Mars Calling Earth

Case VI: Humanising, Not Colonising by Khin Maung Aye, Myanmar

2012-09-25T23:30:00.000+05:30

Yes, that’s what our little guinea pigs need – to be reminded to stay true to what they call themselves – ‘human’.

The one thing that my human history textbooks have been conveying to me all these years is that earthlings dredge up their humanity only when the harsh reality of their mortal existence hits them in their face. How is it that all efforts for world peace come up only after the two world wars? How is it that the Hindus and Muslims in the India of 1857 precipitously forget their differences once they realise they are being smothered by the British? Closer to everyday life, why do humans decide to “be nice to others and love them despite all their drawbacks” only when they realise life is too short? Why are they so humane when a person, with whom they have fought with for their entire life, is on his deathbed or vice versa? The core question is: WHERE WAS THEIR HUMANITY ALL THIS TIME?

Nothing can sensitise humans better than the End itself... which is going to be the crux of this blog post, from a Humanoid’s point of view for the benefit of the Martians.

I was watching this superhero movie, based on the graphic novel by DC Comics of the same name, ‘Watchmen’; which brilliantly throws at the audience an ethical question- “Would you kill millions to save billions?” (Oh yes... I see that twinkle in your eye, Martian! But HALT and read further before you press the button... there’s a way to go about it.)

This question ‘in question’ can be traced to two origins – The Utilitarian Ethical Theory and The Trolley Problem. I won’t go into the details because I am no authority on these subjects, but both of these sources focus on the moral dilemma of choosing the proper course of action that maximises overall ‘happiness’, even if it means causing harm to someone or something (which would be insignificant compared to the ‘greater good’)... ergo, killing millions would save billions because the death of the millions would be great enough to sensitise and humanise the billions still alive (which might bring humans to think of world peace all over again); and at the same time it would be too minimal as opposed to the greater good done to the human race.

But that’s just an example. How does this help the Martians? Well, you can shrink the resistance that you’d have to face (during invasion) if you claimed you came in peace to ‘humanize’ and not to ‘colonize’; using the most powerful weapon – the awareness of mortality and death. You could say you were preventing a morally ethical dilemma, like the one sampled above, from showing up at their doorstep in the near future by promoting interplanetary and universal peace. The theories mentioned above may have been formulated by Humanoids... but it DOES have the humans (most, if not all) agreeing to it.

“We come to the Earth hoping for long-lasting friendship – to join forces with fellow humans and promote universal peace; so that one day, at the onset of an apocalypse, we can all stand by each other; and the day may not come when we have to choose between killing our own millions to save our own billions.”

Convincing? Well, here are the terms and conditions with that cheeky (invisible in the friendly letter, of course) asterisk:

*We do not wish to kill millions of humans to save billions of humans...we are way too peace-loving for that. We wish to kill ALL of the humans to save all of the Martians. Meet us, The ~~Martians~~ Apocalypse!

Case V: Who Am I? by Vladimir Stalin, Russia

2012-03-17T20:53:00.000+05:30

It’s irksome when your Human girlfriend asks you questions like, “Do you think I look pretty?”

It’s irksome, NOT because these questions often place you in an impasse - whether to state the fact [“Get real... You look like one of those zombies from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.”]; or give a honeyed just-what-she-would-love-to-hear reply, supplemented with a fake smile [“No, dear... You look perfect!! Even Helen of Troy would look like Frankenstein in your comparison!!”]; or answer in a ‘politically correct’ inoffensive manner [“Does it matter? I like you just the way you are.”]

It is IRKSOME because she seems to be looking for sanctions and guarantees that yes, she does look pretty; even when the mirror (that she looks at with her very own eyes) testifies otherwise.

Try answering her question scrupulously and you’ll get dumped the very next minute, while she goes and asks someone else the very same question; and continues to do so... till a satisfying number of people have given a reply that is music to her ears.

Try probing whether she really desires a candid reply and she says, “Yes, of course! Please be frank if you really love me...” Mind you, she may not necessarily be hinting at ‘constructive criticism’. So think twice before retorting even though she utters the said words, because essentially, Humans do not know what they want in life.

They’re solely looking for assertions and reassurances (when they know they weren’t up to the mark while executing a particular task) that they were ‘not bad’ (it helps them to not wallow in self-pity). Or simply just want to gloat (if they’ve done well) and nurse their colossal egos and strengthen the ‘image’ that they have of themselves (or as they say, ‘raising their levels of confidence’).

So this case runs parallel to the first case of the Martian X-Files. This case is about Humans being caught in an identity-crisis, wanting remarks of fellow, equally imperfect Humans to identify their own selves. Sounds uncanny? That’s why I decided to write about it.

I am a student of Sociology... and came across this concept called “The Looking-Glass Self” by the celebrated Humanoid, Charles Horton Cooley, whose view I advocate throughout this article. Including Sociology does not make this post Science “Fiction”... (But I guess it’s 99.99% science with just 0.01% fiction in it... or maybe the ‘fiction’ part just doesn’t exist...) Nonetheless, I’ll take care not to make this post drab and uninteresting (because when all’s said and done, this is an opportunity for me to officially jeer at my half-brothers, while being pitched in their own territory).

Well, on the word of Cooley, “an individual looks into society for an image of himself. Society, thus, is the mirror for the individual.” So you telling your friend, “Your speech was really good!!” substitutes the truth, that he would rather conveniently want to overlook (a bad speech), by catching hold of your remark as the gospel truth. Your REMARK becomes his PERCEPTION of himself. He develops his sense of worth through the feedback of others.

Let’s modify this case a bit... Supposing, this friend considers himself to be a brilliant orator but delivers his speech quite badly and receives a lot of flak for it; he begins to think of himself as a loser. And this keeps playing on his mind. He forgets that ‘failure is a stepping stone to success’. It breaks down his confidence to a great degree.

Humans conveniently decide what they’re good at and what they’re not good at, by bearing in mind the labels given to them by society and not by looking within at their potential. I have a school friend who always did miserably in English tests. When I asked her why she didn’t bother to even try to score well, her reply was, “My English is weak. There’s nothing I can do about it.” Sounds so diffident, does it not? Some teacher in some grade had commented on her semantic flairs... and even ten years since that incident, my friend feels she will never be able to improve her language skills. What she doesn’t realize is that just a bit of hard work can help her to do really well in that subject.

If I were to drill some sense into the Earthlings, I’d tell them this: It’s good to know what people think of you and take into consideration their standpoints too; because otherwise, there will be no difference between you and Cacofonix, the Bard, from the Asterix comics. But at the same time, you mustn’t let people’s remarks decide for you; for the simple reason that you will always remain self-effacing. It’s best to treat others’ judgements with a pinch of salt and let your experiences decide what’s best for you.

I’m sure my advice to Humans falls on deaf ears. Yet, dear Martians, when you sing their praises, these ears will be sharply attentive.

Signing off, if I were the invader, I’d conquer every continent on this planet with the aid of sweet nothings... that’s the best way to catch them off guard!

Martians on Record: Human Archive Case #2

2012-03-09T14:24:00.001+05:30

Aaaand... we're back!! Back to supply you with new information on ourselves by rectifying the information that you have... For starters, we'd like to wish you a very Happy Beginning-of-the-End New Year!! We've noticed your obsession with the Mayans and if 21/12/12 is not yet booked by anyone or anything (read calamity) yet, we're interested! Well, you know, just to prove that the Mayans were right after all... *wink*

But don't worry if you didn't understand what we just said... Because you are a human at the end of the day, so you have an excuse to remain a nincompoop.

Okay... so returning to your archive. We keep going through your newspapers daily and are quite amused to see an article on Mars or on us almost every week. Your articles are better than the comic strips; so almost all of our newspapers have scrapped comics and have a special page dedicated just to your articles about us. Isn't that an honour?

So getting back, we noticed this really hilarious over-hyped and over-reported video of Body Of 'Dead Alien' Found In Siberia. It's a video 'claiming to show alien remains in Irkutsk, Siberia that has become an Internet sensation, garnering more than a million hits.' Though most of the humans have 'dismissed it as an elaborate hoax', we do gather that humans love to watch us - living or dead, real or plastic (as in this case). This video garnered more than a million hits on Mars too...but that was thanks to you being our entertainment, not the plastic aliennequin. This video is like a bunch of chimps making a human doll and video-shooting it claiming that a dead human was found in the jungles of Africa... And then the video has more than a million hits because all chimps are so fixated with humans, that even if they know it's just a doll, they'd love to go 'oooh' and 'aaah' over it. Ridiculous, is it not? We share the same sentiments.

We've also noted that any news channel that reports UFO sightings often has the headlines - 'The Uninvited Guests', 'The Unexplained', 'They Are Here!!', 'We Aren't Alone Any More', 'Aliens Attack'... Why is it that one little sighting of only-humans-know-what-they-saw triggers off everyone's imagination this way??! It's like, the day we step foot on your planet, it's going to be doomsday for you all. Let's make one thing very clear. And it's something we've kept saying in most of our posts - YOU ARE NOT ALONE. We hope it enters your thick skulls and minuscule brains that are useless, because even the ostrich uses its tiny brain more than you do.

Moving on... We see a bit of progress in you people...although at a snail's pace. We are referring to the Earth-like planet discovered by NASA's Kepler Mission. Yes, the Kepler-22b. Well, congratulations! You have found the Martian Holiday Destination!! (Yes, guys... we've been there, done that. If we are so ahead of you guys... you should try imagining the Martian Rajnikanth.)

Image credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

These are a human artist's representations of Kepler-22b and its position. For more information on what the humans have found, check NASA's Kepler Mission Confirms Its First Planet in Habitable Zone of Sun-like Star.

We'll give you the Martian scoop. We call it Kzer. And it's been one of our first holiday destinations. We liked its position and decided to inhabit it. Yes, it is ours. We don't mind if you people are interested in holidaying there...we'll be quite glad to have our entertainment on-the-go everywhere we go. But we won't help you... because of the fact that we're exposing ourselves so much on this blog; it would not be advisable to do so. Figure it out on your own as you did this. We discovered this planet within the first 105 centuries of the birth of Mars (mind you, before you laugh, that we came into existence only in the 50th century after the birth of Mars...so it's a remarkable feat compared to your progress). And there are no 'offices' or 'factories' on this planet; only homes and hotels and plenty of alien scenery; which makes it one of the most preferred locations in the Universe. We have a million other holiday getaways, the recent discovery being 5000 light years away (you guys will be extinct before you can even discover this place...your pace is so bad). We've also got other planets that are like Mars - where we live and work. So you humans have a pretty long way to go.

We'll stop here for now. For only a human blabbers and gives away that what is dearest to him. So we won't reveal any more in this post. Watch out for the next two cases and the 3rd human archive that are on their way... We will be uncovering the mystery behind the Nazca Lines and the Stonehenge the next time we go on record.

Goodbye for now. Hope to see you soon... preferably 21/12/12, when we aim to occupy the third planet from the Sun. Oops! Dropping too many hints, are we?

Case IV: Happiness OR Success - Which one's the myth? by Aryan Shetty, India

2011-12-25T17:09:00.000+05:30

“FREE ENTRY!! A Discourse on HAPPINESS by our SWAMI!! Learn How To Discover Your Happiness Within!!”

I stared hard at the pamphlet. So hard, that I could have burnt a hole in it, and burnt it the way Bhagiratha’s ancestors had been burned alive by Sage Kapila’s glare.

Happiness. A discourse on happiness. Happiness, seriously? There was at least one such discourse every week at least here in India. I chuckled. This was the limit. Humans certainly seemed to have gone bonkers. They perennially seemed to be chasing something that was already there, in this case, happiness...like hunting for gold when you have the ore in your backyard.

To confirm my suspicion of the human idiocy, I decided to attend this one discourse. I knew it would be my first and last one. After all, I too wanted to know what it was that made these sermons so successful. I wanted to know what magical words were said that helped humans ‘find’ happiness and joy.

About a thousand people turned up and I wasn’t surprised at all. Right in the middle on a small platform, sat the how-to-find-your-happiness Swami, all gleeful and cheery (I shook my head in disbelief... he was after all ‘marketing’ and ‘advertising’ his own ‘prized teachings’, wasn’t he?) with his small Asus netbook. Beside him was the white board where his slides on ‘happiness’ were being projected.

“We don’t need iPod to make us happy. We don’t need iPhone to make us happy. We don’t need iPad to make us happy...” Move on, I said to myself, looks like this guy has a grudge against Steve Jobs. “We should have no regrets. We should not be pessimistic in life” he ranted on, flashing his animated MS Office 2010 PowerPoint presentation slides, “Why do we feel sad? Because we think ‘My happiness is in the iPod. If I don’t get the iPod, I’m not happy.’ Tch tch... this is wrong. Very wrong. We should not think like that. We should say, ‘If I get the iPod, good. If I don’t get the iPod, then also good.’” I suppressed my laughter and looked around at the crowd to see what kind of response he was getting. The humans were nodding and listening to him seriously like he was the Finance Minister discussing the Annual Budget with them. What shocked me more was that there were people taking down notes while he read out of the presentation slides!!!

The discourse went on for 2 hours wherein he actually spoke ‘common sense’ (that wasn’t just uncommon in humans...common sense in humans seemed to be a ‘myth’... people spoke about it but showed no signs of having it) about how one should not think about unpleasant things, not regret, blah...blah...blah.

After the speech, all of the thousand humans fell at his feet one by one and told him how well he spoke. I ran home to jot down all that I observed.

What I observed was this:

Humans thought happiness was a myth. They either didn’t know how to be happy, or they didn’t want to be happy. But at the end of the day, apparently whatever they did or said, was for the sake of happiness. Secondly, I noticed that most people had taken leave from their offices only to attend this discourse. Humans are ready to do anything to be happy. (Ask them to vacate their planet for their happiness and they will do that too...)

While on the other hand, the Martians think of ‘Success’ as a myth. That ideology makes sense to me although I’m excluding all the bias that may influence my thinking. Success can’t be defined. It’s relative. And once achieved, we don’t bask in the glory for long, but think about the next milestone that we aim at to achieve. Which makes it like a mirage...you see it, but the minute you reach that spot, it isn’t there anymore, but is far ahead - the next milestone where you've got to reach.

Humans, on the other hand, look at their happiness as milestones. Just like the iPod-obsessed Swami said, humans are just temporarily happy the minute they buy, eat or wear something new. Then as the novelty wears off, the happiness wears off along with it; and once again, they begin their search for their 'temporary' happiness till they realize that what they are doing is fruitless; and then begin their quest for a longer lasting happiness; but they're just doing the same things that they did before, this time though with a vengence to finally once and for all achieve that little myth called happiness. Weird, I say. For Martians, they don’t need an excuse to be happy... It’s inborn. The Martians are in a perpetual state of happiness (even in their rough times) searching and hunting for their unachievable – success... succeeding themselves in their tasks and setting new and more unachievable goals. While humans strive to succeed, to achieve their ultimate goal – happiness. Doesn’t it sound weird to you?

Here’s an idea for the Martians... Make a Swami tell humans that the main cause for their sorrows is the planet Earth and that they will be happy only when they shoot themselves off into space!!

How’s that?! Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Case III: I Come. I See. I Destroy. by Hisao Suzuki, Japan

2011-10-13T16:07:00.001+05:30

Humans seem to actually live by this dictum. They seem to be wanting to destroy everything that they see, touch, taste, smell or hear (even if they themselves have created it). This uncanny habit of earthlings became visible to me after I began reading Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. Imagine... if humans were to come and settle on Mars, would they maintain it the way it is; or would Mars, over a period of time, become the filthy Earth's cousin? It's a no brainer... The answer is quite obvious.

All evidence lies in history... Come to think of it. The first European colonists had initially come to trade with the Asian countries. Who asked them to colonize the other countries? No one. It was their destructive human mind that thought of it. And it led to World War I... because all of the European countries decided to have colonies of their own. World War I resulted in World War II. And while the colonial European powers were busy slashing each other's throats, the suppressed nations decided to revolt. Almost everything happened at the same time - the World Wars followed by the freedom struggles in many countries simultaneously.

What a waste of time, I'd say. Don't humans have anything better to do with themselves? Wars, battles, revolts, revolutions, movements, monarchy...that's all that human history is made up of. Only destruction. It's almost as if destruction shaped the history of mankind. What does man boast of then? Inventions? Space travel? Apparently, most of the inventions were made during the wars; for the wars. And the progress in space travel was born out of the Cold War...

And it’s not only the past that is to be blamed for man’s habit of destruction. It’s also what he teaches his child. Haven’t you noticed every human infant breaking every toy that it lays its hands on? And instead of teaching it to take good care of the toy and not to mishandle it, the parents give it a new toy! That’s ridiculous!! If the child likes a particular toy, isn’t it supposed to take care of it instead of banging it against the wall and destroying it? You may argue that it’s just a kid and kids don’t understand because they are young and blah…blah…blah… But tell me…aren’t humans also treating their property, their ideas, their social customs and traditions and each other too as a child treating a toy? Who asked humans to misuse dynamites? Who asked them to misuse all the possible new technology? And instead of admitting that they do misuse things, humans simply escape by saying that “there are two sides of every coin”. What they fail to realize is that “life is a matter of choices rather than chances”… not whether the coin has got two sides or 50 sides. It’s all about which side you wish to see.

There's an old Martian proverb. It says, "To learn and do the wrong, is dancing to the human song" which means that if you learn and do wrong things, you're just following the path of the humans. It's only a human who can spot glitches before they look at the actual purpose, like misusing dynamites. And if there isn't any glitch, they invent their own destructive weapons to destroy it, like the way they are busy destroying the earth. Today, all the problems that humans face are because of their actions and intentions alone...and nothing else is to blame. The hole in the ozone layer, recession, terrorist attacks... Everything that they face today is their own fault.

Everywhere humans go, everything that they do…they think only about themselves, their comforts and all the possible means to misuse everything that they see. I don’t understand their psychology.

I don’t think Martians need to invade Earth. The humans are enough to get rid of themselves.

Martians on Record: Human Archive Case #1

2011-07-25T13:27:00.001+05:30

Our Martian Republican Government has declared that for every two cases of our "X Files" that you humans contribute to (you do, don't you... by being our little guinea pigs), we should share one unknown or controversial detail or fact about us. That's why for almost two and a half months there have been no recent cases on our blog, because of the conflict in our International Court Of Human Affairs as to whether we should share information about us with you or not. The Government won the case and here we are sharing State secrets and controversial issues with you.

This new policy of the Government does make sense... because you humans have to bear the brunt and be the butt of every Martian joke. Since we are now discussing Martian secrets, we may as well share some of the 'mild' jokes with you too. Mind you... no offence meant. Ok... so here it goes:

Q: What did one Martian say to the other Martian as they landed on Earth?
A: "You'll like this place... It has atmosphere..."

Q: What's amoeba-brained but considers itself to be technologically advanced?
A: An Earthling!!

Q: What did the Martian say to the human, which the human found offensive?
A: @!#$%^&*><*&@#%@!

LOL! LMAO! ROTFL! (That's "HAHAHAHAHA!!!" in your adolescent human language...or 'slang' as you call it. We Martians have no idea what these senseless short forms mean... But we're happy that you guys can invent stuff even if it's senseless...and so we used these in our post as a tribute to your innovation...)

They're good ones aren't they? We bet you humans must be staring at these jokes blankly and wondering why we find these so funny. Anyway... it's ok. Just as you wouldn't expect an 8 year old kid to understand Newton's laws, we don't expect you to understand these jokes either. This is high level humour for you...way beyond your stupid 'knock-knock' jokes. We have proverbs too based on you guys. And stories and fables. Martian kids enjoy your characters. For us, you guys are our Mr. Beans!! Again, no offence meant.

What else is there that we can share with you for your records? Oh yeah... a li'l bit more about our hybrid species.

Humanoids are also called Nordics. You can distinguish a Humanoid from his/her features. They look slightly different. To be precise and to make you humans understand in simple terms, they look like your vampires from the Twilight saga. Get our point? They look slightly different than you... but they do not fail to gel in with the crowd. We would have loved to post a photograph of a Humanoid...but that would mean exposing our own people. Humanoids have special talents too. So in a nutshell, they're unique in every way.

We guess this much info is enough about Humanoids. We do not want to divulge details because we do not want to endanger our hybrid community. You humans are not at all trustworthy. That's why we have to be on-guard all the time when we're either dealing or interacting with you. It feels weird, you know, to give you information about ourselves, when you are supposed to be researching about us.

Last but not the least, we'll be busting a myth now - the human face on Mars - that your NASA's Viking 1 discovered on July 25, 1976.

To know more about this from the human perspective, check out Unmasking The Face On Mars - NASA Science. Humans call this region of Mars 'Cydonia' (that's a really stupid name if you ask us). This image triggered off the imagination of many a sci-fi writer, but the face was later dismissed as "a trick of light and shadow"...

Anyway, what you humans think doesn't matter to us. We will be revealing the truth about this controversial issue.

In 1800 BC, when you humans were just evolving, one of our ambitious scientists, Dr. Nkigh Turys, decided to make contact with you. Since the entire universe knew you guys weren't evolved then (to tell you the truth, you guys have hardly evolved since then), we decided to make contact with you in a really childish way. We carved this landscape on our planet to make contact. See... it's like this. You show a human toddler a picture of a lion and say, "This is a lion. L-I-O-N.", to teach it what a lion is and what it looks like. You don't place a lion in front of the toddler, right? Why? Apart from being afraid that the lion may end up gobbling your kid, you also think about the kid crying, being scared of the lion. Similarly, we didn't know if you were prepared to face the fact that you are not alone. So, seeing that you humans (Babylonians, especially) had developed a new interest in astronomy, we thought that you would discover the 1.5 km (1 mile) landscape that we created. But we were wrong. We had completely over-estimated you. We hadn't anticipated that you would discover the landscape, that was created in 1800 BC, in 1976 AD!!

You guys have had the slowest progress in the history of the universe... You have a beautiful planet. And if you guys don't buck up, you risk losing it. We do not wish to say anything more. It's better if you guys read between the lines.

Case II: 'Virtually' Speaking by Sue J, UK

2011-05-16T17:04:00.006+05:30

So it all began with this psycho human once-upon-a-time-friend, who was in my class when I was in the 7th grade. She was a total weirdo. She'd be nice to you for a minute and the next minute, she'd have already fought with you and not be on talking terms with you; and then after an hour or so (while you're trying to figure out what just happened), she'd come and say, "Hey, let's just forget our differences! Misunderstandings happen. Let's be friends!" And the cycle would repeat itself all over again, with you still trying (without any success) to figure out what was happening. The entire class thought she was a complete loony and everyone would steer clear of her...

Anyway, she's not what I'll be writing about. Because I'm not a kid anymore, I'm in high school and she's not in my class...so technically, she's extinct for me. For now, she's just an 'inspiration' for this case.(LOL! I know all the ex-students of St. Patrick's, who are reading this, will be giggling out there!) The para above is just the background of the situation, so that what I tell you now, won't sound so bizarre as it would have, had you not known anything that has been written about in the above para.

Okay... Now straight to the point. So, we'd have fights like this every now and then. And I know your next question will be, "But then why did you stick with her?" (Everyone asks me this...I'm not a psychic to be able to predict your reactions.) I stuck with her because I was made to stick with her. In our class, the teacher would always make the geeks and nerds (99% of the time, it would be a humanoid) sit with the dumber species of humans on the same bench. So that's why, we were always together. Though I barely knew her, I tried to get my place changed within two days (so just imagine how bad it must have been!) But the teacher was adamant and I was stuck with her for an entire year!

Let me now stop beating around the bush. So then each time we fought, or rather she fought (our fights were always one-sided battles), not once did she come up to me and say whatever she wanted to, on my face. She never had the guts to talk frankly. How did she start the quarrel then? Well, she always fought with me virtually... Get my point? She'd always send me annoying messages on my cell phone...things like:

"Neva had i imagind u'd do dis 2 me. I alwayz regarded u as ma frnd. I'm deeply hurt by ur behaviour. Neva knew u wer such a backstabber...shud hav known b4."

This is just one of the 'mild' examples that I received within a week of sitting beside her. (And I hadn't done anything to her... I swear. I would just ignore her in class when she got on my nerves. That's it. I don't think anyone needs to react this way if they're ignored when they get irritating.) Later, things changed for the worse and I started receiving such messages more often but with abusive words that ought to be beeped and decorated with asterisks. (I never replied to her messages though. Why waste even a penny behind this bird-brained nincompoop?) So what I'm trying to tell you is that, she was more vocal in the virtual world than in the real world. In class, she'd behave like nothing ever happened.

What got me thinking about this behaviour and attitude of humans, is not her unique insanity, but her virtual frankness... And now, I see it everywhere and all over the social networking circuit.

I have seen the most shy, incompetent, insecure humans who are nobodies and have no friends in the real world; being bold and extrovert and having more than 300 friends in the virtual world, i.e., social networking sites. How is that possible??? Apparently, my human classmates say, that it's easier to befriend people and ask them out in the virtual world, rather than in reality. It also seems, based on my research, that people find it easier to tell the truth and bear their hearts and emotions in the virtual world (they wear their hearts on their sleeves in the virtual world instead of the real world!!) 'Real'-life enemies and frenemies, become 'virtual'-life friends!! Don't humans sound like impostors??? Also, just like the brainless twit human specimen from my school, whom I mentioned before, humans don't mind confronting their peers on social networking sites.

Taking the above factors into consideration, I had the following questions: Do social networking sites prove to be shields against the embarrassment that is caused by 'face-to-face' confrontations in the real world? Do humans suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder; that there is a stark difference between their personalities in the real world and that in the virtual world? Or do humans use social networking sites to fulfil their fantasies of being something that they are not? Do humans use the virtual world to escape from the harsh realities that they face in the real world?

Having thought about this topic for days on end, I have come to the conclusion that most humans seem to be very unhappy with themselves. Their personalities in the real world are their true personalities and what they seem to be on social networking sites is just a reflection of what they wish they were. Their profile pics as well as the descriptions that they write about themselves, show who they want to be, not who they really are. Yes, humans are hypocrites. The fact that they befriend their real-life rivals in the virtual world is just to increase the number of friends in their friend-list, so as to gain popularity. Humans definitely seem to fear confrontations in the real world; but confrontations seem to be easier in the virtual world as it saves them the embarrassment of being questioned and yelled at in a public place in the real world. In a virtual world, no one knows what you are upto in the real world, unless you or any other concerned person tells them. The virtual world provides 'privacy'. 'Privacy', in the sense, that humans have the freedom to do anything without other people's knowledge. Humans are able to live their own little fantasies. Also, the reason why humans tend to be more frank in the virtual world, is that social networking sites also somehow provide a platform to send your message across to the other person without having to see the person's face, or having to show your own face. In short, though you maybe abusing someone, you're doing it indirectly instead of telling the person directly on his face and risk getting your face slapped. So you can blabber whatever you want to without having to worry about what the other person will say or do. What I'm trying to tell you will be clearer to you if you watch the movie Surrogates.

The above observations only go to show that though humans consider themselves to be the most intelligent creatures, they are definitely not. They have infinite number of weaknesses and this weakness seems to be a major one. So dear Martian relatives, the key to overpower this bunch of lunatics is through their own little virtual world...

To defeat your enemy, is to hit his weaknesses... And with humans, their weakness is their comfort zone that they seem to enjoy in their virtual world.

We Humanoids, have succeeded in our venture by setting up these social networking sites!

Come, humans... Come to 'MySpace' and 'Twitter' my 'Yahoo!', till we 'Google' all over your 'Facebook' and your Planet!!

Case I: The 'Herd' Mentality by Rebecca Scott, USA

2011-05-04T12:45:00.036+05:30

"Hey! Where are you going?"

"I'm off to buy a new phone for myself."

"Great! What's on your mind?"

"An iPhone obviously!! My friend says it's cool!!"

"Yeah... I've heard that too... Everyone seems to be owning one these days..."

The 'in' thing. Cool.

Two terms that seem meaningless but actually convey a lot. The above conversation wasn't made up by me. It was a conversation between two teens that I couldn't help eavesdropping on as I waited for my son outside his school.

What's 'cool'? I believe nearly all human parents have been flummoxed by this four-letter word that drives their kids to do nearly every forbidden thing. If a kid says, "Hey! Smoking is cool!" you have a herd of other kids taking to the nicotine-filled cigarettes. "Why does everything bad have to be cool? Why can't eating fruits be cool?" a mother of a rowdy kid had been lecturing him outside the school after the kid was caught smoking in the toilet. It was since that day that I decided to give this attitude of humans a thought. I found it amazing how just one word could derail humans completely!

When anything is labelled 'cool' in this human world, you have the entire world going after it. This is not applicable to only bad habits...It's applicable to everything under the sun - the fashion industry is based on the 'in' stuff (people run for every designer clothing that's been worn by a celebrity), the electronics industry too (the iPod, the iPad, the 'i' everything, the Blackberry, the Kindle, etc), even the songs that people listen to are based on what their peers like.

I believe what humans lack is 'identity'. Most of them don't have their own points of view about anything. They decide whether a thing is good or bad based on what others say. They're absolutely clueless about what they want in life. Now you may argue, that if a certain product is good, people ought to buy it, like the iPod. Yes, I agree. You must buy something that is good. But your purchase should be the result of your conclusion that you have drawn on the basis of your research of the product. Not on what your buddy tells you about it. In the context of the conversation that I've mentioned above, the kid buying the iPhone was buying it only because his peers had it. I don't think he'd have done his own research of his 'preferred' phone. There was apparently no 'I' in his phone, there was only a 'They'!!

Talking about the present, the 3G spectrum seems to have created a lot of hype in India. Most of my Indian human colleagues have been opting for 3G just for the heck of it, not that it's of any use to them, as far as I know. I think humans desperately want to fit in with the times, and try to be able to do and own everything that's been creating the hype and look 'cool'.

But do you know the funny part of this whole thing??? I'll tell you. Let's look at the origin of any 'rage'. It's like this... Say, there's a certain trend in clothing going on at present. After sometime, humans tend to find it monotonous, and look around for something new, something different. (I guess that by the time nearly everyone's owning the chic clothing, it loses charm because it becomes too common.) And then they see a person (in most cases a celebrity, who apparently is the first one to think out of the box) wearing something different. And lo! It's the new fashion of the season!! And within a month, you find that particular fashion all over the world in every store! Now, why did it become the latest hip thing? Because someone decided not to maintain the status quo, wear something different and most importantly, was able to carry it off. The ability of a human to carry something weird or different off, defines the fashion of the season. How ridiculous is that??? In short, the person who has set off the fashion, has acted 'uncool' right? But since that person could carry it off, the 'herd' follows blindly. Then you have the skinniest as well as the fattest humans wearing it even though it doesn't suit them. Why are they wearing it then??? Because so-and-so looked good in it, and I believe I do too. Human females are ready to go through every discomfort in the world to fit into a particular dress, or to wear a particular Jimmy Choo footwear, only so that they can be labelled fashionable. Why??? Why go through so much trouble? They'll continue to look the way they looked before even if they don't wear make up or up-to-date clothes and don't go in for Botox. But who's gonna explain all this to them? Almost everyone's into all this!

Observing this behaviour of humans, I can only conclude that most of them are materialistic and completely insecure. There seems to be no hope for our friendly neighbourhood humans...

It's quite easy to take over their planet...

Exposing Our "X Files"

2011-04-16T11:33:00.006+05:30

No, we aren't referring to your favourite sci-fi serial starring those humans "Mulder" and "Scully". We're talking about our "X Files". Our experiences and encounters (both good and bad) with you.

Our "X Files" consist of documents and cases regarding such encounters all over the Earth - encounters with the Egyptian civilization (we taught them agriculture...you have the proof in the inscriptions and carvings on their pyramids), the Roswell incident (when our spaceship crashed for the first time...it was a brand new SpaceArc-X600 of those days!) and so on. But these are the old documents and you have speculated much upon them. What we are going to reveal now is the set of new documents of the 21st century...

Through these documents, we will reveal what we think of you (now that we already know what you think of us, by watching your movies). How we look at your aspects of life. Why we think that you humans are crazy. And you will see all this not through our eyes, but through the eyes of the mixed breed, the Humanoids.

Being part us and part you, they're able to understand the psychologies of both the inter-planetary species and think rationally and independently without letting the genes of any of the species influence their way of thinking. Since Humanoids know your level of understanding quite well by now, the following posts will be written by different Humanoids from different parts of the Earth regarding how they find the psyche (the human soul, mind or spirit) of you human beings and will present their points of view on your crazy superstitions, your belief systems, what you lack and also where you score over us. In short, this blog is our "X Files" of the 21st century.

You may even identify some of the Humanoids by their names. It may be your local rag-picker or your boss, your country's President or your next-door neighbour... Humanoids are everywhere in their respective garbs. But you need not worry about that.

All you have to do is watch yourself better than we watch you and not give us a chance to blacklist you or your planet. You may not want to know the consequences of being blacklisted.

You may judge us the way you want to... But before you do, please pay attention to this little piece of advice:
DO NOT JUDGE A BOOK BY IT'S COVER.

We may not be what we seem to be...

Playing God

2011-04-05T18:50:00.009+05:30

So... Where do we begin? Explaining our complex lives to humans is something like you explaining a guinea pig why it's being experimented on... But we'll still try our best to explain stuff in "human-terms", or as you say, "layman's terms"...

Till the beginning of the 21st century, we watched you, or rather scrutinized you, just as you study microorganisms under the high-powered lens of the compound microscope. Or better still, just as you watch reality shows. To be blunt, you were our entertainment. And we know everything about you... From Albert Einstein to Shashi Kapoor to Justin Bieber, from Pacman to Tetris to Angry Birds, from the Egyptians to the World Wars to the Kargil War... name it and we know it.

It was just at the turn of the 20th century, that we thought of establishing contact with you. But seeing your perception of 'aliens' in a plethora of movies like the Star Wars movies, the Star Trek movies, The Signs, Independence Day, etc.; we were quite shocked. (But we liked Avatar!) You seem to be scared of us. Why would you portray us like we're evils? That we've come to snatch your planet away from you??? If you believe in 'Love Thy Neighbour', doesn't the same apply to us too???

Being flummoxed by such narrow-mindedness on your part, we decided to play it safe. Instead of appearing before you as ourselves, we began to appear before you as a reflection of yourselves. We disguised ourselves as humans. Humanoids, to be precise.

We created special genetically engineered creatures - part Human, part Martian. And to create these creatures, i.e., Humanoids (we're not referring to the Tokio Hotel album), we obviously created a synthetic DNA molecule merging one strand of human DNA and three strands of ours. How was that possible??? We'll tell you that when the time is right because we don't think you've progressed enough to understand this stuff.

Anyway, moving on... We created synthetic bacteria, amoeba and slowly moving up the evolution ladder, we created Humanoids.

By creating Humanoids, our primary objective was to understand your psychology. Why you behave the way you do and whether you were prepared enough to face us, our existence... so that we know when to reveal ourselves to you. But we still feel you're not mature enough, so we're still undercover.

Humanoids are just like you. They go to school, they work, they earn, they watch movies, they eat nachos... But they're still aliens. It's like sending an ambassador to another country. Say, India sends an ambassador to the U.S.... the ambassador eats, drinks, walks, talks like an American over a period of time...but is yet not an American. The ambassador would still prefer bhangra over hip hop, Kishore Kumar over Elvis Presley, Dil Wale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge over the Twilight Saga... Get what we're trying to say? And yeah...these Humanoids also work as spies for us.

How do we plant these Humanoids on earth, you ask? No, we don't fill up orphanages with Humanoid kids... we've got Humanoid families in every corner of the earth. How did we manage that? Well, we created fake families. How? Technology. Quantum Physics. Parallel universes. Time travel. You may not understand the dynamics of this entire process, but these words do ring a bell, don't they? Anyway, in simple terms, we created Humanoids, went back in time, transported them in the medieval ages when no one bothered about where you came from, whether you had a home or not and what your name was... And now, we've got generations of Humanoids living among you...

We have done the impossible. Defied time. Travelled to a parallel universe. And created LIFE! A Hybrid Species altogether! We have played God... The Universe is our limit now. (Mwaahahahahahahaha!)

We're mortal alien beings for sure... But are we the good guys or the bad guys? Only time will tell...

Meet us... The Martians

2011-03-25T19:31:00.001+05:30

"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment."

H. G. Wells (from The War Of The Worlds: Book 1. Chapter 1: Eve of War)

This para sums up almost everything. But there's more to our story.
Watch out for more posts.