One of the few NASA astronauts to have ever walked on the moon believes that aliens have never visited Earth because, if they had, humans would have benefited from their superior technology and knowledge.
According to former astronaut Alan Bean, if aliens had paid us a visit then we would already have a cure for cancer by now.
“I do not believe that anyone from outer space has ever visited the Earth,” Mr Bean said from his home in Houston, Texas.
“One of reasons I don’t believe they have been here is that civilisations that are more advanced are more altruistic and friendly — like Earth, which is better than it used to be.
“So they would have landed and said, ‘We come in peace and we know from our studies you have cancer that kills people’.
“‘We’ve solved that problem 50 years ago, here’s the gadget we put on a person’s chest that will cure it — we will show you how to make it.
“Just like some day, say 1,000 years from now, when we can go to another star and see a planet, we will know how to cure cancer, cure birth defects, so we would teach them.”
News.com.au reports:
Mr Bean doesn’t doubt for a second that we are not alone.
“There’s so many billions of stars and these stars have planets around them so there must be statistically many planets around many stars that have formed life,” he said.
“Maybe some of them are like our life was 100,000 years ago, and some of them are like we are now, and there are probably some out there that are a 10,000 years in the future from where we are now.”
Mr Bean resigned from NASA in 1981 to become an artist. In his paintings he depicts the experiences of astronauts, including himself, who have walked on the moon. It’s a small club but it’s also one that he draws never-ending inspiration from.
“Even if I lived to 185 years old I wouldn’t run out of ideas of things to paint on this topic,” he said.
He uses textured and lunar tools, “sprinkled with bits of Apollo spacecraft and a touch of moon dust” to create his masterpieces, which sell for tens or hundreds of thousands of US dollars each via his website.
“I’m the only person on Earth who can do these paintings (from a first hand perspective),” he said.
“I work seven days a week painting to this day.”