The plot was always very simple. Something arrives on planet Earth, discovered in a remote spot, and once recovered from the shock of such a crash landing the alien presence begins to take over the world, slowly at first, then in a tumultuous wave of conquest once they realise how puny earthlings are. Mankind tries everything and resorts to atomic bombs, but to no avail, and the remorseless aliens keep marching onward. That is, until some simple thing defeats them in the last five minutes of the film. The hero kisses the girl who's spent the last two hours screaming, and fade to black with closing credits.

If it's that easy, why worry about alien invasion? Just run about and make wild pompous statements for two hours until the aliens die off - hey, you might even get to have sex afterward. Yet despite this wisdom from the fifties film industry, we still believe there is a threat to Earth from outer space. It's a very medieval attitude. Dog-heads and dragons inhabiting bits of the map we've never been to.

At least some people take that seriously. So much so that the European Space Agency has spent a cool 1.29 billion dollars on a probe called Rosetta, which has been to the asteroid belt to take images of Lutetia, a potato shaped asteroid that's been minding it's own business for billions of years. The ESA claim the fly-by shooting was a great success, and that the images could one day save Earth from destruction. Want to save the Earth from alien onvasion? Don't wait for them to trample your cities. Take photographs now, and blackmail their little green hides.

Whilst Under Our Feet...

A couple of day ago I took advantage of the warm sunshine and wandered out to the grassy escarpment above Swindons Front Garden. For those that don't know, that's the strip of land between the town and the motorway, following the valley between Swindon Hill and Wroughton Ridge. Many a time I've enjoyed the view, but sadly, life goes on, and nothing stays the same forever. The Wichelstok village development is now dominating the valley. Rows of bland modern houses, and an unfinished steel framework of a larger building.

I sat there on the slope of an unspoiled field, an undulating mix of pasture and marsh, thickets of colourless tall grass, yellow flowers, and dark green reeds. Compared to the brick badlands emerging further away, it all seemed a little incongruous now.

The local wildlife must have had the same opinion about me. A dragonfly closed in and hovered around, trying to figure out what I was, and whether I could be eaten. This was a biggie, a huge specimen with yellow and black bands, a monster compared to the bright blue dragonflies I usually see. Eventually his target recognition decided I was too big to be attacked and he flew off.

Dragonflies are great survivors. They've been with us since the Carboniferous period, and back then some species had six foot wingspans. Definitely a trace of their DNA survives in the insect that just inspected me. That thought reminded me that the old railway cutting was just along the way. Let's see if I find another fossil or two.

The exposed rock face displays the evidence that there was once a sandy beach here, a shallow bay, a warm sub-tropical paradise inabited by all sorts of animals long since vanished. In places, you can see the impression of sea shells, ranging from those very familiar to us in modern times, to that massive ribbed ammonite, a sort of 'squid in a shell'. In other places, plesiosaurs and other marine monsters have been found.

What was obvious is that someone is digging these fossils out. In doing so, they're undermining the rock above, and sooner or later, their greed is going to cause death or injury. Who knows? Maybe in a few million years an intelligent species might be excavating the area and discover the crushed remains of Homo Idioticus? More likely it will be Homo Unfortunatus.