Aliens exist.
For years we’ve debated the possibility of extra-terrestrial life – of little green men coming down on their flying saucers and landing on the White House lawn.
We’ve questioned whether Martians would one day attack us. Or if predators from a far-flung planet would put the very survival of the human race at risk.
We pondered – and for years our top scientists studied the stars searching for an answer.
Astrophysicists, astronomers, astronauts, weirdos in tin-foil hats, they all looked up and got to work.
NASA’s best brains dedicated their lives to finding the truth.
And to proving, beyond any doubt, that truth.
That aliens exist.
Aliens – we can’t say we weren’t warned
While the scientists studied and experimented and just got down to the cold hard facts of the matter – we non-scientists let our imaginations begin to fill the gaps.
The best writers and directors of our times began to wonder what an alien invasion would look like – and what it would mean for humanity.
For the fate of mankind. For Earth.
Orson Welles, Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton, Roland Emmerich – they all had an apocalyptic vision of visitors from outer space.
Somewhere in our collective minds we understood two things – 1. Aliens exist and 2. Aliens are bad.
We believed that one day aliens could end our entire way of existence.
And we saw the threat coming over the horizon – even if we were still unable to grasp it in its entirety.
We saw it coming.
When real-life looks too much like the movies
With only a vague idea of what alien life may look like, filmmakers turned to special effects and storytelling tropes to convey this spectre of annihilation looming somewhere in our future.
But as we grew used to Hollywood’s interpretation of the little green menace from outer space, as we nodded our heads once again at spaceships landing on the White House lawn or of their flying saucer shaped shadows creeping slowly over Westminster or the Pyramids – something else happened.
These movies about our impending doom started to incorporate real-life footage.
this looks exactly like that horrible The Day After Tomorrow movie!! https://t.co/TKITzInkQ1
— Richard J Torres (@rjkeats_98) June 14, 2022
Instead of Emmerich having to imagine what an alien invasion would look like, he could use evidence of the real thing.
Footage of actual ETs and Predators started appearing online, bursting out of the bush in Australia or rampaging along the south coast of France.
The footage was quickly written into scripts and dramas to showcase an existential threat.
Except this threat is real. It’s here and well-documented.
But what if aliens aren’t the real threat?
You no longer need to traipse to the cinema, fork over £20 and sit in suspended disbelief to know aliens exist.
You can just turn on Sky News or the BBC.
Every climate scientist this week. pic.twitter.com/Yhak177Rjn
— Peter Gleick 🇺🇸 (@PeterGleick) July 17, 2022
And that real-life-footage should terrify you.
Because those scientists aren’t just saying ‘aliens exist’. They are screaming ‘aliens exist and they are here and they are going to kill you’ unless you do something to prevent it.
They are screaming for our lives.
But despite all the warnings, all the evidence and all the deaths – those with the power to defeat the aliens are doing nothing.
And while they make empty promises, that Predator is eating your parents and your future.
Terrifying eh?
Except this piece isn’t about aliens. It’s about climate change.
Conversation