Dear LPG, 

One of the things that never ceases to amaze me when reading your pages are the number of contributors who are inspired by the many celebration and acknowledgement days that are now part of our annual world calendar.  

And today is no exception when it comes to odd things to celebrate.  One of the most popular genres of stories, films and computer games are those that involve us earthlings being visited by people from outer space or those relating to us finding another planet somewhere where we shock their world race by introducing ourselves.  And the prospect really does frighten the bigger nations of the world.

That is the big picture and one that we all take for granted that our governments and international organisations have in hand.  Most UK residents who ever even think about the possibility look to the ministry of defence to have it covered, while the United Nations have their Office for Outer Space Affairs, and I am sure that the possibility is covered by NASA somewhere in the USA.  I still believe that such an invasion is the only thing that will stop the world nations squabbling amongst themselves because such a threat might finally get them together to defend our world. 

Quite a few people claim to have already met, seen or experienced an extra-terrestrial and the amount of fictional characters that hail from other worlds are often as well-known as our real-life celebrities by the man in the street; superman from the planet Krypton, and ET not to mention the Ewoks and Wookie’s of Star Wars fame and the Klingons and Vulcans from Star Trek.  In fact, the whole celebration is based on a historical Star Trek event that ‘happened’ in 2063.(Star Trek: First Contact. Zefram Cochrane makes the first human warp flight with the Phoenix. This attracts the Vulcans and they make first contact with humans). 

Popular culture has taught us to see nearly all unknowns to be relatively frightening to look at and ready for war which, if beings from outer space really exist on other planets, seems to me to be a sad reflection of human nature because that means that we are basing every being by our own standards.  

When you think about it every person we meet for the first time is an alien to some degree, and while the superpowers of the world are busy defending us against the possibility of the ultimate invasion, the more incidents of first contact we can convert into genuine acquaintanceships and friendships the better. 

One thing is for sure.  There are people all over our world focussing on what is beyond the clouds, so the fact that today is celebrated as National First Contact Day must remind us that we are most probably not alone. 

BG, Lewisham

BG found us some information on the celebration… 

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… and LPG shares some other thoughts on the subject… 

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