Aliens on Venus

It could indeed be aliens.  Or it could be nothing at all.

--New York Times

I stood before my sixth grade class, delivering my report on the planet Mars.  Among the many interesting facts about Mars, I intoned, was that it was considered Earth's twin planet.  Mrs. Borgen, my warm-hearted teacher, mildly interrupted.  "I thought that was Venus?" she asked.  "But maybe I'm wrong," she conceded, recognizing my status as the class's planetary expert.

Of course, she was correct.  I don't think my claim was part of my prepared presentation -- I just threw it in, ad libbing a "fact" that sounded vaguely familiar.  In fact, it is Venus that has often been called our twin planet because it is the closest of all other planets to ours in size and mass.  

But Mars has always seemed the most likely to support anything that we Earthlings would consider "life."  The planet is cold -- average temperature minus 81 degrees F.  That's cold, but not impossibly cold, and in places may reach 70 degrees F. in summer.  The surface temperature of Venus is about 800 degrees F.  That's hot, impossibly hot.

But the news media have been all aflutter about the discovery by Welsh astronomers of phosphine (chemical formula PH₃) in the thick Venusian clouds of sulfuric acid, thirty miles above the planet's surface.  This discovery may not sound particularly promising, if one is looking for life, but many scientists feel that one does not find phosphine in the absence of certain forms of anaerobic microbial life.  (It could be explained by gaseous emissions from volcanic eruptions, it's true, but they would have to have been incredibly violent eruptions to produce enough phosphine to be detectible from Earth.)  Proponents of Venusian life theorize that microbes may have evolved on the surface in cooler, pre-climate change days, and now survive, churning out phosphine, high in the atmosphere.

Many scientists are skeptical.  Many, including a University of Washington astronomer,  question even whether phosphine has actually been detected.  Elemental phosphorus, maybe, but not phosphine.  But still, it's worth following up on, and it will be.

But microbes?  Well, that would be something, I guess.  It would be the first life detected anywhere in the universe apart from the Earth.  But I'm not sure I would call the microbes "aliens."

I myself prefer to rely on the personal account by George Adamski of his encounter with a Venusian alien at about 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 20, 1952, in the California desert.  He met the alien being, who emerged from a flying saucer he had been observing.  The alien was about 5'6" in height, 135 pounds in weight.  In earth terms, he appeared to be about 28 years old.  Using sign language, the being indicated that he was from the second planet from the sun.  He repeated Adamski's identification of the planet as Venus, repeating the name, "Venus."  I must quote Adamski's own reaction.

His voice was slightly higher pitched than an adult man's.  Its tonal quality was more that of a young man before his voice completes the change from childhood to maturity.  Although he had spoken but one word, there was music in his voice and I wanted to hear more of it.

Adamski's account was published in his book Leslie & Adamski, Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953), which I purchased, pored over, and virtually devoured at the age of 14.  So far as I know, we weren't yet aware that Venus at the surface was 800 degrees F., or that its atmosphere was rich in sulfuric acid.  But all the more wondrous and admirable that the race to which this alien belonged had not only survived, evolving such a gentle demeanor, but had mastered space travel long before us Earthlings.  

Now, when I say "alien," this is what I'm talking about.  Not a microbe.  I'll be watching for further developments.