ALIENS
I know exactly what you’re planning to do – you’re planning to skip this bit because you think it’s a bit silly to be discussing aliens in a book that purports to be about zombies. Well, I’m afraid if you want to learn all there is to learn you’re just going to have to suck it up and carry on reada da aliens may very well be an issue.
It is a distinct possibility that, should aliens exist, they may have the technology and capability of reanimating the dead and giving them a penchant for biting and shambling. We have chemical weapons of our own so it’s within the realms of possibility that aliens may invade our planet by turning our dead against us. They could also come along and take over our bodies like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the original and not the wishy-washy Nicole Kidman remake. Didn’t you just want her to stop whining about her kid and shoot Daniel Craig in the head?). Thus they could create parasitic zombies (see Classification: Parasitic Zombie). It is also mildly plausible that a zombie apocalypse could be caused accidentally on their part (we’re managing to destroy our own planet by a series of industrial ‘accidents’ so it’s no great leap to think an alien species couldn’t do the same).
These theories are, of course, conjecture. As yet, there is no definitive proof that there is any life out there in the vast glory of space other than this one little planet just spinning around trying to make something of itself. It would, however, be rather self-indulgent of us to assume that we are the only intelligent life form to exist in the universe, either by God’s design or by evolutionary process (whichever your favourite cheese happens to be), which may lead you to wonder why, if they are ‘out there’, have they not bothered to show themselves yet?
Scholars will say that it is because we are at heart a violent race and are intent on our own destruction, so intelligent life from far-off planets would not dream of coming here for fear of being captured, experimented on or infected by our dirty human genes. I have my own personal theory on why aliens have decided to steer clear and that is that in September 1977 the Carpenters released the song ‘Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft’. Anyone passing by in their spaceship and hearing those lyrics blasted over the airwaves would have serious second thoughts about visiting a planet that beseeched the ‘interstellar policeman’ to give us a sign we’ve reached him.They would just wind up their windows and fly on by, warning the kids in the back seat never to get mixed up with the weirdos on that planet.
FACT 1: The British have a long-standing joke about folks from America being a bit kooky and ‘out there’. So would any Brits care to explain why this song only charted at number 31 in the US charts whilst you took it all the way to number 9? (And you Irish have nothing to laugh about! It reached number 1 in your charts!)
FACT 2: To stop any nerdy nerdy geek geeks writing in, I am fully aware the original was released by Klaatu in 1976 but they were a progressive rock band who named themselves after the alien from The Day the Earth Stood Still so you expect them to be a little ‘out there’. The Carpenters sang Burt Bacharach lyrics and Sesame Street songs, what on earth are they doing trying to contact aliens? Did I just answer my own question then?