Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in California
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.
Continued from Part One.
Motivation (CC, CAH)
Dr. Shostak can’t seem to find a real motive(s) for why UFOs (as ET) would want to be here and waste their time out in our galactic boondocks. Some of the obvious candidates as related in sci-fi are apparently off their agenda, given the lapse of time since the ‘modern’ UFO era’ began – 1947 to date. For example, it’s highly unlikely by now that invasion is their motive or have a motivation as in ‘take me to your leader’ or establishing diplomatic and/or trade relations. The obvious parallel is do wildlife biologists establish these sorts of relationships with elephants (a highly intelligent mammal, unfortunately probably soon to be driven to extinction); do you establish these sorts of relationships with your pet companion animals?
Dr. Shostak notes that it is highly unlikely advanced high-tech aliens are coveting and stealing our technology and industrial secrets. Industrial espionage isn’t their agenda either though maybe through quirks in their industrial revolution they missed out on smart phones, amplifiers, plastics and the ability to brew beer. Dr. Shostak equally and correctly IMHO notes and that’s nicking our natural resources isn’t on their agenda either as anything Planet Earth has or our solar system has can be found closer to ET’s own home. We’re not likely to journey to Alpha Centauri for ices or minerals when there is an entire local asteroid belt, Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt to tap, enough to last humanity a very, very long time.
But there is one resource local to Planet Earth that aliens can’t find closer to home and that’s terrestrial biochemistry, a resource we exploit for the pharmaceutical industry. Exactly why aliens would want to harvest terrestrial biochemistry is beyond me (maybe for their drug or pharmaceutical needs?) but I’m not prepared to rule it out entirely even if it is a far out in left field. [See also Human-Alien Sex]
Among the other negatives, ET doesn’t appear to be here as missionaries come to promote even ram their alien religious philosophy down our collective throats. ET doesn’t appear to be interested in helping humanity achieve universal peace or provide us with new and improved environmentally friendly technologies, like the key to controllable nuclear fusion.
So what is the motivation of our potential UFO-related aliens? Well, and I’m sure Dr. Shostak can appreciate this, it is SETI! Of course in this case the “S” has been achieved and we’re their “ETI”. I find it strange that Dr. Shostak doesn’t acknowledge or list the possibility that their motivation is exactly the same as his very own calling card – scientific exploration. In Dr. Shostak’s case it is via radio telescopes. In the case of aliens, it is more like the Star Trek scenario – the boldly going scenario that Earthlings can appreciate given our past history of boldly going, finding new lands and new peoples.
Why Now (CC, CAH)
Dr. Shostak asks the very logical question about the UFO/alien presence here on Earth – why now, now being 1947 to date. He means, given the age of our planet and the probability that aliens could come visiting anytime during that interval; it would be highly improbable that it would be ‘now’. He correctly points out that unless aliens were already in our neck of the woods (think here the film scenario of Star Trek: First Contact) then UFOs have bugger-all to do with recent (say first half of the 20th Century) human activities since they would have to be too far away to witness same and still get here by 1947.
Dr. Shostak briefly discusses and dismisses the ‘ancient astronaut’ issue even though it partly answers his own ‘why now’ objection which is that it defies probability that UFOs would become a presence and a force to be reckoned with just in the last several decades plus. For the here and now, the ‘ancient astronaut’ issue is another essay for another time but I’ll just say I ground the reality of ‘ancient astronauts’ based on universal mythologies, not archaeology. Sufficient to say that the answer to ‘why now’ is that the alien presence has been an ever ongoing one (even if token), so it’s not just here and ‘now’. It’s that biosphere argument. We’re interesting on an ongoing basis, not just now, not just a quickie visit every million years or so.
Consider an Antarctic penguin seeing his (or her) first human wildlife biologist that’s about to abduct, tag, and release it. The penguin might ask ‘why now’ and gee-whiz aren’t I ‘lucky’ to be so special as to have such an advanced being interested in little old me right here and ‘now’. Of course the penguin might say ‘why me’ and ‘why now’ instead of why not some other penguin from fifty years ago. What the penguin wouldn’t know is that humans (and wildlife biologists) have had an ongoing presence in Antarctica for decades and decades. Humans didn’t arrive in Antarctica just ‘now’ and there probably really was some other penguin from fifty years past who also asked ‘why me’ and ‘why now’ and there might be another penguin fifty years from now who will go through the same ‘why me’ and ‘why now’ process.
Evidence (CC)
If there is one phrase or mantra repeated again and again by UFO skeptics is “show me the evidence” for the UFO ETH, though apparently by his own admission there’s sufficient evidence to convince some scientists that there really are “alien rocket jockeys” here and now.
Unfortunately, Dr. Shostak has a very narrow definition of what evidence is, and it’s not eyewitness testimony – the profession and the quality of the eyewitness is irrelevant, it’s not multi-eyewitnesses, it’s not radar, it’s not eyewitnesses combined with radar, it’s not photographs, it’s not films, it’s not physiological effects or electromagnetic effects or ground traces. One thing and only one things qualifies as really real evidence and that’s a physical something that he can put on the slab in his lab. That’s it. Pity he couldn’t use that criteria in a courtroom as to what constitutes real evidence.
But that’s not the real point. The real UFO issue is that there’s more than sufficient evidence that something really, really interesting is going on and ongoing. Maybe it’s psychological, maybe it’s pathological, maybe it is sociological or a cultural phenomena. Maybe it’s human time travelers from our future or maybe it is terrorists (or hippies) lacing our water with hallucinogenic drugs. Maybe it really is ET buzzing our aircraft and/or doing agricultural graffiti and/or abducting Joe and Mary Citizen for Frankenstein-like experiments. But something INTERESTING is going on and scientists, or so I thought, love to investigate INTERESTING things, topics, subjects, whatever.
The Condon Report (STU)
Dr. Shostak loves the USAF sponsored University of Colorado
Dr. Shostak got one thing right (STU) in quoting Dr. Condon in Condon’s summary/conclusions preface to the report proper. That is, that summary/conclusions section was entirely all Condon’s work. None of his staff saw before-the-fact the conclusions section which were personally Condon’s and Condon’s alone. The staff only read Condon’s conclusions after the entire report had been published. Dr. Shostak neglects to mention the historical and well documented fact that the Condon Study was wracked with internal dissension not the least because Condon had gone public with his anti-UFO conclusions while the study was still in progress.
Dr. Shostak notes that the National Academy of Sciences endorsed the Condon Report, but fails to mention that the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) gave it the thumbs-down, as did the scientific consultant to the USAF’s various UFO investigations (Projects Sign, Grudge and Blue Book), the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek. In fact Dr. Shostak seems to have been unaware there ever was a Project Sign and a Project Grudge before Project Blue Book as he only notes the latter (STU). That must have been pointed out to him by someone since Projects Sign and Grudge get a mention in a later book (CAH).
Finally, Dr. Shostak fails to mention that fully 30% of the UFO cases studied by Condon’s staff (Condon himself never got his hands dirty with actual on-site investigation) could not be explained and thus remained bona-fide UFOs. Now I wonder why Dr. Shostak didn’t mention that little tidbit and how that contradicts Condon’s own conclusions.
So, perhaps it isn’t all that surprising that Dr. Shostak drops the mention of Condon from his later UFO coverage (CC, CAH). The light bulb about how bad the Condon Report was probably came on since his first book (STU).
Surveillance: Detection from the Top on Down (STU, CC, CAH)
Dr. Shostak makes an apparently valid point when he notes that all of our surveillance of terra firma via those spy and other satellites like weather satellites, Google Earth images, all that massive 24/7 surveillance coverage from the top (space) down (ground level) hasn’t reveled diddly-squat in terms of spotting any UFOs. Conclusion: there are no UFOs to spot! Well one can ignore the spy military surveillance since anything unusual detected could be, probably should be, classified. As to the rest, well there’s a relatively easy answer – stealth technology. If you know enough physics to cross interstellar space, you know enough physics to adapt physical principles into stealth technologies if it is to your advantage to do so and given the human track record of shoot-first-and-ask-questions-afterwards stealth technology is a wise precaution. If you can use stealth technologies to absorb radar photons (make yourself invisible to radar) you can adapt that sort of high-tech to absorb light photons (make yourself invisible to the eye, the camera, etc.) By analogy, terrestrial stealth technologies and ever ongoing R&D of stealth technologies are part and parcel of every advanced military nation (the US , Russia , China
But just because commercial satellites have apparently not photographed UFOs (have all images been examined in exacting detail with that objective in mind?) doesn’t mean UFOs don’t exist. UFOs are not a fixed feature on the landscape, unlike say the pyramids at Giza or Easter Island . Any UFO would have to be in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time and that’s relatively unlikely as the numbers of alien craft are probably very few and far between. What? Multi-thousands of eyewitness sightings and there are just a few craft? Yes! Subtract all those IFOs from the UFOs and then note that one craft could be witnessed hundreds of times over the many decades. There are vastly more sightings of aircraft than there are aircraft since one aircraft can be witnessed multi-thousands upon thousands of time over the lifetime of that aircraft. If there were only a dozen or so bona-fide UFOs shared around the globe what odds one will be in the right place at the right time to have its picture taken by a satellite?
To be continued.
Bibliographic Details:
Shostak, Seth; Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life; Berkeley Hills Books, Berkeley , California
Shostak, Seth & Barnett, Alex; Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge , U.K.
Shostak, Seth; Confessions of An Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence; National Geographic, Washington , D.C.
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