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 Waiting...by Stuart Atkinson Page 2 of 2 And another thing, if there are as many UFOs zipping about as the Roswell
Gang would have us believe, then how come none of those amateur astronomers
have taken any photos of them? Every clear night there are who knows how
many thousands of people aiming cameras at the sky, and to my knowledge not
one of them has snapped a passing eatee ship. Think back to how many photos
you've seen of comet Hale-Bopp... for each one you have seen another
thousand were probably taken, which adds up to a LOT of sky-watching time...
and in all that time no UFOs paid a visit? Ha!
So no, I don't believe in UFOs. But I do believe we are citizens of a living universe. I believe, with all my heart and soul, blood and bone, that we are Not Alone. But in the absence of actual spaceships or carved martian "Faces" my proof comes from elsewhere, from my own experience, my own relationship with the universe, if you like. You see, I'm an active amateur astronomer, and in the twenty or so years I've been gazing up at the night sky I've spent countless long hours in the darkness in isolated, far-from-anywhere places; fields, riverbanks, hilltops, I've observed from them all. I have stood on dew-soaked grass at dawn, seeing Hale-Bopp's twin tails reflected in the glassy waters of a slowly-flowing river. I've stood in the shadow of a ruined castle and seen shooting stars and fireballs spear down from the sky and fall behind its crumbling turrets and towers... all on my own. But in all that time I've never felt Alone. Because I've looked up, washed my face in starlight, and sensed Them looking back. Or at least listening as I talked to them. Call me a romantic - please, do, there aren't many of us left! I wear my heart on my sleeve like a military campaign medal - but when I stand there in my field, hands thrust deep into my pockets, I look out into a universe teeming with life. I look at Mars, shining like a garnet, and I can almost sense the microbes hiding beneath the UVsterilised dust. Turning my binoculars on Jupiter I see four tiny star-like points shining nearby, and know that if I was standing on one of them, Europa, peering into one of the cracks in its icy crust, I'd be able to sense the life drifting beneath my feet. And that's just in my own celestial back yard. Then I look further, beyond Jupiter, further still, past Pluto and the icy boundary of the Oort Cloud and roaming the stars encounter worlds by the thousand, or the million. I find worlds populated by species as alien to us as we are to ants or plankton. I find civilisations which were already ancient when our ancestors were discovering fire. I find the sleek starships, bustling habitats, gargantuan Dyson Spheres and fantastic constructions of science fiction's most imaginative artists and writers and much, much more, because the universe is vast, beyond our capacity to understand and appreciate, and surely such a realm will contain such a bewildering variety of life that our long-awaited First Contact will be just the First of Many... ... or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm just fooling myself, and all I heard when I looked up at the stars of Orion this morning as I watched the shuttle Endeavour and the first pieces of the International Space Station cutting across the sky were the desperate echoes of my own hopes and dreams... but I don't think so. I think I heard Them. Sometimes, even though I know I won't hear, I listen for them. Sometimes I turn off the tap on my trusty Walkman and listen to the radio instead... I stand there, in the darkness, and slowly, very slowly ease the tuning dial... and my ears fill with static, a symphony of un-sound. It's numbing, lulling - but sometimes a noise breaks through, a crackling, hissing, or spitting, occasionally even a bleep or pulsing, stocatto stream, and although I know it's just interference I imagine I'm listening to The Signal - But not yet. Not yet. So I'll go back to work tomorrow morning, pull on my gloves and look up at the ceiling in exasperation as the DJ mis-pronounces the blessed Twain's first name yet again. And continue my Waiting. Stuart Atkinson Copyright© 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Stuart Atkinson, sffworld.com. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author. |
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