SETI Thursday - the Assumption filled Universe

Space.com’s SETI Thursday - the Assumption-Filled Universe

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Over the years, the Search for (and contact with) Extraterrestrial Intelligence, by all means possible has always seemed to me to be a pivotal endeavor in the growth of our species. Yet, on the doorstep of what may be one of the greatest triumphs of our time, we have seen two of the most promising avenues leading toward contact, Radio SETI and UFO studies, splitting apart. Now it appears that the split has become complete. In the best of times, they simply ignore each other. But in the worst of times powerful bursts of negativity fill our communication channels. One such example is the latest article by Seth Shostak, of the SETI Institute, entitled: “Would Aliens Visit?” This article appeared on Space.com, in their 6/27/02 SETI Thursday column. While presented as a scientific essay, what it most clearly shows is how the anti-visitation arguments are based on some very limiting assumptions, and just how deep the divisions have become between the two communities.

In his article Dr. Shostak makes a comprehensive (and well written) argument that even if there are ET’s out there (which the SETI community fervently advocates), and even if they have interstellar travel capability, it is still very unlikely that they would visit us. His argument is largely probabilistic, and examines three possible scenarios:

1) ET explorers coming here as a “uniquely rare event”;

2) ET’s having visited Earth throughout our history; and

3) ETs intensively visiting Earth for the last 50 years or so – presumably due to the recent emergence of humanity as a space-faring society and a potential nuclear threat.

Dr. Shostak then proceeds to argue, based upon a set of well-defined assumptions, against the possibility (or at least the probability) of each scenario, in turn.

Early in his article he writes “…of course, the matter of alien visitation will be decided by the evidence, not by the intensity of opinion. While I certainly expect that the Galaxy is home to many advanced societies, the quality of the evidence has so far failed to convince me that any of them have emissaries on our planet.” Let’s apply Dr. Shostak’s speculative logic to his very own arguments, examine his assumptions, and see just exactly how strong his argument is for “them” not being here.

What is the evidence which has left him unconvinced? And what additional evidence is there that he may be overlooking? While the connection between UFOs and ET visitation is still arguable, there are several very comprehensive works which present far more credible evidence than Dr. Shostak believes. I would challenge anyone interested to read the books “The UFO Evidence” by Richard Hall, and “The UFO Enigma” by Peter Sturrock. Both books offer convincing evidence of an unexplained component to the body of sighting and encounter reports collected in recent years. The book “Making Contact” by Bill Fawcett further develops a sound argument that in at least some of these cases, the objects are most likely extraterrestrial in origin.

Dr. Shostak begins with the observation that there are a large number of people who have claimed either sightings or encounters, with craft and entities of (allegedly) ET origin. A quick check of the Roper poll of unusual experiences [see the Roper Poll of Unusual Personal Experiences - http://www.nidsci.org/news/roper_surveys.html] suggests that about one percent of us has had unexplained personal experiences, with about five percent of us having seen something unusual in the sky. If we assume that a small fraction of these might be some form of contact with “them” then the numbers suggest that an encounter with the phenomenon is not a “unique” event [See the article “Close Encounters: There May be More Than You Think” by Craig R. Lang].

Dr. Shostak’s arguments against the first scenario are that if there were a “unique” visitation by ET’s, the probability of any individual human being contacted would be vanishingly small. However, based on the numbers, if close encounters are ET in origin, then the first scenario is ruled out not because it is a rarity, but because it extremely commonplace. There would be too many ET encounters for it to be a rare “unique visitation” event.

Dr. Shostak next takes on the second possibility – that we have been routinely visited throughout history. He again cites numbers to suggest that if true, there must be an extremely high number of “trips” across interstellar distances to Earth, which he feels would be far too expensive to be practical. If we assume that the visitors’ craft must travel by reaction propulsion through 4D space, then Dr. Shostak has a valid point – it would require a prohibitively large amount of energy to conduct such travel (Note: This is one of the basic assumptions of the SETI school, that they can’t get here from there). However, even our own leading edge thinkers concede that reaction propulsion (rocketry) as model of interstellar travel is not plausible. So it can be assumed that any star-farers would need some way to “cheat” on the rules of Newtonian physics – perhaps by using wormholes, space warps, etc. Given the assumption that “aliens would be alien to us” we can assume that they would possess technology far beyond our present knowledge. So it seems truly naive to constrain “them” to technology which we already know would not be sufficient.

Dr. Shostak’s argument further assumes that each visitation is the result of a full trip across interstellar distances. This would be roughly like assuming that each one of Columbus’s row-boats arriving at the shores of America had individually traveled all the way from Spain. Neglected is the possibility of a mother ship, making one trip, then remaining in the new world for a long period of time.

Most anomaly witnesses and experiencers describe alleged ET craft as being relatively small. Furthermore, the travels of abductees are usually described as relatively short. All of this suggests the idea of ET landing craft not designed for long distance flight. Instead, it suggests a model of close encounters as the result of “away missions” from one or more central locations relatively nearby (in astronomical terms).

To be conservative, we must admit that the above model is speculation. However the volume of sighting and encounter reports is solidly documented. It strongly argues for the existence of an unknown phenomenon, both at the present time and in historical times. Although an ET origin is just one possibility, it is a strong contender to explain at least some of such cases. In addition, if we postulate some form advanced propulsion, and consider the mother ship concept described above, the argument that “they can’t get here from there because we don’t know how they do it” becomes unconvincing.

Dr. Shostak then takes on the third scenario – that the ETs are concerned about recent events on Earth and have therefore been here mostly in modern times. He expresses doubt about this because he reasons that it is implausible for them to have detected our radio emissions (which began only 70 years ago), scrambled their craft to go investigate us, and arrived here in 1947, to begin the modern UFO era. He derives this argument from the limitations of the speed of light, saying that there would be insufficient time for information to propagate out from Earth to more than a few nearby stars.

His argument is again based upon the assertion that the only way for information to travel across the void is by electromagnetic waves, which are bound by the speed of light (another fundamental assumption of the SETI paradigm). He also assumes that the ETs would have been awaiting such a signal before visiting us. Then once receiving it, they would pounce upon us like fossil hunters on a new T-Rex skeleton. However, we may ask: If they have the capacity to get here using superluminal travel, then why would they just sit there at their home bases awaiting a signal? Isn’t it more likely that they would have visited us a long time ago? Presumably they would have been here, at least to some extent, throughout our history (scenario two).

Now let’s grant that the apparent volume of UFO sightings and encounters has indeed grown tremendously in the years following 1947. Perhaps this could be understood in light of the impending emergence of humanity as a space-faring species, along with our development of nuclear weapons. If you were our interstellar neighbors, and you observed such a species, for whom one of the primary activities is waging war, wouldn’t you keep an extremely close eye on them? Wouldn’t you even be tempted to intervene in some subtle/covert way to lessen the danger which they posed to the neighborhood? While this idea is pure speculation, consider again that solid evidence is presented in the books by Hall Sturrock, and Fawcett, described above, to suggest build a case for ET visitation.

Given the above arguments, Dr. Shostak’s article on Space.com’s SETI Thursday column seems to stand on ever shakier ground. Furthermore, his assumptions suggest that although his beliefs are different from the UFO community, he is at least as steeped in belief as those he accuses of being “UFO believers”.

SETI and UFOlogy are in actuality, ways of seeking the same goal - ET contact [See the article Contact: UFOlogy and SETI, by Craig R. Lang, on the relationship between the two communities]. While based upon different paradigms, they both seek to explore and test models of ET contact. Imagine, instead of bashing one another, what could be accomplished by a synergy of the two. So, instead of lambasting the UFO community, I challenge Dr. Shostak and others of the SETI community to step even further out of the box. Let’s see what creative new avenues of research are possible when we work together.