Last night, before bed when my husband took Jackie and Jillie out to the backyard, he called me out to have a look at the moon. The month's new moon, no less. The sky was almost clear after a rare no-rain day yesterday, there were some skimpy strings of white cloud, and there was the moon in all the grandeur it displays fully dressed. Above and to the right of the moon a bright star. Not a star, a planet, said he. Indeed, it's Saturn, the closest of the planets to be seen beside the August moon.

We knew that there would be rain the following day. Lots of it, since the 'chance' of rain was listed at 90%. So we weren't surprised to wake to a grey morning, unable to dispel the darkness of night thanks to a dense cloud cover. Which was steadily unleashing a light rain, leaving us to consider whether or not to launch ourselves into a ravine walk before breakfast, as usual.

We reasoned that the full  forest canopy would help keep us fairly dry, and we'd all wear rainjackets. Better early than making an attempt in the afternoon when the rain was destined to pick up strength and volume. So, suitably attired, off we went. Up our dusk-entrenched street, over to the ravine entrance where, looking into the forest interior the resemblance to a dark tunnel couldn't have been more apt.

But in there the patter of rain was notably reduced, so on we went, down the hillside into the ravine proper where we were surprised to see the low level of the water flowing through the creek, despite the rain. An odd little anomaly that we knew would be turned about by the end of the day. We were fairly surprised to see that a few others were out with their dogs. Larger dogs for the most part, and not geared out in rain gear since these are the rough-and-ready breeds more likely to head straight for the cooling waters of the creek even in winter before the freeze-up.

No one is inclined to stand around and talk. to everyone's relief, on such weather days. Waves and wry smiles more than suffice, as we pass, or see one another in the distance and continue on our way. Gayle, a long-time hiking companion who lives at the foot of our street came trundling by, umbrella in hand, shouting that she wished she'd gone out a tad earlier when the rain had been marginally lighter.

Although we were comfortable, and kept fairly dry given the circumstances, we decided that a shorter circuit would do us all very nicely this morning, rather than continuing on for the usual hour-and-a-half tramp through the trails. All the more so since as time passed the volume and strength of the rain was becoming more robust, though there were no complaints from either Jackie or Jillie, plodding along through small puddles.

The garden welcomed our return, its colours brilliantly lacquered, light from some source bouncing off the vegetation. Everything was getting a good soaking, the rain slanting directly toward the front of the house to penetrate the width of the porch, which doesn't happen very often. And then, in the afternoon, though there hadn't been any decline in the rain, it turned suddenly quite fierce.

The temperature slowly descended as well. In all, a dark, damp day. But the dark aspect and the pouring rain lend an impression of quiet comfort. And we enjoy watching the rain fall, deepening colours of the flowers even in the dusk-like atmosphere that prevails. And when the wind picked up and lashed a much heavier rain against both the back and the front of the house, it becomes hypnotically fascinating to watch such an increased volume lashing the windows, splashing down on the garden.

We appear now, having turned the corner into August, to have reached a point of moderation; less heat, less rain, more humidity, lots of sun. Everything that had shrivelled when we were flirting with drought has been resuscitated, but for the forest and garden vegetation that succumbed completely, and there was plenty of that in the former, less in the latter.

We've reached a reasonable balance in the weather, which is nice, but anyone living in this area that thinks this will continue is living in fantasy land. No complaints about yesterday, though. We had a balmy breeze, a high of 27C which is a far cry from 34C which we were treated to not that long ago, day after day, and though there was a cloud cover, plenty of glare from the sun.

And it was much, much after we'd returned from our ravine walk in the woods with Jackie and Jillie and I'd gone out to the garden to do a little tidying up that the skies opened up and treated everything to a brief rain event.

On the edges of the forest, the sunflowers are still flaunting their stately beauty, and they've been joined by fall asters; not very many yet, but soon they'll be flourishing in shades of vanilla, mauve, purple and the most lovely of all, pink, in a wide variety of sizes, alongside the goldenrod. After I'd taken a photograph of the earliest of the asters I realized they like our gardens, were infested with Japanese beetles, whose predation will make short shrift of the asters' blooming cycle.

Later in the evening, it was really pleasant outside, a nice cool breeze and a partially clear sky convincing our older son to set up one of his telescopes on the deck outside the breakfast room. He showed me Mars and Saturn, and I was quite excited to see for the first time the rings around that gaseous giant.

"A cigar or needle shape is the most likely architecture for an interstellar spacecraft, since this would minimize friction and damage from interstellar gas and dust."
University of California, Berkeley, Breakthrough Listen project

This is a bit of information that might appear to be useful to the astronomically challenged, unaware of such particularities. And it might go far to explaining in part the recent fascinated excitement in the community of astronomers, cosmologists and theoretical physicists at the appearance of a strange object in the sky above us. An unusual visitor, recognized in October as the unique and first appearance in our Milky Way Galaxy of an interstellar traveller. Indeed, a cigar-shaped rock formation hurtling a breakneck speed through space toward our sun, which the astronomical elite feel might be a Trojan Horse.

Really? Yes, really.

That some brilliant, technologically advanced civilization from another part of the Universe entirely has cloaked a furtive mission to scope out other diverse and scattered areas in galaxies not their own to assess other possible life forms. For what reason beyond curiosity and the inspired collection of intelligence simply to know, is beyond anyone's guess. But not beyond the hypothetical spinning of possible scenarios by someone of the colossal reputation for brilliance in intuiting the mysteries beyond our immediate space that can be posited by the ilk of Stephen Hawking.

In the prolonged and so-far unfruitful search to pick up any vestiges of other life through various modes of electromagnetic radiation and radio communication, it seems that Professor Hawking is dismayed, feeling that it would be more prudent for humans not to bring attention to their existence, lest other, far more advanced creatures than ourselves know of our presence and plot evil against us. As compared, for example, to the exuberantly optimistic attitude of the late, great Carl Sagan, who envisioned the possibility of humans and other lifeforms in a congress of beatified cooperation.

Stephen Hawking has a far less generous view of what a presumed meeting of another lifeform of intelligence equal to or surpassing that of humankind, with their human counterparts might be like. It is a moodily alarmed and alarming view, and while within the realm of possibility as far-fetched as it seems, might conceivably be reflective of the obverse of the old adage: a healthy mind in a healthy body. Carl Sagan, you see, exemplified that healthy mind in a healthy body. Imagine the anguish of a questing mind confined within a body inexorably failing.

"Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they could reach."
"If so, it makes sense for them to exploit each new planet for material to build more spaceships so they could move on. Who knows what the limits would be?"
"We don't know much about aliens, but we know about humans. If you look at history, contact between humans and less intelligent organisms have often been disastrous from their point of view, and encounters between civilizations with advanced versus primitive technologies have gone badly for the less advanced."
"A civilization reading one of our messages could be billions of years ahead of us. If so, they will be vastly more powerful, and may not see us as any more valuable than we see bacteria."

 

Mightn't it be possible, if extraterrestrial beings are so highly technologically involved that they could also be highly emotionally, socially evolved, and not given to using brute, lethal force against one another, let alone any other creatures in existence?