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Alien
'Of
extraterrestrial origin', an organism not
indigenous to our planet. The word itself means foreign.
A form of life that may exist and have originated in an environment other
than our planet Earth, the only place in the universe currently known to
support life.
Specifically, something non-human, not us,
an
intelligent
extraterrestrial being; a visitor from
another planet, another world or a different dimension.
Scientifically, the definition of alien encompass any type of
extraterrestrial life, ranging from sapient beings, to life at the scale of
bacteria. Its existence is at present entirely hypothetical, as there is no
evidence of any other planets that can sustain life, or of actual
extraterrestrial life.
On the other hand, the lack of tangible proof has not stopped thousands of
people of claiming they have seen alien or extraterrestrial beings.
These reports have been around for centuries,
but the number of occurrences have increased dramatically since the first
flying saucers were seen in the late 1940's. Eyewitnesses report a number of
different types of alien creatures; in fact, they vary in almost every
imaginable way, described in a baffling variety of shapes and sizes.
Surprisingly, however, the aliens
reported are not so very different from human beings — most have two arms, two
legs, and one head, being also remarkably human in their clothing and
technology. Weird monsters are rare. This imagery is strongly imprinted into
popular consciousness by science fiction books, films and comics, which may
thereby influence perceptions during contact experiences.
For this reason most scientists,
psychologists and even some ufologists doubt their reality: surely, they
say, visitors from outer space would not look so much like ourselves. The late
Carl Sagan, famous astronomer and author
of the book
The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective, believed that
the aliens sighted were "stodgy in their unimaginativeness" and were hence the
inhabitants of human minds, not extraterrestrial spaceships.
Whatever the experts may
say, close encounters of the third kind continue to be reported worldwide.
Have beings from other worlds met and talked with people of Earth — or are
they creations of the subconscious mind? The jury still out on that.
See
Alien Abduction, Alien
Autopsy, Men in Black, UFO,
Area 51,
Flying Saucer, Grays,
Exobiology, Fortean Phenomena,
Muffon Journal and
International UFO Reporter.
Sources: (1) Sagan, Carl,
The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective,
Cambridge University Press;
(2)
Mysteries of Mind,
Space & Time: The Unexplained,
H. S. Stuttman Inc. Publishers.
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