Naw. Tonight, turn the lights low, make sure someone remembers to leave the package of popcorn near the nuke.
Okay, Britain’s Daily Mail asks, “Have aliens already visited Earth? NASA book suggests that ancient rock art could have been created by extraterrestrials.” :
Have aliens already visited Earth? Nasa book suggests that ancient rock art could have been created by extraterrestrials
A new book details the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti)
In it the authors discuss the methods through which we might find aliens
These include searching for signs of life on planets or finding messages
The book details some of the challenges ahead for making first contact
But ultimately the authors say it is something that might happen one day
More.
Wow. When someone we know tried researching this, the NASA page turned up blank. There was another book by the apparent same author, Psychology of Space Exploration (2011), a psychologist from U. Wisc. Madison, who does TED talks.
The rock art that forms part of his evidence dates back to only a few thousand years ago. There is art at Lascaux from 15000 years ago,. Hmm. Not good evidence that anyone anywhere built rockets to get here.
But, in defense of the ancient—and obviously human—African artists, that sort of rock art tends to be iconic, not representative. It is useless to wonder why they did not even try representational art.
Look, take it from an artsie: The ancient world was leery of representational art. They knew little of how nature really worked so they justifiably feared invoking realities with realistic images. = They could have portrayed what the chief’s wife really looked like, but … it was safer to go with an approved Chief’s Wife Image, even if it wasn’t very representative of her at all.
But their defense would be that it is what everyone does, so … surely the lady would surely not wish to be portrayed as a strange lady … a lady not understood in our culture … ?
NASA seems to have been trying to disown the book. Weird disappearances from download sites. A friend suggests, there’s been infighting at NASA, with internal politics making it impossible to get anything done. Also, that it is easy to abandon a contractor like Vakoch if the thing sounds strange and doesn’t take off.
But it is, back now here it is. Some ous think it utter bosh, but if you are an American, you paid for it, so here it is.
Note re weird portrayals in early human art forms (from a traditional artsie): Realism in art forms was something of a revolution. Of course people who built great monuments could have drawn the human figure accurately. But few wanted to do so. The mood is captured in a local Greek wit (2500 years ago) joking that when the goddess Venus saw her image by the sculptor Praxiteles’ she said, “Alas, where has Praxiteles seen ME naked?.” By that time, people had a more relaxed view of the gods, and did not think it was necessarily their duty to stone Praxiteles and destroy the statue.
If you don’t understand what the wit is getting at, sign up for some *traditional* arts courses. Maybe a local Christian university still offers them. *Traditional* arts courses do not encourage you to whine about your problems, but to appreciate with an expert’s eye the representation of life—as it is or could be.
See also: The Science Fictions series at your fingertips (cosmology).