Star Trek has been a cult phenomenon for decades. The Original Series premiered on September 8, 1966, and has spawned four successor shows starting in the 1980s and 13 feature films , comic books, novels and an animated series. Star Trek also influenced generations of viewers about advanced science and engineering. Of course, geology played an important role on the show. In the episode “That Which Survives”, we met the senior geologist D’Amato when the USS Enterprise investigates a planet similar to Earth . Unfortunately, D’Amato was soon killed by the hologram of a beautiful woman, Losira, the last survivor of a Kalandan outpost.

Every incarnation of Star Trek introduced several alien life forms, including the Gorn, a reptilian alien race, a common motif in mythology, folklore, science fiction, conspiracy theories, ufology, and cryptozoology. In the episode “Distant Origin” (Star Trek: Voyager, 1997), the Voth, an ancient civilization in the Delta Quadrant, discovered the remains of a human Voyager crew member on the planet Hanon IV. Voth scientist Gegen believes he finally has confirmation of his “distant origin” theory. According to Gegen, the Voth actually migrated to the Delta Quadrant from an original planet far away. Later, we discovered that the Voth presumably descended from Parasaurolophus.

The episode, a metaphor for the relationship between Galileo Galilei and the Catholic Church, plays with the infamous “Dinosauroid Hypothesis” (a.k.a. Sapient Dinosaurs). In the early 1980s, paleontologist Dale Russell, curator of vertebrate fossils at the National Museums of Canada, in Ottawa, speculates about a possible evolutionary path for Troodon, suggesting that it could have evolved into intelligent beings similar in body plan to humans. Troodon, a relatively small theropod, comparable in size to Deinonychus and Unenlagia, had a very large brain for its size, stereoscopic vision, raptorial hands and an enlarged sickle− shaped claw on the foot, indicative of a predatory lifestyle. In the novel First Frontier (Star Trek, Book 75) written by Diane Carey and Dr. James I. Kirkland, a paleontologist who discovered the famous Utahraptor, we found that the U.S.S. Enterprise is caught in an alternative reality where the Earth is a vast jungle-like paradise ruled by the Clan Ru, an alien race, descendant of Earth’s raptor dinosaurs. The Clan Ru posses two fingers on each hand with an opposable thumb as in Russell’s model for Troodon evolution.

References:

Russell, D. A., & Séguin, R. 1982. “Reconstruction of the small Cretaceous theropod Stenonychosaurus inequalis and a hypothetical dinosauroid.” Syllogeus 37, 1-43.

Junchang Lü; Li Xu; Yongqing Liu; Xingliao Zhang; Songhai Jia; Qiang Ji (2010). “A new troodontid (Theropoda: Troodontidae) from the Late Cretaceous of central China, and the radiation of Asian troodontids.” Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 55 (3): 381–388. doi:10.4202/app.2009.0047.

Diane Carey, James I. Kirkland, First Frontier (Star Trek, Book 75) Paperback, August 1, 1995.