Living Universe
Over the past two decades, various scientists have independently come to the conclusion that life did not originate on the Earth, but rather billions of years before the formation of our planet.1-3 Therefore, it should be expected that the Galaxy has long been populated. There are examples of unusual meteorites that are appearing artificial.
Figure 1. Metal artifact is found in the meteorite NWA 869 (4).
In particular, a fragment of the meteorite NWA 869 contains a metallic tube (Fig. 1).4 In pre-space era, 1931, a meteorite fell with a whistle at Eaton (Colorado), two meters from an eyewitness, and was picked up while still hot (Fig. 2).50 The analyses identified an artificial alloy of "yellow brass"5, but with unique inclusions (unoxidized zinc6, silicates with "an enigmatic diversity of mineral phases"7).
Figure 2. Eaton meteorite of 1931(50).
An analysis of the new star catalogue Gaia DR3 showed that over a time of about Δt=16.5 million years there are n=20 flybys of stars at distances less than R=0.8 pc from the Sun.8 Hence, during the entire existence of the Earth T=4.5ˣ109 years, closer than r=0.5 pc (this is the dynamic boundary of the Solar System) approached the Sun about N=n(T/Δt)(r/R)2=2130 stars. Therefore, every T/N≈2 million years, during such stellar flybys interstellar travels were reduced to practicable interplanetary communications.
The above estimate means that the Earth has been accessible to visits from its galactic neighbors many times in its geological history. Hitherto, hypothetical traces of such visits have fallen outside the historical and archaeological practices due to their geocentrism. In particular, the influential site space.com claimed: "Belief in alien visits to Earth is spiraling out of control – here's why that's so dangerous".9
Ancestors from the sky
A classic of religion history, Professor Mircea Eliade noted that the universal archaic view of the Universe is a three-level model: heaven, the earthly world, and the underground.10 Moreover, the underworld was considered a symmetrical reflection of the heavenly world. The most archaic ideas of the native peoples in Siberia depict all three worlds as identical.11 Therefore, purely earthly folklore about heavenly ancestors should not be more popular than stories about ancestors from the earth or underworld.
This expectation can be verified with the help of the Analytical Catalog of folklore motifs created by Yu.E. Berezkin and E.N. Duvakin at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences.12 The catalog contains over 60,000 texts on folklore and mythology of peoples around the world. In particular, it contains thematic collections "People from the Sky" (E5C) and separately "People from the Underworld" (E5A), including the origin of ancestors from terrestrial objects (stones and plants).
Figure 3. Motifs “humans from the sky” and “humans from the earth and the underworld" (black marks) are distributed around the world according to the folklore and mythological catalog of the Russian Academy of Sciences.12
After mapping the habitats of the bearers of the corresponding folklore motifs (Figure 3), it turns out that stories about heavenly ancestors in Indochina coexist with equally popular stories about ancestors from the underworld. This fact reflects the archaic three-level model of the world of ancient peoples. However, there is a clear record concentration of stories about celestial ancestors in tropical Africa, where underground and terrestrial ancestors were not so popular. This feature gives reason to suspect a real component in the folklore about celestial ancestors.
The discovered concentration of stories about celestial ancestors in tropical Africa has an intriguing anthropological background. Anthropological facts:
(a) The earliest human fossils (2.3-2.5 million years ago) have been found just in tropical Africa: around Lake Turkana in Kenya (Homo rudolfensis) and at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania (Homo habilis). This region around Lake Victoria coincides with the main cluster of celestial ancestor stories in Figure 1.
(b) “Since about 2.5 million years ago, our brain has strongly grown from an estimated volume of 400 ml to the current volume of approximately 1400 ml.”13
This evolutionary jump coincides with the fivefold genetic change in the influential brain protein SRGAP2C. The mutation is genetically dated also to approximately 2.4 million years ago.14
Moreover, there is another intriguing, yet unnoticed, coincidence. During the aforementioned mutation, the star Gaia DR3 510911618569239040, also known as HD 7977, passed through the Solar System 2.47±0.03 million years ago.15 This Sun-like star (spectrum G3V) made a record close approach to the Sun of 0.014±0.040 parsecs and was located only 17 light days from the Earth. Hence, this was the most probable time to expect a visit to the Earth from the practically interplanetary distance of the star HD 7977.
What could have happened was described back in 1968 by Arthur C. Clarke in his classic novel “2001: A Space Odyssey”. He described how, 2 million years ago, our ape-like ancestors in Africa received an evolutionary boost to the development of intelligence. Moreover, this boost was the result of the intervention of our neighbors in the Galaxy. More than half a century later, scientific arguments have emerged to support this scenario. If such genetic work was carried out in the quiet of an orbital laboratory, it could explain African's abundance of folklore about ancestors from the sky and the accelerated evolution of African hominids.
In this regard, thematic branches in the catalogue of folklore motifs under the names “heavenly boats”, “expedition to the upper world”, “suns of different worlds”, “celestial giants”, “trial humans” and, finally, “people from the sky” attract attention.12