Exobiology: UFOs

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. If ‘guess who’s coming to dinner’ came to dinner, it’s far more probable they came to dine eons ago relative to the last several, even many, decades ago. If that’s the case, we call the diners, ‘ancient astronauts’. But, if way back then, then why not now as well? Say ‘hi’ to those pesky UFOs.

Most scientists would argue that advanced extraterrestrial civilizations must exist throughout the cosmos. Thus the time, effort and energy devoted to SETI – the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. The Fermi Paradox however strongly suggests that if ETI exists, then their SETI has found us – in person. If there were no evidence that we’ve been or are being visited by extraterrestrials, then our SETI would be harder to justify since that might point in the direction that we’re the only kid on the cosmic block. However, apart from suggestive evidence via ‘ancient astronauts’, there’s those UFOs to contend with and the possible implications they bring.

In this the modern era, ETI has exhibited its existence and a terrestrial presence via at least part of the UFO phenomena.

The ‘modern’ era of the UFO, nee ‘flying saucer’, is now over 60 years old. I would maintain that that interval of time is just a tad too long to make the subject a psychological or sociological one somewhat lacking in credibility, which was not of necessity the case in June 1947. That’s even more to the point seeing as how that month is a rather artificial one. The UFO can be traced back to the ‘ghost rockets’, to WWII and the ‘foo fighters’, and further back to the mysterious airship sightings of the latter 1800’s. If you really want to split hairs, there’s little doubt the UFO phenomena (recalling that “U” just stands for “unidentified” to the viewer), harks back to our cavemen ancestors tens to hundreds of thousand of years ago.    

There’s certainly no question in my mind that the majority of close encounters of the first kind and/or vague ‘UFO lights-in-the-sky’ reports are most certainly misidentified natural/celestial phenomena or terrestrial technology.  It gets a bit harder to misidentify close encounters of the second or third kind however, and there is no overall shortage of those kinds of reports. When you put all the various reports and associated bits and pieces together (ground traces, EM effects, radar returns, still and motion pictures, independent expert multi-witness testimony, etc.) it’s somewhat difficult to dismiss the whole kit and caboodle with a wave of the hand, or, as one well known astronomer did by referencing George Adamski., According to Carl Sagan in his 1985 Gifford Lectures, because Adamski was obviously a UFO nut who produced fake photographs and visited Venus, therefore the UFO field is nuts. There was no mention of scientists intensely interested in the field that had academic qualifications equal to his own, like a J. Allen Hynek, James E. McDonald, David R. Saunders, Bruce S. Maccabee, David M. Jacobs, John E. Mack, Jacques Vallee, R. Leo Sprinkle, Karla Turner, James A. Harder, etc. That’s quite apart from a long list of other highly qualified interested military personnel, astronauts. There’s easily another rather lengthy third list of sober down-to-earth investigators, highly qualified in their own way, who are anything but nutty. In short, I thought the Adamski emphasis was a rather cheap shot at discrediting the UFO field in general and rather unworthy of someone of the stature of Dr. Sagan (whom I otherwise quite admire).

If UFOs = ETI, then their motive is certainly not invasion, nor is it apparently a ‘take me to your leader’ one. So it’s something in between. And just like biologists don’t invade rat society, nor try to communicate with it, but rather just study the race of rats (rat race?), perhaps what we have here is an on-going dispassionate study of at the minimum humans, human society, human biology, etc.

Where do potential terrestrial/extraterrestrial UFOs come from? I think we can rule out WWII Nazi Germany for starters. We can postulate other dimensions, parallel universes, even time travel. Alas, all of these are within the realm of theoretical physics (and sci-fi), and while fun to play with, remain theoretical. Space travel however is firmly grounded in proven hard reality physics.  Using Ockham’s (or Occam’s) Razor, the outer space connection seems at this point in time, the likeliest of all probabilities.

It’s also fairly clear that if UFOs are the products of an alien civilization, then on probability, given the vast age of the galaxy, that the odds are good that said race is vastly beyond our technological level, not just a little bit. Thus it’s not surprising, to use a well worn phrase, that ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic to those with a far lesser technological understanding’. (That’s not the exact quote, but you get the drift.)

Their presence seems to be one more akin to scientific curiosity/experimentation vis-à-vis invasion or diplomatic contact.

I imagine that these observations will extend into our future for an indefinite period.