Seth Shostak On UFOs: A Few Comments: Part One

Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in California has authored or co-authored a trio of books to date about life in the universe in general and extraterrestrial intelligence in particular. It’s difficult to address these topics without having to mention either in passing or at length the subject of UFOs and possible association with extraterrestrials. This Dr. Shostak has done, but painted with a very skeptical, perhaps in places with a misleading, paint brush. This trilogy, and by abbreviations for them throughout this essay are as follows.

Sharing the Universe (STU)

Cosmic Company (CC)

Confessions of an Alien Hunter (CAH)

For complete bibliographic details, see at bottom.

While Dr. Shostak’s book trilogy isn’t the sum total of his opinions on the UFO phenomena, they no doubt represent a solid representation of his UFO philosophy, and since these tomes are readily accessible to the general public, they form as good a source as any.

This is where Dr. Shostak and I start off agreeing with each other. Firstly, there exist a reasonable number of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations out in our Milky Way Galaxy. For Dr. Shostak to believe otherwise would make a farce of his chosen profession as a traditional SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) scientist.

Secondly, we both would agree that there is no physical law(s), relationship(s) or principle(s) in physics that prohibit interstellar travel and journeys from one solar system to another solar system.

Thirdly, and this is where we might start diverging, given the age of the Milky Way Galaxy and the time available for civilizations to rise and achieve a status of ‘boldly going’ (in person or via artificially intelligent robotic surrogates), it’s a near certainty that ET has been in our local neck of the cosmic woods and that we (Planet Earth with biosphere) has been noted and logged in at least one ET database, perhaps many, especially if there’s such a thing as a cosmic version of the Internet. That’s the famous or infamous “where is everybody” Fermi Paradox. That said, I maintain that once here, and once we (Planet Earth) was discovered, their presence, their monitoring, even if a token one, would be ongoing, all the more so when our biosphere got really interesting with the arrival of multi-cellular land-lubbers - terrestrial critters.

Dr. Shostak asks the question (STU) “are we really that interesting” such that aliens would pay so much attention to our little cosmic neck of the woods. He suggests that that scenario is highly doubtful. I say “yes” because biospheres are going to be relatively rare; multi-cellular biospheres rarer still and biospheres with intelligent life rarer still. Biospheres are interesting; rarity is interesting; therefore Planet Earth in the relatively recent here and now is interesting.

Public Opinion Polls & UFOs (STU, CC, CAH)

Dr. Shostak makes a point of noting that public opinion poll after public opinion poll after public opinion poll, across the board, rich or poor, male or female, elderly or young, black or white, Ph.D. or high school dropout, atheistic or Catholic, a healthy percentage of the population believe that there is a connection between ET and UFOs. He’s probably muttering under his breath something like ‘stupid people’ but really real physical scientists know better – or most of them anyway. He tends to put these polls down to an ‘it’s time’ factor. World War Two and the Cold War and the dawning of the Space Age are all involved with relatively high-tech aeronautical and astronautical stuff from ICBMs that carry nuclear payloads to the U-2 to spy satellites to Telstar to the Space Shuttle to Moon landings, etc. Since roughly the WWII era, we’re talking about the ‘high ground’ that has us all interested in and ‘watching the skies’. The popularity of sci-fi, especially aliens and alien invasions didn’t hurt and the concept of extraterrestrials is just so damn interesting. Dr. Shostak got hooked on aliens too; otherwise he’d still be doing routine radio astronomy research on galaxies. So we all got space and aliens on the noggin. 

But the conclusion I draw is that where there’s smoke, there’s at least smoke, and probably fire. In other words, there must be something really suggestive in the data that’s been presented over the past six decades to support this UFO/ET connection; that lends people to lean towards this conclusion and not some other like maybe UFOs represent human time travelers from our future or terrorist organizations that have been putting hallucinogenic substances in our water supply. 

Public Opinion Polls & Alien Abductions (CC)

Based on public surveys, millions upon millions of otherwise apparently normal and sane people believe that they have been abducted by extraterrestrials, usually the ‘Greys’. I get the impression that Dr. Shostak kind of rolls his eyeballs at that subject and those findings. He probably mutters some more about ‘silly people’ or gullible people. However, IMHO, no matter how you slice and dice those findings, what a fascinating area for scientists to research. [See also: Abductions]

Public Opinion Polls & Government Cover-ups/Censorship of UFOs (STU)

Dr. Shostak also notes that these same public opinion polls note that Americans (in this case) are highly suspicious of officialdom claims that there’s nothing to the UFO story at all. It’s all just hoaxes and misidentifications albeit honest misidentifications. There is no UFO/ET connection. The public widely suspect that the powers-that-be aren’t being 100% aboveboard on the issue. Shostak might silently mumble ‘silly humans’, but I have a different conclusion, since I say who can blame Joe and Mary Citizen for being suspicious of officialdom’s word given the track record of secret projects (like the U-2) and covert operations (incursions into other countries during the Vietnam War) and surveillance (NSA) and dozens of other case histories that have come to light (Nixon and Watergate comes to mind here).

If there is a UFO/ET connection and the powers-that-be know this, that information would be classified (therefore by definition censored from the public or in other words covered-up). Then too, every citizen knows, and respects, that proper authorities like the Defense Department and the various diplomatic agencies and departments have and need to keep some stuff classified on a need-to-know basis. It’s sometimes called being economical with the truth. Anyone who believes that any administration from any country at any time tells their people the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is living in cloud cuckoo land. Those opinion poll results are therefore hardly surprising.

But Dr. Shostak appears to have a real bee in his bonnet over the advocates that insist or at least claim that there’s a UFO cover-up or censorship. Dr. Shostak insists that a really real conspiracy would have to be global in nature and given the diversity of nations and leaderships and political systems and cultures, over six plus decades that’s as likely as winning lotto ten times in a row. Unfortunately, the logic doesn’t follow. Those relatively few, perhaps even one nation in the know, are not only not going to share that info with their own great unwashed who have no need to know, but they are not going to share that info with any other nation either, friend or foe.

It’s not the notion that ET is here that’s being censored but that they (the USA for example) have in their possession ET technologies of potential military value, and you know how the military likes to protect its secrets, as in Area 51 (Groom Lake, Nevada) which is sign posted for all to see with “No Trespassing” signs that further warn you that “Use of Deadly Force is Authorized” (i.e. - shoot to kill) for those who do enter illegally. Armed guards are visible from outside the perimeter fence as are various electronic surveillance gizmos. The US Government covered up the very existence of this top secret Groom Lake military facility (despite it being common knowledge to the relatively few locals in the area) for decades until commercial satellite photographs made the cover-up of its existence untenable and a farce. Area 51’s existence is now acknowledged by officialdom. That cover-up aside, in general, just try to enter any restricted military area and see how quick-smart you are dealt with.

By analogy, the Nuclear Club doesn’t tell its citizens how to obtain nuclear weapons grade materials and how to build nuclear weapons and neither do they share these technologies with other countries, friend or foe. They don’t share with each other since today’s friend or ally – Russia in WWII for example - could be tomorrows foe. You figure things out for yourself.

Just because UFOs are seen worldwide doesn’t mean each and every government has the Smoking Gun evidence, the sort of slab-in-the-lab evidence that Dr. Shostak craves. Most countries don’t have that sort of proof that enables them to go public that ET is here, even if they wanted to. Most, maybe nearly all countries need the corpse they don’t have. Both Uganda (1971) and Grenada (1977) tried that via the United Nations and got nowhere.

Many Explained Suggests All Are Explainable (STU, CC)

Dr. Shostak makes the point that, as even UFO buffs acknowledge, most UFO events are quickly explained and get filed in the IFO bin. Dr. Shostak suggests that if 19 out of 20 UFO incidents turn out to be solved as IFOs, then in all probability 20 out of 20 UFO incidents are theoretically solvable, there’s just some piece(s) of the puzzle missing preventing that 20^th UFO case turning into an IFO.

Mr. Spock of Star Trek fame would probably roast Dr. Shostak over Vulcan coals for logically suggesting that if 19 out of 20 UFO events weren’t really bona-fide UFOs at all but solved cases, that therefore 20 out of 20 UFO cases would be solved if only X, Y or Z data had been available. Unfortunately, that logic does not follow. If you recover from the flu 19 times in a row, that doesn’t mean that you will recover from flu round #20. If you hit 19 green traffic lights in a row, that’s no guarantee that your 20^th traffic light will be green, and the same logic applies to just about any other either/or scenarios. Of special relevance to Dr. Shostak, just because the first 19 interesting SETI signals turn out to be prosaic, mundane and ultimately terrestrial in origin, doesn’t mean #20 won’t be the real extraterrestrial deal, or so I would imagine Dr. Shostak hopes. And I hope he’s right. Otherwise, what’s the point of carrying on carrying on?    

But what would Dr. Shostak think if I adopted the Shostak philosophy on UFO cases and applied it to his profession? Clearly if 19 out of 20 SETI signals are false alarms then all SETI signals are false alarms and Dr. Shostak might as well give up the ghost and permanently retire home to smell the roses.  

To be continued.

Bibliographic Details:

Shostak, Seth; Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life; Berkeley Hills Books, Berkeley, California; 1998:

Shostak, Seth & Barnett, Alex; Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.; 2003:

Shostak, Seth; Confessions of An Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence; National Geographic, Washington, D.C.; 2009: