What is DNA? To most people it is a program that tells our matter how to arrange itself. Scientists call DNA deoxyribonucleic acid, but it doesn't matter what they call it really, because there is no denying that it is the material that is inside every cell that carries our genetic information. I am sure that most of us are familiar with the double-strand Helix that represents it. When we sent the information on ourselves out to the stars by radio telescope we didn't seem to get any answer, not one that anyone would admit to anyway. DNA is more than just information on programming, it has other uses. It can be used to tell if people are related and because of this, it has become a tool in paternity cases in many courts in the world. Another use for it is in criminology. It is very hard for a criminal to commit a crime without leaving some of his or her DNA at the scene. Police often find a hair or two, minute pieces of skin, semen, blood, scrapings and even personal items that were dropped that contain DNA. So you can see DNA is quite useful stuff. Science has just found out that freshly dug up fossils contain more DNA than exposed fossils. This means that scientists now have to preserve them differently or extract DNA from them for testing soon after they are found.

Recently, human DNA was studied to see if we are descendents of Neanderthal Man. After extensive examination of our DNA, the examining scientists stated that humans hardly, if ever, mated with Neanderthals. They were able to tell this just with exams. I can't help but wonder if it is possible for something to not show up in our DNA? Could it be that Neanderthal DNA is such that it just wouldn't show up in ours? Scientists don't think that this is possible and they are probably right. After seeing those Neanderthals depicted in museums, one can see why we stayed away. So it turns out that our DNA is also a record or our evolution as humans and as any record, it can be read.

It seems that there is an area in our genetic information that is known as the 97% non-coding sequences in human DNA I admit I am over my head when I get into this area since my degree is not in biology or genetics buy I believe that there is a worldwide DNA sequence variation in a region on human chromosome 22. This has always been regarded as just a lack of information. This means that 97% of our DNA is considered as useless junk. Well guess what, in a startling announcement, some researchers from the Human Genome Project may have changed our thinking on this and at the same time found something so startling in our DNA, that it could change our ideas about all life on Earth. It seems that all life on Earth has this non coding sequence. These scientists are now saying that contained in this area is DNA that is not from Earth. Yes you heard me right, NOT FROM THIS EARTH.

One professor from the project now feels that life was planted on Earth by extraterrestrials and if this is true, Earth might not be the only place that this happened. Wouldn't that be something? This sort of reminds me of the Scifi series Star Gate where there are humans living in all the galaxies. There have been reports of extraterrestrials, that look very human like, in the past. Could it be that they really exist and our bodies contain some of their genes? I guess some would call this heresy because it seems to go against all organized religions, but maybe it really doesn't. If one were were to trace life back far enough, even alien life if it does exist, it had to start somewhere. The only answer possibility for that "somewhere" and for the "someone" who did it is God. If you don't come to this conclusion then you just hit a stone wall at the point where nothing existed. At this point no one can explain how something could have come from nothing.

So we ourselves may be part alien, who would have ever thunk? If this is true and aliens exist, we might have a lot more in common with them than we would have ever thought. This could be a very good reason why they might come here in ships to study us. If we are shooting at them, as some state we are, then we, as their children, must really be perplexing them. They probably don't understand why we are so war like. Let's hope that somewhere along the line they don't write us off as a failed experiment and decide to knock us off and try again. I would like to suggest that we all stay on our best behavior from now on.

Another thing comes to mind. If life was seeded on this planet and nowhere else in our solar system, they might have been trying to keep life apart so they wouldn't meet. After all if life existed on Mars we might have met them by now. Either they would have become advanced enough to come here, or we would have made an effort to go there if we knew it was populated. So why would they want to do this, keep us apart I mean? I guess that you wouldn't want one experiment contaminating another would you? Maybe we are the way we are, on this planet, because they had to make us aggressive to survive. Maybe we were made too aggressive? Could it be that in some other places the aggression was turned down while in other areas it was turned up more? The aliens could have been looking for a perfect balance that would assure harmony and also survival.

Alien Interrogation Video (Real Player Required) Size: 297 KB
Source: Said to be in public domain since 1996

One more thing. Some think that when we get advanced enough we might just find a message in our DNA that was put there by our alien benefactors. One professor in Australia wrote precisely this in New Scientist magazine. This just gets more fascinating all the time, doesn't it?

While having nothing to do with DNA, I thought everyone might be interested in this tidbit of ufo news. Well at least one country has come to it's senses and that country is France. They have decided to publish reported UFO sightings online. This will be done by the French space agency. The names of those reporting will be protected and kept private. They are going to put up a data base of at least 1,600 sightings and predict it will be online late this month or during next month. This should be very interesting. I bet those online translation programs will really be getting a workout.