Have you ever looked up into the canopy of stars on a clear night and wondered, are we alone? Surely, among the estimated 400 billion stars in our own galaxy, there must be someone on a planet orbiting a far-flung star looking back and asking the same question. The Star Wars, Star Trek and Avengers Infinity series franchises with their plethora of intelligent aliens and huge box office success, suggests that I’m not alone in my musing.
Assuming at least one planet per star (a VERY conservative estimate) gives us 400 billion planets. If the actual average is two or more worlds per sun, the number of potential planets blossoms into the trillions. Of those trillions, astronomers have confirmed the existence of over 5,500 exoplanets to date.
But so far, we have no substantiated sightings of little green men (or women). No neon billboards orbit Risa advertising vacation condo deals. No Ravagers interdict our missions to the Moon or Mars.
But that’s not to say we aren’t trying. SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) projects have existed since the mid-1950s. They typically utilize large radio telescopes and telescope arrays, listening in on galactic quadrants for electromagnetic signals attributable to a technologically advanced civilization. Projects range in size from The Ohio State University Radio Telescope (now decommissioned), to the 1000-foot diameter Aricebo Telescope (also decommissioned) to the Allen Telescope Array in northern California.
To date, no signals have been detected that could be attributed to anything other than natural phenomena. However, AI is now being utilized to filter out Earth-borne transmissions that might mask the faint signals originating from light years away.
So, what about that exoplanet survey mentioned earlier? Astronomers are beginning to bring tools to bear that may indicate life (whether intelligent or not) exists on these distant orbs. The most promising is atmospheric gas spectroscopy. Certain gases and combinations can only be attributable to biological activity. Here on Earth, molecular oxygen only exists due to photosynthesis. Scientists hope that assaying the atmospheres of exoplanets will reveal the presence of life.
Closer to home, in April, 2023, the European Space Agency launched the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or JUICE. It will spend at least three years at Jupiter’s satellites Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. These Jovian moons are all believed to harbor vast liquid water oceans beneath their shells of ice. In October 2024, NASA will launch a robotic spacecraft named Europa Clipper to that moon. Currently NASA’s Juno spacecraft is orbiting Jupiter with close flybys of Europa and Ganymede.
The combined geologic, and molecular analyses of these missions hope to reveal indicators of life, if any. But life, if found, is expected to be simple, like single-celled archeae or self-replicating molecules.
The Curiosity rover, exploring Gale Crater, discovered that ancient Mars had the right chemistry to support living microbes. It found sulfur, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon—key ingredients necessary for life—in the powder sample drilled from the Sheepbed mudstone in Yellowknife Bay. Mudstones also allude to the persistent presence of water, another requirement for life.
Elsewhere on the Red Planet, the Perseverance rover is searching Jezero Crater for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover’s drill collected core samples of Martian rock and soil but they must be examined microscopically for evidence of microfossils or biochemistry. Unfortunately, the cost to retrieve these samples by a future mission and ferry them back to Earth for detailed analysis has mushroomed. Cancellation of the Mars Sample Return mission is possible. So far, there is no definitive confirmation of past life, even simple life, on Mars.
What are the odds that one day we’ll find ourselves face-to-face with extraterrestrial intelligent life? As yet, scientists still can’t create life in a test-tube, so it’s not possible to calculate. But the longer that search goes on, the lower the odds get for the spontaneous generation of life. And as we are finding out, the universe is hostile to life. Star flares, radiation, heat and cold, asteroid and comet bombardment—these could snuff out early stages of biological activity even before it has a chance to start.
Yeah, but what about all those Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs)? Recall that in 2022 the Department of Defense created the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) to report its findings on such sightings.
For decades, credible people both inside and outside of the US military have reported witnessing UAPs. Historically ignored by the DoD, or perhaps quashed, the lack of transparency fueled all manner of conspiracy theories: the government is suppressing the existence of aliens, it’s hiding its possession of alien tech and materials. The popularity of the X-Files series tapped into that fervor.
So far, none of the annual reports by the AARO attribute any sightings to extraterrestrial activity. They are typically attributed to natural phenomena, equipment glitches, or observer fatigue, state of mind, etc. However, some analyses are not released, designated as classified.
The public frustration built to the point that congress finally acted. But the UAP Disclosure Act gives departments so much latitude about what they release to the national archives, that little is expected to change. So the madness continues… But applying Occam’s Razor to this situation, it’s more likely the nondisclosures are related to experimental aircraft or could reveal classified activities/capabilities of the US military, or what we know about those of other countries.
When I was younger, I was certain that we would make first contact within my lifetime. But as our search continues to yield null results, I am less sure. It could take centuries to meet our neighbors, if we ever do.
So, given what we know today, are we alone in the universe? I see five possibilities, listed, in my estimation of likelihood.
1) No one is out there. We really are alone. All the evidence in fact supports this conclusion. But I also acknowledge that while the spontaneous origin of life is infinitesimal, it’s not zero. Which leads me to…
2) Intelligent life is out there but it’s less common (more dispersed) than we thought. Put another way, the occurrence of life within the galaxy will be proportional to that miniscule probability. Of those nearly half-trillion star systems, only a handful would support sentient life. Separated by thousands of light years, and the so-far inviolable constraints of the speed of light, it’s unlikely we would ever meet any extraterrestrial civilizations.
3) Intelligent life is out there but they don’t use a radio spectrum to communicate. One of my takeaways from reading Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time series is that communication can take on many forms, some of which aren’t amenable to radio broadcast. Some transmission tech may be outside the spectra that SETI analyses. Just this year, NASA tested laser communication between Earth and the Moon. Not only is it outside said radio spectrum, it’s also highly targeted. If your receiver lies outside the coherent laser beam, you never detect a transmission.
4) Intelligent life is out there but they are strategically quiet, malicious and predatory ala Independence Day, Predator or Alien. To paraphrase Orson Wells, they view us from afar, intellects vast, cool and unsympathetic, regarding this Earth with envious eyes, slowly and surely drawing their plans against us… There are more examples of this in nature than we can count: Burmese pythons gobble up native Everglades animal species, Scott’s Broom and Himalaya Blackberry choke out prairie habitat in western Washington and Oregon, invasive carp displace native fish across the United States. It’s difficult to believe the rules of natural selection won’t apply to all corners of the galaxy, which leads us to my final and most likely surmise.
5) Intelligent life is out there but they avoid us because WE are the malicious, predatory ones. The history of Homo sapiens is a violent one vis-à-vis our hominid cousins. Wherever our species expanded, prior occupants have disappeared, leaving traces of their genome within us, the spoils of war. Homo neanderthalensis, Homo sapiens ssp Denisova, Homo floresiensis, Homo erectus. They’ve all succumbed to the “superior” species.
With no others to compete with, we turn on ourselves. Warfare and violent conflict seem baked into our very DNA. We fight over scarce resources (the premise of my EPSILON SciFi Thrillers). In this scenario, alien minds are vast, but peaceable. And so they watch, and wait, for that day when Homo sapiens sheds the genes that make it so aggressive, so dangerous.
Sadly, this means I won’t see my cosmic neighbors within my lifetime. But perhaps when we are finally led by our better angels, we’ll truly see for the first time the wonders of the cosmos.
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Want a deeper dive? Check out these sources.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Wayhttps://phys.org/news/2016-10-planets-galaxy.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_for_extraterrestrial_intelligencehttps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-an-ai-be-the-first-to-discover-alien-lifehttps://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2314065/establishment-of-unidentified-aerial-phenomena-task-force/https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3561843/statement-by-pentagon-press-secretary-brig-gen-pat-ryder-on-the-annual-report-o/
