Friend, Foe, or An Evolutionary Challenge? 

Is there a fleet of UFOs or UAPs suddenly swarming earth? I don’t know. I listened to several reports from various news sources. Some say these unidentified flying objects are man-made, either top secret government issue or enemy craft from other countries, and others say their aerial abilities are beyond what mankind is capable of and therefore they are from an alien civilization. Still other reports say we have learned enough from downed alien craft to replicate their technologies.

The reports I heard all emphasize that they are either nothing unusual or a very serious threat to our national security.

But regardless of whatever the real truth may be, not one report I heard suggested the possibility that, if indeed we are being visited by life forms from somewhere beyond earth, they might very well be friendly, that we should be curious, that it might be in our very best interests to have an open mind and not jump immediately to thinking about what weapons we can mobilize to take them out.

We have always been an adventurous species. We are by nature explorers, the creators of magnificent technologies, arts, and sciences, and we are beginning to delve just as fearlessly into the world of our emotional/mental/spiritual makeup. We have crossed oceans with no idea of what we would find, dug into the earth to unravel the mysteries of the past, we look deeply into outer space with our telescopes, fly ourselves to the moon, and send robots to other parts of our solar system, searching for signs of intelligent life.

And yet, curiously, as much as we are thrilled by such explorations, and as much as we greatly enjoy fantasies of alien visitations on our wide screens, as a species and as individual countries we don’t seem ready to actually embrace the very real possibility that extraterrestrial life exists and that it might very well be here now… AND THAT IT COULD BE FRIENDLY!!! 

What if these sightings indicate something good? What if there is an intelligence out there trying to help save us from ourselves– from our escalating death wish manifesting in continued destruction of the planet, hatred of each other, endless war, and the proliferation of greater Weapons of Mass Destruction?

At our present level of consciousness we immediately go on the defensive, perceiving threat when in fact what we are seeing is lights in the sky. When in fact, right now, we are the biggest threat to ourselves!

Can we be open to the possibility that friendship and even help might be on the way before we talk about how to shoot these objects down?

WHAT IF THERE IS AN EVEN BIGGER PICTURE?

What if our view of the human race as the center of all that matters is being challenged, that this view is actually obsolete, no longer functional or even sustainable, something we urgently need to outgrow as part of our evolutionary development?

Isn’t one of the most important markers for adulthood that we outgrow the narcissism of youth, that we mature into the recognition that we are each part of a greater community of humans, in which our best hope for belonging and survival depends on our ability to both cooperate and contribute in relationship to others?

What if we have been acting like adolescents at best, and that the passageway to adulthood for humanity begins with the dawning recognition that we are not the center of the actual universe, that our survival depends on outgrowing the self-focus of our formative years as a species, and that there is a much bigger arena of cooperation and contribution we are being called to participate in as adults?

Because where we are headed now isn’t looking all that good…

Could these sightings be a benevolent wake-up call for us to grow up for real, put our AK-47-toting adolescent bravado down, go into the classroom of humanity waving a white flag of brotherhood and peace, and open the door to a bigger, more encompassing sense of our place in the universe than we have ever faced before?

I find that possibility exciting. I find it hopeful. And I welcome it.