VIEWPOINT
As fans of Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters already know, when two worlds collide things get pretty messy. Events on Capitol Hill recently served as lesson in that regard.
First, there’s the world we inhabit. Planet Earth notched up its warmest July since records began, setting sweltering precedents all over the USA. In Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming the mercury soared. In Washington, apocalyptic thunderstorms rattled our windows and threatened homes. Mosquito season was even worse than normal, as warmer temperatures combined with the rain to create breeding grounds in standing pools of water.
It’s little wonder that UN Secretary General António Guterres says ‘the era of global boiling has arrived’. But in the very week he issued that warning, Congress turned its attention to other worlds entirely. Rather than examining the threat humans pose to the planet, lawmakers decided to investigate the activities of extraterrestrials. After more than 500 unexplained sightings in the skies, the House Oversight Committee convened a hearing into UAPs: Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, or – as we used to call them – UFOs. In sensational testimony, one intelligence agency whistleblower said a secret government programme has already found proof of life on other planets. David Grusch, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, says ‘non-human biologics’ were recovered from multiple UAP crash sites.
I’m perfectly open to the idea that an X-Files programme exists, hidden from Congressional oversight, just as I’m open to the evidence proving humans cause climate change. But Republicans only embrace one of those two theories.
Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna from Florida – where coastal communities are sinking into the ocean as sea levels rise – calls global warming a ‘crazy ideology’. But she is already convinced ‘there is other life out there’ and believes the US government is busy examining extra-terrestrial technology it’s recovered and trying to replicate it. If there islife on other planets, sign me up. It can’t be odder than the behaviour on this one.
If Donald Trump can be stopped from bagging the presidential nomination for the Republican Party, a billionaire pharmaceutical entrepreneur capturing the imagination of many Americans might just be the man to toppl
