Universals of the Human Condition 2: Part One

It’s pretty obvious that all humans share with all other humans various but fundamental universals. We all have a biological mother and father for example. One normally however associates every human being and every human society as unique in terms of their worldview. Yet there remain certain universals (like mom and dad) seemingly shared across the board by the great majority of individuals comprising any and all cultures. Some of these universals were explored in an earlier essay. Now let’s explore several more universals common to the human condition, which are innate to our internal psychology and/or based around external realities. 

Aliens: Humans have probably speculated about alien life ever since they looked up at those points of light in the night sky and wondered “what if”. Universal interest in and speculations about the reality of alien life, especially extraterrestrial intelligences has waxed and waned over several thousands of years. Naturally Christian religions have had to butt in and contribute their two cents worth – nothing positive came of those I can assure you. Religion should really keep its bloody nose out of scientific issues that have no moral or ethical implications. Anyway, though dating back to the ancient Greeks and probably before them, it’s only in the last 500 or so years that’s witnessed an order of magnitude increase in speculative interest about aliens and in the last 100 or so years an order of magnitude increase above that. There’s been a further exponential increase in interest just in the past couple of generations as speculation has turned to experiments such as the Viking space probes to Mars and SETI (the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence). That, coupled with the appearance of the UFO phenomenon and the rise of interest in possible ‘ancient astronauts’ has up the ante. A whole new science of astrobiology (nee exobiology) has risen within those last two generations and is now a well established discipline. However, as of this writing, we’re no wiser as to alien life than the ancient Greeks were. However, probably before many of you reading these worlds head up to that great radio telescope in the sky, you’ll have an answer – it might only be microbes on Mars, but that’s still an answer.

Creativity: Both humans and some animals can be innovatory creative – necessity being the mother of invention – such as employing tool use to further their odds of survival. The classic example is some animals using twigs to pry out insects from inside trees for their lunch. It’s snack time! Only humans however are artistically creative (with one possible exception – whale songs). We’re all artistically creative even if it’s just planning and cooking meals; deciding on furniture and its arrangement; ditto our wallpaper and/or paint schemes; our choice of carpets or tiles. Even writing a letter or an email is an artistic creation as is choosing ones wardrobe and hairstyle. Amateur photography is an artistic expression of course – an exercise in creativity. Animals do none of these things. And it’s obvious from the archaeological and anthropological record that our ancestors were of the same mind – artistically creative, perhaps designed with a purpose in mind like making pottery to store food in or perhaps creating something for religious purposes. Quite often however an artistic artefact was created just for the hell of it, or because it pleased the person to do so. The Mona Lisa might be considered to be a nice artistic work (though you’d have to pay me to hang it in my home) but it’s useless – just another dust collector. Okay, it might be useful dragging in a few tourist dollars, but 99.999% of all artistic creations just collect dust. Creating something with little hope of recognition is definitely a universal human trait. 

Exploration: Many animals explore, but not for theoretical academic reasons. Their exploration has a practical purpose in mind – a new and better home possibly; a possible food source that lurks inside that unexplored cupboard. Humans explore too, and often equally for practical reasons – finding the Northwest Passage; seeking the exotic spices of the Orient by heading west from Europe but bumping into the Americas instead; looking for new lands to add to your nation’s empire with a bit of personal glory tacked on as well. However, humans also explore just because they are curious and boldly go where no one has gone before just to satisfy that curiosity. Voyages to the Moon are at one extreme of that urge, but on another level, what’s beyond that distant hill? As it was in the past, so it still is. If you move into a new neighbourhood or city what’s just about the first thing you do? Explore and find out what’s what and where’s where. It’s the personal version of bolding going where you haven’t gone before. 

Hybrid Creatures 1: Human-Animal Hybrids: Our universal mythologies are loaded with human-animal hybrids. You name the animal and no doubt you’ll find either the body of that animal topped up with a human head & neck (sometimes including torso), or else the human body will be topped off with an animal’s head and neck (sometimes including it’s torso). You don’t have to dig too deeply to find examples: the Sphinx, the Minotaur, the Centaur, the Satyr, the Mermaid, the Harpies, and the Sirens are all well known examples.

Hybrid Creatures 2: Animal-Animal Hybrids: Our universal mythologies are also loaded with animal-animal hybrids. There are combinations of two different animals; three different animals; sometimes four of more make up a composite hybrid. If you can imagine one; someone has beaten you to it and recorded it in one or more ancient mythology. While there are literally hundreds of examples from around the world, it’s easy to name the commoner ones: the Dragon, the Griffin, even Pegasus the winged horse.

Politicians: Politicians by any other name (royalty, ministers, senators, emperors, congressmen, presidents, pharaohs, etc.) are still politicians, near universally viewed by the ruled as among the lowest of the low, whether elected to rule, rule by divine right, or rule by force. Politicians are probably in that category of you can’t live without them; you can’t live (much as you’d like to anyway) with them. At best we have to conclude that politicians have been, are, and will continue to be a necessary evil from any and all societies that have, are, or will exist.

Recreational Drugs: There’s little doubt that recreational drug use (and probably abuse) dates back multi-thousands of years. The fermenting of gapes for wine and its use goes back at least from 8000 to 6000 BC, and was a very common drink in Ancient Greece, Egypt and Rome; the production and use of beer dates back even further to at least 9500 BC; smoking has been recorded from at least 5000 BC onwards, often as incense and for use in various religious/shamanistic rituals from the Middle East through to Asia and the Americas; and no doubt our ancient ancestors, via trial and error as to what was eatable and what wasn’t tasty, no doubt discovered ‘magic mushrooms’ and other similar natural plant materials that not only provided a few calories but a bit of a buzz too! For example, opium use goes back to roughly 4200 BC. The list could be massively extended but you get the gist. Drug use is one of those human universals – always has been; probably always will be. And while some species of animals can be induced artificially into becoming addicted to say alcohol, a wild animal can not afford to become addicted to any substance in its environment and become disoriented. A mouse nibbling on a magic mushroom is just asking for trouble.

Shape-Shifters and Were-Creatures: Shape-shifters and were-creatures are very popular in sci-fi (“The Thing from another World” or “Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country” and horror (those endless variations on the “Wolfman” classic). They are also popular in reality, if mythology be reality. Anytime within the field of mythology one comes across a theme which is universal, that is it cuts across all cultures, geographies, races, etc. then I believe one needs to pay extra heed, as universal themes are more likely to have some basis in reality. One such theme is that of the shape-shifter, including were-creatures. Almost every culture around the world has some type of transformation myth, and almost every commonly found animal (and some not-so-common ones) probably has had a shape-shifting myth attached to them somewhere along the line. With respect to humans, the most obvious explanation is that at some time or other we’d all like to have been an inconspicuous fly-on-the-ceiling observing and listening in to that which was not meant for our eyes and ears. Much as we’d like to at times, we can’t shape-shift into a fly. But that doesn’t really explain why we would attribute that ability to others – it doesn’t do us personally any good, now does it? The popular idea of a shape-shifter is of a human (or humanoid) being who turns into something else, or something else that turns into something human (or humanoid) and common examples include skin-walkers, the werewolf and vampire (though humans have been attributed to transform into just about any mammal or bird you can think of). Other common shape-shifters include fairies, wizards, witches, kelpies, and some, even most of the gods (like Odin, Loki and Zeus). Satan would have to be included too. However, though we can’t shape-shift (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde not withstanding), even though other humans can (or could), that ability has also been attributed to literally hundreds of creatures from time immemorial. There are numerous stories about animals that can transform themselves into other animal forms as well as the above mentioned human-animal transformations.

To be continued…

Mythology’s Hybrids: Human Imagination or Alien Genetics?

Various mythological beasties, associated with the polytheistic gods include a generic type commonly referred to as hybrids, but which I term the ‘half-and-halves’. That is to say, these mythological beasties are a composite of two (sometimes more) distinct life forms.  There are the half-and-halves that are half human–half animal, and the half-and-halves that are half animal–half some other form of animal.  My premise is 1) these half-and-halves weren’t mythological; neither were the gods. The gods were really extraterrestrials, and the half-and-halves among the end products of ET’s genetic engineering experiments.

There are many puzzling features in mythology, if taken as purely mythology, regarding the so-called gods. I say so-called because to my way of interpreting things, the gods weren’t mythological but flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials with advanced technology, especially in the field of bioengineering or genetic engineering. A puzzling feature regarding the ‘gods’ and related tales, or even tails, are the half-and-halves (my phrase – you probably won’t find it lasted in any index in any mythology text). But these half-and-halves, for example there were the Centaurs, Cupid (or Eros), the Harpies, Mermaids or Mermen, the Minotaur, Satyrs, Sirens, the Sphinx, the Chimera, Dragons, the Gryphon (or Griffin – alt spelling), the Hydra, Pegasus and the Questing Beast, are just scratching the surface of the sum total of those represented in our ancient mythologies.

The interesting point is that these hybrids are universal within that collective mythology. That is, they appear across all cultures; all geographies. Anytime something supposedly mythological, is represented everywhere, it’s time to sit up and take closer notice that things might not be quite as mythological as things first appear.

Where’s the body-on-the-slab-in-the-lab evidence? With no fossil evidence of any such hybrids, perhaps this is where mythology overrides reality. Perhaps it is just a natural pondering to wonder ‘what if’ human abilities could be combined with some other animal’s abilities; or what a composite of one animal’s body parts attached to another animal’s body parts might achieve.

But then again, maybe that’s not the case.

Now clearly, a lot of people, our ancestors, went to a lot of valuable time and effort to create or depict in often quite considerable detail all over the world, the who’s who, and what’s what, in tens of thousands of paintings, literature, statues, figurines, murals, monuments, carvings, pictograms, hieroglyphs, etc. to what we (their descendents) would call nonsense – purely imaginary entities. But I maintain our ancestors would not go to extraordinary lengths to devote precious resources into making images of beings they knew to be imaginary. Translated, they believed with all their hearts and souls that these beasties, globally numbering in the multi-hundreds, whether ‘gods’ in various combinations or lesser mortals (human-animal) or purely animal-animal forms, really existed. Multiply that by more multi-hundreds of ‘normal’ mythological characters that have been honored with thousands of monuments, and well there’s apparently a whole ancient expensive and often backbreaking industry devoted to what again, we superior modern descendents of theirs, believe to be nothing at all.

As an exact parallel, ‘modern’ human have built and erected all manner of monuments, memorials and statutes to really real historical people. Many are on display in all manner of public parks for the pigeons to rest their weary wings on.

Then again, in our modern era, nobody designs and builds cathedrals just to provide work for the construction industry, but rather because the relevant powers-that-be, the instigators and designers and fundraisers of cathedrals firmly believe there is a being who deserves such monuments to be built in his honor. Now the fact that being probably doesn’t exist, at least as a supernatural creator deity, but rather just one of many of an advanced race of extraterrestrials is irrelevant. You build the cathedral because you believe that being exists – full stop. Atheists don’t build cathedrals. Okay, our smart-as-we-are ancestors believed the half-and-halves really existed.     

Now that we’ve seen some of the puzzling anatomical features associated with the half-and-halves, beasties that are composites of two or more terrestrial life forms, here’s a hard as solid rock case study that not only illustrates time and effort but might highlight why human imagination is not at work. There’s a very large life-size statue from ancient Assyria housed in the British Museum of a winged, human-headed bull (probably representing Shedu or Lamassu). That would be odd enough, but in this statue of a bull with wings and a human head, you find that the bull is depicted with five legs (please note I can count up to five!).  Now, if you were to design from scratch a mythological beastie, one thing I’m pretty convinced of is that you would NOT give it five legs! So, I ask instead, is this statue a representation of one of the ‘gods’ genetic experiments?

Now before pursuing that tack, we’re all aware of the various plants and animals we’ve artificially selected for via breeding pairs of organisms that have the sorts of characteristics we desire such as leading to faster horses; disease resistant wheat, cuter puppy dogs, etc. Sometimes we interfere at the cellular level to increase the pace of the changes we want. We’ve all heard of genetically modified food or genetically modified organisms; of DNA from one species being spliced onto the DNA of another species. We’ve heard of harvesting animal tissues and organs for transplantation into humans. We’ve come into the era of the designer baby, or at least prospective parents undergo genetic counselling and testing before having children. Having children is no longer hit or miss and take your chances. And it won’t be long before babies will be made-to-order if the parents so wish.

Now imagine the genetic tricks a highly advanced, if somewhat amoral race of ET’s were to use terrestrial stock to further their genetic research and agenda. Even several hundred, far less thousands of years in advance technologically of us could produce the half-and-halves of our mythologies.

So, were the half-and-halves of our mythologies evidence of genetic and bioengineering experiments by the ‘gods’, the ‘gods’ own version of “The Island of Dr Moreau”?  If these hybrids are not the wild imaginations of our ancestors, and standard Darwinian natural selection cannot adequately account for them, then it’s clear an alternative artificial selection mechanism must be contemplated instead. What on Earth (or off Earth) could be the driving force behind such artificial selection – behind the required bioengineering or genetic engineering required? Well, unless your best guess is better than my best guess, ET, that’s who.

But then it all ceased to be; then they all went away, either literally (as I suspect) or within the human imagination (and if so, why?). I can imagine first and foremost that these non-deity hybrids (assuming their reality) were probably sterile. Thus, they were rather limited in population. One didn’t have a sphinx litter from which to choose a family sphinx pet. 

One thing I’m convinced cannot adequately for the massive range of our mythological hybrids are fossils. Fossils cannot explain the half-and-halves. There aren’t going to be too many buried skeletons of a lion minus its head that just happens to have a human skull in the immediate vicinity to explain the Sphinx. And what about the odds of finding the skull of a falcon minus body that just happens to rest next to a headless human skeleton and thus explain several of the Egyptian ‘gods’?

Now clearly some of these half-and-halves beasties are going to ultimately prove to be mythical – figments of the human imagination invented for reasons now lost and buried by the sands of time. Some cases are probably of real beasties we all know today but embellished for reason or reasons unknown and probably unknowable. There’s going to be cases of linguistic misinterpretations or misunderstandings or errors in translations. Then too there’s going to be cases of someone who told someone who told someone who told someone who told someone over many miles and probably generations before the tale was written down. The 20^th generation retelling of an ‘eyewitness’ account explains some of the half-and-halves.

But are the mythological half-and-halves all really products of pure human imagination and embellishments and 20^th generation retellings? If that be the case, why are there no more recent equivalents, in the multi-hundreds, in our ‘modern’ (say within the last 300 years of fictional literature, later films and TV) apart from those taken directly from our mythological ancient history like Mermaids? Nearly all ‘modern’ literature’s creations are human (Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Harry Potter, and Captain Kirk as examples – even if they do come from another planet like Superman or Mr. Spock). The Creature from the Black Lagoon was humanoid; ditto the Wolfman who at no time was represented as being a wolf’s head on a human body or vice versa. Frankenstein’s Monster was still human, even if patched together. Dracula may have been able to shape-shift into a bat, but he never was actually half-human and half-bat – ditto Batman. Even Donald Duck was still a duck; Mickey Mouse was just a clothed talking mouse. Some of the Egyptian gods were represented as half-and-halves, but The Mummy wasn’t! So, if all is assumed to be human imagination, then there’s this discrepancy between way back then and recent history. The one obvious ‘modern’ exception is the well known novel “Island of Dr. Moreau”.

The “Island of Dr. Moreau” was originally a novel published in 1896 by H.G. Wells with film adaptations in 1933 (as the “Island of Lost Souls”), 1977, and 1996. It basically deals with vivisection and an obsessed scientist who conducts profane experiments in evolution, eventually establishing himself as the self-styled demigod to a race of mutated, half-human abominations. This all takes place on a remote island, the inhabitants being those experimental animals being turned into strange looking humans by one Dr. Moreau – the obsessed mad scientist in question. I’m just substituting the ancient ‘gods’ for the more modern Dr. Moreau; the so-called mythological half-and-halves for those modern fictional experimental animals turned into abominations.

That ‘modern’ novel aside, you may think the ancient mythological menagerie – if entirely imaginary - exhibits quite an intense range of the human imagination in the creation of half-and-halves. I’d beg to differ. There’s an immense array of potential half-and-halves possibilities that apparently have never been realized, or at least popularized. The whole plant and invertebrate communities have largely been ignored, which may make sense from the biological reality of a genetic engineering standpoint. I do realize that Hollywood has rectified this with several versions and sequels to “The Fly” and B-Grade films like “The Wasp Woman”, and probably several other B-Graders in that vein. But 1) those cinema features were relative rarities in terms of modern half-and-halves images and 2) there was never any possibility of mistaking those films for anything else other than social commentary and/or entertainment, just like the novel by H.G. Wells.

Anyway, as to what might have been imagined by our ancient ancestors, but never really was, though I do seem to recall a mythological human head on an octopus body, but that was about it when it came to the invertebrate and plant kingdoms – no lobster heads on a human body; no human heads on a slug; and as for humanoid rose bushes – forget it! 

However, when talking real modern half-and-halves, one would be remiss not to mention Mothman, a winged hominoid with glowing red eyes, associated with the Point Pleasant area of West Virginia around the period of November 1966 through December 1967. Mothman’s been the subject of several books, dozens of articles, and at least one motion picture (“The Mothman Prophecies” – 2002). However, there have been no sightings since. Perhaps Mothman’s a purely imaginary half-and-halves case, one never before or after seen. Maybe.

Finally, there might be a really real modern version of the ‘gods’ and their half-and-halves. If UFO / alien abductions are to be believed, taken at face value, (somewhat backed up and supported by animal mutilation cases), then the alien ‘gods’ – collective now called the ‘Greys’ – are still manipulating human genetics and further progressing with the evolution via artificial selection (breeding) of the human species, as well as their own, for the apparent objective is nothing less than a human-alien (or human-grey) hybrid. That this is implausible, well, recall from mythologies around the world those human-animal hybrids like the Satyr, Sphinx, Minotaur, Mermaid, and a host of others.

Extraterrestrialism: Part Three

If asked the question about your ultimate origins, you might reply that you were of this or that nationality, perhaps with ancestry from this or that other place. Perhaps if you’re a bit more clued you’d say “Africa” as the birthplace of the human race. If you’re really cluey, you might say the oceans, the undoubted place where life itself got its start. But no doubt, no matter what, you’d say you were “terrestrial” – of this Planet Earth. Alas, you’re still not cluey enough. You’re extraterrestrial. We are the aliens, directly and indirectly.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

The ‘Gods’ Mate with Humans

* We should be no more able to mate and be fertile with an extraterrestrial than we are with a species that’s even far closer to us in terms of terrestrial ancestry, like felines say, unless aliens and humans are much closer in genetic similarity than is even remotely suspected. That therefore should put the kybosh on that alien-human possibility. As to the feline-human combo however, one could in theory manipulate the DNA and other genetic bio-molecules of the feline and of the human to be compatible enough to produce a cat with human features or a human with feline features. If you’re advanced enough in genetics and biotechnology, just about anything goes. No doubt extraterrestrials that can traverse the depths of interstellar space will also be technologically advanced in other areas – like genetics. Regardless, mythologies are full of the ‘gods’ having their wicked way with Earth women (sometimes the reverse – ‘goddesses’ have their wicked way with terrestrial males), but in any event it gives a whole new meaning to that phrase “close encounters”.   

* Demigods are an obvious product of a ‘god/goddess’ mating with a mortal of the opposite sex. So by my reckoning at least demigods and demigoddesses like Gilgamesh, Brahma, and Shiva as non-Greek examples, and Achilles, Helen of Troy, Heracles, and like [King] Minos [of Crete] were really human-alien hybrids. For all you Christians and religious types, there are those Sons of God/Daughters of Men unions noted and logged in the Bible. Since many of them in turn mated with mortals and produced offspring, and they in turn ditto right on down the timeline, that means that most of us have probably a tiny percentage of our genetic makeup that is ultimately extraterrestrial in origin. 

* Miraculous Births: if ET is a master at genetics, maybe ET is also a master at other anatomical wonders, or at least biotechnology. . 

** Much significance has been made of THAT virgin birth as recorded in the New Testament. However, Jesus isn’t the ‘lone ranger’ when it comes to being born of a virgin. In addition to Jesus, there’s the Assyrian/Babylonian Marduk; Zoroaster too was born of a virgin and a shaft of light! Many more examples can be found in mythologies from around the world. Of course what was miraculous back then isn’t quite so miraculous now. They obviously hadn’t heard about, or any conception of, artificial insemination, invitro fertilization way back then.

** Apart from virgin births, there’s records of those giving birth way, way beyond their childbearing years, like Old Testament Sarah (born Sarai) giving birth to Isaac via Abraham, who, given his advanced years probably had a hard time getting it, well hard. 

** Moses was born circumcised and was able to walk-the-walk and talk-the-talk immediately after being born.

** The Greek Goddess Athena was born fully formed and clothed when born from the head of Zeus; Aphrodite, like Athena, had a rather odd ‘birth’. She was also ‘born’ thanks to some weird biology between seawater foam and those severed private parts of Zeus’s grandfather, Uranus. Zeus also gave birth to Dionysus from his thigh. Helen of Troy, daughter of Zeus, was apparently hatched from an egg.

** While dealing with Greek mythology, it seems King Minos pissed off Zeus’s brother Poseidon. Poseidon, ever inventive, caused Mrs. Minos (Pasiphae) to lust after a bull (and presumably the bull to lust after Mrs. Minos). The end product of this sexual union became that human-bovine hybrid, the Minotaur (and that’s no bull!).

* All this is just barely scratching the surface. No matter the culture, you’ll find something in the annals of their register of births that are quite out of the ordinary.

The ‘Gods’ Other Genetic Engineering Experiments

* Animal-Animal Hybrids: Why ancient cultures around the world depicted a menagerie of imaginary or mythological animals in their artwork, on their everyday utensils, clothing, jewellery, etc. as well as real animals is quite beyond me. You’d think there would be more than enough real animals to represent if they wanted to depict the images of animals. Or, of course, maybe their imagery of their imaginary zoology wasn’t quite so imaginary. For example, imaginary beasties, animal-animal hybrids, often had an attachment of wings placed on common animals like horses (Pegasus) and lizards (dragons) and lions (Griffins). This was, well, commonplace. But surprisingly, as if lacking imagination, there are no winged cows or zebras or frogs or mountain lions. Not even common domesticated animals like cats and dogs were depicted with wings. Very selective, which suggests that which was so depicted was real. And how can you get a winged lizard (dragon)? Well it has to be genetic or bioengineering of some sort.  

* Human-Animal Hybrids: Where does one start here since there are thousands of examples? You name the animal, and I’m certain somewhere, at sometime, that animal’s head was depicted on a human body; or a human head was depicted on the animal’s body. Any textbook on the gods of ancient Egypt will provide examples. Apart from that, there’s the Minotaur (noted earlier), the Centaur, the (Greek) Sphinx, etc. Is this all human imagination on overdrive or something else?

* Shape-Shifting? While you might like to turn into a fly-on-the-wall that’s impossible since said fly would have your mass and thus be unable to defy gravity. Oh, and even if you could figure out how to nullify gravity, you can’t shape-shift into a fly so the problem is moot. However, that doesn’t detract from the massive mythological literature that selected individuals can indeed shape-shift – Zeus is well known for that trick and not just from one organic form into another, but from organic into an inorganic form as well. The Mesoamerican Olmecs had a were-jaguar cult. Now shape-shifting is known in the biological world, albeit not sudden transformations. Tadpoles shape-shift into frogs; seeds into plants; babies into adults; flatfish (flounder) alter to have their eyes on one side of the head. Thus, it’s not totally beyond the pale to suggest that shape-shifting totally belongs in the realm of science fiction, fantasy and horror (like werewolves). Either the concept of relatively sudden shape-shifting is nonsense, and there are myths and legends that say otherwise from all over the globe, or else some sufficiently advanced technology – super-science – is operating behind-the-scenes. 

The ‘Greys’

* Thus far I’ve been pretty much addressing the past – ancient mythologies and associated ‘gods’. However, the pattern continues. Extraterrestrials are still, apparently, very much interested in biotechnology, genetics and genetic engineering. Enter, the ‘Greys’.

* Genetic Harvesting: There are two separate areas suggestive of aliens in the here-and-now highly interested in terrestrial biochemistry, reproduction/sex and genetics. Animal mutilations are in no doubt a reality as something tangible. UFO abductions of humans being subjected to various medical / genetic / reproductive tests is equally reported, but not as equally validated. Still, it’s not good policy to throw babies out with their bathwater and one really does have to come to terms with the question that revolves around why would anyone in their right mind make this stuff up? It’s certainly not for fame or money!

** Animal mutilations are certainly well documented, and the cause(s) are mysterious to say the least. If human culprits, why hasn’t anyone been apprehended, tried and convicted of violations of animal welfare laws, destruction of private property (if livestock) and trespass? If natural predators are to blame – well that should be bloody obvious if true and no controversy should therefore ensue. If extraterrestrials, well that explains a lot that natural predation can’t like precision incisions and lack of blood and no hoof/paw prints and no signs of a struggle, though it also leaves mega-questions unanswered. Presumably, it has something to do with ET interest in terrestrial biochemistry and genetics.

** Human-Alien Hybrids: If UFO abduction accounts are taken at face value, then extraterrestrials are mightily interested in the creation of more hybrids – not animal-animal hybrids like the Chimera, or human-animal hybrids like the Mesopotamian Shedu (winged bulls with human heads) but human-alien hybrids, something perhaps akin to those alien-human (‘gods’ mating with humans) referred to above in all things mythological.

In conclusion, we have an extraterrestrial legacy because 1) we’re a child of the Universe – a child that originated out of the origin of the Universe; 2) we’re star-stuff; 3) the origin of life was probably ‘out there’ somewhere and migrated to Earth; 4) ET exists and the Fermi Paradox says ET must also exist here; and 5) there’s just too much damn weird stuff around that falls better into place by assuming those ‘ancient astronauts’ and extraterrestrial UFOs.