Last night, a work­ing col­league of mine died because of a heart dis­ease. He wasn’t only some co-​​worker, but a friend you could really talk with. He shared the wis­dom of his 60 years with me and I trusted his advice on more than one occa­sion. Since I don’t believe that his very essence still lives on in another realm, I don’t think that he has a bet­ter live now. What I do know, how­ever, is that he lived his life well. He was of a refresh­ing and funny sort, always ready to jape about some­thing. I’ll miss him.

Peace of mind, peace of spirit, peace of soul. Good­bye, old friend.

Moti­vated by my words on FarScape back on Sun­day and in accor­dance to my recent watch­ings I sim­ply have to reflect on these aliens. Not too long ago I already did so over here. Back then, I didn’t spend too much time writ­ing about aliens but thought on the most prob­a­ble means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion between pos­si­ble vis­i­tors and us. This time it’s all about their inten­tions: Why should aliens visit Earth? Anybody?

Well, why don’t we start with what SF lit­er­a­ture and series have to say about that? There are many con­cepts and some of them really look promis­ing. In the end, every­thing boils down to just a few pos­si­ble reasons.

1. They sim­ply want to watch/​study us.
2. They deem us wor­thy and want to estab­lish contact.
3. They’re aggres­sive and they want to con­quer humankind.
4. They’re aggres­sive and they want to erad­i­cate humankind.

That’s it, as far as I’m con­cerned. I can’t think of any other rea­son so it’s safe to assume I got all the bases cov­ered. Of course, there are var­i­ous shades of gray that – and that goes with­out say­ing – aren’t listed there for obvi­ous rea­sons. So, can you think of any other pos­si­ble reason?

Hell, I try and try and try but there’s noth­ing I could come up with. If they’re able to jour­ney to Earth through space, they surely are far more devel­oped than we are. To blindly think that they’re a benev­o­lent species want­ing to enrich our lives with their knowl­edge is fool­ish. To assume that they’ll bring war isn’t the best approach either. So what? Are they already watch­ing us? Are they already plot­ting to kill every­one of us? I long to know. I want to know. I need to know. Although I’m sure that extrater­res­trial life exists I can’t pos­si­bly know whether they’re vis­it­ing this part of the milky way. But I know one thing. If we ever come in con­tact with aliens it will be a day remem­bered by every­one, no mat­ter the outcome.