” He was, of course, kidding, but the point was, the Church doesn’t really have a formal stance on the existence of ET life, or whether it’s ok to believe in same.
The only people I can see getting seriously freaked out over the issue are hardcore Fund’ist Protestants. If they believe in ET’s at all, they tend to believe that they are either angels or demons. Their worldview doesn’t really allow for visitation by intelligent biological lifeforms from other planets.
The real question here is, what would we as Earthlings build on a planet we visit? I would hope we would be more original and do something better than a pyramid! If aliens did do that, lets face it, im not impressed. Aliens with technology enough to make it to earth from…well, where ever, and the best they got is a 3d triangle??
I say if we ever find a planet like ours in the same time period of their evolution, we land and build a McDonalds…out of stone…about 20times larger than normal ones. I would like to see what those “people” would think of that in 10,000 years!!
