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Aliens Are Among Us And Available to Help Us and Our Planet

I know some of my hypotheses sound rather extraordinary.I may be a little weird, but I'd rather be weird and right than normal and wrong.

- Paul Stamets, scholar of ancient mycotechnology, owner of Fungi Perfecti

Paul Stamets is definitely not like you and me. He knows stuff. He knows how toclean up the land around Fukushima without burying millions of tons of contaminated dirt. He offered a method to clean up, naturally, the oil spill fromDeep Horizon. Despite his proof, yes proof, no one in power took him seriously.

Frankly, after reading what I have about him, I would not be surprised if one day Ilearn that he has ways we can adapt to global warming and its inevitableconsequences. (But not yet for that. Bear with me.)

This article is not about Stamets, but about the beings he cares about. You may

think you know about these beings, but chances are you will be more than a littlesurprised.

When I was a kid (maybe when you were too) I was taught that everything couldbe divided into three categories: animal, vegetable or mineral. Everything wecould think of fit into one of those three categories.

The beings I refer to are living things on our planet. Yet not animal, vegetable ormineral, by common definitions. These things may be more shocking, based onwhat they can do, than any you might have imagined. True, a few people have

died over the years through contact with them, but the fault was with theignorance of the people, not of the beings in question.

Note that these are not the vicious conquering type of aliens we have read aboutor seen in movies for decades in science fiction. They are about as friendly andhelpful to humans as it's possible to be.

I never could figure out why humans thought of aliens from other worlds asconquerors who would destroy us and what we know. Would we do that if we senta ship through space to another inhabited planet? Would our astronauts beexpected to destroy any life they may find on Mars in coming decades? No.

Before we get to the names, descriptions and modus operandi of these aliencreatures, I want you to try to imagine what you think aliens might look like. Thefact is, we have no idea. We don't even know if we would recognize aliens as lifeforms if they did not conform to our sci-fi images. Remember, it was not that longago that homo sapiens without white skin were considered to be subhuman,

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simpler life forms, with much lower intelligence than those with white skin. Wereally know very little about life of any kind.

Might an alien breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide? Ours do. At leastsome of them do. How would they move? On feet, hoofs, paws or flexible skin

(think snakes), as we are familiar with? Ours don't. They have roots, at least someof them. They spread or "re-seed" as some plants do. In fact, one being in thewest of the USA is so large that it lives in the ground under four contiguous states.No other living thing we know is that large.

Would it have a brain? Almost certainly. At least something we might consider abrain. In fact, some of our beings contain pathways inside that, under amicroscope, look very similar to pathways of the human brain. Hmmm.

Might they engage in agriculture? Some of our creatures are known to feed trees,from which they later gain nutrients for themselves. In fact, evidence suggeststhat they have been known to provide extra nutrients for young trees that aresuffering because they can't get enough sunlight because other nearby taller treesare blocking light from reaching them.

Might they create chlorophyll, as plants do? Ours don't. In fact, they mightconsume dying plants (as we do) to extract chlorophyll and other nutrients fromthem. Keep in mind that all life forms we know consume other life forms tocontinue their existence--every single one of them.

Some of our aliens live in a symbiotic relationship with plant life we are more

familiar with. Some live in a symbiotic relationship with animal life we are familiarwith.

You may even have some of our alien life forms in your refrigerator. In fact, healthaficionados recommend them highly as extremely beneficial for your health. Notlong ago they were considered junk, not worth eating, parasites to the plant world.How our thinking changes as we learn more.

Enough with the teasing. The aliens in your refrigerator are mushrooms. Thedangerous ones are called toadstools. Both are fungi, a huge group nowconsidered to be a Kingdom (like animals and vegetables) of their own. When you

look at a mushroom in the ground, what you see is the fruit, what you eat is thefruit of the organism.

Fungi are now known to comprise an enormous Kingdom with some 1.5 millionmembers. Among the more familiar ones are yeasts and molds. Yes, they dobreathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, like animals. Yes, some do have

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neural systems that look similar to that of human brains. They are subject to manyof the same diseases as animals. Like animals, who lack the ability to makechlorophyll and to photosynthesize, they eat other forms of life.

Fungi are a diverse Kingdom. Some, such as yeast, are single cells. Others, like

molds, are multicellular. And, yes, the largest known living being is under fourstates in the western USA. But don't plan a vacation to see it, it is underground. Itfeeds trees and it feeds off trees. Strange, huh? Kind of....alien.

If humans did the same sorts of things as some fungi, they would be said to befarming, acting in sympathetic or even empathetic ways to other beings, possiblyaltruistic. As it is, most people think of fungi as some kinds of strange plants.

To conclude, let's look at several ways in which fungi could help us to save ourplanet.

People have made use of fungi for thousands of years. Ötzi, the famous 5000 yearold "Ice Man" whose body was discovered a few years ago, carried amadou withhim. The spongy inner layer of the horse hoof fungus, amadou has been used foreverything from making clothing (it feels and is worn like felt, and is as warm), astinder for starting fires, for dressing wounds because of its antimicrobialproperties, and for preserving foods.

Amadou is the first medicinal ever recorded. Hippocrates (he who created theHippocratic oath, sworn by new medical doctors-- basically: first, do no harm)recorded it in 450 BCE as an anti-inflammatory. Of course you would not likely see

it for sale today because it is available naturally on every continent and cheap tomake (thus making it of no interest to drug manufacturers).

AgricultureSoil could be enhanced with mycorrhizal fungi which would eliminate the need fortoxic chemical fertilizers while improving crop yields.

BiofuelsBiodiesel made from mushrooms would require less soil and other resources thancrops used at present. And mushrooms grow fast.

Environmental CleanupPetrochemicals and radiation could be removed from contaminated soil and wateras mushrooms can break them down and absorb them. Slimy spike-capmushrooms gobble up radioactive cesium-137, for example. Mushrooms will notharm the environment, rather they improve it. They would improve soil formerlycontaminated with glyphosate.

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Wastewater FiltrationMushrooms could be used to clean runoff from storm drains, farms, logging roadsor contamination from mines.

PesticidesSelect fungi could be used to kill off certain species of pests while remaining safefor others and not harming the ground in which they are grown.

MedicinesCarefully selected mushrooms could be used to make new antibiotics, antivirals,immune-boosting compounds and even chemotherapies. Agarikon mushrooms, forexample, could be used to protect against bird flu, swine flu, even smallpox.

ForestryMushrooms could be used to symbiotically enhance growth of new forests orreforestation of clear-cut land. They help trees grow and, in turn, gain nutrientsfrom the same trees.

Famine Relief Mushrooms grow quickly, provide many essential nutrients and grow in almost anyenvironment. They could be used to provide quick and fresh relief in disaster zonesand refugee camps using just wood chips or saltwater-soaked straw as a startingmedium.

Space Travel

Mushrooms could be used not only as freshly-grown food for space travelers, butalso as materials for terraforming on new planets due to their ability to create newsoil relatively quickly.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's

Epidemic Social Problems, a book of solutions for problems that affect everyfamily and every community, but almost everyone believes they are simplyconsequences of modern society.Learn more at http://billallin.com

[Primary Resource: "Mushroom Manifesto" , by Kenneth Miller, Discover ,

July/August 2013]