Re: Jurassic intelligence

["Terry Colvin" <colvint@CC.IMS.DISA.MIL>]

        This thread is mis-named: it should be _Cretaceous_
intelligence.  The most intelligent dinosaurs lived in the late
Cretaceous, close to the K-T boundary, about 65 million years ago.
Small (by dinosaur standards) predators such as Troodons.

        Less known are their relatives that lived exactly at the K-T
boundary, for about 100,000 years only.  Over much of this time period
they were a species of very limited population, living in arid
environments which were not conducive to fossilization.  Cremation of
their dead developed very early in their civilization, so that fossil
remains were virtually impossible to result in their population
explosion phase (Some very small minority religious groups are
reported which practiced exposure of the dead body, but burial is
unknown, and would be universally thought of as disgusting).

        Their technology was very much alien to ours, so that we do
not recognize artifacts when we do in fact find them.  Furthermore,
their technology was biologically oriented, so that they *grew* tools
and devices instead of building them like us.  Even the hard, durable
parts of their machines were overwhelmingly biodegraded within the
course of a few generations.  The cultural ramifications of such
implicit obsolescence in technology is fascinating, but the data
obtained by psychic time travel is too sparse to be able to support
robust interpretations.

        The most prominent item of evidence for this intelligent
dinosaurian species is the mass extinction at the end of the
Cretaceous.  As we are currently observing, with the effect of humans
on the biosphere, intelligent technological species quickly enter an
exponential growth curve, which quickly leads to decimation of other
life on the planet.  This was the cause of the broad-based extinction
we see, which cannot be accounted for on the basis of a meteorite
impact alone (there is some unconfirmed data that indicates that the
iridium at the K-T boundary is the result of a catastrophic nuclear
experiment in what is now Yucatan, not a meteorite impact).

        Whether on account of ecological disaster or this compounded
with nuclear catastrophe, the intelligent species themselves nearly
died out.  There one serious possibility for remnants of their race.
The Interians almost certainly incorporate some genetical affinity to
them, probably through what was recovered from long-term subterranean
hibernation projects.  An alternative is that the Interians *are* in
fact the descendants of dinosaurs, since it is probable that the
dinosaurian species were aware of the hollow nature of the Earth.
Psychic interference makes investigating the history here difficult,
so that the data obtained through UFO abductions becomes of paramount
importance.

        Taner Edis, in cooperation with Tamerlane A. Edvarddsonn