
“There are two possibilities, we are either alone in the universe or we are not. Both of these are equally terrifying.” Arthur C Clarke.
These words have resonated with me for some time and it’s hard to find any human being that could to relate to this feeling. It’s a quote that gives me the sense of the isolation of the human race and gives me the inescapable feeling that we are all space travellers on a lonely rock in space. It’s also got me thinking – the search for life outside of our own world is focussed purely on one thing – space or location. Where are they?
But let’s look at this another way – is there extraterrestrial life around now, was there life before? Is there extraterrestrial life to come?
If other beings live out there, if we’re to find them, we must do so before one or either of us is expired by the universe. ~ Simon Farnell
Now you might be reading this and thinking that I’ve lost it this time. Surely the aliens are here, right here and right now. But bear with me on this. Planet Earth and the solar system have been around for a very short time in terms of the age of the universe and the human race has existed for a mere blink of an eye in that time… if that. So maybe in the time that we currently exist in the universe is a time where there’s nothing else.
Civilisations have come, grown, developed and been wiped out millions of years ago and any trace of them turned to dust by the natural erosion of their planets.
Or maybe we exist in a time before other civilisations have even started, maybe we’re the first to crawl out of the oceans and develop and grow into sentient beings.
Other possibilities may be that one human life is far shorter than the lives of other beings that live on other worlds.
Time as I have said before is such a relative thing, based on what we can perceive and measure with our minds. If we imagine the universe as a giant entity existing in its place we can maybe imagine that our existence is a fleeting and insignificant thing, a moment of time too short to measure and other races that may or may not exist will also be a similar fleeting moment.
So if other beings live out there, if we’re to find them, we must do so before one or either of us is expired by the universe. Our fleeting moment expired before we could reach out and connect.
Kinda scary eh?
No Ownership claimed on image – Taken from Google.

You don’t have to leave the planet to meet extraterrestrials. Believe it or not, our planet hosts countless of them.
Imagine being a cow and contemplating whether or not there is such a thing as a farmer. Of course, there’s a farmer. There’s one here and there’s one in the farm next to yours… and the next… and the next.
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I think I know what you’re saying. But I can’t see the blighters lol
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You just don’t know where to look.
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I’ll have a look ๐
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It very much is scary and exciting and bit more scary.
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Lol… Definitely scary ๐ฒ
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I absolutely love this! I think it’s fascinating, and my personal belief is that we are not alone. I suspect one day we will all figure it out ๐ Big love to you! Xx
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One day we will figure it out and the next have more questions. Big love xx
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We are not alone. That first quote is great. Good post
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Thanks ๐
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Kinda scary YES!
๐ท๐ถ๐
Shiva
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I take issue with the Arthur C Clarke quote. I’m not terrified by either possibility he posits. Alone is good (you may need to be slightly introverted to understand that). Not alone is good and could be pretty interesting in terms of how the human race has to deal with it suddenly becoming a fact.
Why the fear? Brilliant bloke but jeeze, so negative.
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I guess it’s perspective isn’t it? I know what you mean, but if we look around for another race like a child liking for a parent that’s scary…
As for not being alone… I know where you’re at but it could easily be scary.
Thanks for the great comment ๐
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I always assumed we weren’t alone!
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It’s a fair assumption… But what if?
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Then we can finally find some space cows and have a steak!
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That sounds great! Will it be been or purple do you think?
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You mean there are other colors for space cows?
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I would hope so!
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Then I vote for fuschia or neon green!
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I believe that there is life elsewhere in the universe but here’s a sobering thought, what if we’re the first civilisation?
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Well quite… Our the last.
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Have you read The Humans by Matt Haig? It’s fiction but I think you would enjoy it.
From a religious and scientific perspective, I don’t think our experience of Earth contains the extent of life, but that we might be the only species to exist in this state. More on that later ๐
Happy weekend, Simon.
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I’ll have to look that up. I think our human philosophies don’t even begin to scratch the surface of the realities of existence… ๐
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Very scary, glad I’m not reading this at night… You have summed up our ‘plight’ perfectly. This is why lots of people give up thinking and turn on the shopping channel – the infinity of distance and time is beyond comprehension. Our ancestors only had to think about earth and heaven. I would be too scared even to go up to the International Space Station – especially with only one bus back; but that is just a toy train set going round and round compared with the universe…
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This is exactly it, our human mind is not able to comprehend the space let alone the time.
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Statistically, there’s no way we are alone in the universe.
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This is my point. If we consider just space then I would agree, but if we realise that the life time of a race is very small compared with the life of a star that makes things less certain in my mind ๐
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its scary to think that way!
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I think so…
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