Unlikely

Today I read the Drudgebart-linked story about how former astronaut Edgar Mitchell says aliens have visited earth, and that various governments know it but have succeeded in covering it up. For some reason which he did not specify.

Okay.

I totally believe that. We can’t keep our defense secrets out of the hands of the Chinese, but a whole slew of incompetent governments can keep aliens under wraps for sixty years. Sure, no problem. After all, hiding the aliens is much more important to our government than little things like preventing the Chinese from sinking our nuclear submarines. Because…

Oh, right. People would panic in the streets, by the tens of millions. The way they just did when Mitchell’s story hit the Internet. Why do UFO kooks always claim the public will spaz out if they find out aliens are here? Think of all the big stories we’ve been exposed to. Stock market crashes. Terrorist attacks. Pearl Harbor. Those things, we manage to deal with. But the thought that somewhere on an Air Force base, a three-foot tall alien might be posing for photos, eating a Snickers bar, ready to give us a cure for cancer…that would send us screaming into the night.

I know there is no reason why aliens can’t exist, and maybe they really do visit earth, but I also happen to have a little thing I call “common sense,” which ruins the whole fantasy. Quantum mechanics is insane, and it keeps telling us things we thought were impossible actually happen. But so far, the best science we have tells us that there is no way to get to earth from the nearest star fast enough to avoid dying en route, or getting so old and senile you forget why you left the house in the first place. By the time aliens got here, they’d be like Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond, getting lost while picking blueberries a hundred feet from his house. They’d say, “We come in peace. And we hope we’re in time for the early bird special.”

“Gort. Klaatu. Geritol. Depends.”

Speaking of diapers, people are saying this guy has to be telling the truth, because he’s a former astronaut…like Lisa Nowak. Let’s be real. He walked on the moon, but he’s not claiming he met any aliens while he was there, and he associates with weirdos, and he runs something called the Institute of Noetic Science. Here is what its homepage says:

Located in Northern California [case closed], IONS is a nonprofit membership organization that conducts and sponsors leading-edge research into the potentials and powers of human consciousness.

Translation: “We like to get stoned and stare at the covers of Yes albums.”

He may be on the level, but my money is on “wacko.” Sadly, when you deal with human beings making claims like this, that’s the safest place for your money to be.

Now watch the aliens kidnap me and give me a punitive probe.