Side Trip: Planet of the Apes

 

"Are we on the plane of reality, facing an actor dressed as a monkey or a monkey performing a stage act? Unless, in the register of fable and caricature, this animal, a figure of duplicity and imitation, parodies a speaker?"

This terra cotta figurine, dated between 450--400 BCE, is from a collection of Greek antiquities in the museum galleries at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

It was unanticipated insofar as I expected a library museum to have old and/or notable books and manuscripts rather than ancient sculptures, jewelry, and coins. But it is also unanticipated because it's clearly a chimpanzee wearing a cloak. The display card meditates on the artist's intent, and whether the figure represents of parody of ancient Greece's public orators or a costumed character in a long-forgotten play. 

But isn't it more likely that French author Pierre Boulle was actually a time-traveller, who shot forward into the future to witness the reign of a planet of apes and made a detour to classical Hellás before publishing La Planète des Singes in 1963? After all, the book and Rod Serling's original film adaptation hinge on temporal displacement, from the astronauts' near-light speed travel, to the persistence of out-of-place monuments, notably the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty. And the book's narrative of a distant adventure and return journey to an altered, unsettling home foreshadows Homer's Odyssey--written perhaps 300 years before the creation of the Bibliothèque's figurine. Only time-travel can explain that.

There are certainly other clues around Paris, as well. If Boulle did not traverse the space-time continuum--perhaps using some future technology that classical and contemporary intellects cannot comprehend--why are there mascarons of Dr. Zaius in the 6th Arr.? Why was there a human zoo in the Bois de Boulogne? And just why did the French offer the full-scale Statue of Liberty to the United States, but emplace one of the original maquettes in the 15th Arr.--just one arrondissement away from where Boulle would "die" in 1994?

How could these be coincidences if there are no coincidences? The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. One cannot prove a negative. The Truth Is Out There.

Is this a photo I took in Paris at some point in the past, or is it from some future Forbidden Zone? It is the former, but in an alternate timeline, couldn't it be the latter?

This all makes sense if, like me, you do your own research. Of course, that does not preclude some skepticism: you don't want to open your mind so far that your brains fall out. I'm not asking you to consider the reality of trans-dimensional Bigfoot, for example. There is just no compelling evidence for that theory.

Or Is There?