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Chad Nichols
Dr. Clarke
English 300 (online)
10 February 2013
Have Extra-Terrestrial Beings Visited Us?
Roswell, New Mexico, 1947. Any conspiracy theorist or x-files fan worth the name will
recognize the significance of that time and place: that was when an alien spacecraft crashed to
earth. In the years since, many people have claimed contact with aliens: ranging from sightings
of so-called flying saucers to assertions of abduction and involuntary experimentation, these
reports are usually dismissed as (at best) a pathetic cry for attention or (at worst) the ravings of a
demented lunatic. However, enough credible evidence does exist, as do reliable witnesses whose
reports are worthy of consideration. Intelligent extra-terrestrials have visited the Earth in the
past, and continue to do so at irregular intervals.
The Roswell incident (which, at 3356.35'N, 10518.41'W, actually occurred closer to
Corona, NM) has received perhaps more attention than any other UFO-related theory in history.
After the alleged spacecraft hit, the US Military supposedly transported the debris to the Roswell
Army Air Base, before sending it on to a remote location in Nevada, popularly called Area 51,
housed in the Groom Lake facility of Edwards Air Force Base. The US Government works
especially hard to discredit or deny any reports of extra-terrestrial material being found, stored,
or studied in the facility, and according to Annie Jacobsen, Any mention of Area 51 gets
redacted from official documents, even those that have been declassified for decades.(1)
Jonathan Strickland reports President Clinton signed an Executive Order exempting Area 51

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from environmental regulation in September, 1995. This order is the most formal
acknowledgement of the existence of Area 51 by the government. (12) This amount of secrecy
seems excessive, and the consistent reports of various members of the military having scrambled
about removing material and erasing references to the Roswell incident have spawned numerous
theories about what may have been (and may still be) truly going on at this, the most famous
military institution in the world that doesn't officially exist (Jacobsen, 1). According to one of
the people who found the Roswell/Corona wreckage, a young man by the name of Gerald
Anderson, there was even a number of crew casualties (two dead, one seriously injured, one only
mildly hurt):
...there were three of these crewmembers laid out on the ground, under the edge
of this thing, in a shaded area, and there was one sitting upright. The ones that
were laying on the ground, two of 'em weren't moving at all, they were just
laying there. They looked like they had some sort of bandages on 'em. One
of them had it over his arm...one that I touched had it around his midsection and
partially over his shoulder. It appeared ... the one that was still alive and moving
had given first aid to the others. (Friedman, 91)
The Air War College's class of 1947 was flown in to Wright Field, in Dayton, Ohio to
study the Roswell wreckage after it and the casualties were transported there. Mark Magruder,
son of WWII pilot Marion Magruder (a member of that class) relays what he was told as a child
...he [Marion] saw metal that was very pliable, that you could wrinkle up in your hands, and it
would go right back into shape...you couldn't tear it apart. He saw...a living being...it was
childlike, very thin, with an oversized head (qtd. in Weller, Grossman and Greenewald). Now
renamed Wright-Patterson AFB, the installation holds the USAF's Foreign Technology Division,

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reputedly the controlling agency for the infamous Hangar 18 which, until 1981 or 1982, was
supposed to contain all of the Air Force's knowledge about aliens and UFOs. Capt. Robert M.
Collins reported that in the early 80's ...all the little stories of green men ceased (Weller,
Grossman and Greenewald). Whether this was due to removal of the objects studied to Area 51
or the high brass closing the projects down is unknown, although UFOlogists suspect the former.
Getting away from what the modern world does or does not know, more evidence of
Extra-Terrestrial contact can be found in the religious practices of the Dogon people of Mali in
West Africa. Isolated on a plateau east of the Niger river, these tribal people have a rich oral
tradition that includes descriptions of a visit from a race of creatures called the Nommo,
which descended from the heavens in a great boat that was accompanied with much noise and
winds (The Dogon People of Africa). The Nommo were reputedly from the Sirius star
system, visible in the night sky as the top right star in the Canis Major constellation. What isn't
visible to the naked eye is that there is a second star in the system-Sirius B has only been seen
through telescopes since 1970. The Dogon people, however, not only knew about Sirius B in
1930, they also claim that there is a third star to the system, the home star of their Nommo
visitors. In fact, ...researchers have found artifacts dating back over 400 years made by the
Dogon depicting orbits of these stars (ibid.). The Dogon claim that their visitors taught them of
these things, and more. For example, they were ...able to identify the moons of Jupiter and the
rings of Saturn, seemingly without the assistance of a telescope (ibid.).
Moving from Africa to South America, the evidence of visitation continues. In a Mayan
tomb a Mexican archaeologist named Alberto Ruz discovered a sarcophagus with an incredible
relief sculpture on the lid, including both glyphs and a sculpted picture. From the glyphs one
may view the subject as Pakal...Pakal appears to be seated at a control panel within a housing

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device, very similar to today's space capsules (Johnson). The sarcophagus has been dated to
approximately 690 c.e.: this is more than 1000 years before the first manned spaceflight was
recorded. While this would seem to indicate a greater likelihood that the Mayans discovered
space travel instead of being visited by ETs, it begs the question as to how they discovered it. Or
perhaps Pakal was an Extra-Terrestrial, and the carving depicts his leaving for wherever he came
from. Either way, the case for alien influence is plain.
Even the Bible has references to what may be viewed as alien spacecraft and a nonhuman species. The prophet Ezekiel reports what he saw on the banks of the K'Var river:
...there appeared to be four living creatures that looked like human
beings; but each one had four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight,
with feet like calves hoofs. They glittered like burnished bronze. Beneath their
wings they had human hands on their four sides...as for the appearance of their
faces, they had human faces [in front], each of the four had a lions face on the
right, each of the four had a bulls face on the left, and each of the four had an
eagles face. ...I saw wheels on the ground, one next to each of the four-faced
living creatures. All four wheels looked the same: their inner parts gleamed
like beryl, and their structure seemed to be that of a wheel inside a wheel. When
they moved, they could go in any of the four directions without turning as they
moved. Their rims were tall and fearsome, because the rims of all four
were full of eyes all around. When the living creatures moved, the wheels
moved along with them; and when the creatures were lifted off the
ground, the wheels went with them. (Complete Jewish Bible, Ezekiel 1.5 to 1.10
and 1.15 to 1.19)

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It is easy to envision these beings as extra-terrestrial visitors and their spacecraft gliding along
close to the ground, then rising above the prophet and flying away.
All of these examples clearly show at least the possibility if not the actual fact of
interstellar travellers contacting and influencing the early inhabitants of the Earth. But would an
ET visit be so obvious? Quantum Scientist Adrian Kent doesn't think so.
He argues that it's plausible that there is a competition for resources on a cosmic
scale, driving an evolutionary process between alien species on different planets.
Advanced species, for example, might want to exploit other planets for their own
purposes. If so, the universe would be a violent place, and evolutionary selection
may favour the inconspicuous those who lie low on purpose, or who simply lack
the skill or ambition to venture forth or advertise their existence.(Buchanan)
But if extra-terrestrial visitors are afraid to be found and exploited or eradicated, how would we
know they've been here? It's a fair question, and not one easy to answer. Paul Davies, of ASU,
thinks that we should look for subtle signatures, such as plutonium-244. The element occurs
naturally on Earth in trace amounts only and has a half-life of 80 million years. So substantial
deposits would be a sign of alien nuclear technology (Grossman and Biever) Old lunar mines,
too, could be a sign. Alien visitors could even have left a message buried in our DNA, although
Microbiologist Steve Benner reckons that Paul is being a little too extravagant here...he
overestimates the robustness of non-functional DNA" (ibid.).
Between Government disinformation, religious documentation and theoretical science, I
feel that there are answers to the riddles of Extra-Terrestrial presence. We just need to learn to
ask the right questions.

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Works Cited
Buchanan, Mark. "Exo-evolution: Aliens Who Hide, Survive." New Scientist 08 Apr. 2010: n. pag.
Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Complete Jewish Bible: New International Version. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2011. Print.
"THE DOGON PEOPLE OF AFRICA & ANCIENT ALIENS." Arcturi.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb.
2013.
Friedman, Stanton T., and Don Berliner. Crash at Corona: The U.S. Military Retrieval and Cover-up of
a UFO. New York: Marlowe &, 1992. Web. 17 Feb. 2013.
Grossman, Lisa, and Celeste Biever. "ET's Footprints May Be under Our Noses." New Scientist 10
Sept. 2011: 10. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Feb. 2013.
Jacobsen, Annie. "The Road to Area 51." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, n.d. Web. 15 Feb.
2013.
Johnson, Charles W. "PAKAL, THE MAYA ASTRONAUT: A STUDY OF ANCIENT SPACE
TRAVEL." Pakal The Maya Astronaut. Earth/matriX, n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2013.
Strickland, Jonathan. "How Area 51 Works." HowStuffWorks. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Feb. 2013.
Weller, Robb, Gary Grossman, and John Greenewald, Jr., prods. "Hangar 18: The UFO Warehouse."
UFO Files. History Channel. N.d. Television.