When
Thomas Edison invented his carbon filament lamp in 1879, gas shares fell
overnight. In England, Parliament set up a Committee of Inquiry to examine the future
possibilities of the new method of lighting. Sir William Preece,
Postmaster-General and Chairman of the Committee, told the House of Commons
that it had reached the conclusion that electric light in the home was fanciful
and absurd.
Today
electric lights burn in every house in the civilised world.
Obsessed
by man's age-old dream of being able to fly, Leonardo da Vinci spent years
secretly working on the construction of flying machines that were amazingly
like the prototype of the modern helicopter, but he hid his sketches for fear of
the Inquisition. When they were published in 1797, the reaction was unanimous
that heavier-than-air machines could never leave the ground.
Even
at the beginning of this century the celebrated astronomer Simon New-comb
thought that a motive force powerful enough to enable flying machines to cover
long distance was inconceivable. Yet only a few decades later aeroplanes were
carrying tremendous loads over land and sea.
Reviewing
Professor Hermann Oberth's book Rockets to I Planetary Space in 1924, the world
famous periodical Nature commented that a space rocket project would probably
only become practicable shortly before mankind became extinct. Even during the
1940's when the first rockets had already been launched from the earth's
surface and flown hundreds of miles, doctors insisted that any kind of manned
space travel was impossible because the human metabolism would be unable to
stand the condition of weightlessness for several days on end.
Yet
mankind has not died out and rockets are a familiar sight, and contrary to all
predictions the human metabolism can obviously stand the condition of
weightlessness.
What
I am saying is that at some time or other the technical feasibility of every
new idea vitally affecting the life of mankind was 'not proven'. Proof of its
practicability was always preceded by the speculation of the so-called
visionaries who were violently attacked, or what is often harder to stomach,
laughed at condescendingly by their contemporaries.
I
admit quite frankly that in this sense I am a visionary, too, but I do not live
in splendid isolation with my speculations. My conviction that intelligences
from other planets have visited the earth in the remote past is already under
serious consideration by many scientists in both East and West.
For
example, Professor Charles Hapgood told me during my stay in the USA that
Albert Einstein, whom he had known personally, was in complete sympathy with
the idea of a prehistoric visit by extraterrestrial intelligences.
In
Moscow Professor Josef Samuilovich Shklovsky, one of the leading astrophysicists
and radioastronomers of our day, assured me that he was convinced that the earth
had received a visit from the cosmos at least once.
The
well-known space biologist Carl Sagan (USA) also does not exclude the
possibility that 'the earth has been visited by representatives of an
extraterrestrial civilisation at least once in the course of its history'.
And
Professor Hermann Oberth, the father of the rocket, told me in these words:
'I
consider a visit to our planet by an extraterrestrial race to be extremely
probable.'
It
is gratifying to know that under the pressure of successful space flights
science is beginning to concern itself intensively with ideas that were
absolutely taboo only decades ago. And I am convinced that with every rocket
that shoots into the universe the traditional opposition to my theory about the
'gods' will get weaker and weaker.
~~~Erich Von Daniken
