Awbar

When people think of extinct life, they usually have images of fossils and artistic reconstructions in their head. Extinction is a phenomenon seemingly relegated to the far past, to dinosaurs and mammoths. In reality, extinction happens all the time, throughout the present. It is a process as natural as life and death itself. Yet, it leaves us mourning when it happens in front of our own eyes.

The awbar were a fascinating species which the first astronauts encountered on Mars, including myself on some of my early missions. They lived in a peculiar area of the Argyre Basin. Mars lacks a global magnetic field like Earth does, making it an all-around more irradiated and hostile place. However, some areas contain highly magnetized rock formations, which have managed to save some remnants of the prehistoric magnetosphere, creating local shields against UV and other harmful radiation from space. In these so-called UV-oases, flora and fauna can lead a more sheltered life and attain higher biodiversity than in other areas of the planet. The awbar lived in one such oasis - only one – together with the organisms it depended on.

The awbar is thought to have been a goniopod, a group of dinosauresque deltadactylians, but unlike its bigger cousins, the cecrops and syncarpus, it was generally not included within the more exclusive Thecocerata, as it lacked the characteristic hornlets inside of its beak. This decision has often been criticized, as the lack of that trait may instead have resulted from its specialized diet. Other unique traits were that it felt comfortable walking both on two and three legs and that it exhibited multioculy (having more than two eyes), a trait otherwise rare in goniopods.

It was a nimble creature, able to fit inside a human hand. From its back grew a fleshy fin, adorned with a peculiar oval spot. Undoubtedly this served some display function, but what exactly is now forever uncertain. Awbar lived in close association with a plant dubbed the sporangobush, a type of fractarian. Its sporangia ended in hairy bulbs, each hair drenched in some kind of viscous liquid. Awbar were most often seen climbing up the bushes and licking these furballs with their long, retractable tongue. Many authors have assumed that this could have been a symbiotic relationship. Assuming the liquid produced by the sporangia was some kind of nectar, the Martian may have been lured into licking up the plant’s spores. Inside the stomach and guts of the creature, these spores may have combined with those of other sporangobushes and exited the body through excretion, already fertilized. It is impossible to test any such hypotheses anymore, however. There may not have been a mutual benefit at all to such behaviour, the creature could have been licking the sporangia for reasons entirely unintended by the plant. Perhaps the liquid was toxic or unappealing to some herbivores but was unintentionally alluring to the little creature, the same way spicy plants on Earth have unintentionally garnered the attention of humans. Or the relationship between the organisms was much more intricate and complicated than we can ever imagine, seeing as how little we still know about these ecosystems.

The extinction of the awbar was not brought about by a catastrophe like the dinosaurs’ or through human interference like the dodo’s. It was the end of a slow process already well on its way long before man set his foot on the red planet. The magnetization held within the surrounding rocks had simply begun to fade. With each passing year, the local magnetosphere grew weaker and more radiation reached the soil. The changes must have been incremental at first. With each blooming, the number in each organism’s generations must have grown less, rates of cancer and other ailments must have risen and gradually lowered their lifespan. The margins and tall hills of the oasis became barren first, the eggs of the sporangobushes and tube-cycads in the soil simply failing to germinate. These blank spots were then quickly colonized by more UV-resistant flora and planimals from outside the region, like chiropedes and the aggressive red weed. From that point on, the collapse of the previous ecosystem progressed at a geometric rate, as now the local organisms did not only face environmental degradation but also competition from outsiders they would have normally been able to outbreed. Local nekhbets failed to spawn and were gradually replaced by wadjets and more delicate spongisporians died from mutations before they could bloom, losing ground to their thorny upland counterparts. The ecosystem transformed and many were simply not able to adapt quickly enough to the changes. It was a prolonged evolution of the landscape, observed by us humans over a span of about twenty years. When the shield was finally gone, very little remained of the previous ecosystem. The last sporangobushes failed to reproduce and aged into misshapen mutants before mercifully fading away. The last awbar was already sighted five years before their extinction.

It is a curious feeling, to know that these little creatures used to crawl over my feet one day and are now forever gone. Though less spectacular than the great fossils dug out from the ground, their loss is a much more personal one. A more painful one. It is the difference between reading about Abraham Lincoln’s assassination in a schoolbook and seeing your own father pass away at the hospital. The many questions you ask yourself. Was this inevitable? Were there ways I could have helped? Why didn’t I try to help? Why did I not do more with the time we were given together? But such things, speculating about changing a past that can no longer be changed, hypothetical realities, is a futile misery. There was nothing I could have done. The magnetized rocks would have faded regardless of me being there or not and none of our expeditions were ever equipped to preserve species. We were just there to observe and study. And by the point I knew my father was sick, it was already too late for us to bond in the way be both wished we would have. Years of neglect had eroded any emotional foundation that could have been built upon. He was my father, and a good one at that, but he was never my friend.

Shipwrecks on Vulkanus

Vulkanus has always been a mysterious place. Not of this world, literally, as it is thought to have been a former rogue planet captured by the Sun. The atmosphere is veiled in opaque clouds of black dust and some regions are covered in dense, impenetrable jungles. One of its most mysterious aspects are however of Terran origin. Encountered during geological surveys made by private companies are from time to time the radar- and lidar-images of spaceships crashed amidst the forests or desert dunes. Some of these can be accounted for by known accidents from previous expeditions or ships that were intentionally discarded on the planet instead of being expensively retrieved back to Earth. The identity and story of some wrecks remains unresolved, however, and suggests that maybe some rogue private entities or maybe even governments have had access to the planet without the rest of the world knowing. 

A prevailing idea among conspiracy theorists that unfortunately dominates the discussion is that at least some of these wrecks are not even of human origin, with Vulkanus being something like a Bermuda Triangle of the universe on which various alien species have crashed. There is no evidence for any such claims, or interstellar visitations of our solar system in general, but they make for good spooky stories to tell in the dark. The most famous one is of course the so-called Parker Report, an allegedly true account written down by a man named Jonathan Parker that was mailed to a journalist. In the account, Parker claims to have worked as a surveyor for the Azuma Corporation when he was tasked with investigating such a shipwreck. There is no evidence of said wreck or Jonathan Parker having ever existed or a man by that name ever having worked for Azuma (the author tries to account for this by preposterously claiming that the corporation assassinates and erases whistleblowers). Together with other irregularities, the Parker Report can be safely dismissed as a hoax. But it is an amusing hoax and so, for the sake of entertainment, shall be recounted here. 

According to Parker, the gigantic ship was shaped like 2/3s of a torus, with an architecture, both in- and outside that can be described as looking as if it were made of black, fused rock, clearly inhuman in design. The inside of the ship consisted of large hollow hallways with ribcage-like walls. The interior atmosphere of the ship was surprisingly Earth-like and maintained at an ambient temperature (this is another hint at the story being a hoax, as oxygenated air would most likely explode if it came into contact with the atmosphere of Vulkanus). Deep inside the ship, Parker then allegedly found some sort of “trophy room”, in which were stored various biological relics from the solar system: A diamond-axe of a harphead sealed inside a container, the jaws and tooth-plates of an irsu from Mars, the head of an air-shark from Venus, the stinger of a Jovian Titan-Jelly, mandibles from an Europan IRO, a pyrite-tooth from a lava-worm of Io, what appeared to be a dinosaur-skull and even a few human crania, some with markedly enlarged brow-ridges. There were a few other artefacts, also mostly skulls or mummified heads, but seemingly from alien species still unknown to science.

No complete corpses of the pilots were ever found according to Parker, only a few isolated bones here and there, seemingly fossilized. Throughout the ship were various carvings, which showed noseless but vaguely humanoid, screaming faces, as well as bipedal creatures with skeletal heads, seemingly walking on their hands and holding scifi weaponry with their tentacles/tails(?).

The Parker Report further alleges that the shipwreck was covered-up and salvaged by the Azuma Corporation, for implied nefarious purposes. It furthermore warns that the existence of advanced extraterrestrial intelligences, especially ones that seems to enjoy hunting safaris on different planets, cannot be allowed to be held secret from the rest of mankind.

Perhaps rather tongue-in-cheek, the report ends with the words: “This is dread, man. Truly dread.”

Pseudocosmonaut

The most terrifying thing about space is not that it is vast and empty. It is the fact that it is only mostly empty.

A few decades ago, a tale emerged from the otherwise mundane routine that maintained the Second International Space Station, shortened to just ISS2, which has now been decommissioned. It began when German astronaut Ingo Mess was alone on a spacewalk out on the station’s hull in order to fix a little damage that had been done to one of the solar panels by microscopic space debris. As he was about to enter the airlock again, to his shock, he spotted something out in the distance. It looked like a human in a spacesuit, floating alone in the void. And it was moving. Mess claimed that the figure was fidgeting frantically and waving, obviously in distress. Mess entered the airlock, reported to his crew what he had just witnessed, and got out a manned maneuvering unit (MMU), a form of space-jetpack. With that he went out to retrieve the floating spacefarer. Mess claims again that the figure was waving and beckoning to him as he approached, but then suddenly stopped moving as he got closer. Mess feared that it was already too late and the person fainted or even died from the long isolation in space. He grabbed the body and retrieved it.

Once past the airlock, it became apparent that the body was clad in a Soviet spacesuit, of the Orlan-D-type typically worn by cosmonauts during the 1970s and 80s. At the time, the orbit of the ISS2 was close to that of the Plutonia, a smaller Soviet space station, so, even if the chances of such a thing happening are astronomically low, the astronauts speculated that maybe an accident had dislodged one of the cosmonauts from his station and by pure luck he had drifted to theirs. But to everyone’s shock, once the visor was lifted and the helmet removed, they saw that there was no person inside. It was just an empty spacesuit. 

Perhaps the movement that Mess reported was an optical illusion or even caused by gas escaping from the suit or air tank. When contacted, the crew of the Plutonia reported that there had been no incidents and that none of their cosmonauts had gone missing. But this opened up more questions, mainly why there was an empty spacesuit just floating around in Earth orbit, let alone a historic relic from the 70s? The suit was eventually chalked up to a mishap or perhaps even durability test during the early days of spaceflight that had gone unreported or forgotten.

However, the incident seems to have had a negative impact on Mess, whose crewmembers described him afterwards as increasingly erratic and “suspicious” of the suit. Days after retrieval, he still claimed to have seen it move when he looked at it through the security camera of the station’s storage room. The other astronauts chalked this up to swaying caused by microgravity.

Nonetheless, things really did start to become strange on the space station after the suit’s retrieval. The number of minor system errors did demonstrably increase, while many crewmembers started reporting health problems. The suit itself was frequently found outside its storage area after the astronauts woke up from sleep, one time even with its glove gripping the lever of the airlock. These incidents were most likely pranks on Mess by another crewmember.

When things truly got concerning was during the spacewalk of another astronaut, when she noticed there was a small hole in her suit and it was losing air rapidly. She thankfully noticed quickly and was able to re-enter the airlock before asphyxiating. The following days, Mess tried to do her job but before leaving the airlock he noticed that his suit was also perforated at the sleeves. The other suits on the station were soon after also found to have little holes poked into them. Someone was seemingly sabotaging the crew.

The cosmonaut suit itself ended up being the only one left intact and useable, in part because it was also in a surprisingly good condition despite its age and having been out in space for so long. Eventually, it was decided to bite the bullet and have one of the astronauts don the suit in order to get the necessary repairs on the station’s hull done. However, this was prevented by Ingo Mess, who barred anyone from even approaching the suit, because he feared something bad was emanating from it. Before anyone could wear it, Mess secretly ejected the suit back out of the airlock while the rest of the crew were sleeping. After he did, he reported that the suit began flailing again in panic, briefly holding onto one of the solar panels before losing grip and silently drifting back forever into deep space.

After the incident, the astronauts were able to repair one of their own suits again into a workable condition and fix the hull and panels. Technical and health problems also decreased and all crewmembers were able to safely return to Earth after the end of their mission. Mess, however, was largely shunned by his colleagues and reprimanded for his actions by the command centre. He had to go through another psychological evaluation, under fear that the isolation in space and his long separation from his wife and child had taken a mental toll on him. But the evaluation found him to be perfectly lucid and mentally competent, if a little traumatized from the experience.

Nevertheless, the following years largely saw the incident, including even the sabotage of the other spacesuits, being blamed on Mess’ mental health and his previously respected reputation sank quite a bit, at least outside of the circles of conspiracy theorists. Mess himself claims that his actions saved the lives of the entire crew. He has come up with his own explanations for what was up with the suit and the weird string of coincidences that befell the astronauts, but said theories have not exactly helped him beat the insanity accusations.

Early on Mess seriously claimed that the spacesuit was possessed by the ghost of cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, who was the first human being to die in a spaceflight (in order to save Yuri Gagarin from said fate). This can of course be rejected outright, not just because ghosts obviously do not exist, but also because Komarov died in 1967 and he burned with his spacesuit into a carbonic crisp during atmospheric re-entry.

Next, Mess claimed that the suit was some sort of secret failed experiment by the Soviets, perhaps actually being mechanical with an AI built into it. While this explanation at least does not invoke supernatural entities, it still has no evidence speaking for it, especially given the fact that such technology would not have been possible to achieve in the late twentieth century. This is nevertheless the favoured theory by the majority of conspiracy theorists.

In the last years of his life, Mess speculated that what his crew picked up may have actually been an alien lifeform, which, for whatever nefarious purposes, imitated the appearance of a cosmonaut, perhaps without knowing what the inside should look like.

The spacesuit has never been encountered again.

Image source:

• Wikimedia

Puraeus

Although Venus has no trees, even it has more arboreal organisms than Mars, most of them living in the floating jungles of the upper atmosphere. Martians meanwhile have not much to climb on except for rocks, boulders, mountains and maybe a few tall shrubs here and there. The degrading climate has stopped supporting the growth of tree-like organisms millions of years ago. The only exception is the region of the Hellas Basin, but even here the scale-trees and tube-trees grow only sparsely, making the region resemble an open savannah more than forest. As such there are not many organisms specially adapted to dwell on them.

One of the few savannah-dwellers that can actually be called arboreal is a relic from an earlier time. The puraeus is one of the last remaining flagrobrachians. These are one of the groups which make up the insect-like phylum Aspiderma, to which also belong the wadjets. The relationship is immediately apparent, with the six lens-eyes, large head-plates and even little external gills, which look like they could be the archaic precursors to wings. Yet this animal cannot fly, but instead slithers and hangs between the branches of the scale-trees like a serpent. Neither are flagrobrachians the ancestors of wadjets, they are their own group that, as fossils show, made their way independently out of the vanished Martian oceans onto land.

Their most distinguishing feature are their mandibles, which have been repurposed into a pair of raptorial arms from which sprout long, prehensile tendrils. The puraeus is an ambush-predator, which lies in wait hanging from trees, ensnaring any smaller creatures which might climb or fly by, such as nekhbets. As the puraeus can no longer utilize its mandibles to kill and chew its prey, its jawless mouth has evolved a syringe-like spur, hidden underneath the headshield. With this it injects venom into its prey, as well as a strong acid, which digests it from the inside and allows the predator to simply suck it dry, like a spider.

The venom is also useful as a defensive weapon, as the puraeus can fall prey to various flying creatures such as ballousaurs. It is usually not strong enough to kill the attacker, but based on the behaviour of those bitten, it appears to cause a lot of stinging pain. Of course, no astronaut has ever volunteered to test that hypothesis themselves.

Puraeus also nest in trees, usually in holes beneath the bark. There they also raise their young. Once two puraeus have mated, only the impregnated partner will care for the offspring, but does so quite dutifully until they are old enough to hunt themselves. Until then it will usually feed them with regurgitated juices.