89 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
89 lines
4.8 KiB
Plaintext
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SUBJECT: ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE SEARCH FOR UFOs FILE: UFO1600
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MUFONET-BBS Network - Mutual UFO Network
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SHIPWRECKS IN SPACE
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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By Donald Keith
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[Note: Donald is a veteran of many maritime explorations, received his Ph.D. in
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1987. He is director of Ships of Discovery, a research and educational
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institute based in Dallas, Texas]
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In 1980 a field crew excavating a Lucayan Taino site on the West Indian
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island of Middle Caicos discovered a tiny brass object from the floor of a
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house thought to have been occupied about the time Columbus arrived. Since no
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aboriginal American culture possessed the technology necessary to make this
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alloy, principal investigator Shaun Sullivan hypothesized that the object,
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which had been refashioned into a nose ornament, may have been salvaged form
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the wreck of a European ship. His speculation set me thinking.
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What did the Taino think when they went down to the beach one morning and
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discovered a ship from another world? Did it inspire them? Did it pique their
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curiosity? No, most likely they just cut it up for firewood. Why? Because
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they didn't have an archaeologist on hand.
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If they had, they might have marveled at the joining of the timbers. They
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would have found the carpenter's tool-kit and realized that, with it, they
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could build similar ships. Eventually, they would have come to appreciate and
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understand a vessel propelled by the force of wind.
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Unlike the Taino, we are not without archaeologists to help us decipher
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strange phenomena. We would not make the same mistakes. Or would we?
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One principle of archaeology is that physical traces of technology far
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outlast their creators. Extrapolating this principle into the sea of space, it
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should follow that we are much more likely to encounter the material remains of
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intelligent extraterrestrial life-forms than we are to encounter the life-forms
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themselves. The sea of space has no continents, but solar systems such as ours
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resemble the familiar island archipelagoes found throughout Earths oceans.
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During the billions of years that our solar system has existed, voyagers from
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outer space may have visited our little archipelago in search of important
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minerals, places to establish frontier outposts, or souls to convert. Or maybe
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they arrived here accidentally and found themselves unable to return home.
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In order to investigate the planetary bodies within our solar system more
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closely, alien visitors would likely approach our system on it's common plain
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of the ecliptic. between our third and fourth planets' orbits they would have
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encountered the asteroid belt. Would the asteroids have posed a
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navigational problem to space voyagers similar to that posed by the reefs that
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so often surround Earth's islands? perhaps their voyage ended there quite
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unexpectedly.
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One of NASA's future programs will send unmanned probes into the asteroid
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belt to look for clues regarding the birth of the solar system and to do a
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little prospecting. Perhaps one of these probes will encounter the wreck of an
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alien ship.
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What might we learn from such a vehicle sent to us by other beings? In
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the vacuum of space, preservation will be excellent, and the artifacts will no
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doubt require specialized care. There will be subtle clues to look for. new
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techniques for recording and analysis will be necessary. In short, it will be
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a job for archaeologists - extraterrestrial archaelolgists: people accustomed
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to surviving and working in hostile environmenta and zero gravity, masters at
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devising techniques to optimize the retrieval of data in a limited amount of
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time. And they will have to understand ships. Sound familiar? It's a perfect
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job description for an underwater archaeologist.
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If we are not prepared, if the technological gap is too wide, we may find
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ourselves unable to recognize or appreciate the technological advances of other
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worlds. Whether we comprehend extraterrestrial achievement or opt to make nose
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ornaments out of what we find may well depend on how long it takes maritime
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archaeologists to realize that the future of their discipline lies in the sea
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of space.
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Is it so fantastic to suppose that 500 years from now no one will remember
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that extraterra-archaeology began as a study of the people and vehicles that
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plied the watery seas of Earth? If we take this prospect seriously, maybe the
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experience of the Taino won't be repeated by us.
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=END=
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**********************************************
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* THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo *
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**********************************************
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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