E.T.’s Head Start

Planet Earth has been a pretty dynamic place regarding human’s (in “Star Trek” lingo) boldly going activities, movements and migrations; comings and goings; some major and some minor. As a parallel, I’d like to think of our Milky Way Galaxy as an equally dynamic place but with, obviously, alien’s boldly going activities; their movements and migrations; comings and goings; some major and some minor. The logical supposition that aliens are part of our dynamic galaxy, while humans are still relatively confined to boldly going on one small abode within that galaxy suggests that E.T. has had a head start on us when it comes to boldly going.

 

Planet Earth is roughly some 4.5 billion years old. Microbial life forms first appeared roughly 500 million years after Earth (and the Sun and accompanying solar system) formed from interstellar gas, dust and debris. So it’s taken about four billion years for us to get from primordial pond scum to where our civilization is today.  We’ve come a long way baby – unfortunately the accent is still on the word “baby”.

Our Universe is 13.7 billion years old – at least that’s when the origin of our Universe happened – the Big Bang event of 13.7 billion years ago. However, it took a while before any life could appear in that newly formed Universe. The Big Bang event only formed hydrogen and helium, and you can’t make life from just that. The heavier elements from which life is made up had to be cooked up in the hearts of massive stars first. Fortunately, really massive stars have very short life spans (as stars go) and they end in a bang, not with a whimper – they result in a supernovae – blowing up and scattering those heavy elements far and wide to become part of the gas, dust and debris that ultimately forms new stars and solar systems – stars like our Sun; solar systems with planets, like our Earth. 

Some 3.7 billion years post Big Bang; our own Milky Way Galaxy took shape, ultimately composed of billions and billions of stars, some of which were (and are) those massive stellar, come supernovae objects. It didn’t take too awfully long before our galaxy had enough heavy elements now incorporated into planetary systems that chemical evolution could now do its cosmic thing; morphing into biological evolution. That was more likely as not the case some two billion years after our galaxy formed. That means that life could have been getting its start elsewhere within the galaxy some 3.5 billion years before our Planet Earth formed (which was some 5.5 billion years after the galaxy took shape).

Translated, an E.T. could have had a 3.5 billion year head start on us – though there wasn’t of course any ‘us’ then. By the time Planet Earth was just a billion years old and terrestrial pond scum 500 million years old, one or more E.T.’s had not only reached the same theatrical stage that humans now find themselves on but had further advanced to achieve interstellar space travel, to pack up and boldly go, and explore the cosmos, up close and personal. Consider it only takes roughly ten million years (at a conservative estimate) to have had the time to have boldly gone everywhere within our galaxy, well one has to just accept the probability that here, Planet Earth, being part of everywhere, has been discovered, explored, maybe colonized by E.T. 

Now all this is based on the assumption that standard Darwinian evolution can go from microbial pond scum to intelligence within four billion years (example: Earth and humans) and that that would be the case elsewhere. It’s the only reasonable assumption we can make extrapolating from a statistical sample of one. However, once intelligence is reached, coupled with the ability to apply and manipulate technology, natural Darwinian evolution, and rates of evolutionary change, they no longer apply to that intelligence. Further evolutionary advancement, artificial selection, genetic engineering, bioengineering, will proceed at whatever pace the intelligence wants, restrained only and ultimately only by the physical laws, relationships and principles of physics that rule the cosmos. Even if some intelligences minimise their artificial selection for various ethical reasons (say designer babies) or on environmental grounds (genetically designed crops), that can’t be expected of each and every such intelligence. For some, it’s going to be open slather and anything goes. Whatever it takes to boldly go might take on special significance if your parent star was about to go poof or some other natural calamity was about due to wipe out your race and you need to get out of town quick-smart. 

Some intelligences will alter whatever needs to be altered (if anything) to enable them to boldly go and head out into the wider cosmos. Even if such an intelligence were situated 

right on the edge of our Milky Way Galaxy, and even if they only achieve a maximum of 1% light speed (think conservative), they still reach the opposite side of our galaxy within ten million years (a mere drop in the cosmic bucket of time), reaching all points in-between in lesser time frames. Like a ripple spreading out in a shallow pond, no part of the pond gets missed.

Between three and a half billion years ago and today, assuming at least one E.T. goes exploring, we have the ripple in the pond. We (Planet Earth) get at least one visit. But say there are many independent E.T. civilizations that boldly go – say one starts to boldly go every ten million years, though it’s probably way more frequently than that, but let’s err on the side of extreme conservatism. The pond (our galaxy) gets ripple after ripple and ripple, or wave after wave of those boldly going. That translates into a very conservative 300 ripples that’s washed across the shores of Planet Earth over the last three and a half billion years.

But, even if we have one and only one parent E.T. boldly going three and a half billion years ago, that doesn’t translate of necessity into just one ripple. Assume E.T. explores the galaxy – does E.T. collectively then return to home base (that’s two ripples) – mission accomplished? That makes little sense. Humans didn’t explore out of Africa, explore all of Planet Earth, and then collectively return to inhabit Africa and only Africa. No, we need to assume our lone E.T. stops off at interesting and suitable abodes on the way and settles down. It’s not just exploration but colonization – you gotta stop now and again and rest your boots! Some of those colonies will themselves resume exploration and some colonization. The process repeats until the galaxy is not only explored, but settled. There’s been way more than ample time for that to have occurred – many times over in fact.

Think of the human parallel. Some humans migrated out of Africa and settled in Europe. Some Europeans migrated out of Europe and settled in the Americas and Australia and some went back to Africa - Lots of ripples. Lots of peoples explored and colonized lots of areas; some making the return journey; some not. Moving on to more modern times, things haven’t changed, except exploration/colonization is now on a much smaller scale.

Though exploration and colonization have mainly ceased now because our globe is finite, regions still experience pond ripples – exploration and migration on a small scale – even tourists’ count in the ripple effect. New York didn’t become colonised and established then left to stagnate – no one ever moving in or out – existing in isolation. People from New York visit other places (ripples); some New Yorkers migrate elsewhere (more ripples); people visit and migrate to New York (ripples and more ripples).

Now in this analogy, Planet Earth represents the Milky Way Galaxy; New York represents Planet Earth. Various aliens within the Milky Way Galaxy ripple their way past (or stop off on) Planet Earth like some people on Earth ripple past (or stop off in) New York.  

Okay, advanced aliens have been, probably still are rippling around us. If we extrapolate modern human civilization some 3.5 billion years into the future – an impossible task I might add that’s well beyond human imagination* – well that’s the level where some E.T.’s might be in the here and now. Let’s just say in Superman lingo, they would have powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men – they would be for all practical purposes – ‘gods’. 

My Projected Timeline:

13.7 Billion Years Ago: Birth of our Universe via the Big Bang event.

10 Billion Years Ago: Formation of our Milky Way Galaxy.

8 Billion Years Ago: First life forms (E.T. ‘pond scum’) appear.

4.5 Billion Years Ago: The Sun, solar system, and Planet Earth form.

4 Billion Years Ago: Terrestrial ‘pond scum’ is now on the scene.

4 Billion Years Ago: First E.T. intelligence(s) should have evolved.

3.5 Billion Years Ago: One or more E.T. intelligence should have explored and colonised the Milky Way Galaxy.

10 Million Years Ago: The first evolutionary stirrings of what leads to us, our civilization and technology.

Ancient Times: The mythological ‘God’ and ‘gods’ (ancient astronauts) bear witness to E.T.’s ‘boldly going’.

Modern Times: UFOs bear witness to E.T.’s ‘boldly going’.

*We have great difficulty in forecasting the weather a week in advance (often less) even though meteorology is all grounded in known natural physical laws, relationships and principles. Human activity is based on anything but. If the weather is chaos, humans are chaos cubed.