Are We Alone?

It was the height of the Vietnam War and I was 9-years-old, and living in Miami, Florida. I was laying in the living room watching TV with my sister, who had fallen asleep. Suddenly I noticed a light and looked out into the backyard. A small, cylindrical object came into my yard at an angle, hovered for a few seconds, and then shot straight up. It made a "swoosh" sound as it landed and then took off. I had seen a UFO.

My immediate neighbors quickly learned of the sighting and an explanation was given to me. I was told that it was the neighbor's sprinkler system cutting on and spraying water in part of my yard. What I saw was light hitting the water. And the "swish" sound I heard was the sprinkler turning on. Well, maybe that explained it, or maybe it was a rip in the fabric of our universe. After all, I'm the guy who believes that nothing can break the laws of physics. So, maybe the object came from the world where dark energy, dark matter, and God lives. Maybe there are no physics in that world.

Whether it was real or not, the experience did instill in me a lifelong interest in aliens and UFOs. I read books and watched documentaries on them and have always wondered what I really saw. But, now in my older age I've almost given up on the idea of flying saucers. Sure, my obsession with crop circles, cattle mutilations, and spaceships taking away the Big Foot corpses was fun, but it probably wasn't real.

See, the first radio telescope went online in 1937 and over the years scientists kept building bigger telescopes and even started launching them into space. Other than a few quasars and some old Happy Days episodes that bounced off the moon, all we've ever found in space are crickets. So, we humans keep building bigger telescopes, but still crickets. In 2025 a new, massive radio telescope will go online, which will be known as the Square Kilometer Array. As its name implies, this telescope will be a freaking square kilometer large. I'm hopeful that this super telescope will find something in the universe in my lifetime. Since childhood I've had two dreams: to see humans land on Mars and to see the discovery of life beyond our planet.

The Problem

In June I wrote that without the moon and the tides it creates, evolution could have never happened. But it's even more complicated than that. See, without our moon being just the exact right size our planet would wobble and spin too fast. Evolution needs eons of a relatively stable environment, it needs water, and a planet must be at just the right distance from its sun, so that the water doesn't freeze or become steam. This range is known as the Goldilocks Zone or the "habitable zone." So, to find life there must be a Goldilocks planet with a Goldilocks moon.

The good news is that scientists and amateur astronomers are discovering planets all the time, and the total of known planets is now at about 4,000, with more being discovered each week. One estimate is there are 1 trillion planets in the universe. Now, let's look at the hurdles any civilization would need to reach to became a spacefaring species. Assuming a life form is on a warm and stable planet there are many more challenges. First, it only takes one giant solar flare or astroid to destroy an evolving species. Secondly, there are many more challenges, such as having all the needed ingredients for life and getting past volcanos, wars, and the list goes on.

When people say "it would be a 1 in trillion odds for an advanced civilization to emerge from organic materials," well, they are probably right. We won't even start getting data from the new, super radio telescope until 2027 and by then I'll be 67 years old. So, I don't know if I'll get to realize my dream of being alive when extraterrestrial life is discovered or not. I would be thrilled if we even found living cells on another planet, but getting from a cell to an intelligent animal that builds spacecraft is a massive leap. Unless astronomers prove otherwise in the next few years, it is my belief that we are all alone in the visible universe. Now, I'm not sure how big the universe is beyond what our devices can detect and there may also be billions of universe, so having an advanced civilization in one out of every trillion planets may be no big deal, but for me it is.

Cosmic Loneliness

What makes humans exceptionally unique is our consciousness. We are the poets, writers, and musicians who give our universe life. We even have a super evolved feature called altruism, where we will sacrifice ourselves to help others. We are an incredibly amazing species. The one thing that really freaks me out is that our brains evolved to make us much smarter than we need for basic survival. That doesn't make sense to me because it breaks the rules of evolution, which only adapts enough to avoid prey, get a good meal, and reproduce. So, somewhere in our evolution there had to be some wild mutations that created a human with a bunch of extra brain mass. Or, maybe an earlier alien civilization altered us, or maybe there is a God who somehow lives in the non-physical world. Whatever the case may be, a consciousness developed in our big brains, and along with that I believe there must be responsibility.

Maybe other civilizations never become advanced because they kill themselves with war and pollution. I look at our own civilization and I grieve deeply. We are wasting our planet and the incredible miracle that is us. Our religions and obsession with living in the present are both great evils because they distract us from what is important, which is taking care of our planetary home and the billions of creatures that we coexist with.

Our Responsibilities

Through thousands of years of selective breeding we turned wolves into dogs, and as I write this I have three of them in my backyard. They have no control over the fact that humans are digging up ancient swamps and burning them. In fact, for 500 years we've been burning swamps to keep us warm, to give us light, and to power our transportation system and industry. At the same time, our human population finally hit 1 billion in 1804. Since that time population has doubled six times and is about to hit 8 billion. I have already seen population double once in my lifetime, and if I live long enough I could see it double again. All these people want to burn fossil fuel to make their lives more comfortable, and the end result is we are creating a disaster.

So, what I'm trying to say, is that we are a 1 in a trillion miracle and we have a great responsibility to care for our beautiful planet and all of its inhabitants, including my dogs. It took several billion years of evolution to get us to our current point and in just a few decades we are fucking the whole place up. The pollution in our air, soil, and water is bad enough. Fishing our oceans to depletion and destroying millions of other species is bad enough. But our greatest disaster is how we are releasing 37 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year. For billions of years we had a relatively stable climate that allowed life on our planet to flourish and advance; we fucked it all up in 50 years, and I believe it will take us 1,000 years to recover. WHAT IS WRONG WITH US? I believe the 1,000-year punishment to ourselves will become known as "The Era of Learning."

Humans are a stubborn species and we don't learn lessons easily. But I do believe some of us will survive the climate disaster and slowly work to repair the massive damage. More and more fossil-burning engines and plants will be taken offline and replaced with clean energy sources. Millions of trees will be planted to mitigate the damage, and slowly we will heal. The people leading this effort won't be the general, brainless, masses, but rather it will be the handful of activists who give a damn. To those of you who are climate change activists, I dedicate my blog to you.

As a species we are finally starting to do a fairly good job of avoiding war, so I'm seeing some progress. There is still the risk of bio terror, nuclear accidents, and astroids hitting us. It's been a long climb to get to where we are now and I believe that we'll continue to get through our challenges. We are a tough and hearty species — we can do it.

The Future

Perhaps it's our destiny to seed the universe, and I think it is. I used to oppose this idea because humans destroy and foul everything we touch, but after the Era of Learning I think we will have our act together enough to be responsible spacefarers. I hope so.

In the mean time, I can't say enough how I have the most deepest and incredible respect for activists who work for social, environmental, and animal welfare causes. You are the ones with the special callings and I love each of you deeply. You are the ones who are saving the world. Thank you.


Source:

Where Are All the Aliens?, Stephen Webb, Ted Talk, 2018

See My Related Blog Post: Yahweh and the Cosmic Egg, June 23, 2019

Photo: Guillermo Ferla