June 9th, 2009
Is there life out there? Are we alone in the billions upon billions of stars that make up our universe? Many have attempted to answer these question, or, more accurately, many have guessed.
While speaking at a Google TechTalk in 2007, Dr. Seth Shostak, a SETI astronomer in California, attempted to answer a one-off question, “When will we discover the extraterrestrials?“ In the process, he offered some well founded insights into the both the nature of interstellar / intergalactic communication and travel over the vast distances of space. The rather mundane, yet thought provoking, insights came as he spoke on the problems involved with interstellar contact. The three questions posed (although not spoken outright) were:
- Why haven’t we heard from extraterrestrials?
- Are extraterrestrials visiting us?
- What are our expectations if extraterrestrials did contact us?
Each of these 3 will be covered in sequence. I’ll give you the gist of the argument(s) made by the astronomer and offer my own perspective as well.
Why haven’t we heard from extraterrestrials?
According to the video, there are two schools of thought on this at SETI. The first believes that we have / are being contacted. However, our limited abilities prevent us from finding their signal. The second school believes that it hasn’t happened yet because we have no idea either what to look for or where to look for it. If you believe in extraterrestrial life, then both schools could be correct, but from their point of view the latter is by far the most likely.
Looking at the second argument, that we’re simply not capable of finding and listening to the right places, it becomes apparent why this answer seems so much more plausible: There is alot of ground to cover in outer space. In the video, it is stated clearly that there is a single obvious and glaring problem with communicating in space: the universe is extremely big; there are billions upon billions of stars and probably even more planets. Where do we start?
We’ve only studied 700 or so stars (although we’ve “looked” closely at several thousand). It would take us eons to really “listen” to every one we see in the night’s sky. Even taking into account Moore’s law (technological information grows at a predictably increasing rate), it just isn’t possible.
On top of that, how would an alien astronomer know where to look for us? Dr. Shostak gave a few plausible scenarios. The aliens could wait for a galactic event like a Supernova to occur. If they assume others are also looking, they could send a transmission away from the event. Other civilizations watching would hopefully see the message and respond. Alternatively, if we assume other civilizations can only see planets when eclipsing their parent star (as we often do), we should expect transmissions to be more likely along the solar plane. Both scenarios assume, though, that if there is any extraterrestrial intelligence, they reason the same way we do.
Also consider that our transmissions have only reached 50 to 60 light years out. There’s very little in that range. So if there is life out there, I completely understand why we haven’t heard from them. The odds are not in favor of communication.
Aren’t we glad this isn’t taxpayer funded?
There are other theories outside of SETI addressed in the video. One popular theory says that aliens have made contact, but refuse to “reveal” themselves because of some social issue we haven’t addressed or some spiritual level we haven’t reached. The speaker got a good laugh out of this one. He couldn’t imagine why, after traveling millions of light years, these aliens would suddenly be so concerned with our internal socio-political dramas. He compared it to an ant researcher stopping his research once he discovered that the ants went to war; it’s nonsense.
Are extraterrestrials visiting us?
According to the Dr. Shostak there are numerous problems with extraterrestrial visitation. He begins by confronting the Hollywood nonsense and then moves on to more practical reasons why our entire conception of alien visitation is probably wrong. As humans, we tend to see things only in terms of … well .. we only see things in a human way. In Hollywood, he states, the “good” aliens all look like children, while the “bad” aliens look like all manner of grotesque figures. That’s just Hollywood, however, making something that is “bad” or “good” look the part.
As if that isn’t bad enough, since Close Encounters came out,we’ve tended to anthropomorphize the aliens; they look like an imagined evolutionary (and often spiritual) leap forward for ourselves. What are the real odds of this being the case of a race born on a world just as random as our own? Dr. Shostak was of the opinion that we’re more likely to be confronted by machine-based life (androids) than by flesh and blood aliens. Machines are more efficient (in terms of power consumption) and have longer life spans (to allow intergalactic travel). It just makes more sense. 
The popular “gray” alien has serious flaws. Our brain, as big as it is, eats up 30% of our energy or so. It also necessitates a big neck to hold up and a large heart and lungs to keep it supplied. The body of the popular alien stereotype would be incapable of keeping its head completely under control nevertheless supplying its large brain with enough energy to operate. It may look cool on film and in images, but traveling through the galaxy is not for the weak.
Of course, speaking practically, traveling the millions of light years required for interstellar, nevermind intergalactic, travel requires a transport system at this point still merely a speculation. The most popular in our culture is the “Alcubierre Drive“, more commonly known as the “warp drive” on Star Trek. In theory this is possible … if you can get some theoretical exotic matter moving faster than light with a controlled release of hypothetical tachyon particles. Unfortunately, the power requirements are a bit restrictive. To get a small spacecraft across the galaxy would require all of the atoms in the known universe. Scientists are not expecting this mode of travel to be feasible anytime in the foreseeable future.
Before I leave this topic, there is one more theory I’d like to mention. Although not brought up in the video, AlienResistance.org offers an alternative view. Guy Malone, the founder of Alien Resistance and the organizer of the Roswell UFO Festival, believes alien experiences to be either secret government (black) projects or “spiritual” encounters rather than extraterrestrial in origin. Many other Christians (and non-Christians surprisingly) also follow this line of thinking, including: Michael S. Heiser (who lives up here in Washington) and Gary Bates, author of Alien Intrusion. Guy Malone as his wife, “Paradox” Brown Malone, have both written extensively on the subject and formed a number of Nephilim-based theories. Although some are skeptical, they’re definitely work a look. If you’re interested in reading more on the subject, try this primer from Alien Resistance.
What are our expectations if extraterrestrials did contact us?
Towards the end of the video, Dr. Shostak goes into hypotheticals, honestly asking what we should expect to see (or hear) from an alien civilization attempting to make contact. In short, he has a few theories, but has serious doubts as to whether we’d even decipher an alien message. Let’s suppose an alien astronomer sent a message via radio waves. It would never reach us (think millions of years) and when it did, it would be so weak we’d never pick it up. The solution: send a message using light instead; it’s much cheaper to send and more likely to be seen in space. So, let’s assume we did get a transmission.
Now we have this encoded sequence of … well … gibberish. We have no means to decipher what the aliens are trying to say. Is it “Hello” or is it a list of prime numbers? How they think and what they find important are beyond our ability to know. In short, it would be cool and consume endless man-hours, but probably get us nowhere.
Okay, so there’s my rendition of the points made in Dr. Shostak’s talk. I’ll take a look at a theoretical physicists perspective next week. Until then, I welcome your comments and feedback.
Blessings to all from our Savior Jesus Christ!
