Extraterrestrials invade Notre Dame: The truth is out therein the library

[LARRY KLAES]

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Extraterrestrials invade Notre Dame: The truth is out there…in the library

By: Michael O. Garvey

Date: August 20, 2008

On March 13, 1997, thousands of people in Arizona, Nevada and the Mexican 
state of Sonora reported the appearance of strangely mobile luminescent 
formations in the night skies.

Among the witnesses of what soon became known as the “Phoenix Lights” was 
Arizona’s governor, Fife Symington, who first ridiculed the credulity of the 
predictably ensuing throngs of UFO advocates—during a news conference at 
which he stood beside an aide dressed in an “ET” costume—but later admitted 
that he had, in fact, seen something he thought otherwise inexplicable, 
observing to a reporter that “the universe is a big place.  We’re conceited 
to think we’re alone.”

Alone or not, we may be forgiven at least a degree of chariness when invited 
to consider “The X Files” as anything more than light entertainment.  
Nevertheless, the loony vulgarity of contemporary obsession with 
extraterrestrial life can obscure the fact that this is an ancient and 
respectable speculation which has interested even greater and perhaps less 
credulous thinkers than Gov. Symington for more than two millennia.

Michael Crowe puts it wryly and arrestingly in the preface to his book “The 
Extraterrestrial Life Debate, Antiquity to 1915: A Source Book,” which 
recently was published by the University of Notre Dame Press.

“Although making no claims about whether or not extraterrestrials exist,” he 
writes, “I shall cite evidence to show that they have long since invaded and 
that their effects can be uncovered by historical research.”

Crowe, Notre Dame’s Rev. John J. Cavanaugh Professor Emeritus in Humanities 
in the Program of Liberal Studies, is not talking about crop circles and 
flying saucer wreckage in the New Mexican desert.  He is talking about the 
writings of Aristotle, Lucretius, St. Thomas Aquinas, Galileo, Kepler, 
Pascal, Newton, Voltaire, Kant, Darwin, and Dostoevsky, to name only a few.

In fact, Crowe argues that the debate over extraterrestrial life is evident 
throughout Western history and has involved half its most celebrated 
intellectuals.  In other words, “already in the premodern period 
extraterrestrials had made their entrance into terrestrial thought.”

One fascinating conclusion Crowe draws from his research regards the 16th 
century astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, whom he holds responsible for the 
extraterrestrial invasion of the modern era.  It was the Copernican 
displacement of the Earth from the center of the universe which unwittingly 
“opened the door an inch” and allowed moderns to imagine a plurality of 
worlds.

“To put the point differently,” Crowe writes, “the celibate canon of the 
cathedral in Frauenberg acted in a manner that has left him open to the 
charge that he is the father, or at least the grandfather, of Darth Vader, 
‘ET’, Alf, Mork and the whole tribe of extraterrestrials we know so well.”

One early and enthusiastic reviewer of Crowe’s book was Steven J. Dick, 
director of NASA’s history vision, who praised the book for its arrangement 
of material “not available anywhere else. . . . Crowe’s purpose is to let 
the reader see the original words of the authors who discussed other worlds. 
. . . Such a source book serves an important purpose, and is ideal for 
teaching and generating discussion in class. The subject is of increasing 
importance as we find more and more about the possibilities of 
extraterrestrial life through current disciplines such as astrobiology, 
bioastronomy, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).”

Indeed, Crowe will be using his new book to teach and generate discussion in 
the University Seminar course he teaches each fall, “The Extraterrestrial 
Life Debate:  A Historical Perspective.”

“One of my goals in the course is to present the students with the history 
and present state of one of the great questions we have faced for 25 
centuries and that continues to challenge us,” Crowe says.  “I also hope 
that the students will come to see an approach to this question very 
different from what sometimes appears in the media, which at times tends to 
treat this serious topic in a sensationalist manner.

“In other words, I hope the students will see that science and scientific 
method, good, careful scholarship and thought in a variety of disciplines, 
can provide significant insights into this very complex topic.  In fact, I 
hope they will come to realize that this is true in regard to many other 
issues, including those that the public learns about chiefly from 
entertainment TV and popular journals.”

Who knew those little green men were so erudite?

Contact:  Michael Crowe at 574-631-6212 or Crowe.1 at nd.edu