Cargo cults and alien visitation...

[Boerseun]

Sorry about the thread title, this isn't a Strange Claim as much as an investigation into human nature...

 

Well, back to the topic at hand:

 

Cargo Cults are cults sometimes created by tribal people in the wake of western visitation. For instance, in the Second World War, many island nations in the Pacific were visited by western military in the pacific theatre of World War 2. They were friendly towards the natives, their primary concern was the battle against the Japanese. The thing is, these natives had never before had contact with westerners or western forms of manufacture. It blew their minds to see cargo falling out of the sky on parachutes. They assumed that the gods favoured these pale-skinned strangers, rewarding them by throwing supplies (cargo) at them from the sky. They started imitating the western mode of conduct in the hope of also receiving cargo from the gods. Apparently, it was quite common in WW2 to see the natives paint themselves with supposedly military markings and 'USA' on their shoulders, without having the faintest incling of its meaning. They drilled and paraded around in ernest imitation of the American military personnel in the hope of receiving favours from the gods. This is just an abridged version, but please read the whole article - it's very interesting.

 

But here's my question:

 

We are very sure of our scientific understanding of the universe and what makes it. Sure, our understanding gets changed, modified, validated or falsified each day as the wheels of science keeps turning. But say, for the sake of the argument, we are one day visited by aliens. I'm of the personal opinion than any alien we might encounter will be totally and utterly alien, contrary to the antropomorphic bull Hollywood will have you believe. I believe that any alien 'spaceship' will be utterly unrecognizable as such by us, and any alien in the spaceship will be of a shape and form completely unimagined by any Hollywood scriptwriter. Their abilities would also appear to us (so-called) advanced and sophisticated westerners as touching on god-like.

 

So here's my question (and please take it serious - it's quite interesting!):

 

In the event of such an alien visitation, will we humans seriously attempt to exchange thoughts and knowledge with them on an equal basis, or will our response to such 'magic' be simply to explain it all away in some form of 'cargo cult'? We are, after all, pretty primitive and superstitious, as any magazine astrology page will make evident.

 

I have my reservations about it, I'm sure that most scientists will take it serious and try to communicate with them in some sensable way. But scientists are by far the minority on this rock. I reckon for the majority of the Earth's population, some form of modified cargo cult will be the result. And the scientists will be demonised for not respecting the holy gods in their amazing space machines.

 

(Whimsically, off topic:

 

But on to another point - most of the pacific islanders mentioned in the article made their contact with the westerners and Japanese for the very first time, and only because the two were at war. Imagine we meet aliens and only because they are currently involved in some intergalactic war and need the Earth as a temporary base? [/off topic] )

 

Forget about the off-topic war comment above, but what do you think will happen in the event of an alien visitation? And can we see the events in the Pacific in WW2 as a feasible indication of what our collective reaction would be? They had their own civilization before we got there, but they were confronted with technology and complexities completely and utterly beyond their understanding.

 

Thoughts?

[Jay-qu]

I think, like you, that there would be some that would take them for real and try to communicate with them on a serious level - while others would just worship them. I think at this point it is up to the aliens, with the majority worshipping them, they could take over the world without lifting a finger OR they could dismiss all the fallicies and admit they are a technilogically advanced race.

 

All this of course after the language barrier has been hurdled..

[Queso]

I wonder why African tribes thousands of years ago used to truly believe they could communicate telepathically with amphibeous aliens who orbit Sirius B...

 

Not until we have future technologies and have evolved into more spiritual beings will we be able to communicate with "them"

 

and trust me. It won't be in English!

 

Our brains are like wormholes.

 

There are people alive right now who believe they can communicate with other beings, or entities, too.

 

Are they insane?

 

SWIM has seen aliens on a few occasions. They popped up during one of his NDE's, and during a DMT vision. During this vision one spoke to SWIM in his mind, telepathically "We've been expecting you" and then they went along and showed him the inner workings of the cosmos (Unlike he's ever seen, or imagined)

 

That said, I don't believe aliens are going to show up in the sky in a flying saucer.

 

It's the mind that has, and is going to keep making the connections, until we are Elite enough to fly around the universe and say what's up!

 

Thanks for the fun thread! We art aliens, so were dinosaurs. The possibilities are as menacing as a lotus. Beautiful.

[Ganoderma]

as far as human reaction goes, i am thinking in line with the movie "Contact". some religous nuts, some real people, some ego warriors etc.

[Queso]

as far as human reaction goes, i am thinking in line with the movie "Contact". some religous nuts, some real people, some ego warriors etc.

 

Perfect.

[Buffy]

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

-- Arthur C. Clarke

 

You don't have to be primitive to be in awe.

 

Nobody says "whoa" anymore Hilary, :shrug:

Buffy

[Boerseun]

You don't have to be primitive to be in awe.

That's my whole point. But 'primitiveness' is subjective - compared to a galactic civilization, we're about as backwards as it gets.

 

There's also a difference between 'awe' and worship...

 

For instance, consider the first two chapters of Ezekiel. If that was an alien visit, isn't Christianity merely a cargo cult as it is? :phones:

[charles brough]

You have a novel thought! Yes, as you indicate, various people would react as a cargo cult! The alien life would find us divided and have to try to deal with us through the UN!

 

We could not let Pres. Bush deal with them because, being a "born-again" Christian, he would consider them to be agents of the Devil! He would try to do to them what he has done to Islam---that is, grind it down step by step until their Jihad minions are carrying bombs with them all over the world trying to get even!

 

If you are interested in different forms of life? There is one on Earth here that social scientists don't recognize but which affords dramatic insight into what is going on in the world when viewed through an objective, atheistic re-interpreting of the data. . .

 

charles, HOME PAGE

[Jay-qu]

Its just like the dolphins and the mice.. we would be to ignorant and wouldnt recognise it for what it is.

[ughaibu]

Boerseun: It's not Hollywood but. . . . Liquid Sky (1982)