Alien Attack!

It’s just another day in your small town…a carless street, seemingly empty buildings. Then, out of the sky, a ball of fire comes barreling toward you. It crash lands a mere mile away. As you approach, you notice it wasn’t just an asteroid after all. Aliens have just touched down on Earth.

In the original 1953 movie, War of the Worlds, scientists Clayton Forrester and Sylvia Van Buren, are the first to arrive at scene similar to this one. The duo’s awe only last for a brief moment when the ship opens to reveal an alien war machine. It begins to disintegrate any person in sight. Simultaneously, the entire town is shut down. The Marines are soon called in as identical machines land all over the world and destroy major cities. Sadly, the Earthly weapons are no match for their “Heat-Rays,” and “Skeleton Beams.” Where are our main characters in all of this? They escape in an abandoned plane and crash land near a farm. Since they are two people trapped together, they obviously fall in love. Soon after, they too are attacked. Forrester, however, wounds one of the Martians just enough to collect a blood sample, in hopes of finding a way to stop them. Once the Martians have taken over too many of the World’s key cities, the US drops an atomic bomb. This does literally nothing. Hope has officially run out. In the chaos, Clayton and Sylvia get tragically torn apart. Their equipment has been destroyed, ruining their chance of studying the blood. In defeat, Clayton looks for Sylvia in a church she had previously mentioned. There, they romantically reunite. Just as the church was about to be invaded, the martian controlling the machine drops dead. How? Deadly bacteria. I know right? After years of evolution, humans were immune to such bacteria. Martians, however, were not.

Alright, science time. Not gonna lie, we have no idea what aliens may do if they were to ever land on Earth. I can, however, tell you about the possibility of aliens. According to Death From the Skies, by Phillip Plait (Again), the likelihood of aliens existing is good, but not 100%. Let’s break it down a little. The Drake equation, named after Frank Drake, categorizes what life requires and the probability of them all happening. For example, the Milky Way has about 200 billion stars. 10% of these are like our Sun. (Similar mass, size, etc) That gives us 20 billion possible stars. These stars are likely to have planets around them. However, for a pessimistic view, lets give a super small probability of there being other planets and an even smaller one for them being Earth-like. Even with ridiculously low probabilities, there are still millions of planets like Earth. From there, you can go on to how many have life, can that life have technology for space travel etc. Each steps gets a little shakier. The most pessimistic view, however, still shows we aren’t alone. Ok, so why haven’t we seen them? Why haven’t they found us? Maybe life just doesn’t want to seek advancement. Maybe it’s rare for life to want to adventure into the beyond. At the same time though, you have to wonder…If there were millions of alien species, we would know. Right? The galaxy is old, at least 12 billion years old. The Earth, 4.5 billion years. That ‘s a lot of time, wouldn’t they have visited? Or called…I mean we’ve been able to send signals to space since the 1930s. In conclusion, aliens probably exist, just not in massive quantities.

Is this a good thing? What sparks technological advancements more than anything else? War. The first Cro-Magnon to hit a guy over the head, was more likely to survive. The army with rifles is probably going to beat spears, missiles will probably beat cannons. Drones, spy satellites, and instant communication can out maneuver those without. Aggression fuels advancement. By that logic, species that actually make it to space won’t be very nice.

That being said, the movie probably had it right. If aliens were going to land on Earth, they most likely wouldn’t have good intentions. Not going to lie, I haven’t seen this movie. (I know, I’m a fraud) However, I watched the trailer and have seen the remake. From that, I’d say it’s a good movie (Considering it’s from the 50’s) and I hope to watch it soon.