One Extraterrestrial We Ate for Dinner
By Michele the Trainer
“They mostly come out at night, mostly…” Aliens, the movie, directed by James Cameron, starring Sigourney Weaver.
What if gentle aliens were already all over our planet. Aliens are here. Extraterrestrials are defined as “of or from outside the earth or its atmosphere” and is always associated with our long-time search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Apparently, our own intelligence isn’t enough.
Lobsters are aliens.
When you leave the false safety of land and jump into the ocean to dive or snorkel, there is always something interesting going on down there and you can never really know until you take a look. To find a lobster, you have to be near the bottom and usually a rocky or coral bottom. They live and hide in the dark crevasses or under small overhangs that appear like tiny caves. If you swim by while you’re pondering your next writing topic, sometimes you see just their antennae. They are not generally social.
Seeing lobsters underwater is not as common as you’d expect. I spend a lot of time watching and listening to lobsters underwater that come out of their rock “houses” to interact with me. They must know that I don’t eat them because they often run right out as if they want to invite me in to talk. Not all lobsters roll out the welcome mat to greet me but it’s a special moment when they do. I always stop to reciprocate the trust.
They look fascinating in the sunlight and their spots and colors beam like, well, like aliens!
I remember once I was in a fancy well known steak house for a charity event. (They treat me quite well there, because they are very customer service oriented and they know I’m vegan.) I was on my way to the loo when I first noticed the fish tanks in the front of the restaurant and I thought it was going to be a pretty tank (I’m not a big fish jail fan in general, but we can all agree that an aesthetically pleasing well maintained tank can be gorgeous). When I turned the corner to take a look, my heart sank to see a colorless lobster prison and all the lobsters piled on top of each other with those handcuffs on over their claws. What a total bummer!
Sometimes lobsters are joined by their families (I’ve seen over ten peek out from one rocky home before, like puppies). When I dive protected areas some of them can be much bigger than small dogs. If the sun is away or at night, you can often see lobsters running all over the ocean bottom, like dogs running over piles of rocks, coral heads or just across the sandy bottom. It’s very cool to see them on the run.
Divers call lobsters “bugs” because the smaller ones truly can resemble large bugs. Lobsters are much more beautiful and so smart. Just like some insects can be colorful and gorgeous, some lobsters can be majestic. When you face them, you can see their eyes that are checking you out, each eye is on an individual stalk. They might have claws or not, depending on the species. They all have antennae and several appendages that they use to eat with, and oh they are so leggy. They look so far out!
I know, I know… you’re going to tell me they are delicious with butter. Earthworms could be delicious with butter too (well and maybe some garlic) but it doesn’t mean I want to eat them.
In our search for extraterrestrials we are always searching for intelligent sentient life.
In our science fiction imagination, we imagine strange bodies with glowing colors.
Lobsters bring it all. Are we intelligent and caring enough to meet them in the middle?
Lobsters are sentient. They feel all of the pain. I know because I’ve seen them RUN for their life. You might notice that many of the videos of lobsters online that are not depressing dinner plates, the lobsters in the water are running away from the photographers. I’ve seen them snap at people. Any animal that defends itself doesn’t want to feel pain or die. I know because I know them, like people know their cats and dogs.
Sometimes they hold hands with each other or with their young.
Lobsters cannot go into shock so they never “shut down”. Excruciating pain can send humans and some other animals into shock, and we can even become unconscious. This is a coping mechanism, a gift, that helps us deal with extreme pain. Lobsters cannot do this. They do not have shock as a coping mechanism and they feel everything.
Switzerland just banned boiling lobsters alive for this reason.
Lobsters do not have a central nervous system, but instead have nerves that run throughout the tissues in their entire body.
Each part of a lobster might boast a different vibrant color. Lobsters, when alive in the wild, most species have some super groovy iridescent and fluorescent colors on their appendages and legs, eyes and carapace. (They can taste their food with their legs!) Blues, greens and purples abound highlighted with some white colors and sometimes specks. Maybe you’ve never seen these flashy colors? When many animals die or become weak or sick, their colors leave them(this color leaving is significant to observe in large fish like tuna or dorado/mahi mahi). Some species of lobsters are simply red. I’ve never seen a blue or rainbow lobster, but like other aliens, I know they are out there. Here’s a blue cotton candy lobster!
Here’s a good example of how they run, and how they avoid a threat. Even more interesting at about 1:20 you can see their migratory formation complete with leader and rear guard. Click here to see some of that hand holding behavior here; it’s a caravan or a conga line of intelligent life.
What if they are spiders from mars and they’ve been here all along just waiting for us to have some compassion? It breaks my heart to see them handcuffed in the back of a grocery store. They look up at me with their salty smile and stalky eyeballs as if to say, “WHY DOESN’T ANYONE GET IT?”
I’m listening.
I love colorful fun trippy alien lobster friends. They can live to be 100 years old so I like to pretend they really do know me.
I can find something else to eat. Sheesh, I can have something else to eat delivered to anywhere I am.
They risk their life to come out and make sure I share with you how awesome, and quirky they are.
Humans have the ability to destroy everything on this planet and we will succeed if we don’t care and start taking some protective responsibility. We are the intelligent life here and we can use that intelligence to have some compassion. Fish (and many other species of animals, like lobsters or my other underwater alien friends, octopus) have nowhere to hide with today’s technology. The protecting and making other choices has to come from our own intelligence, sentience, compassion and caring.
We have to remind each other to connect the dots. Remember that these animals do not exist to live in a tank in a window in Chinatown or in your local steakhouse. Like an orchestra, each animal in the ocean has a role to play and those roles support the oxygen we breathe. They have been doing their job forever and to thank them we’ve been abducting these aliens for years and grilling them up.
ET is phoning home, will you answer?
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