Aliens, Please Read
(For full effect, read this while listening to "Moonlight Sonata")
TO ALIEN LIFE FORMS: Greetings, from the Human Race! If you are intelligent enough to read this, then you have intercepted an exploratory space probe that contains information about our species. This is but a short document detailing all life on Earth as far as we know as of my writing this (as of the year 3000).
HUMAN #: 19,373,295,573 (presumably)
SCIENTIST: (CLASSIFIED)
PROGRAM: (NASA)
TIMELINE:
Pre-life:…
???-15: (UNKNOWN, but we are working on it as I write this).
14 billion years ago: big bang, universe forms.
12 billion years ago: Local Group galaxy cluster forms as galaxies drift apart; Milky Way Galaxy forms.
10 billion years ago: Virgo forms, containing the Milky Way and other galaxies within the Local Group.
4.6 billion years ago: the “sun” forms, our home planet, Earth, forms in orbit around it, and our solar system forms.
Precambrian Time begins
4 billion years ago: Earth cools, and liquid rain beings to become commonplace.
3.80 billion years ago: primordial soup forms.
3.77 billion years ago: first replicating molecules form, possibly primitive DNA.
Post-creation of life:…
3.70 billion years ago: unicellular life evolves, primitive bacteria and prokaryotic life forms begin to release oxygen into the atmosphere.
Proterozoic Era begins
2.4 billion years ago: Oxygen Revolution begins; oxygen mixes with the UV rays of the sun, forming the ozone layer; Earth has a primitive atmosphere, and complex life is almost ready to form.
Luna supercontinent forms and breaks apart
Rodinia supercontinent forms
Proterozoic Era ends
Precambrian Time ends
Phanerozoic EON begins
Paleozoic Era begins
Permian Period begins
286 million years ago: life evolves from basic cellular organisms into more-complex eukaryotes; reptiles evolve; trilobites evolve and then disappear; ocean life booms.
245 million years ago: largest mass extinction - permian mass extinction; fungus has not yet evolved to break down wood, so trees are buried after they die and are not decomposed. Volcanoes in present-day Russia incinerate wood, creating massive plumes of carbon that ruin the atmosphere; 90% of ocean life dies; 70% of terrestrial life dies; paves way for reptiles to dominate planet.
Rodinia supercontinent begins to break up
Pangea supercontinent forms
Permian Period ends
Paleozoic Era ends
Mesozoic Era begins
Triassic Period begins
Pangea supercontinent begins to break up
245 million years ago: major extinction of ocean life; many corals and conodonts are wiped out; dinosaurs and small mammals appear and begin to dominate planet.
Triassic Period ends
Jurassic Period begins
208 million years ago: dinosaurs are of the most wide-spread specimen on the planet; birds, frogs, crabs, and salamanders also evolve.
Jurassic Period ends
Cretaceous Period begins
146 million years ago: small mammals begin to become more common.
66 million years ago: asteroid slams into Earth at the deadliest angle possible; parts of Earth are incinerated, and the rest is swallowed in plumes of smoke; dinosaurs become extinct within one million years; global cooling ensues; 99.96% of all life on Earth was decimated.
Cretaceous Period ends
Mesozoic Era ends
Cenozoic Era begins
Tertiary Period begins
Paleocene Epoch begins
64 million years ago: flowering plants become commonplace; small mammals flourish.
Paleocene Epoch ends
Eocene Epoch begins
37 million years ago: grass appears, modern trees appear, modern animals - cats, dogs, horses, camels, rodents - appear.
Eocene Epoch ends
Oligocene Epoch begins
23 million years ago: most modern birds and mammals have appeared.
Oligocene Epoch ends
Miocene Epoch begins
5 million years ago: grazing horses and antelopes appear.
Miocene Epoch ends
Pliocene Epoch begins
1.8 million years ago: hominids (primitive, human-like apes) evolve.
Pliocene Epoch ends
Tertiary Period ends
Quaternary Period begins
Pleistocene Epoch begins
800,000 years ago: humans discover fire; music begins to make its debut.
200,000 years ago: first traces of religion are witnessed.
Stone Age begins and ends
11,000 years ago: specimen of modern genius homo appear.
Pleistocene Epoch ends
Holocene Epoch begins
11,000 years ago: modern humans radiate.
5,220 years ago: writing is invented.
Bronze Age begins
2,700 BCE: first record of human-on-human warfare.
Bronze Age ends
Iron Age begins
1,200 BCE: modern cities and empires begin to form; modern economic systems are created.
Iron Age Ends
624 BCE: Buddha is born.
c. 4 BCE: Jesus is born.
570 CE: Muhammad is born.
800 CE: gunpowder is invented.
1740 CE: electricity is successfully harnessed for the first time.
1822 CE: first primitive “computer” invented.
1859 CE: theory of evolution proposed.
1942 CE: first human-made object is sent into outer space.
1945 CE: first nuclear-reactive bomb is detonated.
1954 CE: secrets of DNA replication mostly unraveled.
1957 CE: first satellite (Sputnik) sent into outer space; first life form (a dog) also sent into space.
1961 CE: first human enters the cosmos.
1969 CE: first human lands on an orbiting body within the cosmos.
2009 CE: the first space station is completed.
2030 CE: first colony on Earth’s moon is established.
2068 CE: first colony on Mars is established.
2247 CE: first time humans venture to Neptune.
2518 CE: first space station established along the inner banks of Oort Cloud.
2732 CE: hyperspace equations are perfected.
2900 CE: humans travel to Alpha Centauri, the nearest solar system to our own.
3000 CE: humans make first contact with primitive alien life forms (a sort of small, harmless bacterium).
Holocene Epoch ends
Quaternary Period ends
Cenozoic Era ends
Phanerozoic EON ends
THE NEW AGE begins