Well, maybe that’s a little sensationalist… but I don’t know that they’re not.

I have trouble understanding the idea that people who “believe in” life outside of our solar system are “kooks.” The idea that you have to be crazy to have seen a UFO or to believe that there’s something else out there…

Now, I WILL give you that historically the people who have stood up and claimed alien abduction have not been the type of people to whom we would give our trust.  It’s sort of like the problem encountered by people who believe in the legalization of marijuana…  “Yes, yes, dirty hippie… everything you’re saying is correct, but would you please stop acting like a lunatic so that we can make the middle American and Bible belt masses understand the truth?  You’re only hurting your own cause.”  (but that’s another blog for another day.)

I simply don’t understand people who say…  “Yup, I understand the universe is infinite and expanding.  I understand that there are infinite suns and infinite solar systems…  but we are the ONLY intelligent life… Just us… on this little planet.  There is no one else… And if there WERE other civilizations, they’re too far away to get here.  I know that because we haven’t gotten to them.”

Um, huh???

Just like we KNEW that the earth was flat?  That the sun revolved around us… just like we KNEW those things, too?

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous…  I’ve never believed any of those things!   I only know that we are the only intelligent life.”

What happens to people that they hear something and decide THAT is the truth?  Is that just another kind of faith (yes, another blog for another day…. )

Is it fear?  “I don’t understand things and people that aren’t like me, so I don’t believe that they exist.”

I don’t know if there is something else out there, but it seems to me like logically it would only make sense that there is.  That is A LOT of space..  I find it even MORE inconceivable that we are the only species to civilize and populate…

So how did the idea that there is no extra terrestrial life start?

Was it because the kooks were the first ones to stand up and say “YES!!  I have been probed!”  That someone decided if the kooks say it’s true it never happened and never will happen to anyone ever?

Or is it not fear… but arrogance.

Is it the thought that we truly ARE the center of the universe?  Do we believe in our own advancements and our intelligence so much that we believe that no one else could ever do it better.  (Is it like Americans who put patriotic blinders on as other countries surpass us on every front and just say ” ‘merica is the best at everything” and refuse to see the need for change?. but that’s a different blog for a different day)

We all know my mantra.. I haven’t made up my mind about ANYTHING.  New evidence leads to new beliefs all of the time.  But for now I do believe that it’s possible that some day ET will show up in my backyard, demand Reese’s Pieces and ask to use my phone.