Biorobotics and the cryptoterrestrials

Here's DARPA's hummingbird spy drone.

"You can use these things anywhere, put them anyplace, and the target will never even know they're being watched," said defense expert Peter W. Singer.

Or how about a dragonfly?  (This one is too big, but you can bet they could be built smaller.)

Bird-like spy drone that crashed in Pakistan

We are only in the infancy of this particular art.  Soon enough, there'll be spy drones that look so much like the real thing you'd have to catch it to be sure.  And then when biorobotics catches up, even catching one won't tell the tale.

So, considering what we considered in the last post -- since if there are any at all, there's every likelihood that some alien races have had a billions-of-years head start on us, if all those races wanted to do was spy on us, there's little chance we'd know about most of them.  Only those races that were not very far ahead of us would be so clumsy as to be caught out.

But I don't think watching us is their real interest.  (I think there must be some of that going on, in a sort of anthropological sense, to come to understand us as we understand ourselves.  But for that they'd need biorobotic humans.)

Recall that I mentioned how we sent robots to Mars rather than people, because it's cheaper and safer.  Also recall that I opined that, had we been able to, we'd almost certainly have sent a "hairy fellow who could look out for himself."  This is not far fetched -- well, the hairy fellow part is at the moment, but how many more years will that be the case?

Bigfoot at work?

It's not always a machine that we use for our purposes even now.  The Navy routinely uses dolphins and other marine animals to do work that it is too dangerous or impractical for humans to do.  And there are some things dolphins can do that humans just can't.

“Dolphins are one of the few creatures that have natural sonar abilities,” Davis explains.
“They can detect objects buried three to four inches deep in sediment, such as a mine, and relay that information back to humans. So what they do can be literally a lifesaving act,” Davis adds.

Imagine centuries from now, when biorobotics has evolved into something else -- perhaps the possibility of designing a creature to do a specific job.

We will certainly do that one day, perhaps soon.   And if we will, would not races that have lived for billions of years more than we already have done this, routinely?

I'm reminded of Henry Franzoni's account of one of the myths of the Kwakiutl tribe.  In a nutshell, the tribe believes that bigfoot is "the doorwarden" for a being who lives under the sea -- a being with "a thousand eyes and a thousand mouths." (You can find the extended quote here, but you have to scroll down to near the bottom.)

A being with a thousand eyes and a thousand mouths could be a poetic way of talking about a race that had evolved a telepathic "hive mind."  Sort of like how people describe the typical "gray" alien.

So, why do people see those hairy fellows in the woods -- or indeed, in the suburbs (and often near military bases in any case), yet no convincing evidence of said hairy fellows has ever been produced?

My best guess is that bigfoot is a bioengineering project, designed perfectly for its environment.  And if that's so, I doubt it's the only one.

UPDATE: Don't miss my dream from last year "Bigfoot not what you think it is."