January 22, 2022
By JOHN LILIES & LANA CARBON
[John] We watched a short documentary the other day, about a man who spent decades trying to contact aliens, and it sparked a question for me that I wanted to pose to Lana. That question led to a full conversation (and more questions) that lasted longer than the film itself.
[Lana] I don’t really know how Netflix can label this a “movie” considering it was only 16 minutes long… but I digress. Please, continue.
[John] Is a short movie not still a movie?
[Lana] No, it’s a short.
[John] Yes… a short movie.
[Lana] Agree to disagree.
[John] I can accept that.
As I was saying… I knew right away that I wanted to record our chat, figuring we would write about it or it would inspire an article based on the idea but by the end of our talk, I’d decided to just transcribe it entirely and we could just post our discussion itself.
So, the following is our back-and-forth and I’m curious to know how you all would answer the same questions. Comment on this page or via our social accounts or email… we would love to hear from you!
[John] Okay… I have a question for you. So, we just finished watching John was Trying to Contact Aliens (on Netflix Canada).
[Lana] We did so, yes.
[John] I know we’ve talked a little bit about aliens and that we can’t really say for sure that there’s nothing out there, right?
[Lana] There’s something out there.
[John] Would you ever be interested enough in contacting what could potentially be out there, that you would go to the level that John Shepherd went to, to try to find a signal? And, he said he was doing that for what, 25 or 30 years? He made it his life to broadcast music out into space, in the hopes of contacting aliens. I mean would you – I think there are actually probably very few people who would go that far for that long – but would you even ever want to try contacting aliens?
[Lana] Um… I don’t think they’d ever hear you. It’s too vast a space.
[John] So, you wouldn’t bother trying just because you don’t think that there would be a hope in Hell of actually contacting anything?
[Lana] The odds of actually contacting someone while you’re broadcasting and then the length of time it would take to get there because it’s the speed of sound, not even the speed of light, he might not have even reached them yet. If he’s only been doing it for 25-30 years.
[John] So, you wouldn’t even entertain the idea just because you don’t think you’d get a result?
[Lana] Baby, I’m a very patient man. [*read sarcasm*]
[John] *deep laugh*
Okay, so let me rephrase the question. If the speed of sound was not the issue. If the concept of getting a message out there was more plausible than having to wait beyond a lifetime to get anything back, would you ever even want to try?
[Lana] I’d be interested in seeing the results, if someone else had tried.
[John] But, you wouldn’t want to try it yourself, just from a patience perspective?
[Lana] Yeah, I wouldn’t have the patience to do it. I don’t have the know-how to do it.
[John] Well, I mean, he taught himself, right?
[Lana] Again, patience.
[John] *laughing*
I find it so interesting that there are people out there who are so interested in something that with no guaranteed result, they would literally make it their life’s work to experiment and investigate like he did. I have no idea where his money was coming from but to teach himself how to build all of that equipment; to teach himself science and electronics and astronomy in a way to be able to figure all of that out, I find it fascinating. Admirable, really.
Okay… another question. If you were to go ahead and try to do something like this - you decide, “Okay, I’m going to put on my patient shirt today…”
[Lana] *laughing* I think mostly they wear smocks.
[John] *laughing* If you were to try it though, what would you do if you actually got something back? Or, a visit? Because then you’ve asked for it. You went looking for it, so what would you do?
[Lana] *heavy sigh* Poop in my pants. *laughing*
[John] See that’s the thing, though. It kind of makes me think about when we watch the ghost hunter-y shows and it’s funny, because these are people who are actively going and looking for things and, you know dramatic or made up or not, something happens and they freak out and practically pee themselves and run away. So, if you’re looking for aliens, if you’re trying to contact aliens, most of us have really no personal frame of reference for what that would be like.
[Lana] Yeah.
[John] Right? We have the most common concept of what’s out there in the world, that you see in Hollywood and whatnot. But, most of us don’t have any personal experience with it – and I say most of us because maybe some of the stories we hear are true and I don’t want to take away from that. So, what would you do? If you’re going to look for them – you want to contact them, you want to be in touch, you want to see aliens – what would you actually do if one suddenly appeared?
[Lana] I wouldn’t be able to do anything. I’d be speechless. I’d probably be paralyzed and just in awe.
[John] In awe… would you be in disbelief or fear?
[Lana] It would be both. Because it’s fear of the unknown, so, I mean you don’t know what they’re going to do when they get here.
[John] Yeah. What’s your impression? What do you think they would do?
[Lana] First of all, if I’m going to spend all that time to try to contact something, it would be ghosts, it won’t be aliens. I think, though, that I would be terrified because if they were to receive our signal and make it here, then they’re way further advanced than we are. And, I don’t want to be anybody’s pet. And, that’s being the best you could hope for.
[John] So, do you feel like me in that my fear of aliens isn’t so much a fear of the unknown but it’s the fear that if we have, in fact, already made contact and we have treated an alien species the way that we treat animals in experimentation and exploration and things like that, if they were to treat us the same way that’s what terrifies the fuck out of me.
[Lana] The other thing is, all they have to do is look to see how we’ve treated our own species, our own planet, and might be like, “Oh, it’s like a virus. We don’t want them spreading. Let’s just end that now.”
[John] Okay, so do you think that they are actually observing us or have observed us?
[Lana] I think that too many people have seen things that are unexplainable for that to not be the case. There’s too much stuff we don’t know. And again, space is so large that there’s got to be other living creatures out there. And, even though we want to think it as humans, we’re probably not the top of the chain.
[John] No, we aren’t.
Okay, so that takes my thinking now to a similar but slightly different place. So, we watched Hellier again over a month ago, and we picked up a lot more this time. Now, they weren’t necessarily setting out initially looking for aliens, right? It was goblins and strange occurrences that they were trying to figure out. Would you ever even go that far? You wouldn’t necessarily be broadcasting out to space with no hope of ever making contact, but even though you wouldn’t be looking for ghosts, you’d be looking for an in between – an unknown – not really sure what exists, or really what you’re looking for but you’re looking for something. Would you go that far?
[Lana] Probably. My curiosity would be too much to not investigate.
[John] Would you go as far as they did in Hellier, even with the experiments they carried out?
[Lana] If I could afford it, yes. *chuckle*
[John] Even in the cave? The only part that actually scared the crap out of me was when they were in the cave and they went through that whole ritual.
[Lana] Well, the cave itself would scare me but the ritual wouldn’t.
[John] No? Even though stuff was happening?
[Lana] I want stuff to happen. That’s the whole purpose of doing it.
[John] You’re not as afraid of that kind of idea as you would be of encountering an alien you’ve tried to contact?
[Lana] Of the physical cave. *laughing*
Anything that’s more of a physical nature is more frightening to me than say, ghosts.
[John] Okay, but if a goblin were to actually show up…
[Lana] That would be scary.
[John] But not as scary as the concept of an alien?
[Lana] As scary, I think.
[John] But you’d be more willing to go through it?
[Lana] Yes, because I think there’s a part of me that believes less in goblins than aliens.
[John] Really?
[Lana] I think the existence of aliens is a foregone conclusion. I think there are aliens, it’s just whether they’ve made it here or not.
[John] So, why are there aliens but there maybe are not goblins?
[Lana] Because we have explored quite a bit of earth. It’s our own planet, we’ve explored a lot of it. We probably would have already found something if it existed here.
[John] What if it’s a dimensional shift sort of idea?
[Lana] Well, that’s a totally different thing.
[John] Okay, but the ocean we have not fully explored, so…
[Lana] No, but I’m not going in there, so…
*both laughing*
I would not go into the sea. If it were a search for goblins or a mysterious-you-don’t-know-what-it-is, if it involves me going under the water, I’m not doing it.
[John] Okay, but what if there are creatures that could be existing deep in the water that could also be coming up or have some sort of connection to Earth that we really don’t know about? Or, what if it’s an energetic shift, like a dimension or something, that can exist here and there?
[Lana] I could believe that. I would explore that.
[John] But, you would still believe less in a goblin, even if that were the idea?
[Lana] Compared to an alien? Yes.
[John] Just because you think that we’ve explored so much of Earth that we couldn’t have missed something like that?
[Lana] No, I’m not saying we haven’t missed it, I’m just saying that there’s less of a chance that we would have missed something that like than an alien.
[John] And Sasquatch?
[Lana] No.
[John] I know you love the concept of Sasquatch.
[Lana] Yes, I do love the concept of Sasquatch but I think the majority of that is based on hoax or misinterpretation. Because, you’re going to be afraid, right?
[John] So, would you ever actually go hunting or searching for Sasquatch?
[Lana] Just because I want to knock on trees and make funny sounds, yes. But, I’m not much of a camper, so… if there are bugs in the forest where Sasquatch is supposedly living, I’m not going to be there long.
*both laughing*
Give me a nice “haunted” house, inside, warm, no bugs, and I’ll explore that. I’ll use all the equipment and check that out.
[John] Okay. Thanks.
Watching this just kind of sparked my curiosity in a way that we haven’t really talked about before and this conversation with you is leading me to a whole lot of other questions.
[Lana] Like what?
[John] I think those need to be conversations for another day.
[Lana] Well, what about you? Would you do it? Would you go and look?
[John] Um… *sigh*… I don’t know.
I don’t know, because… I’m fascinated with space. I’m fascinated by the concept that there is so much out there and so much nothing out there – that there is so much literal space – and it’s filled with so much yet the distance is so massive that it isn’t something we can easily explore.
[Lana] It’s easy to explore – just make a sound stage in Hollywood, like they did the first time around… *wink*
[John] *laughing*
I’m not keen on the concept of exploring to take over or exploring to inhabit.
[Lana] Explore to explore.
[John] I want to explore to explore, yes. But, the only thing that really, actually, scares me is that concept of an alien because we, as humans, are so horrible to the things that we find and want to learn about.
[Lana] So, what about goblins? Are you afraid of goblins? Would it be the same reason? Because, you know if there is a goblin and it’s found, they’re going to cage it – they won’t kill it – they’re going to cage it and put it on display.
[John] And then the rest of the goblins could come after us?
[Lana] Well, not even that. Just that we’re going to abuse anything we find.
[John] And, that’s my fear. Obviously, I don’t like that concept. My fear lies in the idea that if we are as awful to the things that we want to discover and learn about, as we are, are they going to be that awful to us? So, if we have, for real, already found aliens and experimented on them and treated them horribly, are their friends and families going to come and do the same things to us?
So, I’m on the fence about whether or not I would go that far to try to find something.
[Lana] Well, they’d have to be advanced to get here. More advanced than us. So, if they are more advanced than us, hopefully they have advanced past cruelty and they find no point in it.
[John] Hm. I’d never thought about that.
[Lana] And, then there’s the other side, which is scary as Hell.
[John] What’s the other side?
[Lana] That they’re technologically advanced but will just go out to conquer and be like us but we’re then like the animals you were talking about, that we experiment on with no consideration for them.
I would prefer to think that as our human bodies and minds evolve, hopefully our philosophies will also evolve and we would eventually get to a “war is pointless” state. And, maybe there are some alien species out there that are like that and others that aren’t. So, if we’re going to find some, hopefully they’re the ones that have advanced in the better way.
[John] The friendlies.
[Lana] Yeah.
[John] Absolutely. I think that’s why I would be on the fence about actually going to search or trying to contact something out there.
[Lana] For your sake, I hope it’s not a barbed wire fence. Or a picket fence.
[John] I appreciate that.
I am curious. I in no way, shape, or form, think that we are the only beings out there.
[Lana] I think, actually, even more so than aliens, I’d be more afraid of the dimensional shifting people or creatures.
[John] Why?
[Lana] Because if they can shift dimensions, they’d have an easier time getting here. They might already be on a separate Earth – like a multiple Earths situation.
[John] So, you’re saying you’re more afraid of them because you conceivably…
[Lana] See them getting here…
[John] More easily…
[Lana] Than from another planet.
[John] So, contact would be more plausible?
[Lana] Right. I think it has happened, actually.
[John] What do you picture aliens to be like? And, as well, what do you want to picture them to be like? Do you picture them to be that Hollywood standard?
[Lana] I can sort of see them being like that, because with evolution, humans are doing stuff now that I think could evolve us into that form.
[John] Really?
[Lana] We’re becoming less physical. We’re becoming more dependent on technology, as time passes. With our texting, I could see our fingers becoming longer. I could see our heads getting bigger as we communicate and our bodies becoming more frail because we’re not necessarily doing the hard labour that our ancestors did.
I can picture that Hollywood image as a possibility. I cannot picture aliens to be lizard people – I don’t see any of that happening – but I could see, essentially, a “human” race evolving into basically the “greys”. I could see that eventually, after millions and millions of cycles.
Maybe the greys aren’t even aliens… maybe they’re time travellers.
[John] I thought you wrote an entire article on the fact that time travel doesn’t actually exist?
[Lana] I can argue both sides and I don’t know if I believe either of them. I don’t know what I believe on that topic. What I wrote in that article was that you can travel to the future but can’t travel to the past because the past has already happened so you can’t change it.
But then, travelling back to the present, would that count as travelling to the past?
[John] If you’re in the future, then yes.
[Lana] But, it’s not your past.
[John] But, your future could be somebody else’s past.
[Lana] Um… yeah.
[John] Another conversation for another day.
Back to the aliens… practically every story you hear about contact or encounters, involves experimentation, probing, torture, abduction, tracking devices, or something. I don’t want that. That’s what I fear. But, while I suppose some aliens could be like that, my own concept of alien life isn’t necessarily a physical body.
Think about the movie Contact – the way they present aliens as energy existing that can take the form of whatever it needs to – that’s just how I picture life. That’s what I picture even when we die – that’s how I picture it being and I imagine alien life to be similar.
There may be other planets similar to or the same as Earth with physical beings like us but I don’t think every other planet that contains life, would contain the same kind of life and beings. Energy exists outside of our own planet and life forms out there may not be as limited as ours in that physical sense. The idea of beings like the greys is what really scares the crap out of me.
[Lana] Mhm.
[John] Anyway… thanks… I just got curious.
[Lana] Okay.
[John] Well, friends… that’s it. That was our wee chat that flew around the place a little bit and landed abruptly, pretty much nowhere. But we had fun. At least, I had fun.
[Lana] I always have fun talking about weird and unusual things with you. I’m really glad you thought of this.
[John] You might be sorry you’ve said that… I think about a lot of topics to talk about. If we publish all of those chats, our followers may be sorry, too. Even getting this ready to post, I’ve thought of more questions, so I suspect another discussion will be posted soon.
If you’ve made it to the end of this weird and meandering discussion – thank you! Let us know your thoughts and feelings about some of these things – how far would you go to find evidence of something you believe in? And, what would that thing be?
