Oct 23, 2015 3 min read

October is proving to be a big month in outer space. Researchers have hypothesized the existence of an alien megastructure in deep space, and tickets for “Star Wars” went on sale.

Have you read the stories about KIC 8462852? Apparently, scientists can’t understand why a star is behaving irrationally. I guess they never worked with Lindsay Lohan.

Scientists theorized that a large megastructure around a distant star could be created by aliens. Built by aliens! We could be on the verge of discovering the first object made by hands that could have six fingers (three on each hand or six on one, it’s up to your interpretation).

It’s either a creation of an advanced civilization, or it could just be some mysterious phenomena that we haven’t discovered yet. It’s most likely NOT an actual alien megastructure but one of those run-of-the-mill reasonable explanations like a really big asteroid in an unusual orbit or something, kinda like those click-bait articles where they promise to tell you something new and exciting, but it’s really just something you’ve heard before. One of those “You won’t believe which sexy actress is a lesbian!” And you find yourself reading about Portia de Rossi. Ho hum.

If KIC 8462852 has actual man-made (um … alien-made) objects floating around it, we would learn we are not alone in the universe. The object, possibly a Dyson Sphere, would be huge. It would be bigger than the Death Star.

Side note: I bet you thought I wasn’t going to get back to “Star Wars,” but I like to tie everything together.

A friend said, “It’s fun to imagine the existence of aliens. It’d be cool if we could all hang out in a bar like in that first Star Wars movie.”

P.S. He meant the first movie, not Episode One (don’t get me started).

I reminded him that not everyone got along in that bar on Tatooine. Whether he shot first or not, Greedo was blasted by Han’s ray gun. Shot dead and no one cared. That’s a pretty scary bar. It’s scarier than Jack’s on the Southside.

It is hard to imagine us shaking hands with aliens from another planet. They might not have hands. We might have to shake their flippers or tentacles. Heck, shaking their paws or whatever might be considered an act of war.

We can’t get along with people here because of their religion or the color of their skin. I don’t know how well we’d get along with aliens who have a nose on the top of their forehead or have an arm coming out of their belly button.

It’s fun to imagine that there are aliens building stuff. It’s a bit scary, too. Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”

I hope we have company out there. I’m not sure we’re ready to meet them. We may have to straighten up a few things in our proverbial living room before we invite them over for tea.