MasterCaneman
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Joined: 3/21/2013
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Point taken, but statistically, that would be an outlying data point. Yes, it survived because it was small, of low relative value, and was probably hidden away on purpose. Suppose instead, the artifact in question is more substantial, say, an automobile or aircraft. I know you've seen abandoned cars in fields before, what do the generally look like? And they've been there only a few decades at best. Imagine what a car would look like a hundred, five hundred, a thousand years from now would look like. Most likely a discolored patch of earth with a durable parts scattered here and there.
And objects we've landed on other planets will be there for awhile as well, but that's not the case here. We're talking about our lovely, violent, and dynamic world, with wind and water action, redistribution of surface material, and other forces that can reduce an artifact to nothing. And we're clever apes. With our big brains and opposable thumbs, over time we'd figure out how to cut, smash, melt and repurpose that broken-down Arcturan space cruiser* over the course of a couple millenia, if natural processes didn't do it first.
And some would argue that we'd be able to find traces of 'alien' materials in man-made artifacts to prove or disprove if they'd visited. The problem with that argument is that matter is fairly universal throughout the universe. Sure, they might have crafted strange alloys and other materials, but they'd use the 'same' kind of matter to do it with. Yes, they can find out if an artifact came from a meteorite by its composition, but over time, as the metals are worked and reworked into other objects, they lose their 'uniqueness' and the ability to trace their original composition. And that would only be if the original source was sufficiently 'weird' enough to even be recognized as coming from elsewhere.
But that's supposing that the artifact/remnant even came from 'out there'. Right now, we're at a point only about five thousand years before 'civilization' as we recognize it began. Our species is essentially the same as it was two hundred thousand years ago, give or take. What's to say 'this has all happened before' (sorry, BSG reference there), and it's now happening again? Why couldn't have our species created 'another' civilization all by themselves without the help of the space brothers, only to either destroy it themselves or have Earth do it to them? Just look at what's left from our known history, a few coins here, a half-rusted sword there, grave offerings, and ruined structures.
Go to any city in the Middle East and Europe and think about the fact that they're built over other ruined cities, sometimes dozens of different layers of time. Floods, earthquakes, volcanoes resurface the land, ocean levels rise and fall, glacial ice can scour mountains down to flatlands, and how much of that hypothetical civilization would remain? The only constant throughout all of this is us, basically. As I said, myths are often just historical facts distorted by time and retelling. If there were alien overlords who came and went, or we're the descendants of survivors of a prehistoric apocalypse, the facts they knew would change over time to suit those telling the story.
*hyperbolic reference only
_____________________________
Age and treachery will always overcome youth and ambition.
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. ~ Sun Tzu
Goddess Wrangler
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RE: Gods of the New Millennium - 
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