Hiroshima and Roswell

Today is the anniversary of the American atomic attack on Hiroshima, Japan. Some UFO researchers have speculated that the alien craft they say crashed near Roswell was flying over New Mexico because the aliens were concerned about our new atomic capability, and New Mexico was home to both Los Alamos and the world's only atomic strike force, based at Roswell.

First, any aliens acting on that theory would've been taking the very long view. At that time, humans were still centuries away from threatening anybody but each other. An interstellar civilization, conceivably, might take such a long view. That granted, let's look at some numbers.

The first atomic explosions that supposedly captured the attention of the aliens took place in 1945, two years before Roswell. Assuming the aliens cannot travel faster than light (because assuming anything else wouldn't get us anywhere), that would mean the aliens at Roswell came from, at most, a bit less than two light years away. The nearest star to the Sun is some more than four light years distant.

That would mean that if aliens visited Roswell in 1947 reacting to the atomic blasts, they likely came from a base in our Solar System. Indeed, several years ago, Nick Pope, who investigated UFOs for the British Ministry of Defence, told this author in an instant message conversation that he thought an alien base in the Solar System was the most likely explanation for many UFO reports.

So, why haven't we found such a base? Perhaps because we haven't really looked. Some researchers, including some reputable scientists, are urging NASA and SETI researchers to keep an open mind about alien bases or artifacts in the neighborhood. The alien probe that observed the blasts at Trinity Site, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, and sent that information to its masters, may yet be waiting for us.