Exobiology: UFO Contamination

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. If Earth is any guide, the Universe will be full of LGM – not Little Green Men but Little Green Microbes. That’s because microbial life is probably very common throughout the cosmos, can adapt to a wide range of habitats, and is easily spread. Presumably, if UFOs are extraterrestrial spaceships, then we’re not just subjected to ET, but ET’s microbes.

There’s one troubling bit of the ‘some UFOs are alien spaceships complete with aliens’ theme. It seems likely that visiting aliens would bring other aliens with them, in the form of alien microbes. Given reports that aliens have exited their craft and interacted with our terrestrial environment, then we’ve been ‘infected’ with alien microbes. Now what can that scenario tell us about the reality of UFOs as alien spaceships?

Firstly, there are no UFOs that are part and parcel of extraterrestrial technology so the issue is academic. No aliens; no alien microbes.

Secondly, there are aliens, but they exist in a 100% sterile environment. Aliens exist; but no alien microbes coexist with them. Why does that strike me as unlikely in the extreme?

Alien microbes exist, but they can’t cross the species barrier. They are just too alien to infect terrestrial life. Based on terrestrial biology and microbiology, that’s a highly likely possibility. Relatively few terrestrial micro-organisms that are public enemy number one to one terrestrial species have any relevance to another terrestrial species. Exceptions exist of course, but they are just that, the exceptions, not the rule.

Alien microbes, via panspermia, and/or via alien visitations, have coexisted with terrestrial biology for eons and eons, such that they are now a totally natural part of our biosphere. In fact, terrestrial biology, and extraterrestrial biology, have become, for all practical purposes, nearly identical, in much the same way as humans are nearly biochemically identical to other primates, mammals, and so on down the evolutionary ladder.

There’s a slightly stronger version of that. Extraterrestrial microbes and terrestrials might share a common ancestry (as might extraterrestrial intelligence and terrestrial humans) if say there was one and only one origin of life event in our local stellar neighbourhood and panspermia (natural or deliberate) took care of the distribution. The entirety of terrestrial life could have been spawned from the stars, and so extraterrestrial microbes, and terrestrials aren’t nearly identical, they are identical. Extraterrestrial microbes have integrated effortlessly on our planet and have no distinguishing (as in biochemical) characteristics that identify them as alien. This could help explain Fred Hoyle’s theory that epidemics, even pandemics that arise on Earth arise from the influx of microbes from space, streams of which now and again intersect Earth’s orbit. You’d normally think there would be that species barrier noted earlier if Hoyle’s extraterrestrial germs had reality, but if those germs, are the germs we already know and love, then Hoyle could have a point.

Therefore, detection and identification of microbes associated with alien visitations via UFOs might prove to be a fruitless activity, even though at first glance it would seem to be an interesting area of research.