Earth Calling – Earth Calling, Earth Calling….Come in Space, come in space….
Earth Calling, Earth Calling………Come in Space, come in space…………….
Hello, Nanu Nanu, and warm earthly greetings,
Thank you for patiently watching, and waiting.
Homo sapiens: the specific name of modern man; the only extant species of the genus Homo. This species also includes extinct types of primitive man such as Cro-Magnon man
[New Latin, from Latin homo man + sapiens wise]
There are two distinct categories of Homo sapiens, the species to which I belong, worth noting in your earth logs from this point forward. There are those that at every opportunity look up to the sky, more often than not the night sky, past the clouds, past the large metal objects that transport other homo sapiens from one region of the planet to the other, through the atmosphere that surrounds and indeed makes possible life on our planet, gazing at a sky full of stars, and looking, watching, always imagining life other than our own in the farthest reaches of infinity, and there are those that don’t. My name is Andrew Beattie and I look up.
I’m not sure why I’ve decided to write to you, or even what I’m going to say for the most part, but here I am, a self elected representative for those that look up, gazing and longing, and for the most part, looking for you. You see I know that you’re intelligent and I know that you are watching, probably from the dark side of the moon, and as I’m certain that you’ve been watching for a while. I’m also pretty certain that you are aware of the modern phenomenon we call the internet. As such you’ll know all about us, or will you?
You see, us Homo sapiens are indescribably complicated as a species. We have throughout history developed society, class, invented religions, continually killed ourselves in wars often to do with the religions we invented, polluted our planet and created beautiful art to name but a few of our ‘achievements’ and yet as a species we are never satisfied, we continue to move on and invent, create and destroy and we are the only species, on this planet at least, that continues to ask; why?
It’s not just why though; How? When? Who? What? are all amongst the questions that you will have observed Homo sapiens asking over and over and in some cases seemingly asking you directly on the dark side of the moon. You did right not to answer in 99.99% of cases. I’ll explain why another time.
Another time as I plan to write you a series of letters, say 10, to start and then we’ll see how we are getting on. I don’t require a response from you as yet but the time will come when I know you’ll respond anyhow, even if it is just to say you’ve had enough, are packing up all the cheese and crackers, taking the Penguins back and leaving the Milky Way for good. I hope you’ll stay long enough for me to tell you about Politics, it’s a hoot, but you really mustn’t leave without me at least having told you about, Religion. You simply won’t believe it, or will you?
In case you do ever decide to write back I have a number of questions that I’d like to ask. I’ll ask them now, at this starting point of such, to give you ample time to consider the answers, or find them if you don’t know them already. In return for answering these questions I’ll let you take me with you when you go as an example of Homo sapiens in your collection. I’ll also tell you about war and sport at some point and you won’t want to miss that one. So, some questions:
Is there an answer to the ultimate question? Is there an ultimate question? Is it all worth knowing anyway even if there is an answer to the ultimate question or even an ultimate question to begin with? Can we possibly save our planet for complete destruction by our own hands? Will we destroy it before time and supernova? And finally, why did the chicken cross the road?
So, there are my questions for you. In return I shall regale you with tales of earthly wonderment and possibly even help to answer some of the questions that you have about our little planet Earth. That is assuming that you have questions at all, which I’m quietly confident you do.
I’ll leave it there for this week, hopefully leaving you hanging onto the very edge of your space table, how I long to see what your space table looks like, and when I return I’ll do so with a story about Homo sapiens and our relationship with our planet. Until then,
Keep watching.
Yours and still gazing upwards,
Andrew Beattie
Footnote for Earth:
Well it’s a start isn’t it? Yes, that was clearly a start of sorts. Did I miss anything out star gazers? Is there anything you’d particularly like me to ask our Intergalactic Travelling Space Alien Friends? You know there is, so tell me already….