Looking At It, And Asking What It Is, And Not Knowing

A CYLINDRICAL, CIGAR SHAPED OBJECT has entered the solar system, presumable made of rock and metal, presumably of natural, unintelligent origin. its orbit is hyperbolic, and it is thus no exaggeration to say that it has not recently been in orbit around the sun, but has instead newly arrived from far away, very far away. Which raises the question: where did it come from? What's it made of? Does it have a purpose, if of intelligent design? NASA is all over it, as is SETI, the Search For Intelligent Life project. In fact, a cylinder is the perfect shape for an interstellar spacecraft, due to the likelihood that such a craft will encounter numerous collisions while traveling through space with tiny but potentially devastating objects. The cigar pointed head on moving forward minimizes the exposed surface area. An outer covering of ice or rock would be far better than metal, absorbing rather then being punctured by colliding micro objects. The SETI organization, aware of all this, is studying the apparent asteroid intently, just in case, bearing in mind that the object is moving in the exact sort of trajectory which would be used to slow down a spacecraft in its approach to a star. So, its probably an asteroid, wandering in from some other star system, having travelled billions of years and trillions of miles before getting here. But its worth finding out for sure, if we can. Who knows? Certainly nobody on Earth, at least yet. We humans, who rarely know anything, seem to have a hard time saying "I don't know". We have a hard time being humble. We prefer fiction to ignorance. So, our lives and libraries fill up with false theories and speculation which fails to pass even the most cursory test of reason. Thus a collection of ancient manuscripts becomes the sacred, inviolable Word of God. The universe fills up with sentient beings who, though they reside only in our most hopeful imaginings, nevertheless infiltrate our society, disguising themselves as us, exerting secret sinister control over every aspect of human civilization, controlling us without our even being aware of it, expect for those few fortunate, super percipient people among us who know all about it, but are either unwilling or unable to share with us the precise manner in which they alone became privy to this esoteric, profound knowledge. We prefer fiction to ignorance, our imaginations to hard, cold fact. Every shred of evidence strongly hints of the existence of a cosmic design, and its creator. and of a universe filled with an infinite variety of life, including highly intelligent advanced species. Military fighter planes and commercial pilots often report flying objects, unidentified, performing incredible feats of flight high in Earth's atmosphere, and the people making these reports are of the highest integrity. so, who knows? Perhaps we are being observed by highly advanced alien aviators. So, who knows> We most certainly don't. As of now, we simply do not know, even though we are steadily approaching, so we believe, greater knowledge. meanwhile, the more hopeful and imaginative among us continue to lure us into the falsehood of fantasy and fiction, which is no replacement for verified fact. Goethe said: "God gave us the acorns, but he will not crack them for us". Confronted with this reality, our on recourse is to keep cracking.