RE:
RELATED SECTIONS : Space
Cassini Space Probe to buzz Saturn's moon tomorrow
-----------------
The well-known NASA scientist and author of popular scientific works,
Professor Carl Sagan, together with his wife Linda, among other people,
wrote the famous Space Message engraved on Pioneer 10 and meant for possible
extraterrestrial civilizations which might be discovered - who knows? -
somewhere in our Galaxy. Professor Sagan is a master of the art of using
humor, and he is fond of allegories. That is why Lucien Bonnet wrote to
him in the form of a parable on April 10, 1978.

Montreal, April 10, 1978

Dear Dr. Sagan:

It sometimes happens that a dream becomes a reality. That's the case today.
Through Mr. Emil P. Ericksen, Economic Officer of the Consulate General of
the United States of America in Montreal, I am in communication with the
American scientist whose works and research I most admire.

I would like to address a simple message to Professor Carl Sagan and his
wife, who feel, as the year 2000 approaches, that the time is ripe to make
our presence known by sending signals to other possible intelligent beings
in the Universe. The message, which is the result of my patient research, I
formulate as follows:

On the cosmic scale, as on the terrestrial scale, blackness is an integral
part of color and light processes.

My purpose is to inform you of this particular subject and the reasons that
have led me to carry out my research, in the context of the problems of the
very small country, whose history is as tortured as its geography, where I
was born and grew up: Haiti, whose name means "land of mountains". This
country has been faced for years with the difficulties inherent to any
collectivity confronted with a problem of identity. In Canada, where I live
and to which I have become acclimatized, this subject still motivates my
research, propels my efforts and explains the audacity of my words. In the
particular context of a centuries-old conflict, where personal interest and
racial origins confront each other, it is essential that we get to the
bottom of things. At this point, it would be as well to point out that
branch of energy physics, namely optics, where scientific taboos concerning
color, darkness and light are furthered and maintained by trade secrets,
patents and vested interests. A rational search for original, and even
avant-garde, answers on a scientific and intellectual level would seem to be
a necessary prerequisite to establishing a balanced situation.

Not being a "scientist", (car les savants comme l'autruche cachent leur tête
sous le sable pour faire semblant de ne pas voir et reconnaître cette
vérité), but rather, perhaps the most obscure of all obscure researchers of
all obscure ages, I am asking a special favor from Professor Sagan. I would
like him to agree to examine my modest results and the demonstration there
of, backed up by photos and films. Needless to say, they may be freely used
for any purposes deemed necessary to the success of my undertaking. On one
film, I wanted to assemble in my own way the elements and conditions that I
think are indispensable to the analysis and synthesis of colors. I
am submitting four films called "color separations" and the color proofs to
support this finding.

The sentences I quote below are yours. They are taken from an interview that
you gave to a French magazine reporter:

".after Apollo, scientists were discouraged. Do you know why they were
disheartened? Because the sky above the Moon is black. That made them
depressed. Do you think this is a joke? Not at all. Scientists are more
fragile than they look. But the sky above Mars is rose-colored and that gave
them hope."4

4 Delaprée, Catherine " L'homme clef de Viking: Et maintenant il faut tout
revoir.",
(Le Point, August 16, 1976, pp. 48,49) [our translation]

I can see you and Mrs. Sagan smiling, seeming to say, "Roses live the life
span of a rose, the space of one morning."

The solution to the enigma of Space is not a "one-morning" task. Its
darkness of an extraordinary depth, always so secretive and so intriguing,
bordering on despair and insanity, fear and disgust, hatred and damnation, a
consequence of ignorance or indifference, jealously hides incredible
resources that would be of benefit to science, perceived only by such
advanced, and wise, researchers as Professor Sagan.

With all due respect to the biblical Genesis, which from generation to
generation teaches those who wish to hear it their way that "God divided the
light from the darkness" (Gen. 1:4), and with all due respect to Sir Isaac
Newton, who showed us all the colors of the rainbow with his prism, but who
left us in the dark about the greatest unknown of all times, darkness
itself, I insist that darkness - "the black rose of space", arbitrarily
denied as a positive value, always perceived negatively, discreet, hardly
envious of the light which it absorbs, the better to conserve it - has
passed for the absence of light, while in reality it is the extension of
light.

Since the beginning of time, a harmonious and complementary state has
existed between light and darkness, whose equivalent effects are carefully
balanced at the cosmic level, making us think, as sages of all ages have
suggested, like Lavoisier, that in this coherent universe, "nothing is
created, nothing is lost, everything is transformed".

The question we ask ourselves most often is this: "What would our lives be
without light?" All things being equal, and according to the Law of
Conservation of Matter and Energy, we might ask, "What would life be without
darkness?" Whether we say "darkness is an absence of light" or "light is an
absence of darkness", is this not a simple question of semantics?

Reconciling light with darkness is a simple message that any future human or
extraterrestrial space traveler should be able to grasp without too much
difficulty. In the interests of any advanced civilization, obtaining a
workable combination of visible and invisible forms of matter or energy is a
chance to surpass ourselves by extending our own limits.

The so-called luminous part of the Universe, be it ever so brilliant, so
forceful, that it seems to eclipse all the rest, while left in the shadow of
its over whelming radiance, cannot by itself constitute a whole. The latter
is left to the perception and investigation of scientists-but again, we must
have the courage to get to the bottom of things.

The bottom of things is often veiled by mentalities. Mentalities depend on
the human brain. It is interesting to note that the thing we are most proud
of, this wonderful human brain - physically, without our realizing it - has
always functioned in utter darkness. Man's skull constitutes, without a
doubt, the best model of a dark room which has ever been conceived. On the
optical as well as the psychological plane, one can easily imagine what
roadblocks are likely to be encountered. When we wish to refer to the
superior abilities of man, we use the term "gray matter". Gray matter in a
dark room, with or without a prism - what a delicate situation! Isn't it
where all the subtlety lies?

From the gray lunar soil of the Moon and in the concerted harmony of
constructive forms, visible and invisible, of channeled light energy, the
white rose and the black rose of the Cosmos and the possibility of roses in
all color shades - enough to make the sky of Mars blush red - represent the
true challenge of space and the spaceship in modern times. Inertia, spectral
speed, speed equal to or higher than that of light, and the scientifically
controlled reversibility of the phenomenon, what a new synthesis, but also
what a liberation! To compare is not to prove, but the dark hidden side of
the Moon, however mysterious it may be, is not a path of no return.

At the edge of light, there is darkness. At the edge of darkness, we can
find light. Reconciling the "Children of Light" (I Thess. 5:5) - of the
zenith, the rising sun and the setting sun - with the "Children of Darkness"
(I Thess. 5:6) could perhaps one day become a question of scientific
mentality.

"And there was evening and there was morning." (Gen. 1:5).

Could this, Professor, be one of the most harmonious aspects of the vital
cycle of space?

Thank you for your attention to my letter.

Yours very truly,

Lucien Bonnet
PLease, SEE :
LETTER TO PROFESSOR CARL SAGAN
in 'BILL A RI AND THERE WAS LIGHT !
http://www.contact-canadahaiti.ca