There is a newer theory about the origin of the human race that is gaining traction among the scientific community. Known fittingly as “Pioneer Theory” or less commonly as “Surprise Party Theory”, it explores the ideas that humans did not originate from our own blue planet, but instead we came from somewhere deep in space, having chosen this planet because of its ultra-rare properties.



Most space aficionados have some idea of what time dilation is and how it works. The ideas that support Pioneer Theory don’t require a vast knowledge on the subject, but just the acceptance that rate of speed and passage of time share an unique relationship. As the speed of light is approached, time will move more quickly outside of the moving object than it will for the moving object. So an astronaut in a spaceship moving at a speed approaching a high percentage of light speed may experience a time passage of 1 day, while those back on earth might have experienced 100 years.



The idea states that tens of millions of years ago, a highly advanced colony of humans had to make plans to evacuate a home planet far away. The moment their technology allowed a group of pioneers to board a ship and set course for Earth to arrive within a reasonable amount of time – for this example we’ll use a 20 lightyear distance at 50% the speed of light for a travel time of 40 years – those pioneers were sent on their way.



Their journey would last 40 years by their own accounts, but to the outside world time would pass much more quickly on a relative scale. While to individuals, a minute was still a minute by their own experience, on a universal scale their minutes were not equal. 20 years pass by for the pioneers, but back home, centuries have gone by. Technology has taken such a leap that traveling by a man-made wormhole is now possible and the need to evacuate the planet is dire.



A mass exodus of the home planet occurs, utilizing the wormhole to land at a point very near Earth and landing on the planet sometime around 6 million years ago. Their technology is lost to the haste of their exodus, to time, and to lack of resources over the generations on the harsh new Earth – a stone age lifestyle is the new and uncomfortable norm. Drawings on caves and temple walls depict space-men, spaceships and feeble attempts to draw blueprints to construct them again, but nobody has the knowledge or the tools to make their old reality real again and everyone starts from zero.



Miraculously, Earth thrives. Humans spread and flourish – history is wiped clean as tales of the old planet become so unbelievable as they’re passed from grandparent to grandchild that the stores are simply no longer told. Buried deep beneath Earthen soil and sand lay the remnants of spacecraft that will never be unearthed again.



However, a surprise is hurtling through space in our direction at 50% of the speed of light as our original Pioneer ancestors – after feeling as though they’ve travelled for 40 years – arrive at the outer reaches of Earth’s sphere of influence. Tired from travel they expect to land on a barren planet and to set out to work on a new colony. Instead, they arrive at a flourishing wondrous planet covered in cities and streets… and humans.



Stories of their arrival haven’t been told for centuries, and nobody expects an actual spaceship to enter the atmosphere. What happens next would be unclear. Does it get shot down by frightened countries or is it welcomed as an alien visitor from an unknown planet far away? If Pioneer Theory is actually true, the answer may be approaching us and the first aliens we encounter will be our own ancestors.

