UFOs and the Evolution of Man by Scott Corrales Visitors to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History often find themselves standing in front of the “evolutionary column” or “geological column” to ponder the development of life on Earth—from protozoa to Homo sapiens—passing through a motley and often terrifying array of prehistoric creatures such as eurpteryds, dinosaurs of various kinds, and carnivorous mammals. Humankind sits at the very top of the column, its eyes on the stars and with no predators to fear, aside from its fellows. Early writers and thinkers of the UFO phenomenon rejected the role of evolution in humanity’s appearance on this planet, suggesting the belief that extraterrestrials either biologically engineered prehistoric apes to produce us or brought us wholesale from another world to this one. Landmark books, such as Brinsley LePoer Trench’s The Sky People and Otto Binder’s Unsolved Mysteries of the Past, were joined by the collected works of Erich Von Däniken and more recently those of Zecharia Sitchin.   An even more disturbing hypothesis concerning the presence of non-human visitors in Earth’s past appeared in the mid-1970s in Gods of Air and Darkness by Richard Mooney (Fawcett, 1976). The author suggested that the creatures considered monstrous in terrestrial traditions—ogres, satyrs, werewolves, vampires, and so on—appear to originate from a single source at a given time in history, much in the same way that religions show a commonality. Mooney posits that these aberrations may have been caused by proximity to a starship’s nuclear-powered engines.   Inconsistencies in evolutionary theory’s explanation for the vast diversity of life forms are perhaps responsible for this attempted revisionism. The belief that nonhuman intelligences steered evolution to give rise to intelligence on this world was fueled by humanity’s own power to direct genetic development in recent times. The alleged aliens would have deposited certain species on Earth that eventually led to the early hominids or somehow “triggered” intelligence some 20,000 years ago in likely, pre-existing candidates. Reports of UFO activity throughout the ages were then construed as efforts by our creators to monitor our progress—especially as our ability to destroy their careful handiwork became evident.   But are humans truly the end-all and be-all, the terminus of an evolutionary process, or has obsolescence been built into us? Or more tantalizing still: what order of beings will replace humans on this earth?   About Gods and Demigods   In recent years, authors like Salvador Freixedo and Juan G. Atienza have written extensively about the possibility that certain forces are trying to cause humanity to evolve for their own reasons. In La Gran Manipulación Cósmica, Atienza refers to the notion that there may be “bellwethers” among us who are the spearheads of evolution, moving among us in secret societies to avoid detection and perhaps annihilation by their less-advanced fellows, much like missionaries dealing with primitive cultures. It is also possible that advanced beings, whether human or not, have been in contact with certain gifted humans throughout time, inspiring new ways of thinking and inventions that have helped humankind up the evolutionary ladder. Late medieval tradition made much of beings of light in shining garments who would visit alchemists and occultists and discuss at length matters of science, theurgy, and philosophy. Were they space visitors, time travelers, or fictional sources of inspiration created by the medieval mind?   Jacques Bergier suggested an even more daring theory than Atienza’s bellwethers. In his Extraterrestrial Visitations from Prehistoric Times to the Present (Signet, 1974), the French scientist speculates that at some point in the 18th century, one such advanced human (or nonhuman), whom he identifies as “information source X,” began the dissemination of concepts in chemistry and physics that would spur the Enlightenment.   Salvador Freixedo’s ¡Defendámonos de los dioses! (Beware of the Gods!, translated by this author and still unpublished) takes a different approach. Freixedo begins by acknowledging the existence of noncorporeal intelligences far greater than humanity whom we have chosen in our ignorance to dub “gods,” and who have played a role in human evolution for their own ends. “Gods are not human,” he writes. “Some have the ability to manifest themselves as such and have in fact done so on numerous occasions, and have even lived intimately among us when it suits their enigmatic purposes, but as soon as their mission is accomplished, or their wish fulfilled, they return to their own plane of existence, where they can live more naturally and according to their own psychic and electromagnetic qualities.” To say that these non-human intelligences come from another world therefore does not mean another planet in space, but an entirely different kind of world, as Whitley Streiber has observed in his works—levels of existence coexistent with or even overlapping our own.   These “gods”—Freixedo is careful to differentiate them from the Creator God of the universe—can create what we would term “supermen” by endowing ordinary humans with unusual powers to perform specific assignments on this world. These beings become known to us as avatars, messiahs, and so on. Superficially this may appear to be a positive thing, but Freixedo is of the opinion that this meddling in human evolution has been largely unwholesome.   Freixedo points to cases in UFO literature in which the development of an individual human has been tampered with by supposedly alien creatures. In the 1970s, Freixedo researched the experiences of Heriberto Garza, a man from the Mexican city of Puebla who had allegedly experienced repeated contact with extraterrestrials. One evening, Garza was confronted within his own home by a slender blonde figure with feminine features that addressed him in Spanish. The nonhuman explained that it could walk through solid matter, and that its reason for visiting Garza was to give him “an experience that many would wish to have.” The entity claimed the planet Auko as its place of origin.   Shortly after this encounter, Garza began to be bombarded by telepathic messages from the non-humans at all times, to the extent that the man was forced to seek out psychiatric help. When Garza was visited by UFO researchers Ian Norris and Jorge Reichert, he told them, “I want to show you what is happening to me,” and proceeded to unbutton his shirt. The researchers were astounded to see a number of nipples growing randomly across Garza’s abdomen, some of them small, others larger and with abundant hair. Reichert and Freixedo would later conclude that the man’s DNA had been tampered with, but a more thorough study of the case became impossible after the experiencer “vanished,” a casualty of tampering by an uncaring higher intelligence.   Not all physical transformations induced by involvement with nonhuman presences have had such a catastrophic result. Whitley Streiber mentions a young man whose night vision was completely changed after an abduction experience, making it possible for him to see clearly in pitch blackness (Confirmation, p.129). Others have acquired new sets of teeth and enhanced mental ability, such as in 1972’s Ventura Maceiras case.   Freixedo mentions interference by another diminutive blond entity in the life of a young Mexican businessman known only as “José Luis,” whose education, marriage, and career choices appear to have been guided by a being he has come to know only as el rubio (“the fair-haired one” or Fair). In his evaluation of the life of this young human, Freixedo suggests that his nonhuman mentor has even resorted to causing the deaths of those who may have stood in the way of his protegé—sheer fantasy, or proof of the capricious nature of these “gods”?   To Replace Man   Certain contact experiences with nonhumans straddle the uncomfortable divide between contactee lore, eldritch being folklore, and bona fide extraterrestrial encounters. One such case, little known in the United States, involved an encounter with a blond, androgynous entity in the 1950s in the Pyrenees Mountains which separate Spain from France.   The protagonist’s name was legendary in European UFO circles for many years: Jaime Bordas Bley (rendered in French as “Jacques Bordas”). A former meteorologist, Bordas turned to the management of a bed-and-breakfast known as Hotel del Isard in the village of Casteil, at the foot of Mt. Canigó.   In the summer of 1951, in a Europe recovering from the Second World War, a strange character wandered into Bordas’ life. The man greeted him courteously in French while the hotelkeeper rested in his backyard. Bordas would later describe the man as unusual in his dress, wearing skin-tight clothing of an iridescent, unclassifiable color (resembling the properties of modern Lycra-based sportswear half a century later) tucked into calf-high boots. The man spoke in resonant tones that did not match his delicate appearance and platinum blond hair; but even more striking were his long, almost feminine hands.   Bordas invited his unexpected guest to join him; the man accepted politely and made a request: would it be possible for Bordas to supply him with milk and bread on a daily basis? He professed a lack of identifying documents, which would represent a source of trouble if he procured these items in town. In a continent filled with displaced persons after the war, Bordas did not find this request unusual and agreed to it. However, when he asked the blond visitor where he came from, all he would reply was “from above,” evidently not referring to the mountain villages high in the Pyrenees.   Much more could be said about the fascinating exchanges between Jaime Bordas and his visitor (the unusual “campsite” resembling what we would term a flying saucer, the advanced ideas offered by the stranger, the photos taken of the “visitor” by Bordas’s son, which came out blank upon developing, and the gold nuggets he would give Bordas as a reward for his assistance), but what is of interest to us in this article is their disturbing conversation regarding the future of mankind. The text of their conversation appears as retold by Bordas himself to the late Antonio Ribera, who featured it in his book De Veras Nos Vigilan los OVNIS? (Barcelona: Plaza y Janés, 1975).   “Man considers himself to be alone on Earth,” said the man, “and is not aware that he is one of evolution’s many elements. With his boundless pride and alleged wisdom, he does not know that there exists on Planet Earth an animal that will replace him in the fullness of time. He cannot imagine that something that will surpass him is currently being prepared.”   When Bordas, his curiosity piqued, tried to find out more about this revelation, the strange being gave him a glance that silenced him—the only mention of a sense of menace in the entire strange experience. After a while, the nameless man offered the following by way of explanation: “Man has been given many extraordinary attributes to dominate a vast array of extraordinary forces, but he does not know this. If he misuses them, he will not only bring about his own holocaust, but also the appearance of this thing which shall come afterwards. Man must wait. He must learn to mark time without burning stages futilely. Only then shall it be possible for Man to establish a link with that future thing.”   Fifty-three years later, we can only sit and ponder the meaning of this disturbing information, given by a being that Bordas realized only too late was not human and which Antonio Ribera compared to the Adamski-era “Venusians” in appearance and demeanor. Indeed, the fair-haired, effeminate visitor appeared to belong to the same androgynous coterie that brought grief to Heriberto Garza in Mexico.   Bordas himself was told many years later—through a telephone call from his mysterious visitor—that he would begin to undergo a mutation and cease aging altogether. An astonishing claim, to be sure, but Jaime Bordas had never lived the most normal life anyway. According to Jacques Vallée’s Messengers of Deception, Bordas had been an incredibly fat child due to a hormonal deficiency, but an encounter with a “being of light” who emerged from a “miniature airplane” changed the course of his life. He became strong, athletic, and a talented mountaineer. “Now that we have adopted you,” the being of light had allegedly told him, “we will never forsake you.” Was Bordas one of these humans whose development had been spurred by nonhumans? One of Atienza’s bellwethers or one of Freixedo’s unfortunate victims of alien tampering?   More importantly, what could this thing be? A mutation created accidentally by a laboratory? A new, improved human being produced as a result of scientific research into the human genome? Could it be the ubiquitous chupacabras, believed by many to be a genetic chimaera of uncertain origin, or even the hybrids produced from the blending of human and “Grey” DNA, reported so often in abductee accounts?   A nightmarish scenario could easily involve the 1.0 version of humanity turned into a servitor species of some sort, as in the worst science fiction nightmares, or else deleted altogether by the new dominant species. Colin Wilson believes that the alien Greys reported during the 1990s are actively involved in the creation of the new species, since they are themselves stuck in an evolutionary dead end.   Each hypothesis is more frightening than the previous one. Scott Corrales is a frequent contributor to Fate magazine. He is the editor of Inexplicata: The Journal of Hispanic Ufology.    Alchemy and Transmutation - Changing and Creating Things and People   For centuries, scientists and pseudo-scientists alike dreamed of transforming base substances into valuable ones -- alchemy. Alchemists tried to turn lead into gold, for example. It never worked. But now science seems to have developed the tools that will enable the realization of the alchemists' dream. We will be able to accomplish transmutation. We will actually turn elements and materials into something entirely different.   By changing a material's atomic structure, which nanotech makes possible, that material can be transformed into something else, with new properties, some of which have never before been seen in nature. Some physicists have even created a new form of life -- globs of gaseous plasma that, like any other life form, can grow, replicate and communicate. Others have applied electrical signals to quantum dots to create programmable matter such as wellstone iron, which can be morphed into substances such as zinc, rubidium or impervium. By rearranging the placement of atoms, scientists can create entirely new fabrics and ceramics. "Bio-fortification" can create new and more nutritious crops.   But it is not only inanimate elements and other substances that can be transformed by science. Human beings can, too. Many scientists are eagerly exploring how people can be transmutated into some superior form of humanity through the convergence of nano-bio-info-cogno technologies. The hope is not only to improve humanity but to more firmly control human evolution in order to create bodies and brains that are more durable, easier to repair and more resistant to disease, stress and aging. By merging biology and electronics, bioartificial replacement parts for the lungs, pancreas, kidneys and limbs can be created. Artificial muscles can be made out of electro active polymers. Biogerontology will result in the reversal of aging -- "engineered negligible senescence." We seem to be moving with surprising speed toward what Ray Kurzweil calls "Human Body Version 2.0" -- the new re-engineered human that will eliminate or overcome "the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to."   More and more scientists are working toward, not only more and better understanding of the human brain, but transformation of it. Consciousness is becoming an academically respectable field of study, and it includes altered states, religion and spirituality. There is a continuing explosion of research on the brain and how it works, how to access its thoughts and patterns, and how it governs behavior and beliefs.   As a result of the growing understanding of the mind, the lines between man and animal are blurring. For example, scientists are on the threshold of creating a mouse whose brain will consist entirely of human cells. Now, there is a mounting acknowledgment of the intelligence of plants and the specter of human-plant chimeras, whereby, for example, a person's cells could be transformed into pharmaceutical plants. One of the most challenging dilemmas facing the Patent Office is, and will be, what is too human to patent in the world of the laboratory.   Clearly, this will not only apply to animal and vegetable, but to mineral as well. Robotics is advancing in all shapes and sizes, and is getting smarter. All manner of robots will be increasingly employed or engaged in sports, as pets and playmates, in war, medicine, business, entertainment, leisure, home care, and so on. These "artificial" minds will even replace humans as parents, when they monitor our children in cars and serve as interactive babysitters. Autonomous nanotechnology swarms (ANTs) -- nanobots -- will be highly intelligent and make smart decisions in many areas of application. Robots will even self-replicate, by cloning themselves out of whatever materials made them in the first place.   This movement of intelligence out of the human realm exclusively, and the shifting focus on the mind rather than the body, is already having important implications for the future of products, services, markets and overall resource usage. To entertain or caretake or employ humans requires a very different set of materials and energy than the entertainment, caretaking and employment of the mind. And since the mind can now be anywhere, and in anything, we are presented with fascinating prospects of what the resource allocations of the future might be.   The promise of improvement for both materials and humans seems boundless. It ranges from neutralizing radioactive wastes to making everybody a superior athlete. It looks increasingly likely that modern alchemy will help us to find substitutes for scarce materials, to overcome threats to the environment and to make almost everything better, stronger, longer lasting and more beautiful.   Is there a down side? Of course. We don't know what all the consequences of such revolutionary developments will be. New nanomaterials may well create new dangers to human health and the environment. And the new people we might create may have attributes that are not as good as hoped for.   Biocybernetics, in particular, raises many questions, including political ones. Integrating humans and robots, making robots more like humans and humans more robotic, creates whole new areas of concern. For example, if a computer attains human-like consciousness and intelligence, is disconnecting it murder or cruel and unusual punishment?   Industries based on natural resources, from oil to gems to logging, will need to anticipate what could be a very changed future. They could find themselves at a competitive disadvantage, or they might gain an edge over competition by controlling the direction of development. Third world nations that heavily depend on current markets for natural resources could face economic disaster, increasing the possibilities of conflict and chaos. Conversely, the ability to create nutrients and water that relieve disease, malnutrition and drought is potentially the greatest advance made by humanity.   While most results of the new alchemy are many years off, especially those related to the transmutation of people, assessment of the possibilities and their consequences is an immediate need, as is the decision to fund or participate in the nascent areas of research related to each industry or organization. At the very least, manufacturing processes, supply chain valuation, risk and new product and market development are all areas ripe for exploration and assessment.   As we move from mankind to mindkind, products and services will shift to address the needs and behaviors of the mind, from emphasizing red uniforms as opposed to steroids in sports, to equipping alarm clocks with the ability to read brain patterns and wake us up during the proper phase of sleep. The resources that went into building a text world will yield to the visual patterning and graphic interfaces that are shaping the brain processing of upcoming generations.   Instead of hiring whole people for the more creative work, organizational resources will shift to hiring minds. Eli Lilly's website, InnoCentiye, has 70,000 registered "solvers" from 173 countries. Corporations post their biology and chemistry needs, hoping that one of the registered solvers will be able to provide a solution. Staples held a competition and received 8,300 submissions from customers who came up with new product ideas; BMW accessed customer creativity by allowing people to suggest ways on the company website to leverage advance telematics and in-car online services, while the BBC has announced its "Creative Archive License," providing public access to its full media archives so that individuals can participate in the production of entertainment. This reduces the need for bricks and mortar to house bodies, and all the overhead that comes with hiring people, while expanding the universe of potentially harnessable minds. Along with this, the focus will begin to shift away from managing people and toward project management -- putting together all the varied resources and components, wherever available and in whatever form, to accomplish the desired task or vision. As organizational energy input continues to migrate away from labor, and that which does depend on labor can seek out lowest cost providers, managing labor will be less important and managing minds will take center stage.   The major battles of the future will be for minds and not bodies. Campaigning to the so-called "red/blue" divide in the U.S., the proliferation of think tanks with an ideological predisposition, the proselytizing by factions of religion and spirituality, the seeking out of the best employees, the appropriation of others' identities in a world of virtual commerce, and diplomacy on the global stage, will add to everything else cited here. In combination, they will all shift resources away from the physical into the realm of the idea, the brand, the experience, the virtual and the perceivable. Women, animals, plants, children, thinking machines and people located in remote places will all take a more prominent position as what is considered humanity evolves through transmutation from mankind to mindkind.   Source: Innovation Watch The Dinosaurs Had A 64 Million Year Head Start   Stenonychosaurus has been credited with being the most intelligent dinosaur. Compared with most others, it had a relatively large brain, although the excess brain volume was probably not concerned with reasoning and other activities that could be called "intelligence." Stenonychosaurus had large eyes, slender flexible fingers, and a light body. The brain was probably concerned mainly with its highly developed senses, fine control of its limbs, and fast reflexes, which were used in hunting small and elusive prey.   In 1982 Dale Russell and R. Seguin (Ottawa) published an article on Stenonychosaurus. A new partial skeleton had been discovered in 1967 which provided the basis of the first skeletal and flesh restoration of Stenonychosaurus. The detailed work of building the model was illustrated in their paper. In addition to the restoration, they indulged in an imaginative experiment, posing a question: What might these intelligent dinosaurs have evolved into had they not become extinct near the end of the Cretaceous period about 64 million years ago?   Stenonychosaurus proved to be an interesting choice for the experiment because it was one of the largest-brained and therefore presumably one of the most intelligent of all dinosaurs. The result of the experiment was a creature named "Dinosauroid."   One interpretation of the habits of Stenonychosaurus is that they were lightly built active hunters of small prey_perhaps small lizards and mammals. The long grasping hands, and the large eyes which pointed partly forward and therefore gave reasonably stereoscopic vision, may indicate that these were nimble predators which were active at dusk or even at night when many small nocturnal mammals would have been active.   Dinosauroid was constructed by extrapolating from these attributes. It was visualized as a highly intelligent and manipulative dinosaur. What it might have lacked in speed, it would have made up for by its superior intellect. This would have allowed it to avoid potential predators by outwitting them rather than by running away.   As a predator it may have been able to catch prey both by endurance running and perhaps by making simple weapons_ much as primitive homo sapiens would do 64 million years later.   But let's take the evolution of the Saurian a step further. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that Stenonychosaurus did not become extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period and actually had a chance to evolve into something close to the Russell-Seguin model.   It is remarkable to note that the Saurian creature bears a striking resemblance to descriptions given by witnesses during a number of UFO encounters! Long, clawlike fingers, large, elongated eyes, reptilian nostrils, three-toed, clawed feet, lizard-like skin, small stature and absence of ears are all features people have reported as belonging to UFO occupants.   Scientists do not know most dinosaurs became extinct; they assume it because few relatives exist today in forms recognizable as dinosaurs.   But what if one or two examples actually survived and managed to evolve into highly intelligent creatures capable of building not only simple weapons, but sophisticated craft to explore the cosmos?   The Sauroids would have a 64 million year head start on homo sapiens. They could have built their empires and space craft and disappeared among the stars millions of years before humans ever evolved to walk upon this planet!   Or if the Saurians are not from planet Earth, why not from another where evolution might have followed a similar pattern with similar, if not identical, creatures, including dinosaurs, at about the same cosmic time_50 to 70 million years ago?   While it is fairly certain life does not exist on any other planet of our solar system, we cannot rule out the existence of life on any of the billions of other planets that have revolved about billions of other suns in billions of other universes for billions of years before humankind ever existed.   Let's face it: When we finally arrive on some distant planet inhabited by sentient beings, whether more or less intelligent than ourselves, scientists and intelligence agencies are going to insist that specimens be returned to Earth, dead or alive, for study. Knowing this, should we be surprised or outraged if creatures from other worlds arrive here and begin taking specimens of earthlings for their own scientific studies?   The requirement for the complete and successful examination of any living organism is to reduce it to its smallest parts and look at each cell or atom under a powerful electron microscope or vaporize small samples in a spectrometer to determine the elements of which the creature was comprised when it was alive. Sample parts might suffice for some studies but whole creatures, alive and dead, will be required for others.   These sample creatures will be acquired for study by abduction and murder. Period. Those in government agencies whose business it is to plan and coordinate these missions have known it all along. It is possible that they are practicing and honing their skills by abducting and dissecting their fellow humans from time to time. At the same time, they may be building their own secret parts bank for the generations of space travelers who will need spare kidneys, livers, eyes, hearts and lungs on Mars about three decades hence.   It's a thought, isn't it?   Another thought is that the creatures who crew UFOs might not be from another planet, but might have been genetically built and incubated right here on earth in one of those secret underground laboratories, and not by aliens, but by human tinkerers. Suppose the future astronaut is not a warm-blooded mammal (human), but a cold-blooded intelligent reptile (saurian) who can tolerate cosmic radiation better than humans and who have shown to be able to survive mass extinctions with little change or effect in their subsequent behavior and evolution.   Suppose the saurian is not a creature who lived before us, but is the creature, by genetic manipulation, some of us are soon to become.   Some reptiles, remember, have an uncanny ability to regenerate lost parts, often two or three parts. This would prove a real benefit for explorers on a planet several million miles from home base where spare arms and legs are not readily available.   Some reptiles can survive days or even weeks between meals while warm-blooded mammals can hardly exist more than a few hours!   Some reptiles appear to be unaffected by cosmic radiation that is killing human beings by the thousands. Some reptiles can hibernate for months and years at a time without suffering adverse effects.   Cruel experiments on humans in Germany during the second war helped put American and Russian Cosmonauts into space only two decades later. Those experiments haven't stopped simply because we have no announced plans to return to the lunar surface soon.   This country is planning a journey to colonize Mars in less than 30 years! Imagine what it will take to get us there and keep us there!   Dinosauroid. Have witnesses seen this creature in one of its evolved forms? Is this what contemporary Stenonychosaurus might have looked like had it continued to evolve to the present day? Russell and Seguin assumed for it a large brain, and the short neck and upright posture were arrived at as a way of balancing the head more efficiently. In turn, the vertical posture removed the need for a tail. The legs were modified by lowering the ankle to the ground and the foot was lengthened. It would have stood upright at about five feet tall. Given the proper conditions and time, this evolution would be quite possible.   What would have happened if the asteroid that supposedly hit the Earth at the end of the Cretaceous period , 65 million years ago, had missed? One possibility is that the dinosaurs would not have become extinct, advanced mammals would subsequently not have appeared, and some of the descendants of dinosaurs might have evolved to become intelligent in our place. It's clear that some of the dinosaurs were getting smarter at the time the asteroid hit the Yucatan and handed the gauntlet to the mammals (fortunately for us). One of the brainiest dinosaurs we know about at the end of the Cretaceous was Troodon (a.k.a. Stenonychosaurus inequalis) a 1.2-m-tall, 70-kg carnivorous dinosaur with perhaps the intelligence of an opossum. What if Troodon had survived and continued to evolve and get brainier? In the early 1980s, paleontologist Dale Russell, curator of vertebrate fossils at the National Museums of Canada, in Ottowa, explored this possibility; Had the dinosaurs survived, argued Russell, and a species like Troodon grown smarter, it would eventually have needed to stand upright to balance its heavy head. A shoulder structure would have evolved to allow the "dinosauroid" to throw objects. Projecting how other characteristics of this species might have developed he came up with a model of a large-brained, reptilian biped with enormous eyes, three-fingered hands, an absence of external genitalia (typical of reptiles), and a navel (since a placenta is found in some modern reptiles and may have been needed to enable the birth of young with big brain cases).     Was Troodon the last word on dinosaur intelligence or are there fossils of even smarter species waiting to be found? Some dinosaurs may have got to be really brainy – to the point of hominid intelligence. There is no evidence for this, of course, but it isn't such an outrageous hypothesis. At least, it's an interesting point when thinking about alternative evolutionary scenarios. The dinosaurs were around for a very long time – from about 225 to 65 million years ago. Consider how far mammals have progressed since the end of the Cretaceous (a period less than half as long): from creeping around in trees to launching Jupiter probes! Consider how rapidly humanoid intelligence has advanced in the past 3 million years.    Dinosaurs certainly had time to grow big brains and even develop a culture and civilization. Did they? Probably not, but it isn't out of the question. After all, what clues will be left to our own civilization and technology after 65 million years of erosion and earth movements? In the Star Trek Voyager episode "Distant Origin", a sentient race of space-faring dinosaurs on the far side of the Galaxy discover they may have originated on Earth. Also in science fiction, Harry Harrison explored the consequences of saurian intelligence in his West of Eden series.