QUESTION:
How do you think of Ray Bradbury as a science fiction writer? Most
people say aliens come from Mars.  Why do you think they chose this
planet? Some people claimed that they saw a real spaceship. Do you
believe it is true or do you think they are just seeing things? Do you
agree with how people present aliens' technologies on TV? Do you think
it is okay for us to explore their world? Do you see aliens as innocent
victims like how Ray Bradbury described them in his book "The Martian
Chronicles" or are they evil?

ANSWER from Bruce Jakosky on March 10, 1999:
Mars is often seen as an abode for life because it contains all of the
environmental conditions that we think are required for life to exist.
These include liquid water, the availability of all of the elements out
of which life can be constructed, and energy that can drive chemical
disequilibrium and thereby support life.  Of course, while it is
possible
that microbes can exist on Mars, it is extremely unlikely, if not
impossible,
for organisms to exist that would be substantially more complicated.

Are there intelligent beings elsewhere in our galaxy?  It is very
possible,
given the large number of inhabitable planets that likely exist and the
fact that each one would allow a "roll of the dice" to see whether life
could originate.  Right now, though, we have no way of knowing whether
intelligent life is rare or common.

Is the Earth currently being visited by extraterrestrials?  It certainly
is possible, but there is no evidence that would convince me that we are
being visited.  Personally, I find it hard to imagine that as many
encounters
as are being reported could be occurring without us finding some hard
evidence of those visits.  And, I find it equally hard to believe that
the
government would be able to hide any evidence that it did have.
Incidents such as that at Roswell in 1947 are much better understood as
resulting from balloon experiments that have since been blown out of
proportion.

ANSWER from Jack Farmer on March 17, 1999:
Personally, I think Ray Bradbury is a great Sci-Fi writer. He is very
imaginative and knows how to construct a plot with all the tensionsal
elements
that make for exciting reading. 

The Red Planet is a logical choice for aliens. Early work by Percival
Lowell
on the so-called Martian "canals" attracted a lot of speculation about
the
possibility of a dying civilization there that had constructed a canal
system
to move water from the polar regions to the equatorial zones. This was
of
course, entirely speculative and we have since discovered that the
canals were
just an optical illusion. Such features do not exist on Mars. However,
the
Mariner 9 and Viking missions which explored Mars took photos from orbit
which
indicated that water was once abundant at the surface early in the
planet's
history. Images collected by Viking from a sie on the northern plains of
Mars
bears a crude resemblance to pyrimids and a sphinx-like face. This
so-called
"Face on Mars" was championed by Robert Hoagland as evidence that an
ancient
ciliviliation once lived and thrived there, building giant pyrimids
something
like those found in ancient Eqypt. However, recent high resolution
images of
the "face" reveal it to be just another rock formation, not unlike other
features in the region that have been produced by weathering and
landsliding.
The Viking landers carried biology experiments to look for microbial
life in
martian soil, but failed to find anything compelling. Still, because
water and
the organic compounds needed for life are thought to have existed on
early
Mars, there has been a renewed interest in exploring for Martian life
since
Viking,  as fossil either microbes preserved in sedimentary
(water-deposited)
rocks exposed at the surface, or as extant life living deep underground
where
liquid water may yet exist. A couple of years ago, a Martian meteorite
that
had been discovered in Antarctica in 1984 was reported to contain signs
of
ancient (fossil) microbial life. While this remains a very controversial
hypothesis (my guess is, it will eventually be proven wrong) it has
sparked
even greater interest in the search for life on Mars.  The conclusion at
present is: if Martian life ever existed, it was some type of microbial
life
form and not an advanced form of the type usually depicted in Sci-Fi
stories
and films. We have probably not really explored Mars enough yet to know
if
life ever developed there or not. But NASA has embarked on a decade long
adventure of exploration to search for life, so we still have
opportunities
ahead to make such a discovery.   

As far as UFO's are concerned, I have personally never seen anything
remotely
alien, nor have I seen any compelling evidence for the existence of
alien
space craft reported by others. Such things could certainly exist, but
at
present we have no scientific evidence to support such claims.  

This is an interesting question. I have always felt that alien life
forms as
presented in the media convey an overly anthropomorphic view. However,
we have
good reasons to believe that our bodily structure and functional
capabilities,
including our particular brand of intellengence and the technology that
flows
from that intellegence is an accident of evolution. True, the laws of
physics
and chemistry don't vary, but how they are used does. While humans have
exploited electronic media for communication, whales- another
intellegent life
form utilizes sound (sonar) because that is what most fits its
environment and
evolutionary adaptations to life in water. Who is to say that
intellegent
beings on other planets would develop like they have here on Earth. That
would
seem especially so if their environment was drastically different. Some
Sci Fi
representations have stretched the human analogy pretty far, as in Lou
Gossett's portrayal of the intellegent reptilian life-form in the movie
"Enemy
Mine", the seemingly unstoppable fish/reptilian form in Alien, the
irrefutably
ugly alien hunter of "Predator" (with its super camoflage technology)
and the
scaly Cardassians and big-eared Ferengi of "Deep Space Nine". But such
characters are still basically huamoid in structure and their spacecraft
and
weapons not to far fetched from the human model of technology. 

One of my favorite non-humanoid aliens is from an early "Star Trek"
plot. I
can't remember what they were called, but they were clearly
silicon-based,
acid-secreting and able to digest rock. Spock conducted a Vulcan
mind-meld
with the creature and discovered they were highly intellegent, sensitive
and
emotional beings who were in many ways more "human" than the humans who
were
trying to destroy them. Although I think silicon-based life is quite
improbable (carbon chemistry is so much more pervasive in the Cosmos and
adaptable for life processes), still the idea of a non-anthropoid
intellegent
being with a different "technology" to be quite intriguing. 

The ethics of exploration is also an interesting subject. Star Trek was
sensitive to this issue by promoting the so-called "prime directive".
While it
seems clear that interfering with another, less advanced alien
civilization
would be morally wrong, what about exploring Mars or Europa for life
that
never evolved beyond the microbial stage? I personally think it is right
to
explore and to try and discover life elsewhere, but not to interfere
deliberately with the evolution of another planetary system. The idea of
terraforming Mars is a romantic idea very much in the spirit of human
exploration. The reason for terraforming is often stated as the need to
have
another place to colonize once our environment here on the home planet
has
become over-populated or otherwise uninhabitable. But in my opinion,
this is
an illogical and foolhearty from both a scientific and a morale
standpoint. 
The terraforming idea suggests it is more rational to go to another
planet and
terraform it to our standards than to deal with our own problems here on
Earth. This is ludicrous. Instead of continuing to systematically
destroy our
own biosphere through ignorance and greed I think it would be much more
logical to change how we do business here on Earth!  

I basically believe that the epitomy of evolution is benevolence. 
Altruism
and cooperative behavior are common evolutionary themes for species that
have
achieved a certain level of control over their environment. In fact,
mutualism
and cooperation can actually lead to enhanced control over the
environment
through morphoplogical and functional integration. On a social level,
cooperative interaction and standards of behavior which promote harmony
are
hallmarks of a successful culture. I would think that a species that
developed
the level of control over the environment required for interstellar
travel
would have also developed control over the passions- greed, lust for
power,
hatred, etc. Perhaps this is just a naive way of looking at the world
here.
Certainly wars are still being waged and genocide is still being
practiced
over various cherished beliefs and cultural differences. But being an
optimist
by nature, I guess I can only hope that end point of our own evolution
will
someday be a greater demonstration of the value of the individual and a
general compassion for all life.

- Jack Farmer, Prof. of Geology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
85287