In space, no one can hear you scream: Sod it!

Is there a link between Murphy's Law and crop circles?

The corn was ripe. All was safely gathered in. But where were the corn circles? Either there weren't any last year, or the phenomenon is no longer the darling of the ET hunter. And yet while corn circles may be out of fashion, UFOlogy, or the study of unidentified flying objects, persists. Don't you wonder why?

Despite its popularity, UFOlogy exists on entirely false premises. There is not one single artefact, corroborated eye-witness account or metre of film that undeniably establishes that extra-terrestrial civilisations exist, or that their machines have visited this planet, let alone little green men. This will invoke many sad shakings of heads and quoting of "proofs", but none of that will do any good.

Because, you see, if (more advanced) intelligent life existed elsewhere, and they visited us, remotely or in person, there is a very simple way we would know it. Murphy's Law.

Murphy's Law states: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. I know of nothing which is immune. Not my word processor. Not my alarm clock. Not even the pen which fell apart in my hands this morning. Now, a passenger jet is a pretty sophisticated piece of technology, with back-up systems and fail-safe devices. But they still go wrong sometimes. Not necessarily with fatal results - bits often fall off aircraft which subsequently land safely. There are more sophisticated devices -- Apollo 13, the Hubble telescope, Mars Observer - all of which could, and did, go wrong. Murphy's Law is alive and well and living in every piece of technological wizardry that has more than one component. And there is no reason to suppose that Murphy's Law is confined to human endeavour.

Isn't it strange, then, that no visiting alien craft has ever gone wrong? From all the "sightings", "experiences", "encounters" and evidence of "landings", not one UFO has ever crash landed, failed to take off, left an "ET" behind or so much as dropped a loose bolt, fag-end or fan belt, a coin or alien handbag, in a cornfield or anywhere else? This does not demonstrate perfection on the part of all extra-terrestrials; it simply means that UFOs are probably not alien technology.

If we wanted to investigate another earth-like planet which we suspected or knew harboured life, the first thing we would send would be an unmanned probe. It would not glow, or flash, or carry navigation lights. It would not land in a cornfield and bemuse the locals. It would not abduct passing motorists, intelligent or otherwise, and brainwash, interrogate or sexually assault them.

In fact, we probably wouldn't put our probe into the atmosphere at all, for fear of it being shot down by, let's face it, a justifiably angry or frightened little green missile operator. Nor would we risk introducing our pathogens into an alien world and decimating the place. We would do a few orbits, take pictures, maybe take a few upper atmosphere samples. At our relatively early stage of technology, we humans already have a highly developed sense of responsibility (even if it does at times seem to be missing in our behaviour towards each other). Our growing awareness of the delicacy of our own environment would be keener when it came to other terrestrial environments.

What if we did land a manned craft? With the best of intentions, the chances are that Murphy's Law would land with us, and we would leave behind some evidence of our visit that the ETs could hold up and say "this proves we are not alone!" We have done so wherever we've been so far. So why haven't they?

Because the UFO phenomenon is almost certainly entirely earthbound. Most "evidence" is the result of mistaken identity, atmospheric phenomena, hallucination, jocularity or wishful thinking. And most of those few truly unexplained events have, I suspect, a military connection. If there were any genuine encounters, there would be some hard facts.

I don't say there aren't other forms of life and other civilisations - I believe there probably are. I don't say we haven't been studied by more advanced life forms -- it may well be so. But unless they wanted us to see them - in which case they would have given us proof - they wouldn't have permitted us to. Alien visitors wouldn't tease us any more than we would tease them if the situation were reversed.

There is a similarly compelling argument when it comes to interstellar communication. What point can there be in listening for messages between other civilisations? It is very unlikely they will be using radio - demonstrated already to have limited use beyond a few of million miles because of time delays. Advanced extraterrestrial civilisations will be using something far more sophisticated, unless we are arrogant enough to think that in basic electromagnetic radiation we have discovered the ultimate messaging medium. It's much more likely that our listening to radio waves for ET messages is on a par with a gorilla with his ear to a telegraph pole.

I'm afraid there is no limit to the imaginings of the human species which, still taking the first tottering steps of civilisation in cosmic terms, fears it may be alone in the vastness of the Universe. And those fears manifest themselves in many ways, one of which is the constant stream of UFO claims. And the more fantastic the claims, the firmer my scepticism.

So until someone sends me proof that aliens, or their craft, have visited this planet, I'm sticking to my belief - that "first contact" will come as a direct result of Murphy's Law.

© Tony Holkham 1998

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