-By Vince Johnson
According to a CBS news report a retired astronaut named Edgar Mitchell says extra-terrestrials have visited the Earth. Further, he says the government has known about the outer-space visitors for at least the last sixty years. He was the sixth of 12 men who have walked on the moon. I would say there is some slim chance he knows what he’s talking about. Very slim, but who knows?
A year or so ago I pretended that I met an alien from outer space. He was obviously disguised as a human. Neatly dressed, looked to be about 40 and had a friendly demeanor. He told me he was on a mission from his base planet at the other end of the Milky Way. His assignment was to bring back a “Typical Earthling.” He told me not to worry. I was not a typical Earthling because I was white skinned, had blue eyes and way too old. He emphasized his point by saying there are too many humans of different colors, cultures, beliefs and therefore any one individual selected could not possibly be considered a “Typical Earthling.”
He told me that it might take another ten thousand years before a “Typical Earthling” came into existence. According to his definition, a “Typical Earthling” would represent at least 80% of the human population. In other words, a “Typical Earthling” will not exist until most of humanity blends into one race. He said that the process had started on Earth, but it would take another 10,000 years before 80% of our people spoke the same language, had same color skin, had the same values and priorities, held the same beliefs, etc.
I asked him if he were typical to the planet where he came from and he nodded. He told me it took a thousand centuries to do it. His people resolved their language problem gradually. The first big step involved the use of voice sensitive computers which translated each of over 500 languages into one. Next they used genetic engineering to develop super bright minds that learned new languages quickly. In their beginnings they had several races just like on Earth. Through inter-racial marriage, their many races were blended into one. Today they are all the same color, and virtually identical in height, and weight.
His society found ways to make everyone equal in physical appearance and mental ability. He claimed that they all enjoy the same music, and the same food. Food was always a huge problem on his planet. They had thousands of different kinds of fruits and vegetables. Food was such a problem they altered their genetics to make all food taste bad except for a highly nutritious mush that had great flavor and was cheap to produce.
He seemed proud of what his people had done. He explained that his people did not move forward until they got rid of what they called “individualism” where the talents and abilities of each individual were totally unique. They replaced “individualism” with “collectivism” where the talents and abilities of each individual were absolutely equal. He said humanity was in the early days of “collectivism” and this was good.
Just before he left he said, “Have you ever watched an ant hill? There is no “individualism” there. They are collectively happy at working all day and you don’t see any homeless ants. No ant ever goes hungry. Every single ant in the hill has a job. They have no language problems because they all speak the same language. No envy or jealousy because they are all the same in looks, social standing, possessions and health. No greed because they all share everything equally. No sadness because tendencies to get emotional have been genetically eliminated. There is no such thing as career planning, or retirement, or any kind of confinement for wrong doers because no one ever does anything wrong. Life is orderly and without the slightest degree of stress.
I then made a suggestion. I told him there probably a thousand times more ants on Earth than human beings. Any thoughtful mind, even at the other end of this galaxy would readily see why an ant would qualify as a Typical Earthling far better than any human. So take an ant back to your base planet! At that point I quit pretending and got back to reality where things aren’t quite as bad as I had come to believe they were.
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Vince Johnson welcomes comments. Please send them to,Vince Johnson(vjadtrak@wvi.com)
See Vince in the new book Americans on Politics. Policy, and Pop-Culture.