What I'd Say to the Martians (6 page)

A
s I looked through the telescope, I could hardly believe my eyes: There before me, in the constellation of Virgo, circling a medium-sized star, was a planet. And not just any planet. It had oceans and landmasses and polar ice caps, just like Earth.

And then it hit me: Not only was this planet a lot like Earth—it was
exactly
like Earth! It was an exact twin of our very own planet!

I was stunned. I had to walk away from the telescope. An exact copy of Earth! Were there people there? Were they like us? Did they have the same problems, the same hopes? When I finally summoned the courage to look again, I realized that I had been wrong. It wasn’t exactly like Earth. The continents didn’t have anywhere near the same shapes as ours, the oceans were different, and many other features were dissimilar. Still, it was a planet, and the first conclusive evidence of such outside our own solar system.

Then it hit me: According to my calculations, the entire planet—oceans, continents, and all—was only a mile in diameter, and rotating at more than twenty times per second. It was a world in miniature, spinning at a phenomenal rate of speed!

I was stunned. I sat back in my chair and rubbed my face in bewildered disbelief. After rechecking my calculations, I realized that I had been off on the size of the planet. It wasn’t a miniature planet but was instead about the size of our own Earth. And it wasn’t spinning as fast as I had originally calculated. In fact, it was spinning much slower—a little bit slower than our own planet. But that didn’t dampen my enthusiasm.

What would I call this new planet? It had large blue oceans, continental landmasses, and polar ice caps, not unlike Earth. Then it hit me: this wasn’t an exact duplicate of Earth but was very, very similar to an upside-down Earth!

I had to step back from the telescope and steady myself. I looked again, and it still looked like an upside-down Earth, but not as much as it had before. In fact, the more I looked at it, the clearer it became: my God, it wasn’t an upside-down Earth likeness at all but an exact duplicate of Earth! I had been right in the first place!

I was stunned. But then I was struck by a thought that was even more devastating: What if it wasn’t an exact copy of us but instead we were an exact copy of
it
? The possibilities were fantastic! What were we like, I wondered. Were we warlike? Did we look like humans?

So it was with great disappointment that I realized I had been aiming the telescope at a picture of Earth on the wall. I had been right after all: it
was
a duplicate of Earth. And yet it wasn’t a planet. I sat back in my chair, stunned.

When I finally recovered, I began to scan the nighttime skies. What would I find? The possibilities were enormous—everything from an exact duplicate of Earth to a planet that, if you blurred your vision, might look quite similar to our own.

Then I saw it: if that wasn’t a hologram of Earth, I don’t know what was. But who could be projecting such a hologram? Were they like us? Did they have the same hopes and dreams and hologram projectors? Just as I was being stunned by all of this, I heard a voice: “Wake up, wake up!”

I woke up, and then it hit me: it had all been a dream. I had fallen asleep at the telescope. Then I went back to sleep for about three hours, and this time I didn’t dream at all. But I woke up again, and I realized that the next-to-last nap had all been a dream. I was stunned.

“Hey, Bob,” I said. “You wouldn’t believe the dream I had two naps ago. I dreamed I discovered a planet that was just like our planet, Earth.”

“Earth?” said Bob. “Our planet isn’t called Earth. It’s called Megatron.”

I was stunned. What in the name of a supreme being exactly like God was going on here?

“No, wait—I was thinking of another planet,” Bob said. “This
is
Earth.”

Eagerly, I turned the telescope toward the sky. What new marvels were awaiting me up there? I wondered.