An Alien Visit
Why Here, Why Us?

Assumption number one: Faster-than-light travel not only is but has to be possible.

Assumption number two: Curiosity is a universal phenomenon.

Fact number one: I have seen them.

Fact number two: I was not dreaming, hallucinating, or what have you. I was wide awake, in full possession of all my senses, and both absolutely thrilled and amazed at what I saw.

Fact number three: The year is 1969, spring is almost over, summer in the wings and raring to go.

:

I never looked for them. They just turned up one day.

While there are probably as many opinions about this remark as there are readers, in this case there is only one opinion that matters to me and that is my own. And in this case my opinion is not an opinion, it is memorized experience, for wide-aware experience—not imagination, wishful thinking, or dream—is what woke me to the nature of the blue-skied universe this day.

A truly wide-awake, wide-aware experience.

Yes it is a blue-skied, wonderful sunny day. It is lunchtime. Almost all snow in and around Stockholm has melted by now and the park lawn (just a short walk from where I work in the computer department of Sweden’s largest newspaper) hints at green while the sun more than just hints at warm comfort.

I find a nice, dry spot, spread my jacket on the grass, and lie down. With hands resting behind my head, my eyes take in the blue, blue, endless sky. After a while, my eyelids no longer want to play awake and slowly close. Into a warm, beautiful, and oh-so-pleasant dozing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the world.

I drift. Not really sleeping, not really not. No dreams though, and no thoughts, just this warm, sun-fueled, and oh-so-pleasant drifting.

Until I bolt awake. Not a sit-up bolt, but an eyelids-rushing-up-to-open-in-a-hurry bolt. I don’t move, but I look out and up into the vast blue. Still not thinking, just looking. And there, clear as day, probably a mile or so up, hovers this silver saucer, mid-space. Small (from this distance). Colored sparks shoot from the perimeter of the craft, a circular rainbow of greeting.

Five seconds, ten, perhaps thirty. Stock-still, mid-space, sparkling. Silver. Not reflecting the sun, but very shiny nonetheless.

And then, as if satisfied that I had seen them, it takes off like a shooting star—now you see me, now I’m gone, leaving just a sparkle trail that soon dissipates. Zero to ten thousand of whatever in a second.

It takes me another minute or two to realize what I have just seen, have just experienced. I heave myself up onto my elbows and look around at my fellow sun worshippers. Did anyone else see this?

The answer is no. They—and they are quite a few—are all dozing and drifting just like I had. Not a surprised, up-sitting face among them. So it was only me, then.

Later in life, I had this experience. I saw a hawk, way, way up in the sky. Hovering, eyeing some soon-to-be ex-mouse or some such on the ground. Then I looked around me at something or other for a while and then back at the hawk. But I could not find it, and I could not find it, and then it moved and finally, my focus caught up with it and I saw it again, clear as anything.

Later still, someone explained to me that spotting a bird high up in the air is a game of chance for your eyes might focus above it or below it, rendering you effectively blind to the very spot where the bird hovers, you just haven’t focused at the right distance yet.

And talk about distance. That craft was at least a mile, perhaps two up in the sky. I was drifting sleepward and then prodded—yes the word is prodded, I saw that later and I see that now—to open my eyes, and to focus on the precise spot, at the precise height, at the precise distance where it hovered. What are the chances?

They wanted me to see them. They nudged me. They willed me to see. I see that now. And I did see.

No, not dreaming, not imagining—seeing, experiencing.

As an aside: Much later I thought this: What if this was not a craft with aliens (friends) in it, but what if the sparkling silver disk itself was the alien? I can’t see why not. We certainly have enough strange critters here on our own little planet, compared to which a silver-disk-shaped, sparkling being would be less than strange.

I’m not saying this was the case—I’m leaning much more toward long-lost friends saying hi—what I’m saying is that it could be.

But here’s the point of this: Aside from nudging me of all people, which certainly is a question to ponder, why Earth, why here, why now?

Consider this: our closest starry neighbor is Proxima Centauri, roughly 4.25 lightyears away. That translates to 40,208,000,000,000 kilometers.

Say these aliens, or alien, could travel at near light speed but not—letting Einstein have a final say, exceed it, and say these aliens, or alien came from our nearest star neighbor, he, she, or it would have traveled for about four years and three of our months to reach us, and was now facing another four and a quarter years traveling back.

Why?

Why earth?

Why go to such lengths?

On the other hand, say these aliens could exceed the speed of light, say could travel at a billion times faster than light, and that they actually came from a star in a galaxy so far away as to have yet to be discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope. Say it only took them, or it, a few of our breaths to reach us; the question still remains: why Earth? Why us? What could possibly be their interest?

For they visit us, I know they do. Many others know this too. But with so many choices (and there are a few to say the least) why choose this one planet? Why seek out and visit and hover over this Little Earth of ours?

What interest do we hold for those perhaps ancient (traveling for eons at less than light speed, they’d have to be ancient) though most likely light-speed-conquering beings? Why is the Earth a place to visit, to explore?

What is their fascination? It surely begs the question: What is our reputation elsewhere in the universe?

Surely, there is some reason, some overarching interest that brings them here to take a look for themselves.

That’s my point.

And the mystery.

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