Читать книгу The Zombie Book - Nick Redfern - Страница 15

In the 1968 movie, Night of the Living Dead, speculation was raised that the birth of the zombies was possibly triggered by the actions of a U.S. spacecraft. While visiting Venus, the craft, it was surmised, became contaminated by extraterrestrial radiation and, as a result, on its return to Earth let loose that same radiation upon an unsuspecting populace. The outcome: the dead soon walked. And they had no intention of stopping. Is it truly feasible that such a thing could actually occur in the real world?

In a fictional format, at least, a somewhat similar scenario was famously played out in the 1969 book The Andromeda Strain (which was written by Michael Crichton of Jurassic Park and Congo fame), and in the subsequent 1971 movie adaptation of the same name. Although zombies do not appear in either the novel or the film, pretty much everything else does. An American space probe, returning to Earth, unleashes a deadly alien virus that, in its tiny, microbial form, attaches itself to the craft before its reentry into the planet’s atmosphere and its crash in the wilds of Arizona. Deaths amount with alarming speed as the U.S. government struggles to find an antidote before the virus threatens to wipe out the entire human race. While The Andromeda Strain is just a highly entertaining, but disturbing and thought provoking story, it does, rather incredibly, have real life counterparts.

James Olson plays a scientist trying to stop a deadly plague from outer space in the 1971 film The Andromeda Strain.

As amazing as it may sound, NASA and numerous other worldwide space agencies, military bodies, and governmental agencies have taken serious steps to prevent the human race from falling victim to an extraterrestrial hazard of the viral kind. According to the text of Article IX of The Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, that was collectively signed at Washington, D.C., London, England, and Moscow, Russia on January 27, 1967, and that was entered into force on October 10 of that year:

“In the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, States’ Parties to the Treaty shall be guided by the principle of cooperation and mutual assistance and shall conduct all their activities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, with due regard to the corresponding interests of all other States’ Parties to the Treaty.”

Most significant of all is the next section of the document: “States’ Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose.”

It must be stressed that the main concern described in the document revolved around the fear that a deadly virus would be mistakenly released into the Earth’s atmosphere, a worldwide pandemic would begin, and an unstoppable plague would escalate, ultimately killing each and every one of us. But what if that same pandemic didn’t just kill us, but soon thereafter brought us back from the grave, in the forms of billions of terrifying, violent killers, all intent on preying on human flesh and nothing else?

It might sound just like the hypothesis outlined in Night of the Living Dead, until the realization hits home that the plans to cope with the outbreak of an alien virus were discussed, and planned for, by the highest echelons of NASA, the space programs of the former Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, and the governments of numerous other nations—and decades ago, too. Preparing for the sudden surfacing of an alien-originated pandemic may not mean that government officials are also secretly anticipating that a zombie apocalypse will be far behind. On the other hand, there’s nothing to suggest they aren’t secretly planning for just such a possibility.